Providence eyed as hub for digital-media production

BUILT TO SCALE: Digital City Project Manager Taliesin Gilkes-Bower said that R.I.’s “small size is actually an asset” for digital-media production. / PBN PHOTO/DAVID LEVESQUE
BUILT TO SCALE: Digital City Project Manager Taliesin Gilkes-Bower said that R.I.’s “small size is actually an asset” for digital-media production. / PBN PHOTO/DAVID LEVESQUE

Digital City, an initiative aiming to make Providence an international hub for digital media, is soliciting applications from would-be producers and collaborators.
Set to open Feb. 1 in AS220’s Mercantile Block at 131 Washington St., the project got underway with an open house on Nov. 11. Organizers are accepting applications through the end of the month.
Digital City, which could be nonprofit, or possibly a nonprofit/for-profit hybrid, has three facets: the membership-driven workspace, an education component and a long-term goal of developing a digital media design and production center, said Project Manager Taliesin Gilkes-Bower, founder Gary Glassman and Renee Hobbs, professor and founding director of the Harrington School of Communication and Media at the University of Rhode Island.
Interest in networking seemed to dominate among more than 100 open-house visitors, some of whom applied for $75-a-month, part-time slots that allow access without a dedicated workspace. Other membership tiers cost $150 a month for full time and $250 a month for “core” member access with dedicated workspace.
Gilkes-Bower spoke to the open-house crowd at AS220 and said the “co-work” workspace project could accommodate about 22 members.
“I’m really interested in development of the design community,” said Jason Pamental of East Providence, who owns a small Web-design company, H+W, and was considering a membership so he could run workshops here.
Glassman, a filmmaker who runs Providence Pictures, told Providence Business News prior to the open house that The Rhode Island Foundation provided $50,000 in seed money to help get things going. Digital City emerged from the Make It Happen RI initiative launched by foundation.
“The idea was,” he said, “that there are a lot of talented media people here in Providence and Rhode Island, and they’re largely invisible. I was thinking about a way to make them visible. There are many different places where people gather, whether it’s the universities or their individual studios, but there’s no real sense of a center, no one place to come together.” Preventing “brain drain” and the loss of talented graduates from the state’s colleges and universities to jobs beyond state borders is another goal, said Gilkes-Bower and Hobbs.
“Rhode Island’s small size is actually an asset,” Gilkes-Bower said. “You can come up with a plan with five or six stakeholders, meet with all of them, and you might run into them on the street. What people think of as a deficit is actually an incredible value for people trying to get things done here.”
The proposal for Digital City presented to The Rhode Island Foundation identifies digital media as “the language of the Knowledge Economy,” and touts mastery of it as the key to careers in industries as diverse as marketing, e-commerce, manufacturing and animation.
AS220 has partnered with Digital City organizers to create “a showcase,” Glassman said, by leasing space with digital-production amenities that include large format, ink-jet printing, 3-D printers and a print lab, as well as around-the-clock and secure access for storing some types of equipment.
Barry Marshall of Pawtucket attended the open house to see if applying for space is something he might want to do. He has shot some homemade documentaries with a fellow videographer and has a dream of opening up his own video-production studio. He teaches theater at the Moses Brown School, an independent Quaker day school in Providence.
“If this plan is available to us and can help us realize the things we want to do, why not,” he said. •

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3 COMMENTS

  1. I’m delighted to learn about this initiative. This is an excellent development for the Rhode Island creative–and business–community. I want to get involved!

    -Martha DiMeo
    ChromaQueen.com

  2. Trying to reach someone had Digital City via website – Contact form not working. We are an instructional technology company located in Smithfield. While we have office space and class space, I would like to find out more about collaboration. We design, develop and deliver online learning. And our product is made up of a variety of digital media assets ranging from stills to video to 2-D animation and potentially 3-D. Would love to see if there is an opportunity for collaborating with the group. Can someone contact me?