Working Films

We went downtown yesterday to meet with Working Films. Working Films is a nonprofit company that is about "Linking non-fiction film with cutting edge activism". They sent us an email when they saw our newspaper article inviting us to come talk with them. "They are the only national media outreach organization offering free consultations on using films for social justice to independent filmmakers". They're housed in an old fire house which as really neat. We showed them our preview film and they gave us a lot of great suggestions:

Create a hit list: what things do we care about and are things that people can do something about? What do we want them to care about? Things that they can actually impact.

Actions we need to include:

• Get our audience to go outside, see how fragile our local area is
• 5 things you can do as a local resident that you can do to help our coastal environment

To keep people's attention, our film should be no more than 20 min.

Start with the action not the footage. (This ties back into the reserach that the Ocean Project Shared with us: People want actions!)

They suggest that we set up some strategy sessions: who did we talk to that had the best ideas? We need to bring them in to talk to each other (sierra club, nature conservancy, Audubon) and ask them what the message should be. We want relevant, meaningful actions, and a narrative they can use. Working Films even offered to host the sessions in their fire house.

The most effective films are ones with characters that people love. We need to give their back stories and why they’re involved and why they care. We need to especially include the students stories and why they are involved in this project.

Working films has offered to look at our rough cuts and help us figure it out so we don't get too bogged down. They will also help us figure out how to make a 20 min film into a presentation.

 
Working films has a series of films called Reel Power: Films Fueling the energy revolution. Many of these films might play into the project we're working on. You can check them out here.

It was great listening to the students share the information about our project and hear the feedback they got. It was a wonderful experience that should continue through the rest of the project as Working Films has offered so much assistance. Having now film background, I'll take all of the help I can get :-) It was a great afternoon! The students will be posting soon with their thoughts on the project as we get ready to leave in less than two weeks!
Thanks~ Megan