The creators of two exhibits on display at West Virginia University’sDowntown Campus Library want their works to open up conversations about life in Appalachia.
Viewing entries in
Hollow
The fine folks at Kickstarter asked me to answer questions about documentary making, crowdfunding, interactive storytelling, podcasting and other media-related things. You can click on my silly face below and watch the 30-minute chat.
This post is for anyone interested in how or why we made Hollow. We're fortunate to get alot of interest and inquiries from folks asking about how the project came about, how it was developed, what made it successful and what the response has been. So to help answer these questions, and more, we have compiled some links below :
- 1-hour Hollow team chat: Answering all your questions about producing HOLLOW
- My keynote at iDocs: Showing how the designs and concepts changed overtime
- Interview at iDocs about Hollow: General ideas about the project
- Interview at Festival du nouveau cinema: General ideas about the project
- Presentation at the Magnum Foundation: Community-centered journalism
- Presentation at Woodstock: Using digital media to tell these stories
- Jeff Soyk on MIT's blog: UX design and development
- Jeff & I on Filmmaker Mag: How we made this project happen
- Hollow on MIT's Docubase: Resources, documents that show our process
- IGNITE Interview with Elaine: The Making of Hollow
- Interview with Jeff & I on Colombia Visuals: Behind the scenes
- Interview on Storybench: Why choose interactive, Who's the team, How to raise money?
I'm excited to participate in #DocForum2015 at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University this year!
On Saturday, November 21 at 3:30 p.m., I will be sitting on a panel with Al Letson and Anayansi Diaz-Cortes. The panel, titled "AUDIO & NEW FORMS | Interactions and Impact: Possibilities for Listening," will be moderated by John Biewen and should be loads of fun! Come and join us for a conversation about storytelling across platforms and mediums.
Tickets just went on sale today. Reserve your seat!
A friend wrote me asking for resources to find/discover/learn about interactive storytelling. I compiled my list of go-to links and sent her an email, but decided that it may be helpful for all of you too! So below, I have listed out the sites that I like to go to for updates in interactive storytelling. There are certainly many more (add the ones you love in the comments section) but these are my favorites, and have a bit of a non-fiction slant to them.
RESOURCES
- MIT DocuBase (amazing database of interactive & immersive storytelling)
- iDocs
- CollabDocs
- Tribeca Sandbox (has funding and distribution resources, in addition to featuring projects)
- IDFA Doc Lab (great way to discover high-quality and curated projects)
- NFB Interactive (leading the charge with amazing work from Canada)
- Arte Interactive (France)
- Submarine Channel
- Story Bench
- CommArts
- Chrome Experiments
DISCOVER PROJECTS THROUGH PLACES THAT AWARD & EXHIBIT INTERACTIVE MEDIA:
- FWA
- SXSW Interactive
- Tribeca Storyscapes
- Emmy Awards: New Approaches in Documentary category
- Peabody Awards: Interactive
- Webbys
- World Press Photo: Multimedia Awards
- FITC
Share your resources below!
Thanks to the Magnum Foundation for having me as a guest back in October 2014. They just released the recorded presentation and following Q&A. If you're interested in learning about the process of making HOLLOW, check it out!
[vimeo 112433263 w=450 h=253]
Also, check out all the other speakers on Magnum's Vimeo Channel.
We sold out of the first 100 t-shirts and have ordered more! If you place your order now, expect your t-shirt to arrive in 3-4 weeks.
The Revivalist gives their thoughts on the [app-uh-latch-uh] tees
Luckily, there’s no need to correct anyone’s pronunciation anymore. Just slip into this instructional t-shirt the next time you’ll be around folks who insist on saying Appalachia that other way, and they’ll get the picture pretty darned fast.
MEDIUM: Inside the World Press Photo Multimedia Jury
Including some great tips for storytelling and a mention of HOLLOW
The Hillville writes about [app-uh-latch-uh] t-shirts
For many citizens and natives of Central and Southern Appalachia, watching the meteorologists on the Weather Channel pronounce the name of our mountain range is a cringe-worthy experience: “There’s a storm system making it’s way across the midwest and will hit the Appa-LAY-shun mountains of Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia.”
HOLLOW will be exhibited at the American Museum of Natural History
The project will be in the Grand Gallery from October 23-26 for the Margaret Mead Film Festival.
HOLLOW is a finalist in the Online Journalism Awards
Winners will be announced in Chicago on September 27.
We moved to Miami!
Just a personal update, Kerrin and I moved to Miami Beach last week. We will be based here through January working on our next documentary and interactive project. More to come! Follow my Instagram for daily snaps.
We had over 250 people (including 10 McDowell residents) at our viewing, discussion and reception at the U.S. Capitol. Thanks to Senator Manchin for hosting such a fantastic event.
What?!? This is crazy and exciting. CONGRATS to our whole team and the residents of McDowell County on this HUGE honor.
We are Emmy nominated in the category of New Approaches: Documentaries.
Also, don't forget about our screening next week at the US Capitol. Information here.
Attend a special screening D.C. at the US Capitol with Senator Manchin on July 22. RSVP here HollowEvent@manchin.senate.gov
MORE NEWS
HOLLOW mentioned in Wired.UK
Interview with Grant Scott, of the United Nations of Photography
Interview on WMMT (Whitesburg, KY)
Tomorrow marks ONE YEAR since we launched Hollow.
