How
did Beyond TV start?
Beyond
TV originally started out as a film festival and Internet
to showcase the features of the type made by Undercurrents
Foundation and Undercurrents Productions and other similar
Independent film makers and Video activists. The focus of
the two organisations has been very similar; i.e. to raise
awareness of social justice and environmental issues and
inspire positive action. Recently the output of the Foundation
has been chiefly local films of positive community projects
and Undercurrents Productions has been focusing on high-profile
Media activism and Global Days of Action; the Washington
World bank Meeting, Prague's IMF meeting and last year's
Mayday.
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Why
do you need a new Website? What was wrong with Undercurrents.org?
The
Internet has been an increasingly useful and popular way
of showing our features. Often we would receive calls asking
for footage that had been seen on the Internet. However
the Undercurrents website was established to be a resource
for Video activists and media support for campaigners. When
it tried to be a showcase for new features, it all became
very confusing. The Undercurrents website will continue
to be a resource for Video activists, film makers and those
wishing to access the archive.
Also,
our Internet and video training programs have created many
new media activists that need an outlet for their campaign
work. While the Internet can provide this at a very low
cost, the limitations of the Undercurrents web site, not
to mention the organisations' structure and facilities couldn't.
So
we thought - Why not extend the name Beyond TV to encompass
this new internet project?
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Can
you describe BeyondTV.org In a nutshell?
Beyond
TV will aim to be a high profile site attracting thousands
of visitors a day, specifically showcasing Campaign Video,
independent video news shorts and other features that the
mainstream media ignores. We'll promote and facilitate screenings
of such features, read more details about the Beyond TV
film festivals.
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How
will it work?
Beyond
TV will allow you to post text, images and details of audio
reports and video up to the Website. If you have nowhere
to host your audio and video - we'll help you find somewhere.
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Anything
else?
We'll
be working closely with a number of campaigns as partners.
We'll showcase their media features as part of a more in-depth
Internet presentation. We also aim to have move of a cross
over with pop culture, showcasing music and multi-media
work.
The most important difference is, we'll be able to offer
partners training and technical support.
With
the help of our training partners, we help people to shoot
and edit video and put this on the web. We also train groups
and individuals how to create effective campaign web sites.
In certain we can create and maintain web sites for partners.
We
aim to maximise our usefulness by working in partnership
with a wide range of campaign groups and media partners.
In this way we can share skills without the need for a high
level of funding or to maintain equipment.
BeyondTV.org
aims to be a meeting point for volunteers with media experience
and campaign groups who may need a bit of media know-how
for their campaign.
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Will
you be in competition with Indymedia.org?
No.
We're going to do a lot of outreach to grass roots campaigners
to show them the advantages of the Indymedia open posting
system.
There were plans afoot to create an IMC in Oxford, where
Undercurrents Productions is based, in order to take advantage
of the working relationships we have with campaign groups
here. However it seems more appropriate to train and encourage
such campaigners to post to the central UK IMC and showcase
these contents within a themed, editorial framework.
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Tell
us more about Beyond TV's plans.
Apart
from creating a kick-ass website and giving media support
to grassroots campaign groups, The people involved with
Beyond TV will also be creating it's own features in collaboration
with the Undercurrents Foundation.
We're
also pushing a new Video format called DivX. This isn't
featured yet on Indymedia but it's likely that it will be
soon. The advantages are, it has pictures of a very high
quality and its filesize is very small. Users will be able
to download avi video files from the Internet. These files
can be used by the downloaders as part of their own video
projects, or they can be projected at screenings [you'll
need a video card with TV out - see our technical section.]
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Financial
Overview
We
are a grass roots media activist project. We aim to achieve
a large impact with a relatively tiny budget. If you can
help us out financially in anyway, your money will go a
long way.
The
most pressing section is the Funding for the Internet Framework.
We'll be fundraising for the following first and will then
start to look around for wages in order to devote some time
to training partners.
- Sever
Costs
-
Promotion
- Admin
- Equipment
- Training
For
a full break down of the figures as part of our proposal
- click here - 
In
the past we have found it possible to achieve free hosting
for media features with positive social aims. We hope to
be able to maintain this for our partners' features. This
is however becoming more and more difficult and we are fundraising
an amount to contribute towards partners who can provide
us with hosting for features.
We
are investigating the possibility of asking filmmakers who
receive monies through archive sales as a result of our
site for contributions to our costs. All filmmakers who
place their content on the Beyond TV retain their own copyright
on their material. However we encourage contributors to
give permission for free used of the material that is posted
for non-commercial use.
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