I’ll post an update when footage from the panels is put online. Lots of good ideas coming up that should be shared.

This October, pioneers at the forefront of change in cinema, video, games, media and technology are coming together to share ideas, insights, and innovations. Our focus is on new tools, new distribution channels, and new rules.

The format of the gathering will be experimental: rather than a traditional conference, short talks and demos, “fireside chats,” and roundtables will spark a dynamic series of overlapping conversations.

I’ll be writing about The Conversation on the Shooting People TOOLS blog. Unfortunately, due to soaring flight prices, I’m flying there tomorrow via Hawaii and Alaska (ok that’s a slight exageration but the diva in me is all about direct flights these days!). Wah!

But don’t stop there digital citizens! Filmmakers who go to non-filmmaking panels at SXSW always seem to learn the most and get really inspired so have a look at everything on offer and start getting excited about SXSW 2009. It’s only 6 and a half months away after all!

As a fan of documentaries I am fascinated by debates around the idea of “truth” and the endless unpacking of the nature and meaning of the word. But I am also aware that sometimes you need to just get on with it and accept that you are always going to be telling a subjective, manipulated story and that you can only hope it is fair to your subjects and does not knowingly mislead your audience. This is NOT to say that anything goes. The “fair and balanced” claims of Fox News are laughable precisely because a news channel should strive to tell stories about the world that reflect the world, rather than a particular political viewpoint. Context is key here, as is media literacy. I know that I need to take Wikipedia entries with a rather large grain of salt although I’m always amazed by how accurate they usually are. Fox News on the other hand requires such a large dose of media alertness to weed out the factual snippets from the moralizing that I’m not sure I’m up to the job.

I think everyone in The Truth About Wikipedia makes some valid points but many of them are so determined to drive their point home that they miss the bigger picture. Andrew Keen is right that Web2.0 has resulted in a “cult of the amateur.” One of the results of this is that there is some really idiotic content across the web. Take for example this brilliant exchange in the YouTube comments for the Wikipedia doc:

NaNlolz
Andrew Keen is an narcisistic dumb@ss who just ‘doesn’t get it.’
Ignore him….(or in web2.0 lingo: vote him down!)

hemansunderwear
I bet you have 10 myspace pages and no girlfriends.

Some of these amateurs, however, produce incredible work, and in the process re-define all these terms we use so loosely: expert, amateur, producer, consumer etc. Knowledge and talent do not only, or even necessarily, come with a university degree. Keen speaks as though “experts” are somehow completely free of bias, inaccuracies and power struggles. And what defines an expert anyway? I wrote my Masters thesis on electricity and I still can’t change a plug! Sometimes I think people get stymied by their own logline. In Keen’s case: we are in an age of the amateur ergo all amateurs are incompetent and all experts are right. It just doesn’t follow.

Anyway, without getting into further debate about the nature of truth and knowledge, here is the doc about Wikipedia. See what you think. I like the quote from Ndesanjo Macha toward the end when he explains that the original meaning of amateur is people who love what they do. I think that Web2.0 at its best provides a platform where this love can be fully expressed, without any meddling from gatekeepers who may or may not get it. And if you want experts and curation, well you can have that too. Either/Or makes for good soundbites but it doesn’t explain the world we actually live in. What we need is more digital literacy that will help to explain this world and empower the next generation of expert amateurs.

Whole Earth had a profound influence on many technologists. People have described it as a kind of pre-internet internet. Steve Jobs called Whole Earth one of the bibles of his generation, “It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.” Stewart Brand and his Whole Earth colleagues have shaped many aspects of our contemporarty digital world, inspiring the birth of the Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link (WELL) and WIRED magazine. As Tim O’Reilly says, “A huge amount of the O’Reilly sensibility, a mix of practicality and idealism, was learned from the Whole Earth Catalog. And of course, the Whole Earth Catalog is one of the wellsprings of the modern DIY movement, for which Make: magazine is now carrying the torch.”

The sections of the catalog included industry and craft, communications, and community, all ideas that continue to inspire us at Shooting People as filmmaking moves into the world of Web 2.0. In this spirit we have launched our new TOOLS blog where we will continue the fine tradition of communicating and sharing resources with each other. It’s not quite as nice as the Whole Earth Catalog to hold in your hands but I hope that it will be useful nonetheless.

Speaking of tools, check out the very handy DIY Manual from Hunter Weeks, the director of 10MPH. Weeks shares info about the distribution of 10MPH from festivals to theatrical to digital downloads and includes lots of great links to other useful resources. You can buy a printable version for just 99cents.

Like all good digital events there is a blog/website online with lots of interesting links and resources to learn about copyleft, DIY distribution, and digital cinema.

And hopefully some podcasts soon for those of us who missed the event!

Your Long Tail theory is a basic and profound truth that I happily embrace AS A CONSUMER. But as a producer and creator of Long Tail content it is basically spelling out my doom. Other than your book examples which are still basically about VERY LARGE entities and aggregators, I am finding very few self supporting examples of independent Long Tail producers.

It feels like niche markets and the tools of Web 2.0 are ideal for small producers but how does everything add up? I would love more stats on this stuff. Anybody know where to find them?