Last week, students at New York Film Academy’s Los Angeles campus spent an evening with Quincy Jones, III and Sal Siino, co-founders of the exciting new Internet media company, WeMash.
WeMash provides a cloud-based platform that provides users access to world-famous, top-quality content (studio blockbusters, television series, news footage, sports coverage, documentaries, music and more). The users repurpose and edit the existing content to create brand new works for distribution.
Quincy brings almost three decades of producing top-selling Rap and R&B albums, as well as documentaries about the music industry’s most famous artists. Sal brings twenty years of experience leading content-based media companies and as a transactional attorney. With their reputations in the entertainment industry, they’ve been able to secure licensing deals with the likes of NBCUniversal, BMG, Reuters, Downtown Music, America’s Funniest Home Videos, and a long list of independent content owners. Their rapidly expanding library already contains over 100,000 hours of video and music.
WeMash users have unique access to this material (which is meta-tagged for easy search, preview and retrieval), and share in advertising revenue generated by their new creations. The WeMash creator platform is currently in an invitation-only access phase, with broad access expected later in 2016. During the Q&A, Sal and Quincy announced a great opportunity for NYFA students to apply for early creator status during this preliminary rollout.
“WeMash is excited to connect young talent with the world’s most celebrated content so they can re-imagine content beyond its original context, and we’re thrilled to invite NYFA students on to the WeMash creator platform,” Sal told Sonny Calderon, Dean of the College at New York Film Academy.
Quincy added, “As a music producer in the early days of hip-hop, I had a unique vantage point into the proliferation of music sampling. I see the same movement happening in video today. Mash-ups are the video equivalent to sampling, and we are set for the next explosion in this art form.”
After moderating the Q&A, Sonny Calderon reflected on the opportunities sites like WeMash can afford up-and-coming visual storytellers: “In today’s climate, all visual storytellers—actors, writers, directors, animators, and others—must create a brand for themselves. And they must generate awareness of that brand. Who are you as a storyteller? What are you capable of creating? WeMash gives artists a free opportunity to help create that brand awareness.”
New York Film Academy is grateful for the chance to partner with WeMash, and eagerly awaits what our students will create on the site.