When Tuesday's Nova special, "Car of the Future," rolls its end credits, don't expect the story to end there. In a television first, PBS and Nova have decided to post 240 clips of interviews from the show online for anyone to use within their own projects. The clips, which include content that aired as well as some that didn't, will be released under a Creative Commons license.
"This is definitely an experiment for us," says Lauren Aguirre, executive editor of Nova Online. "But it's a great fit for public broadcasting because it's a chance for us to give the material back."
The online footage includes uninterrupted interviews with hard-to-track-down engineers such as Lee Lynd of Mascoma, who is working on cellulosic ethanol; Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, who is developing an ultralight and virtually indestructible full-size "green" car; Andy Frank of the University of California at Davis, whose lab has developed a hybrid vehicle that plugs in to an ordinary electrical outlet; and Martin Eberhard, founder of Tesla Motors, who's made a superluxe battery-powered car that can travel 250 miles on one charge.
Viewers can also download 30 scenic clips of alternative cars, hydrothermal vents and smoke stacks, but they won't be able to use footage of show hosts Tom and Ray Magliozzi from NPR's Car Talk (pictured above) -- Click and Clack's union put the kibosh on that.
Nova producers ask that anyone who uses the footage for their own projects send them a link to the finished video so they can highlight the best ones on the Nova site.
"Car of the Future" is Nova's first attempt using its new "open production" formula. The entire creation of the one-hour show involved viewers who would then watch the end result. The public could preview the show's script online and then e-mail their thoughts (Nova received more than 900 missives), along with questions or topics they thought the producers had missed.
While a lot of the e-mails were far out, many had points that the producers hadn't thought about. Some of the questions people raised were then brought up to the panel of experts Nova interviewed for the show.
"The comments were very useful," says Joe Seamans, producer of "Car of the Future." "I could get a sense of what they found interesting and problematic. It was a great filter."
The open-source development of the show didn't change the producer's methodology but, "it added a dimension to it," Seamans said. "It was exciting to see that there are people who are really interested in this subject and they're not just insane bloggers."
There are no plans yet for using open production for any other shows, but if this experiment proves fruitful you can expect PBS to upload more and more for the masses to use.
Photo courtesy Joe Seamans
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