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AHA MEDIA is very proud to celebrate its First Birthday and First Year Anniversary online on Wednesday November 11, 2009

November 12, 2009 Leave a comment

AHA MEDIA is very happy to celebrate its First Birthday and First year Anniversary online on Wednesday November 11, 2009 !!! 🙂

Birthday5Birthday10 champagne

AHA MEDIA has come a long way in one year when we ( April Smith, Hendrik Beune and Al Tkatch) formed AHA MEDIA ( using the first letter of our first names) and decided last year to have our very own site online!

AHA MEDIA does mobile new media/social media reporting and event documentation for all communities in Vancouver and Downtown Eastside. We have even been invited to the cities of Whistler and Victoria to do mobile media and livestreaming.

With lessons learned from the Fearless City Mobile project from W2 Community Media Arts Centre http://www.creativetechnology.org, we are proud to continue to grow everyday and help support/report in all our neighborhoods from social justice issues to social media events!

AHA MEDIA enjoys providing an independent and alternative perspective to general media views. Through our new media devices and cameraphones, we hope to be a news resource for everyone who is interested in us.

Over the year AHA MEDIA has grown to include 11 people affiliated with AHA MEDIA – nearly all  live and work in the Vancouver Downtown Eastside.

We are honored to have the Aboriginal/Native Culture perspectives from our Aboriginal  reporters – Brody Benson, Alvin Clayton, Clyde Wright

Other fantastic members of AHA MEDIA are :

Peter Davies – Photographer

Ken Glofcheskie – Sports and Social Justice

J-Hock – Housing and Economic Issues

Derrick Simms – Tech Support

Alain Assaily –  Real Journalist!

AHA MEDIA enjoys peer training, participating and engaging in our communities to produce content for everyone to see and hear!

Among our many news/events coverage,  our next ongoing project is documenting and archiving events leading up to and during the 2010 Winter Olympics. We will report on all perspectives as well as hearing the personal stories of folks in our neighborhoods.

Two future projects AHA MEDIA will be involved  in are:

1) Documenting the Poverty Olympics – a satirical view of the Games put on by CCAP who are concerned about economic, housing and social justice issues of the Downtown Eastside

2) Participating in Fearless City’s CODE Live and Bright Lights editions – the Cultural Olympiad Digital Edition, part of the 2010 Winter Olympics celebrations. The projects will include streaming videos created by local residents and shown on giant screens at W2, a community media arts centre opening this winter as part of the Woodward’s development.

AHA MEDIA is proud to be part of  ongoing year long documentary filming process for a movie called With Glowing Hearts – http://www.vimeo.com/5401993

AHA MEDIA is still learning and growing everyday!  We humbly thank EVERYONE who has supported us, been our mentor and most importantly been our friend!

We couldn’t have done it without you! 🙂

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Below is a photo of AHA MEDIA – Al Tkatch, Hendrik Beune and April Smith celebrating our First birthday and First Year Anniversary together on Wednesday November 11, 2009 in Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden in Vancouver Chinatown

We hope AHA MEDIA will continue to have good luck, good fortune and live as long as the turtles swimming in the ponds! 🙂

Al, Hendriik, April - AHA MEDIA in Dr.Sun Yat-Sen Park

Dr Sun Yat-Sen Park 1

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Below is a photo and video of AHA MEDIA Co-founders Hendrik Beune and Al Tkatch and their thoughts

Hendrik and Al speak on AHA MEDIA's first birthday and anniversary

This was filmed by April Smith of AHA MEDIA on a Nokia N95 mobile cameraphone. April is passionate and skilled in making Nokia films by exploring mobile media production through the camera lens of a cellphone. For a better quality version of this video, please DM April Smith @AprilFilms on Twitter or Facebook.com/AprilFilms

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Below is a photo of three ducks swimming at Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden in Vancouver Chinatown. AHA MEDIA believes that beautiful things can happen in small places especially in the Vancouver Downtown Eastside

Ducks swimming in park

AHA MEDIA thanks everyone once again during our year long journey into media making online and offline 🙂

Mobile Media Strategies by Irwin Oostindie and April Smith at Fresh Media event at W2 Perel Gallery

October 24, 2009 Leave a comment

W2 Community Media Arts  is hosting Fresh Media festival http://www.freshmedia.me ,  happening right  now at W2 Perel Gallery 112 West Hastings by Abbott in Vancouver

Fresh Media Time Table

 

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Irwin Oostindie and April Smith spoke on Mobile Media Strategies –  and gave a live demonstration on Qik software livestreaming using WIFI on a Nokia N95 cellphone

Mobile Media Workshop

Below is a photo of Irwin Oostindie speaking on different applications with mobile media. Jon Ornoy and Riel of Animal Mother Films together with Peter Davies of AHA MEDIA listen

Jon, Riel, Peter, Irwin

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Below is a photo of April Smith after being livestreamed to play onto Qik’s website on a Mac Book Pro from an Nokia N95

April on Screen

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Below is a photo of April Smith discussing Livestream Video links being embeded into websites with Yuliya Talmazan

April wth Yuliya

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Below is a photo of Anne Marie Slater – Artist/Photographer and Curator of a Children’s Photo/Video Walk exhibit using Cellphone Cameras,

