Community Media - Interactive World

Some people like editing, others don’t. Find out early on in the project about people’s skills and preferences, and training requirements – don’t leave it all to the end. Edit the film as you go along, in a rough and ready fashion. If you filled half a tape accidentally recording irrelevant chair legs there’s really no point wasting that space on your hard drive. Respect people’s wish for their contribution to be deleted. Review the day’s shooting with participants, if possible Make notes on the best clips of the day. This is called logging. Invent the system that works best for you. Always label tapes or disks at the time of filming.  Keep a note of the best clips, and the ‘who, what, where, when’ bits of information. It should be possible to create a rough edit based on (a) a selection of the best material actually filmed; (b) the valued work of a trained editing person or small team; (c) referring back to the story and storyboard as guides. In communit...

Open Air Cinema 1. How Content and Style determine the Target Group It is alleged that very few community film makers start out with a clear sense of how their finished film will be distributed. This is the vexed question of the target audience. It also brings into play questions about the content of the film – the product – and whether it is fit for purpose in terms of its spectators. That means that the distribution agenda should always already be built into your production and planning process. There’s clearly no point filming disturbing adult scenes that will be unusable for a target group of children. And will people really sit through a two hour community film on any topic, unless they were major participants throughout? Is your film relevant to a wider community, and how can you get it out there? Here are some options to think about: Evaluating Distribution Options 2. Broadcasters: TV, Cable and Satellite (including Free-View Services). Apart fro...

How profitable, or ethical, is it to republish work that is available for free on wikipedia? I was surprised and rather angry that our free wikipedia article called "Community Film" has now appeared as a "book" edited by Zheng Cirino. But Duc Publishing is just an imprint of VDM Publishing. (See below) Has anyone come across this 'writer' and 'editor' of over 4500 books? Would you spend £25 on what you can have for free? Take a look on Amazon . And the cover bears the curious imprint  'Books for Africa'. OK. So this is about social mission and redistribution, right? I would be curious to see how they reference and attribute my work based on the Wikipedia Edit / page history. But I don't think I need to waste £25 reading my own work, which is already available for free! (Even the Product Description simply copies my words from the opening of the Wikipedia article on COMMUNITY FILM) Here is what one commentator (erich66...

I can't believe that's over two years of blogs.  Here are some of the most popular posts from the 80+ published :  18 Advantages of visual auto-ethnography for resea... Social Media, Revolution and Historical Consciousn... Reflections on social media and 'anarchy' in Birmi... Civil Society Groups and Volunteer Film Projects Our 3-minute film guide Film Editing for Beginners – Understanding the Pro... Radical Origins of the 'Big Society' ? 30 Tips to help you make an Award Winning Film on ... What is Community Film ? 30 Ways to Put the Community Into Film ... India's answer to Hollywood and No-Budget film pro... A Recipe for Auteur Film Directors (14-point toolk... Participatory Video - the role of the Trainer and ... Beyond CinemaScope and Technicolor: the World of A... Towards an Imperfect Cinema Worldwide Community Film Screenings Postcolonial and Transnational Cinema...

Namita Singh is currently pursuing a PhD on Participatory Video in UK, at the Open University. She is a researcher and consultant focused on participatory media. We welcome her guest contribution to this site and thank her for her insights into and for sharing her reflections on Participatory Video. "Namita Singh, the Trainer Vs. Namita Singh, the Researcher :  Things I taught and things I learnt!"  This one week taught me so much about doing Participatory Video, as a researcher. Going in, I never thought, it will be as tough – negotiating the thin line between Namita Singh, the trainer, and Namita Singh, the researcher. The former being my role throughout my working life prior to my PhD, the latter, I am supposed to strictly adhere to, so as not to lose sight and data, while I am at it. Every bit is important. Every bit might have some key, some vital insight – a hidden answer to my research questions – some serious business, this! I had wanted to us...

1. The auteur typically employs multiple perspectives on the same scene. This approach will enable the auteur to transform a short story into a film of epic proportions. The auteur characteristically demonstrates disregard for linear plotting . For the auteur Repetition is at the core of Deconstruction. 2. The auteur prefers grainy features to suggest the archaic; s/he prefers black and white to colour. The auteur composes lyrical essays on the lure of the silent film era; employs super 8 film, and cuts up video tapes using a manual process. At the other extreme, the auteur films his homage to Battleship Potemkin (1925) using only mobile cell-phones and skateboards. 3. The self-presentation of the auteur in interview situations is a form of self-preservation. There are two starting positions that should be adhered to without irony: (a) sentences that deploy stream-of-consciousness; multiple subclauses (think Henry James's Golden Bowl ); polysyllabic terms - especially...

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...

Time to Bury Public Services? The Big Theme in the 80s and 90s was privatization of industries which had been taken into public ownership, or which had evolved as ‘public services.’ The task was achieved without much political difficulty because many industries which it was assumed retained a strategic significance such as manufacturing, coal, and steel were making a loss and were now perceived to be a burden on the hard-pressed state. In other cases industries such as oil, gas, telecoms, electricity and water had evolved to make a safe profit and had become highly valued assets that could easily be (un)bundled for sale. The Post Office (once attached to Telecoms) is the last vestige of the entrepreneurial state, where a commercial public service is retained for the common good, is perhaps the final remainder of a commercial service in public hands. There was a sense that state ownership and asset sales had reached the end of the line. No politician would dare to touch social care...