BAVC Producers' Institute Public Conference comes to NYC (#pinyc)

30 year-old organization, The Bay Video Coalition BAVC http://www.bavc.org/
according to Wendy Levy, BAVC’s Director of Creative Programming, has a mission and scope much larger than its name: “we’re not just bay area based, we’re about much more than video, and we’ve never been a coalition!” BAVC is, in fact, a global social change organization. The Producers Institute for New Media is an 4-year-old initiative founded by Wendy Levy as a ten-day residency for eight creative teams (independent producers or public broadcasters) with a shared goal of developing and prototyping a multi-platform project inspired by, or based on a significant documentary project. The Institute is typically held in the summer at BAVC, in San Francisco. The intention of the Institute is to develop socially relevant media projects for emerging digital platforms. “Producers participate in high-level industry roundtables, intense one-on-one project development with technical mentors, new media storytelling workshops, and hands-on prototyping of their ideas using a range of interactive formats, including but not limited to video game applications, interactive, web-based experiences, and mobile streaming”. ,The Institute provides creative mentors, technology consultants and advisors based on the needs of your project. At the end of the residency, all participants demonstrate their prototype and pitch to a panel of VC funders, industry leaders, and foundations for potential funding/rollout of full platform.
For the first time, in 2011, and in the depths of January no less, The Producer’s Institute came to New York to work with six east coast documentary makers interested in developing games/data visualization/mobile app/interactive site projects based around their documentary projects.
In order to share this expertise with a wider NYC community, BAVC organized a public conference day at the Tribeca Film Theater that included many of the experts that would be assisting the NYC documentary teams with their multi-platform development. Speakers at the conference included producers of current multi-platform projects, previous BAVC Producers’ Institute alumni and presenters offering quick fire 15 minute TED-style talks on new and emerging technology. Follow link below for a full description of the conference day/presenters and to see the range of the BAVC’s NYC offering, for their first ever east coast public conference. http://www.bavc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=341&Itemid=1962