The next to last day...

Only one more day of INPUT 2012. Yesterday it seemed the intensity ramped up and passionate conversations were taking place in every corner of the event site.

I began the day with the session called "Easy Ways to Deliver Environmental Issues" and watched a KBS (Korean pub TV) special on toilets. Funny how nobody seems to want to talk about something we all use but KBS plunged in (woops - bad choice of words!). If only every country paid more attention to the amount of water wasted by the flush toilet and the environmental havoc wreaked by sewage overflow we'd all be in much better shape. KBS dealt with the subject with humor and a solid approach to the science - we need this kind of show in the U.S.!

Then, like a guest at a buffet, I loaded my plate with another helping and went to "On Your Doorstep: New Ways of Telling History" in time to see “Hitler’s Children,” a co-production of German and Israeli TV.  This story of the Third Reich is told by the descendants of Hitler’s most powerful commanders, a fresh approach to a narrative that’s been covered many times. Everyone was in tears by the end and Claudia Schreiner of ARD, one of the producers, spoke eloquently about the burden of history on the German people. I was stuck by the thought that, while this monstrous thing happened in Germany, no country can consider itself immune to committing grave acts of horror and injustice toward its citizens. After all, look at what America did to its native people.

My afternoon was taken up with a long but stimulating session called “Is the Web the Future of Documentaries?” Most impressive was the work ARTE, the French/German channel, is doing, but there wasn’t anything in the session that didn’t spark ideas. I think the field of online documentaries is evolving quickly – I remember going to an INPUT session on the topic several years ago and thinking that the form was clunky, but the work presented here was really good and interesting. One question does arise, though, and that’s the problem of access. Is it just us privileged few who have enormous amounts of bandwidth who can enjoy these productions? How does public media reach out to those without this kind of access? Don’t we need to be thinking about making these products available to our entire audience?

In the evening I finally got my first glimpse of the Sydney Opera House – quite a  sight any time of day but maybe best at night. To my surprise the exterior is covered with ceramic tiles, as you can see in the close up.

Onward and Upward

Wednesday I began the day with “Delivering the Fist of Irony: Current Affairs and Humor,” which included an investigation of corruption in FIFA (the governing body of world soccer) by the venerable BBC investigative reporter Andrew Jennings. He takes a funny approach that at one point has him setting up cardboard cutouts of FIFA directors on a soccer field, but of course he’s deadly serious and has been reporting on this issue for years. For me – someone with little interest in sports and even less knowledge of the inner workings of world soccer – the approach worked, but there was no consensus on this point and the producer took quite a bit of heat. He was up to it, though. That’s the thing about these audience debates at INPUT – most producers can handle the critiques pretty well.

The last program in the irony session was Shukree Hassan Tilghman’s “More Than a Month,” which proposes the elimination of Black History Month. We (the U.S. pre-selection team) weren’t sure how the program would go over with an international audience who had probably never heard of Black History Month, but it was a big hit. I think Shukreet’s humorous approach not only makes the serious issues in his doc easier for an American audience to understand – humor bridges some international boundaries as well.

In the afternoon I went to the session on cross media products for children, which featured a really well organized presentation by Sylvia Lovato of PBS. She navigated the unique landscape of PBS Kids masterfully and talked about some of the challenges facing producers with the advent of touch screens. Kids love them and demand them but the bulk of the animations created for the Web use programs incompatible with touch screens – so what does a cash-strapped organization do when faced with the need to redo so much of its code?

I wrapped up the day at the session called “Our Problems are Your Problems: Mass Media and Minority Issues.” The 3 programs in this session looked at stories of the mistreatment of minorities in India, Australia and New Zealand. This is painful territory no matter where in the world you are but it makes me thankful to have public media that’s willing to take it on.

In the evening our hosts put on a fabulous mid-week party at Sydney’s Bondi Beach. With the waning “super moon” shining over the bay and delicious, free-flowing Australian wine, I think we were all caught in the spell of this beautiful country. 

