The storm clouds of doubt that hang over digital television, or DTV, begin with messy acronyms and ugly language—from VOD, T-commerce and iTV to eTV and HDTV, from set-top boxes to FireWires, the defining terms of television’s future still seem up for grabs. As independent producers and public television advocates face the mercurial wave of digital change, many of them have been improvising in the face of conflicting facts, regulatory tangle and aggressive commercial speculation. The result: a sometimes confusing but wildly creative landscape of new work, new visions and new strategies.

“Independents are always on the front lines,” says Mary Ann Thyken, director of production at ITVS. “They’re getting their hands on digital technology and doing wacky, brave, incredible things with it. We have to make sure we’re right there with them, doing our best to help and to map the bumpy road ahead.”

To begin to sketch that map, in 2002, ITVS launched a series of complementary digital initiatives led by Patrick Wickham, who at the time was the organization’s first director of contract policy and digital initiatives and now acts as a consultant. Today, ITVS’s digital initiatives fall under two broad categories: programming, through a hands-on approach to new forms and distribution channels; and policy, through strategic conferences and research.

On the programming side, ITVS continues to collaborate with producers and organizations to pioneer, model and experiment with new production and distribution ideas. In 2000, ITVS helped launch Link TV (formerly WorldLink) as a new direct broadcast satellite (DBS) network for international programming—an opportunity created by FCC guidelines requiring DBS operators to allocate 4 percent of their channels for noncommercial public service programming. At the same time, ITVS discontinued its specially targeted calls to fund projects using digital video (DV), an initiative that began in the late 1990s to boost the conversion to digital production.

That specially designated DV call was no longer needed, according to Claire Aguilar, ITVS director of programming. “Now almost every proposal we see is using DV,” Aguilar says. With digital production the norm, today ITVS is exploring digital delivery models by developing an enhanced television (eTV) prototype with the American Film Institute (AFI) and by helping producers create new forms through the Web-original Electric Shadows initiative.

ITVS and AFI: The eTV Project

The opportunities of digital delivery for television and the PBS interest in these new technologies led ITVS to the AFI Enhanced TV Workshop, which selects public and private media projects and develops eTV prototypes for digital broadcast. Since 1988, the AFI eTV Workshop has united television producers, executives, designers and technology gurus to pioneer the newest possibilities for storytelling and television production. For 2003, AFI selected Independent Lens as one of only two noncommercial projects, joining the unlikely company of such shows as the Sci-Fi Channel’s Battlestar Galactica, ABC’s Celebrity Mole and the Disney Channel’s Kim Possible.

“Independent producers tend to be able to think a little more creatively because they’re not tied to big companies,” says Marcia Zellers, AFI’s director of eTV. “It’s a compelling proposition for us because there’s a lot of community spirit [among indies]— and no one’s really cracked the nut of how to do eTV around documentaries.”

In contrast to commercial programs with eTV prototypes that target merchandising or video game crossover, the Independent Lens project is developing eTV features to engage the viewer in an interactive independent film community. “The AFI team is fascinated with the potential of eTV in a noncommercial model,” says Lois Vossen, producer of Independent Lens. “They know that given the same technology, ITVS and ABC are going to take it and run in completely different directions.”

Working with a production and design team as well as the filmmakers, Vossen has found the hard questions as significant for ITVS as the prototype itself. How will the eTV Workshop team create something that’s more than a website? What are the consequences of adding content but disrupting the flow of the program? “If we’re going to help indies face the digital tide of DTV, these are the day-to- day questions ITVS will have to answer,” Vossen says. “And our producers have taught us one thing: The best way to learn is to dive right in.”

The Independent Lens prototype will incorporate new footage featuring producers’ responses to questions that reflect the shared concerns of the indie community, creating a virtual roundtable for viewers to navigate according to their interests. The other noncommercial eTV Workshop project features KQED/San Francisco and KCET/Los Angeles, who are exploring alternative approaches to soliciting pledges during programming and other traditional fund-raising efforts. KQED is planning to try the prototype of an interactive system that allows donors to eliminate pledge interruptions, and KCET is exploring interactive commerce opportunities as an alternative.

Electric Youth

ITVS also is turning to new kinds of content and new forms to explore the possibility of digital technologies. The latest example is the third Electric Shadows project, Beyond the Fire: Teen Experiences of War, which combines Web technology with the core ITVS mission of serving underrepresented audiences. Launching in spring 2004, Beyond the Fire: Teen Experiences of War uses cutting-edge Web production to engage and educate American youth through the eyes of teen refugees from war- torn countries. The site uses Flash technology to issue “passports” to visitors, allowing them firsthand access to audio and visual accounts of peers who have made their way to America from nations like Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Israel-Palestine, Sri Lanka, Rwanda and Colombia.

“The Web presents another form of storytelling,” says Sesh Kannan, an independent journalist who turned to the Web to lead a collaboration that also unites developer Free Range Graphics and youth advocacy group Global Kids. “In an interactive environment, the visitor really gets to take the story in any way he wants, which is quite different from radio or film.”

