A Filmmaker’s Workshop presented by SIFTMedia 215 Collective and Independence Public Media Foundation.
On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 SIFTMedia and IPMF invited filmmakers to have a chance to get to know our friendly regional Public Television Programmers! We wanted to give Filmmakers the opportunity to learn the in’s and out’s of getting their work on regional & national PBS.
The Workshop started at 6pm and ended at 7:15pm, the below are excerpts of the evening, highlighting the types of inside Public TV information not readily found by Googling. Most importantly, attendees got to ask face to face (virtual) questions about their specific projects, receiving not only pertinent responses, but contact info from our panelists for follow up. Because like everything, it’s about making connections!
Public Television 101 Part 1 Excerpts:
Independent filmmakers often talk about getting their work on Amazon, Hulu, Netflix or HBO. But what about the network that is available for free on broadcast television or the internet? Public Television – Which has the potential for reaching thousands of people in our community!
Attendees wanted to know …
- What’s the difference between PBS and Public Television?
- What kinds of films are you looking for?
- How do I submit to my local station?
- What length of work will stations accept?
- How do I get my work to the station aimed at my market?
- At what point in the production project should I submit my film to PBS?
- Do stations pay for content?
- Do I have to provide Closed Captioning before I submit?
And more..
All answered by our Panelists:
Sreedevi Sripathy, Director of Programming and Production at WHYY TV12 https://whyy.org
Susie Hernandez, Senior Director of Programming at WNET, New York Public Media https://www.wnet.org/
Chris Hastings, Executive Producer and Editorial Manager of Content for the WORLD Channel https://worldchannel.org/
Gabrielle Ewing, Associate Director of Programming for PBS Digital Studios, https://www.pbs.org/digital-studios/
Moderator: Nadine Patterson, Independent Producer HipCinema and Co-Founder SIFTMedia 215 Collective.
The workshop was free and open to all interested. However, aimed at our demographic black and latinx women filmmakers. The registration exceeded our expectation and the percentage who showed up on Zoom ready and eager to learn from our panelist was over 75% of the registrations.
Be sure to email siftmedia215@gmail.com if you’d like to be kept up-to-date on our next workshops and screening series.
About SIFTMedia 215 Collective, https://siftmedia215.org/ : The SIFTMedia 215 Collective is a cooperative that centers Black and Latinx women-identified independent media artists who work in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. As filmmakers, we seek to educate ourselves and the wider community by creating socially conscious, culturally relevant work that challenges mainstream narratives and structures. Our mission is to use our collective strength to amplify the work of and create meaningful opportunities for Black and Latinx Women content creators by providing a community of support to share resources, skills, and creative space.
About IPMF, https://independencemedia.org/ : IPMF seeks to build power with communities across Greater Philadelphia by investing in community-owned media and community-led media-making. We support work that amplifies voices, ideas, and solutions rarely heard in mainstream media.
Sisters in Film & Television - SIFTMEDIA 215 
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