MCDM and "Independent America: Rising from Ruins"
by Professor Hanson Hosein

The world premiere of my film, Independent America: Rising from Ruins, was scheduled to occur on the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Rising from Ruins recounts the courageous, emotional experiences of the local businesspeople who quickly returned home after Katrina to help rebuild their community — and how, three years later, it remains an ongoing struggle. (Visit the film's production Web site: www.independentamericafilm.com)

Hanson Hosein at the camera

On Aug. 30, the film was scheduled to be featured at the Katrina-related event, "We Are the Ones We've Been Waiting For," organized by The New Orleans Institute. If I'm all about "selling the message," then this was absolutely the right time and place to start doing so. However, Hurricane Gustav, and the ensuing evacuation order, forced us to postpone the premiere. Instead, we held two impromptu screenings, where the film was well received, despite the incoming storm. I also took advantage of my presence in New Orleans to film Gustav elements, which I'll incorporate into an updated version of the documentary. I got out just before the airport closed, but not before using Twitter to share my adventures with followers of the MCDM (Master of Communication in Digital Media).

How does my independent filmwork relate to my position as MCDM director?

1. The first Independent America film (visit that film's Web site - www.independentamerica.net) was pretty much what inspired me to take this position at the University of Washington—using social media to sell a project when Traditional Mass Media (TMM) ignored it. I wanted to use my place in academia to take a step back to look at my experiences—stepping away from TMM and leveraging digital-media tools—to understand how this changes the way we communicate.

Still image from "Independent America: Rising from Ruins"

2. There are direct MCDM/UW ties to this film: The Department of Communication considers my filmmaking directly relevant to my research work, and has even partially funded the project. Two current MCDM students, Kirk Mastin and John Liston, accompanied me to New Orleans last spring to assist in the filming. A third MCDM'er, Adriana Gil Miner, was my researcher. The opening music to this current trailer, the song Bad Dog was produced and engineered by MCDM'er Brian Steel for the awesome blues group Gravelroad.

3. My films are a direct application of the storytelling and social media philosophies I apply to the MCDM. That is, using grassroots or institutional partnerships to get the word out, employing portable, relatively affordable technology to capture the stories, and leveraging social media tools to market the content, even while it's a work-in-progress. This is all fundamental to my belief in how digital media technology is fomenting this communication revolution, bypassing TMM to a large extent. That said, we have strong interest from broadcasters—the film was funded by Canada's Superchannel, and there have been inquiries from NHK Japan (which aired the first film), the BBC, and a couple of U.S. channels. We intend to submit the film for festival consideration at Sundance and South by Southwest.

Meanwhile, at the MCDM, we took advantage of the unprecedented interest in the program to increase the size of the incoming cohort. Consequently, this allowed us to expand our course offerings. This growth also inspired us to begin work on what we're calling (for now) "The University of Washington Commons for Connected Media and Storytelling" (UWCOMS), which, in conjunction with the MCDM, will serve as a hub for the digital media industry here in the Pacific Northwest.

We'll do this all in collaboration with the Department of Communication, as we look to further share our know-how and teaching resources. We also have a new MCDM Web site, which includes the Flip The Media blog. The site was designed by MCDM alumna Shanna Taylor and her company, Shift Strategic, in partnership with MCDM students/alumni Adriana Gil Miner, Nika Pelc and Kristina Bowman, with photographs by John Liston. The whole idea is to establish a national brand for the MCDM through a focused vision, and increase our outreach to prospective, high-quality students worldwide.