By TRAVIS KAYA, Staff Writer
The Maui News
July 22, 2007
PAIA – With years of experience helping Hollywood studios film on location in the islands, the founder of Maui Media Lab has focused his lens on a more local production, creating an online broadcasting outlet for Maui residents with programming by Maui residents.
“This is an exciting opportunity,” said Sam Epstein, executive director of Maui Media Lab LLC. “It’s a great time to be on Maui if you care about TV.”
Founded more than seven years ago, the online broadcasting venture provides a new medium for community organizations, local businesses and citizens to address local issues and express views not seen on traditional television stations.
The online network provides viewer-created video content available through the Internet at smn.com, where it is accessible from anywhere in the world at any time.
“This is television that comes through your Internet,” Epstein said.
The digital network is based on Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) technology developed by SenseMedia Netcasting, a tech-development company founded by Epstein in Chicago in 1985.
After moving the business to Maui in 1997, Epstein shifted his focus from the World Wide Web to what he calls the “local Web.” Maui Media Lab LLC, a company Epstein has established in Paia, handles the local aspects of SenseMedia Netcasting’s international operations.
Using the digital broadcasting format that SenseMedia pioneered on the Mainland, Epstein and Maui Media Lab LLC have been able to stream up-to-the-minute programming specific to Maui County through its Web site. Available anywhere there’s an Internet connection, the digital network eliminates geographic constraints that made it difficult for some Maui residents to get access to community television outlets like Akaku, Epstein said.
“Most of the community access television is centered in Kahului,” he said. “But we started having kids all over wanting to learn about production.”
Smn.com currently hosts programming on four separate channels that are similar to those commonly found on a standard television dial. The digital channels, however, are interactive, allowing residents the chance to create their own programming, setting the online network apart from broadcast or cable television outlets. The four IPTV channels that are currently available reflect a wide array of interests, and include Willie Nelson’s Radio Free TV, Da Molokai Channel, the Kingdom of Hawaii channel, and Pulelehua Maui Community Television.
Most of the programming is supported by businesses who pay for commercial airtime and organizations that provide content to fill their dedicated IPTV channels. But Pulelehua Maui Community Television is entirely free and accessible to everyone who wants to see their content broadcast.
“The more we can find ways to find spontaneity and truth, the better off we’re going to be,” said state Rep. Joe Bertram III, who represents Kihei, Wailea and Makena, and was a featured guest on a recent Pulelehua program. “They’re people doing it basically from the heart.”
The Maui Media Lab not only provides the platform for community programming, but also the skills needed to produce and broadcast video content. Started as a community service venture to “empower the community to serve itself,” the Maui Media Lab Foundation, a nonprofit organization run by Maui Media Lab LLC, offers students the chance to learn the skills needed to create professional-grade IPTV programming.
For a monthly membership fee of just $20 for students under 18 years of age and $100 for adults, the foundation provides classes on subjects ranging from digital media technology to audio engineering. Using professional software and top-of-the-line equipment, teachers work with students following a hands-on curriculum that covers the basic skills needed at all levels of film and music production.
“It’s a good place if you want to know a little bit more about technology,” said Dwight Baldwin, a 16-year-old Seabury Hall student and Maui Media Lab member. “You just learn from being around here.”
Using a hands-on curriculum that Epstein describes as “the full vertical market,” students are also able to learn how to play an instrument, record music, produce an album, and create a music video all in the same studio.
“It’s nice to have high-end equipment at your disposal,” said Cody Quintana, a 16-year-old Baldwin High School student. “We need more kids. This needs to be utilized.”
Aside from offering students a chance to contribute to community programming, Epstein says, the lessons that the foundation offers are a smart investment in the future of the IPTV network and Hawaii’s burgeoning media industry.
“All of our engineering resources are local young men and women,” he said. “The skills that are being taught to our students in the community are the same skills that are needed for producing movies.”
Production companies from the Mainland that fly in crews for movie shoots and other studio productions may one day hire engineers, camera crews and editors from Hawaii, Epstein said.
For some of the foundation’s students, the lessons taught at the media lab have already paid off. Many students who have gone through the audio engineering program have worked the sound boards at concerts around the island, becoming paid employees of Maui Media Lab LLC. Students have also gone on to become filmmakers and editors on Maui.
“Community television provides the environment for people in the community to gain these skills,” Epstein said. “We try to help foster that talent.”
Travis Kaya can be reached at tkaya@mauinews.com.
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