Musicians are banning together in order to promote a Kelowna technology company with a creative twist.
notTV is filming a flash mob film shoot which will take place Saturday, July 8 at 3 p.m. Musicians will perform a one-take wonder of The Beatles’ song With a Little Help from My Friends in honour of the 50th anniversary of the album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
The local entertainers will be dressed in costume and playing a variety of instruments to promote notTV, a company that is part of the Accelerate Okanagan Venture Acceleration Program which is developing an independent Canadian alternative to Netflix that will curate content with a focus on community.
“As a Canadian company, we believe in the value of place,” said founder and CEO Travis Cross. “This country and its people have a lot to offer, and we’re done being overlooked. Place will be an organizing feature of notTV. We’ll start by streaming Canadian-only content, and down the road we’ll make it so you can choose to stream, for example, only music videos from your hometown.”
As a co-operative, subscription-based platform owned and operated by its members, notTV will reward creators with revenues for posting content. Also, as an alternative to traditional media, the platform will allow its members to determine what belongs on notTV and what does not.
notTV has been nine years in the making. The idea for the platform stems from Cross’s desire to have a positive impact by improving the lives of digital media artists, according to a notTV release.
“Cross wants to end the connection between artists and starving,” said spokesperson Lauren Hjalmarson. “I think we can all get behind that. Even those who don’t consider themselves artists have a parent or a sibling who does, so we’ve all seen someone struggling to make it. notTV is meant to end that struggle. It’s meant to broaden artists’ networks and help them make an income from the creative work they do in digital media.”
notTV’s month-long crowd funding campaign launches through Indiegogo July 14. Perks designed to appeal to art enthusiasts will be available in exchange for donations. notTV is also running a music video contest with a $500 prize throughout the month of July. Artists can enter through the website and can earn extra votes by participating in the company’s crowd funding video shoot downtown.