Northwestern is a factious place by nature. It is a university divided into journalists and musicians, thespians and engineers, on-campus and off-campus, north campus and south campus, greeks and non-greeks, athletes and non-athletes. All very impressive, hard working, and focused.

Consequently, students are often unaware of what goes on among the student body outside of their own niche. Even the most talented people, engaged in very creative endeavors, often get overlooked. Because of this, many deserving of greater attention do not receive it, and people with compatible interests and talents do not meet and connect.

But all that could be changing. It took a little creativity itself, but the people at Massive.tv may have figured out how to present creativity around campus. Their venture is a multimedia website that aggregates profiles on all sorts of inventive students.

Executive Producer Byron Ashley, a junior majoring in economics and RTVF, describes it as “a platform for delivering profiles on the most creative and talented people at Northwestern, and using talented people to make that happen.”

Massive.tv picks their subjects both by scouting out talent and reviewing applications from students. Founder Ben Millstein, a junior RTVF major, was keen on noting that the site does not limit itself to musical artists or any other genre of creativity.

“Creativity comes in all shapes and sizes,” said Millstein. “So we profile not only artists, but entrepreneurs and other innovators as well.”

Massive.tv Founder Ben Millstein

After choosing a subject, a crew of 7-10 people produces a three minute documentary video, photo shoot, question and answer session, and journalism-style feature on the student. Finally, the four-pronged profile is published on the website. All this is done over a three week period.

However, to an extent this is more vision than reality. Massive.tv was launched only last school year and the venture is still being molded in many ways. Still, Millstein holds that Massive’s big splash is imminent, driven by enthusiasm and huge growth in membership, which now totals almost 100.

“Students at Northwestern are very excited about about Massive because they fundamentally understand that something like this is necessary at Northwestern,” Millstein said. “I don’t have to pitch the idea for more than 30 seconds anymore to get a positive response from people.”

While it may be easy for Millstein to attract members now that the foundation for the site is there, it wasn’t always that way. Ashley recalled Millstein’s perseverance and enthusiasm when initially trying to recruit him.

“Ben was constantly showing me his idea sophomore year and in May asked me to help construct the idea.”

Finally, Ashley “sat down and wrote a 12-page single-spaced document about the day-to-day operations” of the would-be organization, “and decided to become executive producer.”

Millstein has been working with the idea of Massive.tv since high school. Having interned for media and entertainment companies, he recognized that the model for promoting talent is inefficient and outdated. The emergence of the Internet posed an opportunity for talent to be aggregated on a website in a professional way.

“There is an information overload from the internet and modern media,” Millstein observed. “The public needs people to sift through it all and disseminate it in a meaningful way…without ulterior motives.”

When Millstein came to Northwestern, his idea continued to grow. He spent his freshman year in Medill which he insists was “essential to his education” and “taught him a very principled method of storytelling.” Obviously, his time in RTVF classes taught him another set of relevant practical skills. But Millstein’s most important experience at Northwestern was simply as a student and observer of campus life.

Millstein holds that “because the campus is big and the population is diverse a lot of the things going on in the community–at the grassroots–get overlooked.” His answer to this problem? “Students should be responsible for trying to discover undergraduate talent.”

Others had a large role in developing the idea, too. Millstein cites his time at STITCH, a fashion magazine at Northwestern, as integral in showing him “creative discipline.” A former editor there, Matthew Alfonso, particularly helped him shape the idea. Alfonso showed Millstein the website CreativeControl.tv. Created by Damon Dash, a co-founder of Rock-A-Fella Records, Creative Control similarly aggregates “music videos, lifestyle documentation,” and other profiles on burgeoning creative people.

Massive.tv

After being shown the website by Alfonso, Millstein chose to work for Creative Control during the summer following his sophomore year. There he learned not just the vision of the website but the intricate process as well. For instance, Creative Control uses the Cannon 5D Mark II cameras which are crucial to what both it and Massive.tv do.

According to Millstein, the 5D Mark II is a digital photocamera “that takes amazing HD video and saves it right to a digital hard drive, which means no more hours in front of a computer converting tape to video and no more hunky cameras.”

Apparently, Millstein learned enough from Creative Control that they actually have posted some of Massive’s videos on their website.

Subsequent to his summer working, he began to create the infrastructure for Massive.tv along with the aforementioned Byron Ashley and Anthony DelGigante, a junior RTVF major, who is the Creative Director and responsible for “maintaining the overall vision of the site.”

But like any other serious venture, it required money to build the site and attain the equipment necessary for production. To that end, Massive.tv solicited investments on Kickstarter, a social networking site for creative entrepreneurs in need of funding. In doing so they received a rather positive response from investors, acquiring about $4,000 in equity infusions. Interested parties included Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist whose previous investments include Foursquare and Twitter, Ben Malbon, the Director of Strategy for Google Creative Labs, and many others, according to Millstein.

Last school year the venture got off the ground, the site was launched, and nine different profiles were published. This fall, two new ones have been posted and the website has again been renovated. When all is said and done, in addition to the profiles posted on the website, Millstein says Massive.tv will develop three other main products: “mBlog,” a blog on arts, culture, and developments of the site’s profile subjects; “Massive Labs,” a page for video content that is independently produced and sent to Massive; and “DeStill,” a print magazine directed by WCAS Junior Kate Adams, with still photos and original creative writing.

Other hurdles on the horizon for Massive.tv include whether they can acquire support and funding from school administration, which they are beginning to lobby. Additionally, they are working hard to create continuity and and a self-perpetuating opperation that can operate productively even when Millstein, Ashley, DelGigante, Adams, and other leaders graduate in 2012.

Justin Lehmann, a sophomore DJ was featured on Massive.tv in Spring 2010

Regardless, Massive.tv appears to be exerting some influence on campus already. Justin Lehmann, a WCAS sophomore and part-time DJ, was featured on the site at the end of the last school year. He said that he was noticed a hand full of times that he can remember because of the Massive.tv video, although the feedback directly related to their profile was not overwhelming. Regardless, Lehmann expressed that he hopes Massive.tv “keeps doing what they’re doing.”

“Northwestern has such an incredibly diverse student body in terms of their non-academic interests and while general intelligence and diligence are assumed qualities of a Northwestern student, I’ve found that everyone seems to also have another passion that they’re really good at.” Lehmann continued, “I just hope Massive finds all the talent there is [at Northwestern]–they’re lucky to have such an incredible pool to pick from.”