Aymar Jean Christian Says Hollywood Is Inefficient And Discriminatory
Founder, OTV | Open Television
Aymar Jean Christian is a scholar, media producer, and social practice artist exploring the convergence of television, video art, and creative R&D (research and development).
What are you trying to change in your industry and why?
Hollywood is inefficient and discriminatory. They are unable to develop a labor supply for television and film artists that is representative of the country. I’m trying to change that because I think TV and film are better when there’s diversity behind the camera.
Aymar Jean Christian
Currently an associate professor of communication at Northwestern University, Dr. Christian uses artistic development as a tool for community-building, cultural critique, and experimentation. For 10 years he has explored how the internet transformed the art of television and expanded cultural representation in media.
His book Open TV: Innovation Beyond Hollywood and the Rise of Web Television (NYU Press, 2018) argues the web brought innovation to television by opening the development process to indie producers like Issa Rae, Abbi Jacobson, Ilana Glazer, Ingrid Jungermann and Desiree Akhavan, among over 100 artists interviewed. He documents the changing market for television across popular and academic publications: on his blog, Televisual; in academic journals, including International Journal of Communication, Continuum, and Transformative Works & Culture; and for trade publications Indiewire, Slate, and Tubefilter, among others.
Based on this research Dr. Christian started OTV | Open Television, a platform Chicago-based intersectional television. OTV produces and exhibits indie TV and video art both online and in Chicago. OTV advances organic, sustainable, local, digital, artist- and community-driven TV through research and development. Christian uses creative R&D to engage the local community through workshops and screenings; the art world through museums and galleries; tech through auditing social media platforms; and Hollywood through series development. The project has received recognition from HBO, the Emmys, Tribeca Film Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Streamy and Gotham Awards, among others. For his work on OTV Dr. Christian has been recognized by Filmmaker magazine and New City as a film leader and innovator.
Dr. Christian has served as a curator and judge of leading award shows and festivals, including the Peabody Awards, Gotham Awards, Project Greenlight Digital Studios, Tribeca Film Festival, Outfest, Streamy Awards, IAWTV Awards, and Satellite Awards. During his doctoral studies, Christian worked as an education fellow for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, running the Film@Perelman short film series and lecturing on film as part of its educational programming.
During his Ph.D. studies, his blog Televisual‘s directories of black, LGBT, Latino and Asian American web series were among the few and most comprehensive available. His 2013 Indie TV Innovation series featured articles from Emmy-winning producers and rising indie creators developing programs for networks like the HBO, CW, and Comedy Central. Televisual has been linked to by The Atlantic, Gawker, and MSN, to name a few. Christian has offered media commentary on topics from web TV, film, race, and sexuality for The New York Times, Reuters, Slate, The BIO Channel, and NPR, among others.
Why do you do what you do?
My practice is focused on what value we might create by centering the most marginalized. I aim to expand creative development to people who claim multiple, disempowered identities or communities that, and support their development through research and community-based engagement.
What got you into your line of work?
I discovered YouTube soon after Google (now, Alphabet) purchased it and was blown away by the power for independent creators to tell their stories to a potentially global fan base. I got into TV development by following indie creators and their careers, tracking how they used the open web to innovate and break into a closed legacy system. Seeing room improvement both in terms of diversity but also production and distribution value in the indie space, I started OTV to share what I had learned and learn from creators. Artists have always been innovators, but they also benefit from some structure and support.
What is the hardest part of being a working professional?
Time management, which affects relationship and resource management, and access to capital.
What are the 5 tips you would like to share?
Be kind, generous, humble, respectful and curious. If you find yourself shutting off, not responding to, or disrespecting people because you don’t view them as valuable, ask yourself why and how you could be wrong.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Support local and indie creators! We have to view our cultural ecosystem like our environment: consume sustainably and responsibly. Diverse, local work is more organic. Visit weareo.tv or @weareotv. We’re showing you how it’s done.