According to Kannan, beyond the fire: teen experiences of war capitalizes on the possibilities of the Web through innovative audio-visual features and an architecture designed to maximize participation from visitors to the site.

The Impact of Public Policy

ITVS complements these hands-on forays into digital production and distribution with initiatives that explore how public policy that regulates digital technology is impacting independents and public television. To this aim, ITVS has helped develop a publication that maps the policy landscape for independents in the digital age. The publication will be presented at Digital Independence 2004 (DI2004), a conference that explores the intersection of indies and technology. ITVS will co-host the two- day conference, which will be held in San Francisco from January 30 through February 1.

“There’s a community of independent makers who have become more empowered through digital technologies,” says David Rosen, who created the first Digital Independence conference in 2001 and is organizing DI2004, with the support of the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Trust for Mutual Understanding. The thesis of the conference, Rosen says, is to explore concrete ways “to sustain and build that community.”

Organized around four main themes—creativity, technology, business and policy—DI2004 will unite independents working in film, television, music, gaming and the arts. The conference draws on the rich community of arts organizations in the Bay Area, with a broad alliance joining as co-hosts: the Bay Area Video Coalition, the Film Arts Foundation, the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture, the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers, the National Asian American Telecommunications Association and the International Documentary Association.

Why this conference and why now? “In a digital world, the gates cannot be locked,” says Warrington Hudlin, the pioneering producer who serves as president of the Black Filmmaker Foundation and executive producer of DV Republic. “We’re at a moment in history where the frontier is still moving and changing, day by day.” According to Hudlin, who participated in the first Digital Independence event and helped plan the new conference, DI2004 allows independents “to share information and strategize how to seize this new margin of freedom.”

The scope of DI2004 is reflectd in the dozens of session topics and featured presenters. Ted Hope, producer of the film American Splendor and co-founder of the groundbreaking indie studio Good Machine, will lead a session on independents’ role in shaping digital technology; Electronic Arts’ pioneer Will Wright, creator of the popular game series SimCity, will explore the power of indies in the gaming field; San Francisco Chronicle business guru David Lazarus will chart the investment and support climate for independent media. Other sessions will examine the impact of new MPEG distribution standards, FCC regulations, copyright law and other timely issues faced by media makers.

		Four media leaders chime in on the impact digital technology has had on their worlds. CARROLL PARROTT BLUE, veteran filmmaker and author of The Dawn at My Back: Memoir of a Black Texas Upbringing—An Interactive Cultural History (now also a DVD and the Web-based Dawn Project): “(Digital technology is) an experimental way of looking at individuals and community stories as resources for political wisdom. As a filmmaker, I got sick and tired of talking at people. I wanted to know: How do you use media as a collaborative venture?” WARRINGTON HUDLIN, president of the Black Filmmaker Foundation and producer of House Party, Boomerang and the new Spike TV animated series Big Head People: “(The big conglomerates) really don’t want us to have an equal playing field. But look, they can’t stop the hackers, which means, as much as they want to close us out too, we are now in a technological moment where they don’t have the control. So the battle becomes—who has the content? The competition is—who is the most creative? And I have some confidence there.” BARBARA LONDON, curator of video and digital media at New York’s Museum of Modern Art: “There’s no simple way of describing (digital art). ‘Wired’ is one of the words. New media. I think we’ll find a word, but I don’t think ‘wired’ is going to be it.” TED HOPE, co-founder of the independent studio Good Machine and producer of American Splendor and Love God, one of the first films shot using digital electronic cinematography: “(Love God) had several hundred special effects. I thought that would help open up the possibilities for indies. But there haven’t been many indies who have embraced special effects. If (special effects innovation) is only in the hands of commercial studios, how do we further the language of cinema?”

The conference also will provide a springboard for policy discussion—an ongoing dialogue that ITVS and its partners hope to frame with the release of their publication on digital policy. “On the digital landscape, there’s a lot of debate over how public policy should be set,” says project leader Pat Aufderheide, co-director of the Center for Social Media and a professor at American University. “What do filmmakers need to know? How does it affect them? How can they take action?”

To answer these questions, Aufderheide and ITVS worked with a coalition that included the Media Access Project, Public Knowledge, the Consumers Union, the New America Foundation and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. This collaboration produced a publication that addresses and makes strategic recommendations on such issues as copyright, encryption, media concentration, broadband, spectrum allocation and more. As Aufderheide explains, digital technology has made each of these issues more complex. “In the analog world, if you buy a book, you can lend it to someone in a book club. That standard gets challenged in a digital world, where you can lend that one book to a million people simultaneously.”

For ITVS, this primer is a central part of its continuing strategy to help independents navigate the digital future. “For the sake of a democratic and open media, it’s important that independents have a space for innovating with new technologies,” says ITVS digital policy consultant Wickham. “As larger companies continue to conglomerate and become even larger and more powerful, it becomes ever more vital that policies be pursued which carve out that space for indies. Of course,” Wickham adds, “a number of these policy issues are not the first thing you think about as a filmmaker when you get up in the morning.”