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In 2020, Black Public Media (BPM), MIT Open Documentary Lab (ODL), and MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (MIT CAST) created this fellowship to support Black creatives who use emerging technologies as their nonfiction, storytelling mediums. New this year, Fellows will have the choice to try to to the fellowship either remotely or face to face . ODL meetings begin on September 14th. If a Fellow wants to audit an MIT class, they ought to choose the course as soon as they’re selected, because classes begin on the September 8th.

Fellows who plan to relocate to the Boston area would cover their own travel and living expenses. Neither part-time nor full-time students qualify for this fellowship, per MIT requirements.

The 2021 MIT & Black Public Media Fellowship is meant to support a Black filmmaker, artist, journalist, or creative technologist, who uses emerging technology to form nonfiction experiences. The mission of the guy ship is to encourage and develop the emerging-tech storytelling skills of a Black maker and connect the Fellow to MIT Open Documentary Lab’s network of storytellers, scholars, and technologists.

The Fellowship provides one school year (9 months) of independent study within the OpenDocLab community, which is deeply engaged with creating, testing, and exploring new storytelling technologies and co-creation methodologies. Each Fellow also meets regularly with a Black Public Media producer or adviser to clarify their project goals and develop their pitch and prototype materials. The purpose of the Fellowship is to research and develop an emerging-tech documentary or nonfiction project and move the conceptualization or execution of the project forward in some significant way. Fellows also may apply with a nonfiction project that’s already in pre-production or production, again with the goal of creating major progress during the Fellowship.

We are trying to find someone who is curious about engaging creatively and critically with emerging technologies, like computer game , augmented reality, AI , and/or using older technologies, like 3D animation, projections, or motion capture, in novel or new ways. the guy will join an interdisciplinary, international, and collaborative community composed of other fellows, faculty, researchers, and students and can engage during a rich exchange with them.

Rationale

Black studio heads, creative directors, lead engineers, directors, lead artists, and writers are far and few between at emerging-tech content studios, divisions, departments, and on A-list emerging-tech production crews. The MIT & Black Public Media Fellowship is meant to attach a Black maker to a community of emerging-tech practitioners, researchers, and thinkers. The BPMplus Initiative at Black Public Media focuses on reducing and eliminating barriers to entry, plus increasing participation of Black creatives in emerging-tech storytelling. This fellowship with MIT is one among quite seven BPMplus programs.

Previous MIT & Black Public Media Fellows

Mapping Blackness by Carla LynDale Bishop

Uses traditional film, augmented reality, and geo-tagged media assets to co-create profiles of historically Black communities everywhere the us with members of every community.

Carla teaches film at Arizona State University’s Poitier New American Film School.

Learn more about the project and therefore the filmmaker.

Watch Carla’s pitch video from April 2021.

Read her OpenDocLab profile.

Watch her interview on The Technically Brilliant Show.

Meshmemories by Fabiano Mixo

An augmented reality sculpture of Mãe Beata de Iemanjá, a Brazilian writer, activist, and non secular leader.

Fabiano runs Vild Studio, a movie and AR/VR production company in Rio de Janeiro.

Learn more about the project and therefore the filmmaker.

Read his OpenDocLab profile.

Watch Fabiano’s interview on The Technically Brilliant Show.

Sample MIT OpenDocLab Projects
The makers behind the projects, below, made fundamental project-design shifts during their fellowships. Being immersed within the ODL is right for a filmmaker or creative technologist who wants to start a process of discovery which will end in a replacement format for his or her story, a replacement technology to include into their piece, a replacement process for creating their project, or new collaborators. At its most elementary , being a part of ODL is about the exchange of ideas. Learn more about OpenDocLab Fellows here.

Chomsky vs. Chomsky (2020)

MIT OpenDocLab Fellow Sandra Rodriguez and Alum Cindy Bishop To Premiere Chomsky vs. Chomsky at 2020 Sundance festival

Chomsky vs. Chomsky: First encounter

Voices of VR Podcast: Episode #898: Sundance: Questioning AI of Chomsky Trained with 60 Years of knowledge in ‘Chomsky vs Chomsky’

Diving With a Purpose (2019)

2019 MIT OpenDocLab Fellow: Tara Roberts

(Video) National Geographic Education: Diving with a Purpose: Explorers within the field

(Video) National Geographic Society: Storytellers Summit: Putting the self within the story

Yes! Magazine: Uncovering Stories of Slavery Under Water

Porton Down (2019)

2016-2018 MIT OpenDocLab Fellow: Callum Cooper

2019 Venice Film Festival: Porton Down

Additional Emerging-Tech Projects
These projects are great samples of big vision, blue projects that might are suitable for the MIT & Black Public Media Fellowship.

Red Summers: terrorism from 1917-1921 by Bayete Ross Smith

Tech: 360VR

Watch the pitch video from April 2021.

Watch Episode 1: Tulsa from May 2021 on The Guardian.

Manacapuru VR by Fabiano Mixo

Tech: Unity VR

Watch the pitch video from April 2021.

Please note that the video contains some graphic, historical imagery of enslaved people.

Movement Portraits by LaJune McMillian

Tech: Mocap (Perception Neuron), Unreal Engine, Motion Builder, Maya

Watch the pitch video from April 2021.