April Smith of W2,

and Gillian Shaw – Digital Life Journalist for the Vancouver Sun Newspaper

Anne Marie, April, Gillian

AHA MEDIA was very proud to speak at Net Tuesday event at CBC ( Canadian Broadcasting Centre ) in Vancouver

September 5, 2009 Leave a comment

AHA MEDIA was very proud to speak at Net Tuesday event at CBC ( Canadian Broadcasting Centre ) in Vancouver on September 1, 2009

Below is a photo of April Smith of AHA MEDIA in the lobby of CBC Vancouver

0 April in CBC lobby

Below is a photo of Peter Davies of AHA MEDIA looking into the Net Tuesday crowd

1 A Peter at CBC room

Below is a photo of April about to walk into the room where other Net Tuesday folks are gathered in a room at CBC

1 April to talk at CBC

Below is a photo of April and Andrew Lavigne hugging upon greeting!  AHA MEDIA is very lucky to have Andrew Lavigne as one of their mentors!  🙂

2 April and Andrew greeting each other at CBC

 Andrew Lavigne is a professional filmmaker and director of a documentary called “With Glowing Hearts” in which AHA MEDIA is one of the featured stories having their journeys into socia media followed and documented for over a year.

“With Glowing Hearts” is a movie where social media is used for social change especially for the folks in the Vancouver Downtown Eastside

Andrew Lavigne says

WGH-is a story about a revolution, one of social change and a paradigm shift in media representation. Vancouver sets the stage, against the backdrop of the 2010 Winter Games, for our documentary about a marginalized community embracing social media tools to empower, inspire and breakdown the digital divide. This is a project that I am directing and is being produced by animalmotherfilms.com. Shot on various capture devices including the Red, the HVX 200, the 5D MkII and the Nokia N77 cellphone. We began shooting Feb/2009 and will continue through March/2010….look for more footage to appear…soon. Enjoy.

You may view “With Glowing Hearts”  trailer on Vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/5401993

 WGH Poster

Below is a photo of Andrew Lavigne placing a wiresless microphone unit on the back of April’s skirt.

3 Andrew putting wireless microphone on April

Below is a photo of April with Kris Krug ( KK), another one of AHA MEDIA’s advisors and mentors 🙂

4 April with KK before speech

Below is a photo of April with Elijah van der Giessen, organizer of Net Tuesday

http://www.meetup.com/Vancouver-social-media-nonprofits-social-change/

4B April with Eli

Below are two photos of April Smith making her presentation. Photos  were taken by Alain Assailly, Journalist of The/La Source newspaper.

5 April Speaking at CBC Broadcast Centre in Vancouver

6 April Speaking 2 at CBC Broadcast Centre

Below is speech made by April Smith of AHA MEDIA  to Net Tuesday group at CBC.

Peter Davies of AHA MEDIA is filming and documenting her presentation.

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Hi Everybody! 🙂

I’m April Smith and I’d like to thank you all for giving me this great opportunity to speak before you here at CBC as many of you usually see me behind a camera filming you  at many of our past events 🙂

I first learned my skills though the Fearless City Mobile Project funded by Heritage Canada and Bell

Fearless City Mobile was DEVELOPED AS a two way RICH MEDIA FILE SHARING SYSTEM for marginalized residents and artists of Vancouver‘s Downtown Eastside.  It’s an interactive communication system that can stream multiple feeds to public live screens. Fearless has been breaking the digital divide for 2 years by empowering locals with mobile technology.  Fearless runs programs and events to support creation of community generated media.

As Fearless City Mobile developed as a social enterprise within W2, which is the new Community Media Arts Centre,  several of us graduates were inspired to keep learning and went on to found a company called AHA MEDIA. This year we will be advancing our business and expanding our networks with the support of W2’s Incubator program and with the broader social media network in the city. 

 We began documenting our further journey into social media by virtue of becoming hyper local, new media citizen journalists reporting on the positive stories of the Downtown Eastside residents.

  We have expanded our repertoire of tools across a broad variety of multimedia storytelling platforms.  In addition to being citizen journalists, we’re also mobile media content producers who use cameraphones to make photos, twitter updates and videos both static and livestreaming for Greater Vancouver area clients, events and organizations.

 We produce rich multimedia content and footage to document, promote and archive any presentation or live event.

 By our work, we’re helping to create social change by using social media to raise awareness of the stories out there for Vancouver.

 In the future, AHA MEDIA will be working with W2, the new Community Media Arts Centre located in the new Woodwards building downtown and more partners in the social media and tech world here in Vancouver 🙂

 I’m very pleased to chat with anyone who may be interested in hiring us for their next project.  Our site is at http://AHAMEDIA.ca and on twitter I’m @AprilFilms , @AHAMEDIA @April

Thanks very much for listening to me 🙂

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7 April after CBC speech

Below is a photo of Alden Habacon, Manager of  Diversity Initiatives at CBC Television

Alden from CBC talking

Below is a photo of April standing with CBC signs

April standing with CBC signs

Below is a photo of April Smith, Alain Assailly and Peter Davies taking an artistic photograph of themselves in a elevator at CBC.

April, Alain, Peter in a CBC elevator

Below is a photo of Alain and April enjoying a sushi dinner with Peter after Net Tuesday at CBC Vancouver 🙂

Sushi dinner after #NetTuesday

Sushi celebration dinner