U.S. delegates Angela Tucker and Sharat Raju at the Midweek Party

INPUT is not a Love Fest

Anyone who has attended INPUT knows that it is not a film festival or market. Fourteen international colleagues designated as Shop Stewards select programming for the conference and then facilitate discussions in hopes of  a lively debate among delegates. As a former Shop Steward, I can tell you that you keep your fingers crossed that the films that you have selected are strong enough to provoke a good discussion.

Two U.S. films featured in the afternoon session "TV and Public Opinion: Enlightenment or Reinforcing Stereotypes" did just that.

"Wham! Bam! Islam!" by director Isaac Solotaroff and "Southern Belle" by Nashville-based independent producers Mary Makley and Kathy Conkwright played to a packed theater on Tuesday afternoon in the blue room.  Both discussions inspired compliments and critiques but "Southern Belle" was hit by strong criticism from delegates who seemed to want to see a different film. The observational approach to the film left them dissatisfied.  They wanted answers. Kathy Conkwright, who told me having a film at INPUT was on her bucket list, shot back respectfully. The intent of the film was to encourage dialogue - not to tell viewers what to think.  This reminded me why the U.S. national panel selected the film in the first place. It might possibly be the perfect INPUT film.

The Sessions - Day One

The desire to split into 3 parts always presents itself at film festivals, and INPUT is like others in that respect  - you have to choose which sessions to attend. A difference, though, and something others should emulate, is the video on demand library where you can see all the programs you missed – if you have time!

The screenings are taking place in the very nice and comfortable Hoyts Cinema, a multiplex in the Entertainment Quarter. This is a pedestrian-only area of the city that is home to the Fox Studios, the Australian Film Television and Radio school and various shops, all situated within a beautiful park ringed by giant fig trees. Apparently when the trees are fruiting they attract vast flocks of flying foxes, a huge native bat. The flora and fauna here really remind you that you're "down under." Ibises, so exotic in the U.S., roam the streets like pigeons!

I chose to attend “The Art of Genre Building in Arts and Culture,” a session exploring the ways in which public TV arts producers are using humor, entertainment and elements of reality TV to attract new and younger audiences. The programs included “Masterpiece Scandal” from South Korea, an arts magazine; “Strada” from Finland, a hybrid of documentary and entertainment; “Photo for Life,” a French/German production and “Cover Me,” both cross-generational reality shows.

This was a fascinating session. The programs were all innovative and unlike anything I’ve seen on public TV in the U.S., but the first two seemed strained while the other two worked really well and made you say to yourself, “I wish I’d thought of that!”

“Photo for Life” follows a master class in photography led by Oliviero Toscani, who takes a group of 6 young photographers through their paces. The first reality style show for Arte, produced with the BBC, it’s based on a BBC program called “Design for Life,” featuring Phillipe Stark. The producers didn’t include the casting process in the show but said that they had gotten quite a bit of feedback from audiences requesting that they do so next time. The program is completely unscripted and its success depends heavily upon Toscani’s aggressive and camera-ready personality. He’s opinionated and tough on the young ones but not to the point of making the audience cringe, and watching the class unfold is gripping.

Even better was “Cover Me,” from the Netherlands, which is based on a highly original concept – the host, a Moroccan Dutch rapper, pairs older, well-known musicians with popular young rap artists and each covers one of the other’s songs in the period of 7 days. In this case a tattooed and pierced black rapper with a grill of gold teeth, who is recently released from prison, meets a grandmotherly blonde who is a famous Dutch crooner. Their meeting, the introduction to each other’s music and the presentation of the cover songs that emerge all make for great TV. The producer called it a “character-driven show with a musical treat at the end,” which it is, but it’s the cultural exchange that makes it a real pleasure to watch. The concept has been replicated in several countries and I think it would be a big hit in the U.S. It has appeal to a wide audience and is a lighthearted approach to bridging social divides. 

