Good morning. I'm very excited to be here today My body is convinced. It's still 3 a.m. In Los Angeles. So if I yawn, excuse me, it's been a long couple weeks So as I said, my name is Gabe. I'm the CEO of What is now called Huffington Post riot? We are acquired a couple weeks ago by Huffington Post and AOL which I'll talk about a little bit

But I wanted to start first by talking about a story Um That kind of spurred me to keep doing the work that we're doing and explains a little bit about What riot does and why we do what we do? So I graduated college, which is now quite a while ago and had no idea what I was doing. I

Had about ten different jobs. I think I was a moving man a ranch hand. I cooked Mexican food I was like a bad poet. I did a lot of things that were not very interesting and none of them really stuck and 2007 came across In the United States and an old professor from college decided to run for president

Which was Barack Obama and I was like, oh, I should try my hand at this. This sounds kind of interesting So I hopped on the Obama campaign No idea what was what I was doing and kind of as my mom joked at the time it was kind of like joining the circus where you just kind of show up and and do all these different things and It was it was an interesting experience. It was it was fun and it didn't really

Get to me until a certain point where I was in Texas I was in eastern, Texas In this town called Tyler, Texas, and we were having the primaries and caucuses there And a long story short this woman came in who had never voted before never participated in an election

And she came and said I want to help him like, okay great like you can make some phone calls You can you know show up here and do that and she was like, okay She came back the next day and said what else can I do like? Oh great You can go knock on some doors and talk to some voters and she came back every day for a couple weeks and just kept Asking to do more and more and it turns out she was you know, a single mom

I think she had three kids. She was working at a fast-food restaurant to pay her bills You know barely surviving and she was taking all her free time to come and and do this and to participate in this election and It turned out she ended up being what you know going and kind of helping run this voting site and in the US We have these kind of strange primary caucus election things that I'm sure some of you know about where

Sometimes you go and just vote and sometimes you go and like sit in a room like this and literally move around which way you're going and like if you're voting for Hillary Clinton you go over there and Bernie Sanders you stand over there and This woman ended up in this tiny Baptist Church. I remember was like up this little dirt road outside of town and

She called me from their caucus site and said they're trying to steal the election I was like, what are you talking about? They're trying to steal elections. She's like no, no like they're they're like, they're they're changing the rules They're saying we don't have more there's like 40 of us and like four of them, but they're cheating And so we're doing a sit-in And it was this crazy thing. I was like, okay I'll get on the car and I drove up there and I walked in this tiny southern church

In the middle of the woods and there were like literally, you know, 45 African Americans sitting on the ground with their arms linked just refusing to let the Caucus go forward and there's these like four older white people sitting over there being like no no

We're doing it this way And I remember I walked up to her and she said, you know The rules here say that if we have more we can keep going and they're say they're gonna call the police They're saying we're gonna do all stuff. But like if these are right, right and I was like, yeah Yeah, and she's like, okay, and she stood up and she said no we're doing this and from that moment

Seeing the power of that little bit of information So change someone's how they saw their role I was like, oh I'm gonna do this forever I'm gonna I'm gonna be a political organizer. This is amazing So I tell that story to start off a little bit by talking about what riot does So we're an immersive media company. We make documentary films

We run a news website and then we've branched out and doing are doing a lot of virtual reality and 360 video and we do it Because Not because we think like the content matters to us and we're very interested in the content in and of itself We're also doing it to actually activate change and we are started by

Humanitarians political organizers. We're not really Journalists in the traditional sense we're folks who decided that there has to be a new language and a new way to tell stories It activates people to change that makes them actually feel empowered as opposed to disempowered And I think you can spend a lot of time reading the news. I mean, I'm a news junkie I love it, but not really knowing what you can do to help what you can do to help change the world or participate in it

And we're really inspired by this MLK quote, which is a riot is the language of the unheard this notion that When there's no other way To actually get your your voice out there. You have to start a riot. And so that's what we've done

So what riot does is we're trying to change both kind of how you change stories how news is told What's considered important and then we've spent a lot of time in the past couple years working on who's actually getting to tell the stories And so for us that means Making sure we're getting cameras in the hands of people all over the world who aren't traditionally ones who are telling stories

And so we talked about us like fewer people like me making films and more people like these Alaskan natives who we gave an iPhone to and said hey make a film we've made Five six films all based on iPhones We have 30 40 filmmakers around the world who we've just equipped with these little tiny iPhones who are out there shooting their

Experiences what they're doing and I think what what's important to us is again It's who gets to tell these stories and that the changes is is both Who's making them who's telling them what those stories are and making sure that they're always humanized, right? There's there's a lot There's all these stories out there and you it's so easy to get stuck on the stories that are kind of these big numbers of

