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Upstream: What Is New Media?

Published on December 20, 2007

As a filmmaker who spends a considerable amount of time on the Internet, mainly for blogging and throwing random objects at my friends on Facebook, I have often come across the term new media and often questioned what does it mean, for me, the filmmaker, fan of the internet, who enjoys knowing how meaning is constructed and understood. I found the Wikipedia definition, a marriage of mediated communications technologies with digital computers, incapable of truly communicating more than that which is explicitly stated. My desire to get to the meaning behind the meaning, to know new media as intimately as I know film could only be achieved by directly participating in the creation of new media.

My group, Al Santana and Maureen Bryan, filming an interview with Razorblade in the rain. Photo by Angela Tucker.

The desire to "know" lead me to take part in The National Black Programming Consortium's (NBPC) New Media Institute (NMI). NMI was a six-week virtual workshop series followed by a one-week onsite residency held in Jackson, Mississippi. The program employed the culture and history of the Delta region, specifically the impact of Blues music in America, as a thematic vehicle to instruct us on how to create new media projects. As a Jazz enthusiast I was excited to have the opportunity to learn more about the Delta region and the Blues and to experience first-hand the roots of popular American music and African-American culture.

Six Weeks of Virtual Workshops

Before arriving in Jackson, I interacted with the other NMI participants using Live Meeting, a web conferencing program, where our rotating workshop leaders presented their ideas via PowerPoint presentations. These virtual workshops ranged in topic covering a variety of subjects related to new media production, distribution and promotion. My favorite was our very first workshop because it gave us an overview on the complex history of the Mississippi Delta.

Each participant had a different level of familiarity with new media. Some people only used the Internet to house a basic website cataloging their work. Others had more experience creating online content such as video blogs or podcasts. I enjoyed the fact that we all had varying levels of expertise. I always think I have a full grasp on these concepts but with the Internet's rapid and constant rate of change it was great to have perspectives from different experiences. The virtual workshops were chockfull of information and by the time I was able to get my mind around the numerous resources and how they could be used to improve my work, we were off to begin our own new media adventure.

We were put into groups by our preferred subject matter, topics included Africa and the Delta and Hip-Hop Games, and the production skills you could bring to the group. Each group needed a person was able to shoot, producing or do sound. My group's assignment was to create interactive Blues profiles; we were required to present a production plan to NBPC and our assigned leader, Michelle Halsell, co-founder of Missing Pixel before we left for Jackson, Mississippi.

Brainstorming for content ideas, we had big dreams of profiling Cassandra Wilson and Olu Dara using green screen. We ultimately decided against these grand ideas because they were too difficult to actualize in our limited production schedule. Our decision to focus our attention on musicians who were locally available allowed us to better make use of our 2 day production schedule and remain true to the original intent of the project: to bring attention to people who create work in and around the Delta. Our method of using new media to achieve this goal was to create an interactive website that profiled Blues musicians using short video pieces.

I was pleased by our idea to allow visitors to create a Blues "shout out" through audio, video and text. I was not, however, 100% sure that a profile could be defined as absolutely interactive. The more I got involved in constructing this project the more I questioned one of the maxims of new media. How can you make a site truly interactive in a manner other than leaving the comments open? How can you create a site where people would actually be engaged enough to participate?

"When you are struggling with the words to create what you want, use an example of a site that looks, feels, works, the way you want your site to be." These were the words of our leader, Michelle Halsell. I remembered a site, StoryCorps, which is effective at providing tools for facilitating discussion. It is possible to create a site that is interactive but if the users are not compelled by the content to share their stories, they will not interact with the site. StoryCorps is a project where people can record their own stories, usually with another person. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to take home and share, and is archived for generations to come at the Library of Congress.

Armed now with a model we were ready to proceed to our next tasks; producing a treatment, production schedule, the Information Architecture (IA) and flow chart. I chose to create the Information Architecture because I am most often attracted to things I know the least about. By developing the IA, a document that shows how our website will organize it's content I was able to get a better idea of how to arrange and group the elements of our idea so that users would want to engage in every aspect of our website.

The IA and the flowchart are what developers use to build the site and I found that it is important when creating the Information Architecture to think in terms of crafting a user experience. What are the images and sounds that you want the visitor to experience? What is the texture? How are these elements organized to maximize the intended experience? This process, although requiring a new set of tools - Adobe Illustrator, was very similar to the thinking required when making a film. The goal is to create a piece of art that is tied to an experience. I really enjoyed this part of the new media production process.