Since then, many of you have contributed to a gallery of 1,011 photos of "home" by tagging your Instagram photos with the #hollerhome tag.
We want to THANK all of you who have been part of this journey and encourage you to help us reach 1,500 images of "home" by tagging your photos for our one-year celebration! #hollerhome
See the gallery here: http://hollerhome.hollowdocumentary.com/holler-home/
The full, uncut ceremony is now online. We are in Part 2 (below) starting at 44:09 [vimeo 97143901 w=700 h=394]
Thanks to the Peabody Awards for this amazing honor!
Hello Hollow visitors, I wanted to write a short post and let you know that we are experiencing some issues with our server. These issues range from extremely slow load times, videos not playing, images and buttons being missing and redirect issues with Firefox and Internet Explorer.
We recently relocated the project to a new server and with that issues have presented some challenges to our users when trying to view content. We ask that you please be patient with us during this time.
Interactive storytelling projects are extremely frustrating and expensive to maintain. Issues with the website can change and occur at any moment without us knowing and we are now trying to figure out how to resolve some new bugs.
We invite you to visit our VIMEO page to view the video content in the meantime.
We have created channels for each sequence of the interactive doc. Some of the videos are still uploading but head on over and check out what is there!
THESE ROOTS: https://vimeo.com/channels/theseroots FOR EACH OTHER: https://vimeo.com/channels/foreachother FOR THE LAND: https://vimeo.com/channels/fortheland WHEN COAL WAS KING: https://vimeo.com/channels/whencoalwasking AROUND THE BEND: https://vimeo.com/channels/aroundthebend
Thanks for sticking with us,
Elaine elaine@hollowthefilm.com
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Hollow an interactive documentary that explores the issues and future of small-town America, was named as an official honoree in the Community Category in the 18th annual Webby Awards. Established in 1996, the Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. Hollow, which launched June 2013, tells the story of 30 residents living in McDowell County, W.Va., a once-thriving community in Southern West Virginia. The interactive documentary merges cinematic techniques with web-based storytelling to encourage a dialogue about the issues that small-town America faces.
Hollow was created by group of Boston-based designers, editors and developers. The development and post-production team included Elaine McMillion Sheldon (project director and editor), Jeff Soyk (interactive designer and architect), Robert Hall (senior technologist), Russell Goldenburg (interactive developer), Billy Wirasnik (sound designer and editor), Tricia Fulks (associate producer and research), Sarah Ginsburg (editor) and Kerrin Sheldon (editor).
Official Honorees’ work exhibit remarkable achievement that was not selected as a Nominee in the Webby Awards. Out of 12,000 entries submitted from more than 60 countries and all 50 states, the Official Honoree distinction is awarded to only the top 15 percent of all work entered.
Future screenings of the film will be held at Shepherd University (Shepherdstown, W.Va.) on April 11; Wheeling Jesuit University (Wheeling, W.Va.) on April 15; Nyon, Switzerland from April 27 to 29; and Vermont College of Fine Arts (Montpelier, Vt.) from April 30 to May 3.
To experience the interactive documentary, visit www.hollowdocumentary.com.
To purchase a DVD, visit http://projecthollow.bigcartel.com/.
To see a full list of awards and screenings, visit: http://tinyurl.com/ng9wo2z.
DOWNLOAD PRESS RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE: Peabody Award For Hollow
It was announced yesterday, but I am still grasping the reality.
What an amazing honor for our team and project to be recognized for this award.
I am so excited to announce we have won 3rd Prize in the World Press Photo Multimedia Awards in the Interactive Documentary category. It is such an amazing honor to be chosen for this award as an independent filmmaker and journalist. Congrats to the whole Hollow team and McDowell County community. Check out the winning projects here. Below, a jury member reflects on why Hollow was chosen for 3rd Prize:
"Some of the most impressive elements of Hollow are the depth of the content, the richness of the content. The characters that are portrayed are totally believable and I think it's these small stories told in a big way...it's not a large production piece but it has that feeling, it feels very much as if it was created by people who care about the subject that they are documenting." [vimeo 89865336 w=500 h=281]
Over the past couple days, some pretty cool awards have been announced. Check out the images/links below and thanks to everyone for your continued support of Hollow! HOLLOW is a finalist in the SXSW Interactive Awards in the "Activism" category
Green, governmental and non-profit projects striving to make the world a better place.
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Screen Shot 2014-02-05 at 8.43.03 AM
Hollow is featured for Eastern Oregon's Film Festival's Online Selection.
The rise of digital cinema has shown that 20th Century exhibition models are increasingly insufficient. Cinema is in constant flux, and without adapting to changes in the distribution landscape, most filmmakers cannot survive. We believe that festivals’ inclusion of online works is progressive, and vital to independent cinema. The Internet also serves as a temporary home for some of the more intimate, experimental works that move us.
I have also been invited to lead a discussion and screening at the following places, this spring:
- Davis & Elkins College
- iDocs Conference (Bristol, UK)
- Appalachian Studies Conference
- Alice Lloyd College
- Shepherdstown University
- Vermont College of Fine Arts
- iDoc Workshop (Nyon, Switzerland)
- Wheeling Jesuit University