On August 1, 2009, WinGateFilms attended DIY Days, a free day-long independent filmmaking conference at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Founded by Lance Weiler (The Workbook Project), DIY Days events have also been held in LA, NY, SF, Boston and London.
Weiler’s intent is to foster a community of open creativity, similar to the way open source software nourished the explosion of software applications built on the base of freely available code. The conference included not only live physical attendance on-site, but also streaming online video feeds.
Keynote speaker, Douglas Rushkoff analogized the changing model of storytelling to the video gaming experience. Gamers begin by playing the game within the given parameters of the game rules, branch out to using cheat codes to modify the gaming experience, perhaps so far as to develop mods to the game world, and ultimately to program games.
Rushkoff argued that the evolution of new media and the democratization of interactive tools of creativity promotes decentralized value creation. In his view, the three main jobs for artists in the new environment involve participatory call and response interaction with the audience, tool creation (e.g., “dungeon mastering”), and the creation of safe spaces to promote creativity.
Scott Kirsner (author of “Fans, Friends & Followers”) spoke about the power of participation, recommended filmmakers “be where your audience is,” and stressed the importance of building an audience database. Kirsner mentioned that there appears to be a direct relation between blogs and point of purchase sales; better sales results have been reported from mention on high traffic blogs than from traditional media exposure.
Michael
WinGateFilms
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