Last week I (Jerry) went to the 2013 “Media Matters” conference at American University in Washington D.C. There, they talked about the need to use data for documentary work. Data is used extensively in science, medical, and business applications, but has not been used as much in media. That is starting to change. The keynote speaker spoke about the use of data in nonprofit segments and the need to set impact goals for a film before it is released and then to track that progress and include the audience in the process of reaching that goal.

Here’s an article about data-driven filmmaking: http://www.current.org/2013/02/a-growing-push-for-data-driven-documentary-filmmaking/

Here’s some images from the keynote: http://t.co/N29x9PUR

This is a website that is targeted at helping filmmakers track data: http://sparkwi.se/

Example: http://www.thefledglingfund.org/film/to-be-heard

I’ve started an account on Sparkwise.se but have just begun setting it up: http://sparkwi.se/b/d895e360-7bf2-11e2-9e42-f23c91dfda42?undefined

So much more work to be done! If anyone is interested in helping out in this data area, please contact infoATeclecticreel.org.