Things and these big world issues and we always focus on those the human level It's like as a human person-to-person What story can you tell that does that we had a film last year that was nominated for an Academy Award? About this wonderful named Garmai who was on the body teams for the Ebola outbreak and for us

It was again Can you tell a story that's just about her and her experience and and what what does that look like? And I think the other thing is like learning learning to listen as well. So it's an education In how we're choosing to say what stories matter and how they matter and learning to listen to different stories because the Conventions of how we're telling stories and this is certainly for 360 in VR

like we're used to certain stories that are packaged a certain way that look a certain way and I think the more we've worked with Filmmakers and journalists around the world. It's actually learning to bend ourselves and be like more comfortable saying Oh, they're their way of telling a story is just as important even if it looks different

And So with that we get into what we're very excited about which is like the democratization of all this the idea that a cell phone I mean this this kid sitting here with a cell phone has the power to publish has the power to take images to make Films to talk to the whole world and a few years ago They didn't have that and so suddenly that cell phone is as powerful as a news fan was a decade ago or five years ago

And you can sit there and you can be in the middle of anywhere in the world and go onto Facebook Live and suddenly talk to people and that's really exciting and the technology to do that is very exciting and the technology to do that with 360 and virtual reality also very exciting We for a long time wanted to shoot in VR and weren't able to because the cameras were incredibly bulky and you'd have a camera

operator and we're kind of incredibly cheap and send out these tiny crews of one or two people and Last year finally, you know They started making these GoPros that were in 3d printed cases and we took one to Nepal the day after the earthquake and made one

of our first pieces there and Again with that it's the democratization of who's gonna be able to tell these stories and how do you get out there and do That and so what we get excited about this is anyone can do it Those that barrier to entry is removed and and it's yeah and that so this brings us to

Yeah, the 360 and how we're doing that we branched in the 360 I said Partially because again these tools and the technology is exciting. I get excited by it. It's fun. We geek out on it It's not nearly as cool as how we're choosing to use these tools And I think for us the big thing and what we focus on going forward is it's great

These things exist But we actually have a responsibility of how we're using them and how we choose to use them and all of these tools aren't necessarily Inherently good, you know these new cameras and the new iPhone is like it's it's neat in and of itself But are we saying and are we demanding that the stories were telling the media were creating the content that we're making actually

Has this has has a right to say we we need it to be more important and by that It's like it's not window dressing. I think a lot of times people say like oh you guys are in the good space you make stuff that's like, you know feel good or you making it for an NGO or working with an NGO and And I think it's it's more important to step back and say

There's a real need that we're doing this and it's not it's not just kind of fluffy at the end Actually, when you look at the world you look at the biggest issues we have whether it's the refugee crisis whether it's climate change The ability to connect people and tell those stories and have people kind of lower their guards is what I think

Is gonna help save us and help move us forward as a planet and without doing that It's very easy to have the same old storylines and the same barriers pop up That make it really hard to engage with people and get to know them. It's very hard to kind of look at someone who you've seen for 20 minutes in a film or

Spend a day a day with in a virtual reality space Watching a young girl go to school and seeing what it takes to actually make it You know walk five miles to school each day to not kind of open your heart to them and feel Compassionate to them and so and then they talk about that. It's a lot about empathy. This is a film we made

About this wonderful woman was a climber in Nepal also on an iPhone And it's the idea that she's able to were able to tell stories on iPhones In ways that you know used to take 20 40 100 thousand dollars of equipment to do

This is a film we made in Aleppo. So we took a 360 camera And a very brave journalist and he went to Aleppo last year and kind of filmed what it was like to really be in Syria To see what it's like to be on those streets as the kind of country is destroyed around you

360 in VR, I think you know and there's a lot of excitement about it We've focused hugely on just making a ton of it. Some of it's good. Some of it's not so good You know you try your best and make what you can but the idea is, you know Both that can get you there and shift your perspective and I think for us It's also very important that that it it is still an evolving story tool

Excuse me, and it can and it can you know, it changed it gets you there the best of it it's It's also and something we're pushing hugely on now is it's not just about the headset experiences for us

The headset is an amazing experience. It's very interesting I love it but it's also what you can do on your phone and I think a mobile first approach to 360 video is Incredibly important because all of you I imagine have cell phones in your pockets that are all now 360 enabled and we can be out in a mass audience and distributed and

Even six months ago that wasn't true, but now with Facebook 360 and YouTube 360 It's there and we all have the power to do that And so getting people to these places whether to disaster zones to war zones is now easier and you can actually take people there You can show them those stories and it's critical that we start to do that more and more as this stuff pops up

This is my friend Mehar. He's a really good guy. And this is actually a few hours after I met him. I was in Serbia Croatia last fall Doing reporting on the refugee crisis in Mehar and that's his cousin Mohammed and that's Saleh are all Syrian refugees who were walking across the border

