NewEnglandFilm.com

One morning each month, a group of artists, armed with a digital camera, gather for coffee, scones, and, inevitably, a whole lot more.

They are New Hampshire Media Makers: bloggers, film enthusiasts, web designers, writers, directors, producers, cartoonists, businesspeople, YouTubers — artists who represent every face of new media. And, hosted by fellow artist-of-all-trades John Herman, they meet at Crackskulls, a Newmarket coffee shop, to share, learn and collaborate.

After attending meetings of artists in New York, Boston and other locations around the country, Herman, a writer, web series creator and teacher, decided five months ago to start one of his own. “There was a void in New Hampshire,” he notes, “a demand among artists for something like this.” In tune to the theme of NH Media Makers, another artist’s innovation inspired Herman’s own endeavor: in order to start his meeting, Herman followed the model of another successful group, spearheaded by fellow New Englander Steve Garfield.

Garfield’s meeting, Boston Media Makers, a popular group that meets monthly in Jamaica Plain, “was really the first of its kind,” comments Herman. Its show-and-tell format was so successful that several similar meetings have branched off in Washington DC, Phoenix and Denver.

And in New Hampshire, the typical meeting promises excitement fueled by artistic enthusiasm and collaboration propelled by business savvy and sheer motivation to tackle new projects.

With about 10 to 15 attendees comprising a typical meeting, the artists are always a mix, from their demographics to their professions to their creative goals. The youngest Media Maker at Herman’s meeting was a high school student who was interested in creating a blog to review science fiction novels; his mom, another attendee, was compiling an online directory for local farmers to sell farm fresh eggs.

“Sometimes a meeting will be full of filmmakers, sometimes there will only be one,” recalls Herman. This rotating nature and constant influx of new faces keeps the focus constantly shifting, illuminating new facets of the world of media.

For the first half hour of the meeting, professionals and amateurs mix and mingle, combining hardened knowledge with fresh inspiration. Then, after breaking the ice, the roundtable session begins: each attendee has the floor for three minutes. “You can talk about your current project, ask questions, or discuss what you’re looking for,” Herman explains, “the atmosphere is very informal.” Once the hour of sharing is over, guests linger to talk and network.

Appropriately, media is also an integral part of the meeting: digital pictures are snapped and uploaded onto the meeting’s website, video is often streamed as well. “The marketing for the meeting is really the meeting itself,” Herman says, speaking directly to the philosophy of his group. The nature of the common interest, media, is conducive to spreading the world. And for regulars who can’t be present at every meeting but want to stay updated, the website is a touchstone.

And the formula works. Since its inception, NH Media Makers has cultivated an array of relationships that have blossomed, producing exciting new projects. Herman rattles them off with the enthusiasm of a matchmaker who has set up a perfect couple, while overflowing with the humility that befits his grassroots networking effort. Through the meeting, a blogger, writer and an artist have gotten together and are now working on a graphic novel; another blogger who reviews horror films has met a filmmaker and the two are now working on a documentary about haunted locales in New Hampshire.

Herman’s father, a business owner and one of the meeting’s oldest attendees, joined forces with a podcaster who will soon be interviewing the elder Herman about the generation gap in new media technology. Herman, himself has also gleaned a new contact from his meeting: he met a web developer who will soon help him to link interactive games to his web series sites.

The monthly meetings also propel the momentum of these projects for the slew of regulars. While for media makers, art is a labor of love, the consistency of a monthly meeting adds a component of urgency to the creative process. “For me, personally,” says Herman, “the meeting motivates me to fast-track projects, to return each month having made progress.”

But an impressive résumé packed full of film credits is not a prerequisite. “Plenty of people come who don’t have any current projects – all they have is interest.” Interest is enough. Herman laughs, “They’re usually a little nervous, but they almost always end up walking away with new ideas.” Newbies inspire others, too, and the casual, open atmosphere of the meeting is conducive to this give and take.

“You might expect that these artists would hold their cards pretty close to their chests in terms of new projects,” offers Herman, but these media innovators do not hoard ideas: in Herman’s experience, “That stereotype is completely wrong.” This noncompetitive, open environment is not only conducive to furthering creativity and cultivating new working relationships, but it makes for a fiery, interactive meeting. “At our meeting, if you don’t want to throw your ideas out there, you’re in the wrong place.”

Whether you’re a media maker hungry for new contacts and projects, or someone who harbors curiosity about the new media wave and you’d like to get involved, you can experience a meeting for yourself. And if neither Garfield’s Boston meeting nor Herman’s Newmarket meeting turns out to be convenient? Herman has a solution. “We get so many messages on our website from people who want us to change the date or host more meetings so that they can come,” he explains, “I say, start your own!”

For more information, visit http://nhmediamakers.wordpress.com/. If you’re located in the Boston area, check out http://bostonmediamakers.wordpress.com/.

Related Image: Blogger Deb McNally attended the August meeting. Photo by Brian Turnbull.