Finally, after weeks of virtual meetings, telephone calls and email correspondence our team had a shooting plan, a treatment, an IA document and flowchart prepared. Now it was time to go to the Delta and make new media.

OFF TO JACKSON

When you land in a city where the airport is named after Medger Evers you know you are in a place where the African-American experience is a major part of the rubric. Jackson, Mississippi, filled with complex histories, art and most importantly, the Blues is the perfect location to produce these projects.

After spending so much time in cyberspace I was excited to have the opportunity to talk to people in real life. This was the first time meeting face to face my group members and the other fellows. It was wild to hear someone's voice in a crowded airport and know who he or she was right away. Sure, some looked completely different than I thought they would but the essential character as expressed on the telephone or through the Internet was reflected in real life. Seeing what the other groups were developing and how they intended to use some of the many new media tools like mashups, locative stories and online games to tell their story was incredible. Most of all, I enjoyed, the rare experience of being in an environment with so many artists of color, of varying ages and backgrounds. Arriving in Jackson made everything special.

Clarksdale bluesman, Super Chikan and one of his handmade guitars. Photo by Angela Tucker.

Once we started shooting and interviewing our subjects the project took flight. I really enjoy meeting new people and talking to our subjects about the Blues and what it means to them gave me great pleasure. Bobby Rush, featured in Martin Scorsese's multipart documentary, The Blues, Super Chikan, who makes his own guitars and Jesse Robinson who conducted his interview in front of the Peaches Restaurant were some of highlights from this part of the project. Each interviewee told us about their beginnings, their long journey to success and their feelings on the importance of the Blues as a centerpiece of American culture.

Panelists at the Media from the Afrosphere Panel discuss their work with new media. Photo by Maya Gilliam

In addition to producing the video segments of our project. My time in Jackson was also spent going to conferences. One that best addressed my current questions on how new media is and can be used to support the aims of the filmmaker was Media From the Afrosphere, where a large group spoke about their work and how they are maximizing various digital platforms.

Amongst the speakers was the late St. Clair Bourne. He talked about how he sort of fell into this new media world by trying to find more effective ways to get the word out about his projects and other grants opportunities. What began by sending emails to a list of film people blossomed into a blog allowing him to connect to an ever-growing audience of independent filmmakers and film lovers. What was so refreshing about St. Clair was his acknowledgement that he was still figuring out what is new media -- he was equally open to ideas as he was about offering them.

The panel heated up when it became apparent that we were falling into two camps. In one corner were the more "techy" folks who posted things on Blip referenced web 2.0 and argued that our conversation was useless without Google or another large, mainstream new media company present. They believed that film was no longer the final product and that we needed to know how to create a more integrated art form one that would fully take advantage of the new technology.

The other camp was composed of people who saw the Internet solely as a means to spread information about their films. They argued that websites are best used as a marketing or distribution tool; a place to post video clips and announcements. They didn't feel the need to engage in every aspect of this new technology or build an integrated product.

As a filmmaker, it is a big challenge to look at the video piece of my group's project as just one piece - a significant piece—but still a piece of a larger puzzle. Typically, the image is the thing, the end product, and accepting that it is only a component is difficult. In this collaboration, developers and designers are equal parts of the puzzle.

What I learned is that new media, like most creative endeavors, is fully collaborative, with people's roles shifting in a different way. After working on this project I tend to side with the "techy" camp but I do not begrudge the people who want to preserve the purity of film. Although we may have varying desires and interests towards new media, it is important that we filmmakers know the opportunities available to us in this brave new media world.

Ken Stern from NPR in our closing panel said, "We are all content providers." I think that his statement is true. The lines are a lot blurrier now. You can simply use the Internet to find a multiple of places to post your films or you can also use the Internet and new media projects to enhance the experience of your feature length project such as WGBH's Sandbox. Or you can use new media as a way to push yourself as a creative being and I highly recommend that.

The site for our project will be up in 2008. For now, watch some clips from our interviews at the New Media Institute Channel on NBPC's new Black Public Media Site.

Further Resources

African Burial Ground

The African Migration Experience

The American Film Institute Digital Content Lab (AFI DCL)

Bay Area Video Coalition's Producers Institute

Creative Cow

Electric Shadows Web-original projects

Extreme Media Studies

Independent Lens

WGBH Sandbox A production lab online