Before they are settled in Vienna and I handed him that iPhone and I was like, hey, you know you can play with this Five months later Mehar has made a whole documentary. He kept the iPhone He he recorded something like you know like 300 hours of his life and their life as they settled in Vienna from

Getting their residency cards to cooking an omelet to getting their hair cut this kind of very intimate portrait of What it was like to settle down. He's 25 26 years old one of millions but someone who was able through just you know, just having a phone and access to that to tell his own story and

And I think speaks to when we're talking about the power of democratization It's getting these tools in the right hands and deciding what's what's what what's important. So his film is almost done It's coming out in a few weeks. It's very exciting But it's simply as simple as that

This is Nepal and again when we talk about getting people to a site This is a 360 film that I was saying we made there What's it like to be in a disaster zone? If if we're thinking and this is again where I get back to where I started with the notion of participation We're not we're our whole thing is we're kind of activists

I use that term lightly but like we want people to take action I don't I don't want someone just to say oh I read that article That was really interesting or even just to say oh I experienced that I have empathy for them Empathy is is is a wonderful thing and a wonderful feeling but it's not actually gonna get us where we need to go

We need people to take certain kinds of action And so with something like this and taking people to Nepal The goal is both to have them have that reaction to have that emotional connection and then also to do something whether that's taking out Their wallet and making a donation Or sharing it so that other folks can see it or Choosing to do something in their hometown

That involves being active all of the content that we create is meant to take it further that next step As opposed to just view it and that's not enough This is a film that we made in Alaska with the Sierra Club. That's about climate change And the whole idea is is you know, can you see these glaciers?

Can you experience what it's like to be standing as these glaciers recede? And then can you do something about it? Can you actually say there's you know? There's something I can do and I have a clear ask and I know what that looks like And then as I wrap up and I guess we'll take some questions, um, this is just a bunch of other stuff I want to talk a bit about as I wrap up like the notion of content living everywhere and our whole idea and

Was part of what we're doing next Hopefully with having to post is this notion that because we because we're there and the way we think about ourselves Whether it's right or wrong, I don't know. It's like that we're making stuff that was is trying to get people to do things We want it to be everywhere. We want it to be ubiquitous. We want to be on every platform and be platform agnostic

And the more eyeballs the better we think of it kind of is like we're infiltrating, you know It's like if you can make it palatable enough and make it cool enough looking Then all of a sudden it can kind of be comfortable in people's living rooms and on the cell phones of people around the world

And so that is our goal going forward of more action more content that kind of makes you feel a certain way Made by more people and truly democratized in the sense that there shouldn't be so many gatekeepers saying This counts and this doesn't count or this is film is worthy of this because it's shot on this Those rules kind of shouldn't apply anymore And if some young kid in Haiti or Rwanda can have a $400 Ricoh theta handheld 360

They're gonna make a film that's just as good as what we can make right now and what someone else spending a million dollars can make And having a way to get that out to the world is actually the important next step So with that, I think I'll take questions if there are any it would be great

Hello. Thank you. My name is Mika Nachukoa. I'm a documentary producer and I have two questions actually one is

How long are the films that you're making? And second There have been like many dog labs where there's immersive showrooms and My experiences that with documentary filmmaking. It's more about the stories

then and an immersive Filmmaking is rather about the immersion So at the end of the day it's about the story Could you comment on that? Yeah, I think I'll try to I think in terms of

The documentaries that we make the linear docs not the 360 virtual reality ones We make we make all sorts we make, you know full-length feature ones We are our sweet spot actually tends to be about 10 to 20 minutes and we're we are very big with very short documentaries because we think that

You can make them you can you can make 20 of them in the time It takes you to make one feature. It's not saying that that's better I think for us it just fits more with what we're excited about and and works I think in terms of the immersive stuff. I want to be clear like we The technology of 360 of VR is interesting But like as soon as AR gets better like we'll be telling stories with that

So to your point it is about the ability to tell stories in new ways That is the exciting thing to us more than the technology in and of itself And I think that you know, the fun part is it's not it's not written yet You know who's there, you know, I saw a film that some friends made recently in in in Burma Myanmar

That was in VR that to me was the best Documentary I've seen in 360 because of some things that they were doing. It's a it's a wide open field No one's like the you know cracked it It's fun to wake up every day and get to try to be part of you know A bigger group of people all over the world writing this language

But there's a lot of room to experiment and and the stories still have to matter I think that you you don't get that feeling just If they're just kind of poverty porn or disaster porn postcards It's not eliciting the same response as if you're actually telling a story that's deeper And that's the challenge and making any kind of content the fact that you're making it something real that's valuable. That's nutritious

That's not just candy. I think it goes both ways whether you're making an action film or you're making a documentary Thank you, very interesting what you're doing one question, how do you find your audience? I understand you're not in the business of doing viral videos. So

