Reinvention

Wondering how AIR's national production evolved from a blue-sky idea to the ten evocative multimedia projects now animating public stations across the country? Grab a bucket of popcorn and lean back to watch This is Localore.

Filmmaker Josh Banville directed and edited this half-hour documentary stepping us behind the curtain with the producer-station teams—revealing how they have taken big risks to lead projects that grab the attention of communities across broadcast, digital and street platforms.

Early reviews of Localore.net have begun rolling in: fantastic transmedia voyages...very cool...beautiful...the new Localore site's going to blow your top.

Don't miss a chance to see AIR's revolutionary national production for yourself. Starting Saturday, Localore producers will hit the road to share what they've created and learned:

On April 22, AIR will present the full scope of its national Localore production with the launch of a new metasite and a public screening at Boston’s Brattle Theatre.

Today, Act III of Localore interactive documentary Reinvention Stories launches. A co-production of award-winning filmmakers Juila Reichert and Steven Bognar, Dayton-based public radio station WYSO and AIR, the site was created in collaboration with interactive storytelling team Zeega.

AIR's national Localore production team flocks to the east coast in April for a series of important events. We hope you'll come meet the producers and stations behind the revolutionary work being launched across the country.

In NYC on April 20? Come mingle with AIR's national production team at MEGAPOLIS Celebrates Localore: The After Party.

During the day of April 20th the Tribeca Film Festival spotlights all ten Localore productions as part of an exciting celebration of new, groundbreaking digital storytelling work. That night, the party at DROM will bring together Locolore participants and MEGAPOLIS attendees for a night of music, dancing, and merrymaking.

"I think the difficulty is having faith that there is another chapter," says London, the owner of newly opened Dayton-based boutique Peace on Fifth. "My faith is thin."

Act 2 of Reinvention Stories—the Localore interactive documentary co-produced by Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar, AIR and Zeega at WYSO—finds London and several other locals struggling to remake their lives...but also offers hopeful indications in a series of short interactive vignettes, and a call for participants to share their own signs of optimism.

Growing up in Dayton, "The neighborhood is what saved me," says Carol Coffey, "because I had this front door I could go out." To escape a home roiled by drinking and fighting, she just kept going—first to a machine shop job, and then to married life in the suburbs—but never quite felt like she fit in. Drawn back in after a friend brought her to a music festival, Carol now lives in the historic South Park neighborhood. "There was so much more life in the city than there was in suburbia," she says.

Today, AIR and ITVS announced a partnership that will add fuel to AIR's producer-led teams at public radio and TV stations. 

As the Localore production cycle winds down, ITVS has invited the teams to apply for one more year of funding through their LINCS initiative (Linking Independents and Co-producing Stations). Those selected by ITVS will continue their groundbreaking projects, with AIR serving an advisory role. 

"I think Dayton was kind of hungry for something like this," says Maureen Barry, the membership director for Fifth Street Brewpub. Ohio's first brewpub co-op, and only the second in the nation, Fifth Street will open this year. The couple worked with neighbors who chipped in to give new life to a failed bar that had become an eyesore.

Producers at WYSO interviewed Barry and the pub's board president Brian Young for the first in a weekly series of paired audio and video pieces that began today. The series documents how locals are finding ways to reinvigorate a region hit hard by recession and outsourcing. Listen to the companion radio story on WYSO's site.