View the prototypes from POV Hackathon.

In a span of 30 hours, five teams of filmmakers, developers and designers sought to reinvent the documentary for web at POV’s Hackathon, August 11-12, 2012.

In this batch of documentaries prototypes, you’ll participate in an online debate with film characters, browse a documentary cookbook, find new meaning in numbers from news headlines, be moved by audio storytelling integrated with live news and events, and explore the multimedia branches of a film from 1984.

View the prototypes from POV Hackathon »

Aatsinki: The Story of Arctic Cowboys

Watch a demo of The Aatsinki Season, a prototype developed at POV Hackathon.

View the demo »

Team: Jessica Oreck, Mike Knowlton, Hal Siegel. Bios »

About the Project: Aatsinki: The Story of Arctic Cowboys is a feature-length documentary that follows a year in the life of a family of reindeer herders in Finnish Lapland. The complementary online component will expand the reach and depth of the project, bringing each participant face-to-face with the unique challenges of herding reindeer. Read a Q&A with the Aatsinki Hackathon team »

Technology: JavaScript, jQuery (for handling video), and other JavaScript libraries; Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, HandBrake, TextWrangler, BBEdit.

Feed Me A Story

Watch a demo of the Feed Me A Story iPad app prototype developed at POV Hackathon.

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Team: Theresa Loong, Laura Nova, Lauren Hasson, Sumin Chou, Sonna Kim. Bios »

About the Project: Feed Me a Story is a transmedia project that encourages the sharing of secret family recipes in a documentary-style food truck, video cookbook and Web application. Read a Q&A with the Feed Me A Story Hackathon team »

Technology: InDesign, Photoshop, Xcode.

Living Los Sures

A screenshot from the "Living Los Sures" prototype developed at POV Hackathon.

Click on the image to interact with a demo of the Living Los Sures prototype developed at POV Hackathon. (The prototype is best viewed in Chrome. Hit the pause button at any point in the video that interests you.)

Launch the demo »

Team: Christopher Allen, Andre Almeida, Danny Bowman, Kyle Warren, Lucas Carlisle. Bios »

About the Project: Living Los Sures is a collaboratively produced, interactive documentary that explores the legacy of urban poverty on the increasingly trendy south side of Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood. It seeks not only to capture a diverse collection of important and unusual stories from the neighborhood, but also to create new shared histories and relationships among neighbors. Read a Q&A with the Living Los Sures Hackathon team »

Technology: HTML5, JavaScript, Popcorn.js, Google Maps API, jQuery, Zeega; Final Cut Pro, GitHub, VIM.

Op-Video (retitled: Data Docs)

A screenshot from the "Data Docs" ("Op-Video") prototype developed at POV Hackathon.

Click on the image to interact with a demo of the Data Docs prototype developed at POV Hackathon.
(This prototype is best viewed in Chrome.)

Launch the demo »

Team: Joe Posner, Lam Thuy Vo, Susan E. McGregor. Bios »

About the Project: An Op-Video is a short-form, freely embeddable, mixed-media essay that features experts, writers and doers, as well as hand-drawn animation and original music, about current public affairs. As ever-quickening news cycles create an echo chamber centered on a never-ending “horse-race,” Op-Videos invite the viewer into a more thoughtful and inventive space to learn about the important public issues of our time. Read a Q&A with the Op-Video Hackathon team »

Technology: HTML5 for audio and video, Cuepoint.js, Hype, Google Visualization, JavaScript, CSS; Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Cinema 4D, Aptana Studio, iTunes and a computer screen repurposed as a dry erase board.

StoryCorps Audio Slideshows

A screenshot from the "StoryCorps Audio Slideshow" prototype, developed at POV Hackathon (August 11-12, 2012).

The StoryCorps Audio Slideshows prototype, developed at POV Hackathon.

Launch the demo »
View the team’s planning documents »

Team: Michael Garofalo, Isaac Kestenbaum, Antonio Kaplan, Matt Oltendorf. Bios »

About the Project: StoryCorps is a national nonprofit organization that provides people of all backgrounds with the opportunity to record, share and preserve the stories of their lives. StoryCorps produces audio segments weekly for NPR and since 2010 has turned a selection of stories into Emmy Award®-nominated animations for POV and the Web. So, what’s next? At POV’s Hackathon, StoryCorps will begin work on a new Web platform to complement its distinctive audio style. Read a Q&A with the StoryCorps Audio Slideshow Hackathon team »

Technology: JavaScript (with SoundManager 2), jQuery (with prettyPhoto, jQuery Easing), Google Fonts.


Have any thoughts about these prototypes? Let us know in the comments.

Read Rahul Chadha’s recaps from Day One and Day Two of POV’s Hackathon.

Get more documentary film news and features: Subscribe to POV’s documentary blog, like POV on Facebook or follow us on Twitter @povdocs!

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POV Staff
POV (a cinema term for "point of view") is television's longest-running showcase for independent non-fiction films. POV premieres 14-16 of the best, boldest and most innovative programs every year on PBS. Since 1988, POV has presented over 400 films to public television audiences across the country. POV films are known for their intimacy, their unforgettable storytelling and their timeliness, putting a human face on contemporary social issues.