A nice innovation at INPUT this year is the establishment of longer lunch breaks that incorporate genre networking sessions and other special lunchtime sessions. A good use of time, I think.

In the afternoon I began with the session called “TV and Public Opinion: Enlightenment of Reinforcing Stereotypes,” which opened with Isaac Solotaroff’s  “Wham, Bam, Islam,” one of U.S. selections. This documentary about Naif Al-Mutawa, the creator of the first comic book based on Islamic superheroes, “The 99,” engendered a good debate, I thought. The audience challenged the director to explain why he had not created a verite style film and he talked at some length about the issues he had with access, particularly to Saudi Arabia, where critical events occurred. There was also interesting discussion about the problems inherent to a program with a strong, canny central character who is very aware of how he is presenting himself to the camera.

I left that session to attend the second half of “Going for the Young Ones: Recipes to Reach the Next Generation,” where another U.S. selection, “Worker Drone,” by Sharat Raju, part of the Future States series, was being shown. It followed a very long but innovative program called “Pixelschatten,” from Germany, a broadcast simulation of a blog. By the time “Worker Drone” screened there was a skimpy crowd in the audience and very little time for discussion. I’ve seen this sort of thing happen before occasionally at INPUT, the result of overreaching in the programming, with the organizers wanting to do too much and doing less as a result. It’s understandable but disappointing.

The day wrapped up with a session called “Women and Girls: the role of Public Media,” where we got to hear from some powerful female producers from around the world. Then all our U.S. producer fellows and friends met for dinner, drinks and more rousing discussion. A long day and a good one!

Greetings from Sydney! Amy and I finally got here after missing our flight out of L.A. due to a long delay in Atlanta.

Dawn over Sydney

We arrived at 6:15 AM so we had time to rest up before things got started last night with a Who's Who meeting introducing INPUT board members and national coordinators from all over the world.

Who's Who Meeting

 We saw many old friends - Bill Gilcher, formerly of the Goethe Institute, Moss Bresnahan, former GM of our station, SCETV and now at KCTS in Seattle, Ron Hull of Nebraska (who has a new book about his life in public television coming out soon), Judy Tam of ITVS, the INPUT president, Yeong-Seon Kim of KBS (last year's hosts) and many more. Afterwards we met up with new friends, our U.S, delegates, all very excited to be here.

The U.S. delegates

Then we all headed over to the welcoming party, a rocking event! It began with a welcome to the country presented by a group of native Australian people. One man played the didgeridoo - beautiful! Another member of the group formally - and movingly - welcomed us, acknowledging that all of Australia is aboriginal land. I'm told this is a tradition now at most events, stemming from a formal apology that was made to the native people of Australia by the government several years ago.

Welcome to the country

 At the party I began to feel the full impact of this conference - the stimulating effect of meeting public media producers from all corners of the earth. I talked with a group of Pacific Islanders, all women, producers from Tonga, Palau and Vanuatu and Fiji; the representatives of El Salvador, next year's INPUT hosts; and delegates from Zimbabwe, Russia, New Zealand, Germany, South Africa, Canada, Japan, etc., all with a deep belief in the power and importance of public media.

So - today INPUT begins in earnest, with the screening sessions. I'll go to as many as I can and report back!

Blogging from Down Under at INPUT 2012!

INPUT - The International Public Television Conference presents some of the most innovative and thought-provoking public media from around the world. This year, INPUT will be held in Australia for the first time on May 7 - 12, 2012. As part of the INPUT community, we will do our best to blog from the conference and give you the inside scoop from Sydney. You can check out the conference schedule at www.input-tv.org and follow INPUT delegates on Twitter with the #input12.

I'm wrapping up things in the office today since we fly out of Columbia tomorrow. Although I'm dreading the long flight, Betsy Newman and I will meet up with U.S. INPUT film presenters Kathy Conkwright and Mary Makley at LAX.  They are presenting Southern Belle at the conference. We've never met but I can usually spot an INPUT-bound filmmaker in the airport.

Amy