Oregon Movies, A to Z

I asked Vince Porter, the head of  the Governor’s Office of Film & Television, to explain the new blog, Oregon Confluence.

1. What motivated you to set up the new Oregon Confluence website?

The concept behind  the website stems from the belief that we are witnessing a move towards blurring the lines of the media and tech community.  The new buzzword out there is Transmedia – meaning the telling of one story on multiple media platforms.  Essentially all the traditional streams of media are emptying out into the same ocean because the continued advancement of digital technologies and fragmentation of the audience.

In the past we distributed information relating to the film and television industry in Oregon in the form of a newsletter.  Now the information will be distributed in more of a real-time fashion, so it won’t get stale.  We still send out the newsletters but the content is basically a collection of the highlights from the blog.

2. Can you clarify what information I will find on Oregon Confluence that I won’t find on oregonfilm.org?

Everything that used to be posted on our “News” page on the website will now be on the blog.  In addition, we are inviting the various media communities to use the blog as a way to communicate with each other.  What we didn’t want to do is create something with our name and logo on it and then take ownership of all the content.

3. What outcome would you like to see result from the Oregon Confluence website?

That’s a good question and frankly I don’t know what I want the outcome to be.  If it sparked some conversation amongst the different media communities in Oregon, I would consider it a success.  Currently we are still taking the attitude that this site is still in “beta test” mode.  After six months or so we plan to look at how the site is used by the community and determine its usefulness.  I think we’re pretty set on using this blog format as a way to collect information that we use to market the state, but whatever else comes of this site is still to be determined.