Friday Q&A: DIY Days founder Lance Weiler

Tomorrow more than 27 filmmakers, musicians, game developers, storytellers and tech geeks will speak to patrons gathered at the DIY Days conference, a free event being held at the University of the Arts, to talk about the future of the media entertainment business.
It’s a future that seems uncertain, yet exciting: the struggle and embrace between amateur and professional work. The transformation of storytelling. Creating sustainability in media.
But most importantly: Do-It-Yourself culture. A culture that the event’s founder and organizer Lance Weiler says is as much about doing-it-yourself as it is about community. And perhaps surprising to some, a culture in which technology is deeply ingrained.
Weiler got his break with The Last Broadcast, a low budget horror film that he and a partner cobbled together for next to nothing. The film ended up being the first desktop feature film made with consumer grade video materials, the first movie distributed via satellite, and grossed $4.5 million dollars through the years.
Some believe that the Blair Witch Project might have borrowed a few ideas from the film; both are horror films presented in documentary-narrative style about low-budget filmmakers searching haunted woods who go missing. Except Weiler’s was filmed a year before the latter (and featured Jersey instead of Maryland).
Out of that experience, Weiler learned how to self-distribute, negotiate with broadcasters, and taught himself all sides of the media business.
DIY Days, Weiler’s baby, is the result of a book deal gone bad. On his own volition, that is. Offered the opportunity to write about his self-made success, Weiler decided to create the same resource for folks free online. From that decision evolved the Workbook Project, a content-rich portal for digital creatives. DIY Days is what he considers physical manifestation of WBP.
We’d be lying if we said we weren’t stoked about it. After all, we’re doing it ourselves, too. So, we reached out to Weiler to hear the why’s, how’s and who’s of DIY Days. As it turns out, we don’t have to sell our computers to gain some DIY cred.

Interview edited for length and clarity.
Isn’t DIY just punk rock and zines?
DIY is so inspired by computers it’s unbelievable. I would not be able to do all of the things I’ve been able to do without technology. Scott Bieben believes that scientists are the new rock stars. He really believes that the next wave is going to be in garage science because of processing speeds, connectivity, people being able to access resources. You’re going to have this whole new DIY culture. It’s ironic because do-it-yourself, for me, comes out of a punk rock aesthetic, zines, tour, but some of best examples of DIY involve community, and technology really centerpieces that.
What is the focus of DIY Days?
The idea is to look at bridging the gap between technology and entertainment. Similar to how open source software has opened the door to amateurs and professionals working together to build code, maintain code and in the process create new business models.
I believe we’re moving into an age of open creativity. Authorship is changing. Because of the democratization of the tools, it’s much easier for people to create than ever before. It challenges the roles of authorship. We’re at a point in the industry where there’s a lot of questions about what is amateur and what is professional. DIY Days look at changes in the industry to say how can folks in music, film, creative and software be able to fund, create, distribute and sustain.
Are you worried about those amateurs taking your professional work?
I’m not afraid of that. I’m excited about that proposition. I’m interested in blurring those lines. I don’t call myself a film maker; I feel like a story architect. How do I tell a story across multiple screens, multiple devices. It’s not necessarily the concern that someone will take your lunch. The concern is how can you start to tell stories for the 21st century.
What’s your Philly connection?
I make all my work in and around the Philadelphia area. I know a lot of people in different creative disciplines and saw that their problems were similar. Philadelphia is really ripe for this and if we can do anything like we’ve done in different cities, it will be a lightning rod that helps to stimulate discussion and stimulate creative currency. Thats’ really exciting to me. It’s the biggest event we’ve done yet.
Who can we expect at DIY Days?
Some speakers from the West Coast, some from the New England area. We have a large number of people coming from New York and Philly. The keynote is Douglas Rushkoff. He’s not only a documentary filmmaker but an accomplished author. He has a really great new book called Life Inc., which is a natural fit. The book is kind of interesting because it’s about how corporate culture has taken a hold of many parts of our lives, and in this global downturn it’s an opportunity to take some of that stuff back.
How is the city represented?
We’re hosting a town hall with Geoff DiMasi, Gretchen Clausing [of Philadelphia Community Access Coalition], Allan Edmunds [of Brandywine Workshop], John Henry Thompson [formerly of Macromedia]. The gist is that this is all great, we’ve talked about this stuff, now how do we apply it, how does it relate to Philadelphia and how can we make the city better? How can we enrich our creative communities and stimulate new economic growth in the creative sector?
What makes you Technically Philly?
There’s so many ways I could answer that. My underlying desire to push certain things, connect people in Philadelphia from different creative communities. I could say the usual things – I love Tastykakes. I remember the parade for the 1980 World Series. Also just my love of the city. There are certain things I can’t get enough of.
Every Friday, Technically Philly brings an interview with a leader or innovator in Philadelphia’s technology community. See others here.