Community Media - Interactive World

The International Community Film Festival (ICFF) has announced its intention to branch out in 2012 with selected screenings of the best films to be made available through key partners worldwide. 2012 will be the Fourth Festival organized by Dr Ian McCormick. If you're interested in looking at the work of ICFF in the recent past, click here . Are you able to help? How can you participate in free ICFF film screenings in your part of the world ? 1. Please send me an email or message if you are interested in screening a selection of the best films from ICFF 2012 in your home town or city during September-October 2012. (You will be able to set your own specific date) 2. You will need access to a free cinema space, or to a school, college, community centre, public building, or university space that is equipped with a suitable DVD player/laptop , projector, and a screen. 3. Ideally, you will want to organise your own events and speakers around the screening and - crucial...

There's quite a lot that nonprofits, activists, community workers and creative people can learn from corporate media and advertising in order to make a well-meaning video "go viral."  Much of the advice on viral video is common sense. Follow these simple steps in order to promote your viral video: include a link or preview of your viral video in all your emails; find out where your supporters and communities of interest are; learn about the social and ethical preferences of your viewers; take part in relevant social media conversations and mention your viral video; respond to popular and relevant videos with similar themes; choose an eye-catching thumbnail - remember that this is what will show up in search results; link to a popular event - and release your video to 'correspond' with news items; use keywords from popular events to help people to 'stumble upon' your viral video; post a personalized thought-provoking message ...

Viral videos are short films that reach hundreds of thousands of viewings and attract thousands of comments in a period of days, weeks, or months. Some viral videos are products of creative individuals; others spring from the corporate advertising machine which is worth $700 billion annually. Some are just fun and others aim to influence us in an open, or in a more covert, or secret fashion. A few viral videos have been products of chance, chaos theory scenarios, or a tipping point. Their sudden transnational popularity comes as a shock to their makers. But there are many common features and many unexpected success stories. I have recently made a study of the subject. Here are my findings 11 Laws of Viral Video: 1. Law of Shortness . Most people switch off after 3 minutes. Brevity is the soul of wit. People want to watch something that they can get through while drinking a cup of tea or coffee. However, some of the longer running conspiracy theory or environmental films hav...

    If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, there would be 57 Asians 21 Europeans 14 from the Western Hemisphere , both north and south 8 Africans 52 would be female 48 would be male 70 would be non-white 30 would be white 70 would be non-Christian 30 would be Christian 89 would be heterosexual 11 would be homosexual 6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States . 80 would live in substandard housing 70 would be unable to read 50 would suffer from malnutrition 1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth 1   would have a college education 1 would own a computer So much for the march of technology, science, globalization and progress.

The advent of affordable technology (cameras and software) together with popular platforms designed to share and to show work (such as YouTube) appeared to promise a golden age for social films and participatory video-making. What went wrong? What happened to all that social energy? Is there hope for the future? All the really interesting films are still out there, but they can take a lot of finding; or perhaps they are just swamped by more commercial forms of "entertainment." If you want to find out about social protests such as the Occupy movements across the world there are thousands of films to watch. But should we be anxious that the mainstream appears to be so frivolous and trivial? Is there an argument that being serious, social and participatory is just not radical; that it's out of fashion? For the sake of debate this blog explores one side of the topic: the failure of social film and participatory video to catch on. In the non-commerci...

Collaboration, Art, and the Discourses of Participatory Film The discussion of collaborative approaches to making films has moved into prime position during the last year. It’s a very healthy situation for community-led film makers and bodes well for the future role of digital arts and participatory democracy. At last we have some worthy examples of theory, technology and practice working together in a creative fashion. The BBC has recently featured a news item on an innovative collaborative film project to be called My Streets. The project has major establishment backers, and is perhaps another example of popular participation filtered through selective curators. The patchwork is a familiar model for the community portrait. Recurring themes will perhaps oscillate with chance collisions in the manner of collage. We can celebrate the flickering poetry of surprise in the global 24 hour project Life in a Day which saw thousands of collaborators generate a feature length film cura...

Here are some recently published books on postcolonial film, third cinema and transnational cinema. If you have any other recommended books feel free to comment and add any suggestions below. Barlet, Olivier. African Cinema: Decolonizing the Gaze. Translated by Chris Turner. New York : Zed, 2000 Bernstein, Matthew, and Gaylyn Studlar, eds. Visions of the East: Orientalism in Film New Brunswick , NJ : Rutgers University Press, 1997. Brunt, Rosalind (Editor), Cere, Rinella (Editor) Postcolonial Media Culture in Britain Palgrave Macmillan , 2010. Ďurovičov á , Natasa ; Kathleen E Newman. World cinemas, transnational perspectives  Routledge 2009   Ekotto, Frieda (Editor), Koh, Adeline (Editor)   Rethinking Third Cinema: The Role of Anti-colonial Media and Aesthetics in Postmodernity (Kultur Forschung Und Wissensch) Lit Verlag, 2010. Ezra, Elizabeth (Editor), Rowden, Terry (Editor) Transnational Cinema, the Film Reader (In Focus: Ro...

"Community film" is a variety of practices and approaches that interrogate the dominant use of "film" and "cinema" in association with a global, big budget "industry".   "Community film" draws on the democratic and participatory potential of new technology which has decreased the cost of entry for new film makers, new distributors, and wider, more interactive audiences. Taking the argument further, the traditional power triangle of film maker-distributor-spectator can also be challenged and opened up. As a global movement "community film" preserves the integrity and identity of the local community (and importantly, dialogues between local groups) against the homogenization of the the dominant transnational industries that seek to erase distinctive voices in order to create their commodities and oppressive brands.  "Community film" challenges the notion of "film" as a 90 minute, big bud...