KK and BMann at Bridging Media
Blog
created on 周二, 2008-04-22 12:40 
In continuing coverage (otherwise known as "staying up with the Raincity crews' activities"), here's a recap of Bridging Media at the Great Northern Way campus (AKA The Hangar). The event was wrangled up by Megan Cole and Erica Hargreave with able assistance by RCS's KK and Bmann and the speaker roster included many of our Van-groovy eco-system.
Kris Krug spoke at the first session [Bridging Media Panel 1 podcast by Atlargemedia] described thusly:
A Snapshot of Both Worlds: This session is intended to act as an overview of both communities to help create an understanding of each industries’ process. This panel will consist of Broadcasters, Producers and Digital Media Leaders.
Here's some salient KK notes courtesy of Miss 604's live blogging: Bridging Media at the Hanger at BCIT:
Kris chimes in about JPod after Gary mentioned it as a television show, and if you didn’t already read on the web, the series based on Douglas Coupland’s book has been canceled from TV. Gary brings up the challenge of funding to get things like this on TV versus the web, and that they simply didn’t have the TV audience.
Kris’s point is “why did they even put it on TV in the first place”?
“The people that want to watch that show don’t watch TV”. It should have been kept online, viral, and if they would have launched a campaign online instead, it would still be going and we’d have new episodes.
Kris uses AskANinja as a case study - guys who started a podcast in their basement, grew an audience, got some advertising but couldn’t find a way to get success with broadcasters or studios, until they finally got a deal with FOX who eventually produced DVDs of their old episodes, distributed t-shirts, merchandise etc. and now they’re prospering.
Kris also brings up how CNN is embracing citizen journalism - going on YouTube, mobile phone videos, photos and audio etc. It’s still a new way to filter and grab the best ideas it’s just that you’re getting more and it’s reaching outside of the normal “traditional” scope. However it seems traditional producers just think that creates tons of content that isn’t up to par, and that needs to be sifted out.
Boris brought his vast knowledge to the Session 4 - Meet your Monsters - also live blogged by the dexterous Miss 604 in Bridging Media Session Four: Meet Your Monsters where she recounts the panel for this round: Boris Mann: Raincity Studios and Bootup Labs, Robert Ouimet: At Large Media, Mark Rocchio: StudioB Productions, Chris Mizzoni: StudioB Productions.
No stranger to swashbuckling, BMann seemed to hit his stride with a polemic plea for the people and the advantages of being small and just busting it out:
Boris starts off with Giant Ant Media as an example - they have an audience of 800,000 on some of their videos, “how many of you would like an audience of 800,000?” …”and did they wait for funding? No.”
Another example is CommonCraft - their business is explaining technologies in plain English and they started doing their videos for free. They were such a success online that big companies came up to them to ask if they can create these types of videos for them, and that’s how they started to make money.
Why do you have to sit and wait for someone to give you hundreds of thousands of dollars? Why can’t you start off small?
{snip}
Robert is a CBC veteran touching on how broadcasting is a single outlet. He started out getting a $3 million budget for a project, which he follows up by saying “woo!” Boris pipes up to ask him if the “woo” was facetious like, “oh that’s not much” or “oh wow that’s a lot” because I think most of us here would get pretty darn excited about getting $3 million for a project, I know I would at least. Trying to tap into getting a major broadcaster to fund a project is simply one outlet you can deal with. “Get help, talk to people who have business, that may not be web businesses but are good business people.” … “Take ideas, forge business deals (that may not even be sexy) but get it done.”
Chris confirms as a writer/author that he writes when he can, he doesn’t even have a publisher anymore, but he still does it. Boris to Chris, “how can yo afford to just sit there and create content?” he’s being a little silly of course as Boris’ point is to produce, make content, and the rest follows.
See also
Miss604's recaps of:
Bridging Media Session Two: Buzz Builders featuring Colleen Nystedt : Movieset.com, Darren Barefoot: Capulet Communications, Mark Leiren-Young: TheTyee and the film The Green Chain, Nilesh Patel: Roaming Pictures
Bridging Media Session Three: Monetize featuring Jordan Behan: Tell Ten Friends and Strutta James Sherrett: Work Industries, Jennifer Ouano: Elastic Entertainment, Monica Moore: Telefilm Canada.
More coverage:
Sexy & Savvy Tech Women Bridging Media & Bridging Media: passageway to midlife crisis?
Bridging Media conference thoughts, way after the fact (John Bollwitt)
Bridging Media: A Translation of Two Language (Erica Hargreave)
Bridging Media, A Step in the Right Direction (Jordan Behan)
and how about a Flickr BridgingMedia tag
Photo Credit:
Kris Krug and Gary Marcuse at Bridging Media by Sherret on Flickr
Ditto on the Boris Mann photo - also by Sherret on Flickr
