Prison Valley - Le blog ! » Médias

Web, press and media review

davduf — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 18:37:51 +0000

Summer & Autumn & Winter 2010:

http://www.visapourlimage.com/france_prix.do Prison Valley winner of Webdocumentary Award at Visa pour l’image Perpignan festival 2010
http://nofilmschool.com/prison-valley-and-the-future-of-documentary-on-the-web/
http://www.time.com/time
http://niemanstoryboard.us
http://filmmakermagazine.com/whats-in-my-instapaper-sunday-morning-links-6/
http://fotolios.blogspot.com/2010/09/el-valle-de-las-carceles.html
http://jetzt.sueddeutsche.de
http://www.ejc.net/prison_valley_breakaway_web_documentary/
http://www.creation4all.com/myMT/?p=56
http://www.mediastorm.com
http://www.slideshare.net
http://radiograffitionline.com
http://www.independent-magazine.org
http://currentpublicmedia.blogspot.com
http://www.focus.de
http://www.fnp.de

June 2010:

Bellaria Film Festival (Italy) Prison Valley winner of Crossmedia Doc 2010
http://10000words.net/the-best-journalism-youll-see-today-prison-valley/
Site of the Day FWA: http://www.thefwa.com/site/prison-valley
http://www.urbantvguide.nl/eerder-op-tv/prison-valley/
http://medialdigital.de
http://harshbarge.wordpress.com
http://www.trancemedia.eu
http://www.topsitetally.com/top-websites/prison-valley/

April/May 2010:

For articles in French, check this page

Time Magazine Website, a Prison Valley Portfolio

davduf — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:14:01 +0000

Link: «Welcome to Prison Valley: Fremont County, Colorado, has made incarceration a local specialty industry»

6th july: first ever prime-time broadcast of the film ‘Prison Valley’

davduf — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 10:07:03 +0000

It’s on Arte as part of a special theme evening called ‘Prisons: a new business?’. The prison industry is booming all over the world. From the flourishing ‘Prison Valley’ in Colorado to experiences with electronic tagging, ‘Thema’ takes a look at both sides of the bars.

So at 8.35 pm there’s the film ‘Prison Valley’ in high definition and 16:9 (with a surprise at the end) and at 9.35 pm ‘Prison à domicile’, a documentary by Philippe Borrel (2007).

But that’s not all. From 9 to 11 pm, you can take part in a special chat with the writers and directors of the web documentary ‘Prison Valley’ (David Dufresne and Philipe Brault) and the producer (Alexandre Brachet) and find out all you want to about the long and crazy adventure of ‘Prison Valley’.

Tell your friends and bring your ideas and questions.

Have a good summer.

‘Prison Valley’ will be shown again on Arte on 10th July at 1.55 am and on 16th July at 10 am.

The Producer’s Fear of the Penalty

admin — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 11:05:25 +0000

Paris, Forum des Images, April 8, 2010, 10.25 am.

These are perhaps the expressions of horror you might expect from a producer (on the left, Alexandre Brachet, upian.com) and a broadcaster (on the right, Joël Ronez, Arte.tv) when the bug strikes. When the fucking connection disconnects. An expression none of the journalists saw at the Forum des Images yesterday just before the press screening of Prison Valley.

It’s 10.20 am. We’ve drunk so much coffee that everyone’s hearts are about to explode. Alexandre’s busy on his computer. After all, he has the difficult task in a few minutes’ time of ‘giving a demo’ of a quarter of Prison Valley. 10.22 and the Forum des Images’ technical wizard (in the middle) is asking “Where do you write commands on a Mac?” Of course we had to answer “There on the terminal” as if nothing was wrong, as if everything was fine. As if at least a part of a year and a half of work didn’t hinge on what would happen in the next few minutes.

10.24. There’s a crowd just outside the door. A hundred people who suspect nothing, among them most of Upian’s development team, without whom Prison Valley couldn’t have been made – would’ve been made. 10.26. Philippe takes the photo and I to my heels. Uli, Astrid and Simon, the project’s brave English and German translators, are out there. Some time I’ll have to write about their sleepless nights and stressful days too. 10.28 and there’s a noise like a modem. The magic of the web of yesteryear. You are connected. But it crashes again – of course – a few minutes later. It’s all right though, it works again too. At last.

10.31. The press conference can begin.

10.35. The doors open.

It lasts for about an hour and a half.

Tell you about the rest soon.

