Video platform “The digital factory in Les Lilas”

Co-construction, development and transmission of skills for a local video platform designed to promote the productions of the inhabitants

The digital factory in Les Lilas | The digital creations of the inhabitants of Les Lilas.
www.lafabriquenumerique-leslilas.fr

Strategic framework

Within the framework of a 4-year accompaniment by Benoît Labourdette of the Cultural Affairs Department of the City of Les Lilas on digital practices and cultural innovation, one of the work tracks that emerged was the construction of a local video platform, designed to promote the video productions of the inhabitants. At the beginning, these were productions made in the framework of supervised workshops.

The aim of this work was not just to build a website, but to consider its function within the framework of the city’s cultural mediation strategy (of which I also accompanied the redefinition and the tools). Thus, there was the co-construction, the training to empower the agents for the publication, as well as the articulation of this tool with the communication (resumption of the films on the social networks for example).

Responsible hosting of videos

The videos are hosted “locally” (i.e. not hosted on a third party platform, Vimeo or YouTube for example), so this work also participates in the construction of a “digital heritage” of local videos, which facilitates their reuse and future dissemination, to make a link (for example by broadcasting as a pre-programme of films in the city’s cinema, a process facilitated by direct access to video files).

Heritage dimension

Doing this work of public organization of videos and editorialization has also allowed to find videos and to value them. Without the project of this platform, these videos would probably have been lost, or never finalized or diffused. This platform is therefore a real activator of the “territory’s narrative”.

Inscription in the digital context

This platform has a stand-alone domain name (www.lafabriquenumerique-leslilas.fr, which is not a subdomain of the City’s website), but it incorporates the top banner recurring in all City websites, so that it fits seamlessly and legibly into the whole.