And the topics are quite heavy so how do you find the audience is riot such a strong label that everybody wants to see the new riot documentary or Where do they come from? Yeah, that's a great question Um, I think you know, we spent we spent a few years building up our own audience

So we have a distributed model between our website our Facebook Everyone should go on Facebook and like us where we publish a lot of things you to what have you? So we've really worked to build up that brand and and that thing in this next phase what we're excited about with Huffington Post As kind of partnering up with them is that we're going to be able to use their audience and their broad reach as well

As AOL's to get these stories out I think it's also like we're trying to tell these stories in a way that it is heavy stuff But making it palatable and digestible so it's not viral Although we've done, you know to build our audience. We certainly made our fair share of like horrible viral content

Which we're now happily not doing but it's like everyone else There's a fight and how do you do it and how good how it gets out there? I think We're we've been excited to see those platform shifts and with 360 There's a lot of room out there just for content creators and and there there isn't enough content yet

That's happening in the 360 VR space at the at that kind of 360 video level So there's an appetite for it, which is great. I hope I Wonder what what what type of revenue streams do you have? Would you would you want to tell us something about huge huge revenue streams?

Does advertising play a role or do you focus on selling the films to platforms and if the letter which platforms would that be? Does TV play a role? Yeah, so what we have in terms of revenue is we have a creative a creative brand studio And so whether it's a nonprofit and or an NGO that we work with or a different brand

We make stuff for them and that keeps the lights on sometimes And yeah, so it's it's less the advertising and I think when we've seen especially as it's gone to the distributed model with Needing to publish on snapchat and even publish here and there It makes more sense to make that stuff and and and then use the money to tell stories like that. We want to tell

Hi, I was wondering to what percentage or to what degree the people who? Record the stuff out there To which degree they are included in the final product of the movies cost for now, I am understanding that

somebody in Nepal records that and sends the material over to you guys and your editor team basically Makes a movie out of it. So how much are these people involved in the final product? It depends

some of Some of the stuff that people are shooting it and editing it and sending it to us and we and we package it just as it Is in the kind of film some of that like with mehar if you ask him he has Tons of notes every day about what gets in and what doesn't get in and they also have the ability with a lot of

These folks in a different way to they choose when they turn the camera on, you know You can work with them and you can work to produce it But it there's there's a nice line there and we spend a lot of time making sure that it's not just the content has a certain appeal to it, but how we make it matters as a kind of form of social practice whether we're

We're there on the ground or we're going into a place to do it So much of making stuff like this can be feel very extractive and we work really hard to make sure that it's we're not operating like that It completely depends on the project. I think that one of the things we're excited right now We're building up is really making sure you know, really looking around the world to build up a large

Network of 360 shooters to tell news and to tell it quickly so if there are any 360 operators out there come talk to me and That's very exciting to us because you know that gets the ability to do it quick early and make it but also like any freelance network You know, we're gonna we're gonna shape some of it and like as I said, like we're biased we have opinions

We're pushing an agenda like very much So we we don't we don't play by that You know, we don't have those same standard rules of journalism. Like we've decided and not that those are wrong for us We're trying to accomplish something and we're very clear with that. That's what we're trying to do

Hello, my name is Norbert I'm very much into new media and new forms of journalism but and I'm I'm honest, I've never heard about right before but I Know I've read a lot of times Huffington Post I read and don't do it anymore

because I'm curious about I've got a very name it old-fashioned view of the of of being a journalist and Could you comment on how you see yourself in In a role of someone who is responsible who's not only telling stories, but who's responsible on how?

Your stories or the stories you publish the film have an impact on the society I will try to answer that

I mean, I think making anything or existing in the world you have a responsibility of kind of how your actions And who you are ripples throughout the world So part of that is at the end of the day a personal set of values that you that you govern your actions by Whether you're baking cakes or you're a schoolteacher or a cab driver. There's some responsibility. I think in media. There's certainly more

If you're trying to push things out, but yeah I mean, I think that's where I say like we're upfront about what we're trying to accomplish You know if we're going out and making a film about Ebola and trying to raise money for an orphanage Like we're telling you what we're doing. It's pretty it's pretty clear and pretty straightforward

So the responsibility I think you know it's both in the micro decisions that you make in terms of making content What it looks like I don't think that In old-school journalism there's necessarily And I don't mean this as a knock. It's always hard. It's always ends up in these things where you're like beating up Journalists and like that's never the goal

Like they make a lot of decisions. They never record right if you're going to a story There's all the decisions. They make getting up to the moment where they're interviewing somebody I think with documentary film which is mostly the kind of approach that we use versus traditional kind of news journalism There's you know there's more latitude to play with there, but we're not any more

Yeah, I don't think we have more responsibility than than they do I don't know if that answer that I don't think that answer your question at all But I think any I think whatever you're doing it matters how you do it, so you should be nice To people so Gabriel, thank you very much. Thank you. That's it. Thank you