Fellowship Dates

Each Fellow are going to be a member of MIT Open Documentary Lab for one academic year , beginning September 8, 2021, and receive an unrestricted, $7,500 honorarium after completing the required paperwork. Although we encourage applicants to possess a minimum of one completed emerging technology production on their resume or filmography, previous emerging technology experience isn’t required to use . However candidates must demonstrate a working knowledge of their chosen tech platform(s) and of comparable emerging-tech projects.

The deadline to use is Sunday, August 8, 2021, at 9 PM ET. The Fellow(s) are going to be announced by early September 2021.

ODL programming begins on Tuesday, September 14, 2021, and ends Tuesday, in May 2022. apart from mandatory ODL programming every Tuesday, Fellows are liberal to create their own MIT schedules. additionally , Fellows will have production meetings every 2-3 weeks with their Black Public Media producer or adviser to figure on their pitch and pitch materials.

Fellowship Deliverables

Deliver the subsequent assets to Black Public Media by March 2022:

– logline

– 1-paragraph pitch

– 1-page treatment

– 10-slide pitch deck

– working prototype or a simulation

– 4- to 5-minute pitch video for PitchBlack, Black Public Media’s pitch event. Each Fellow will present their project during PitchBlack, which can be held in April 2022.

Deliver a proposal, prototype, or movie to MIT CAST by May 2022.

Application Requirements

Please budget 2-4 hours to finish your application. Read through the whole application before you start .

A resume and/or filmography.

A allow the applicant’s Fellowship Project.

A schedule and scope-of-work for the applicant’s Fellowship Project. The schedule must provide 2-week milestones for 18 weeks total.

A one-page treatment for the applicant’s Fellowship Project.

Please note that Fellows might not be enrolled as part-time or full-time students while completing the Fellowship from September 2021 to May 2022.

Fellowship Requirements:

Start the fellowship on Tuesday, September 14, 2021, so as to participate within the orientation for the new cohort of OpenDocLab Fellows.

Attend online project presentations by ODL Fellows every Tuesday at 10 AM ET/2 pm UTC. [Mandatory attendance]

Attend online guest lectures at noon ET on Tuesdays. [Mandatory attendance]

Attend ODL workshops and meetings on a variety of topics, from co-creation to augmented reality and public space. [Optional attendance]

Present your project idea to the ODL community.

Deliver a Fellowship Project proposal, prototype, or movie to Black Public Media in March for PitchBlack 2022.

Present your Fellowship Project to the Black Public Media community at PitchBlack 2022 in April. (Please note that this could be a live, in-person pitch.)

Deliver a proposal, prototype, or movie to MIT CAST by May 2022. (You may use an equivalent materials you submitted to BPM in March)

Fellowship Benefits

A $7,500 honorarium after the primary 30 days of the fellowship. This payment depends on completion of all MIT and Black Public Media contracts and agreements. Payments could also be made to individuals only, to not their companies.

Access to MIT’s community of artists, scholars, and technologists

Access to Black Public Media’s community of Black filmmakers and artistic technologists

Ability to audit one (1) MIT course [requires permission of the instructor]. If a Fellow wants to audit an MIT class, they ought to choose the course as soon as they’re selected, because classes begin on the September 8th.

Access to MIT’s library system and other online resources

Receive a possible showcase of the maker and/or the maker’s project at a Black Public Media event. If the prototype or finished production were an augmented reality app, a VR experience, or an AI app, for instance , BPM could help drive traffic to the maker’s project or help recommend exhibition opportunities. Black Public Media has screened AR/VR experiences for quite 650 people since 2018. Introducing the planet of spatial computing and other emerging storytelling technologies to Black creatives may be a major focus of the BPMplus Program.

Please note: This fellowship doesn’t provide software, hardware, or crew. Applicants might not be enrolled as part-time or full-time students while completing the Fellowship from September 2021 to May 2022. Applicants must be 18 or over.

About Black Public Media

The mission of BPMplus is to extend the participation of Black storytellers in extended reality and other emerging-tech industries. Black Public Media may be a 41-year-old nonprofit that supports Black filmmakers. BPM funds and distributes content about the Black diaspora. the corporate is predicated in Harlem area of latest York City.

About MIT Open Documentary Lab

Drawing on MIT’s legacy of media innovation and its deep commitment to open and accessible information, the MIT Open Documentary Lab brings storytellers, technologists, and students together to explore new documentary forms with a specific specialise in collaborative, interactive, and immersive storytelling. OpenDocLab is predicated in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

About MIT Center for Arts, Science, and Technology

A major cross-school initiative, the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) creates new opportunities for art, science and technology to thrive as interrelated, mutually informing modes of exploration, knowledge and discovery. CAST’s multidisciplinary platform presents performing and visual arts programs, supports research projects for artists working with science and engineering labs, and sponsors symposia, classes, workshops, design studios, lectures and publications. The visiting artists program may be a cornerstone of CAST’s activities, which inspires cross-fertilization among disciplines and intensive interaction with MIT’s faculty, students, and researchers. CAST is predicated in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

MIT Open Doc Lab, Black Public Media, and therefore the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology are delighted to be ready to offer this chance .

More Detail And Application HERE