The final straight (but is it really final? is it really going to be straight?)

admin — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 08:24:48 +0000

There’s a press screening of ‘Prison Valley’ on 8^th April in Paris, then it goes out in w-w-w format on 22^nd April, and it’s broadcast Arte on 12^th June. How do I put this? The pressure’s mounting, stress has set in. Some of the team are on Rennies, others are on a diet of coffee and cigarettes, and the professional debuggers have sunk into the total silence. Other still, the ones we’re most concerned about, have given up everything: coffee, cigarettes, Rennies, Firefox.

At Upian headquarters it’s the rush for the finish line, the race against the lost URL, a XML fest, the HTML heavyweight clash, a Flash-crazed bash, the all-out icon blow-out and a translation mishmash. ‘Prison Valley’ is going to be released in three languages: French, English and German. Three languages means one helluva lot of texts, subtitles in battle order, bonuses to be checked, online access to be worked out. In short, one big mess.

To be quite honest – we’re swamped. We’re wallowing. We’re afraid. And we’re happy.

Ah yes, there’s Bertrand Toty, too. The musician. He’s pathologically obsessed with background sounds: prison sounds, traffic noise, navigation sounds (coming soon). Sound is essential on the Net.

Last Friday was the last dubbing recording at Yap studios with Benoît Héry, impeccable as ever, at the controls. Christian Stonner, a regular for Arte, did the vocals. It’s in the can. Jean-Laurent Feurra came along too to give us a hand. A big hand. His task was to get the (many) sections of the film and the (many) video bonuses ready. In three languages, remember. That’s what web documentaries are about too: lots of different stories, lots of different information.

Friday was also the last meeting with our partners for ‘Prison Valley’. Libération, France Inter and Yahoo! have now joined Arte and the CNC.

Where are the Rennies?
See you soon for more adventures…

The rise of the web documentary

davduf — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:15:39 +0000

Bertrand Tronsson (développeur Flash - Upian). A gauche, du code. A droite, la page blanche.

‘Web documentary’. The word is on everyone’s lips, more and more frequently, in blogs, in the press, on the Web. It is used to describe anything and everything. Which is exactly what lends the word its charm and makes this moment in time so wonderful: nothing as yet is written in stone. Web documentaries are a new genre. They invite us to do what we want with them. Even if some people give the title without its nobility – what are these corporate videos that proclaim themselves web documentaries just because they are shown as a series on the Net? How much longer can people go on cobbling together some sound and some stills and think that represents a new way of telling a story?

As we see it, a web documentary is essentially about authorial style and a way of broadcasting. Rediscovering some freedom, merging different professions, a profusion of styles. No shackles, no bible, no conventions. It’s a new vision of an old job; telling stories using today’s technology. As Benoit Bringer emphasises: “We shouldn’t regard this new genre as the Grail that will save an endangered press from Internet becoming the leading media (…). But it’s still a pleasure to see the effervescence and excitement this revival of journalism have created on the Web (cf. Espritblog and linterview.fr) during one of the worst crises the profession has ever known.”

So what is a web documentary?

At the end of December, a team from France 24 came to see Upian, our production company (who also have an art gallery, incidentally). That was what the journalist, Natalia Gallois, had come to find out: what is a web documentary?

We did our best to give her some answers. The results were screened on 26^th December. Here it is. And the pictures speak better than we did. Prison Valley will be a road movie on the Web. Something Alexandre Brachet, el productor, likes to call “interactive cinema”. Otherwise, the 24-hour new channel’s report also gives a few clues as to what Prison Valley’s going to look like…

The rise of the web documentary (France 24)
Screened: on the Net / Broadcaster; France 24 / Production: Electron Libre Productions

The report also gave us the chance to present some of Prison Valley’s web development team (html and Flash). David Desprès (with the headphones) and Bernard Tronsson (without). Jérôme Goncalves, Maxime Quintard, Nicolas Menet and Hans Lemuet are missing. Without them, Prison Valley would be just a documentary without the web.

David Després (Flasheur fou - Upian).

It’s all there: web docs are a new genre, they’ve prepared the ground. Shown things. Brought about new ways of thinking about narrative. They’re about teamwork, of course. A child of social networking, of the exploded horizontality between sender and receiver. We are some of the many who are trying to think what this means. Trying out some experiments. Over the coming months, this blog might be a tool to examine the new phase web documentaries have now entered – their 2010 phase. Happy New Year!