Ten Routes for Community Film Distribution

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 from specialist community channels, public broadcasting and regional or local TV it is quite difficult to get a full-length documentary of 10 mins or more broadcast. That said, a rough cut of your film might be enough to gain funding or a commission for a more ambitious project. In the UK, First Light (Yonger people), The Community Channel and regional screen groups (see Creative England) will be able to advise and support you in your work. Bear in mind also that news programmes will sometimes use short clips of relevant work if it fits in with current issues. Avoid spending vast resources for this option unless you’ve already had firm interest supported by a contract or a commission.

3. On line opportunities.

There are many opportunities to make your film available globally through distribution sites such as YouTube and Vimeo. Also check out web tv channels and the broader training opportunities that they provide locally. ChewTV is a good example of a regional provider. Don’t forget that you can also send a microfilm to a mobile – excellent for bite sized community films that could have a viral impact. Caution: always check that your participants gave full permission for footage to be used for wider global dissemination. Ensure that you have not provided opportunities for people to poke fun at your valued contributors.

4. Private Screenings.

These tend to be for smaller groups of invited people. Private screenings are very good for special screenings where you are trying to reach and have an impact on decision-makers. Ensure that you provide enough time for discussion after your screening. If you have the resources it’s a good idea to provide additional information such as a press or media pack. It is possible that your film was intended from the outset only for a private screening, and the consent of the participants was based on that. Marginalised or stigmatised groups may be happy with this and only this outcome: a limited screening. But be sure to brief your participants on the reaction to the screening, or ask them to come along as advocates or witnesses. Real voices supporting virtual voices is a recipe for authentic engagement and social change.

5. DVD and Tape.

It’s now relatively inexpensive to duplicate your film on a dvd. But remember that there is an environmental and resource cost for design and printing, and for postage and packaging. If you really think that there is a for-sale market then dvds are a good solution. Think about how much people will really want to pay, and be honest about your costs in terms of time and money. A DVD short run always makes sense as an archival record for the participants and as a glossy product for the funders to exhibit to their colleagues to justify their investment in you. But is a trophy what you really want?!

6. Public or Community Screenings.

These are perhaps the primary target for your community film, and an opportunity to invite friends of the participants, their families, the local community, funders and local decision-makers. Ask someone to introduce your film briefly and leave time after the film for formal and/or informal discussion and debate. If you can film the audience’s reactions you will have further evidence that will contribute to your community project. Think carefully about the timing (day/evening) and the location. Will the community film be screening across a target group of homes, or will you use a mobile van? If you are screening in a village hall, will your film be integrated with an existing group, meeting, or event? Will you be joining up with a themed film festival? Why not check out the International Community Film Forum ? Or Media Matters ?

7. Social Media.

Do not miss the opportunity to align your video with your website, blog, and twitter accounts. These will provide a context for the community film and also an opportunity for people to respond to your film. Dialogue and debate will help to build a community around your film. The combination of social media and digital distribution is now very common, powerful and effective. This route may be the beginning of a long journey to start making money, or just getting noticed.

8. Engagement. Participants are your best co-distributors.

The product should make sense to its target audience. It should be on a level with them – not talking down to them. If children are involved in making the film – as they should be in a genuine participatory project – then you will be less likely to fall into the ‘unsuitability’ trap if the film is aimed at children. Similarly, your evidence must make sense; it must be pitched at the right level. By all means interview an academic or a nuclear physicist or and SEO Consultant. But ensure that the answers are presented in an intelligible fashion, avoiding jargon and private languages! Your aim is to include, include, include. Use clarification if necessary: ‘So you’re saying that …’ Your participants are the best form of quality control in this regard, and they will be able to tell you who they think should be a priority for viewing the film. A youth participant will keep you alert to youth relevance. Please add any comments below.

9. Film Societies

In Britain British Federation of Film Societies is the national organisation for the development and support of the film society and community cinema movement in the UK. They offer a wide range of services and resources dedicated to the needs of community cinemas. See also the International Federation of Film Societies.

10. Crowdfunding

"The crowd funding approach has long precedents in the sphere of charity. It is receiving renewed attention from both traditional and social entrepreneurs now that social media, online communities and micropayment technology make it straightforward to engage and secure donations or soon, investments, from a group of potentially interested supporters at very low cost."  [Wikipedia]

Can you Imagine a Different World ?

Digital Storytelling and Mind Weaving Women

Weaving was a complex process and often it was an activity undertaken by women as part of their domestic duties. The most famous weaver in Western classical culture was Odysseus' wife Penelope. To fend off unwanted suitors during her husband's absence, she tells them that she will marry only when she has finished weaving a funeral shroud for he husband's father Laertes.

But each night she undoes part of her completed work in order to delay being forced to accept one of the suitors. Her 'cunning' (metis) is a form of knowledge, a kind of artifice, and demonstrates the relationship between the craft of the storyteller and the weaving of the narrative cloth. She is similar and different to Helen, who also weaves; but in that case the heroic deeds depicted are a representation of her story.

The complex weaving process began to be automated during the nineteenth century and it was from that technology that the first punch card 'program' was developed. Punch cards were used in early computing, and I still recall using them at my high school in Leeds UK in 1982.

So gender, weaving, and computing are actually intertwined. Moreover, the multiple timelines in our digital editing software also allow us to weave together multiple strands.

Today, digital storytelling is being explored as the most meaningful and memorable way of organizing knowledge (curating), as well as a means to motivate and inspire others in business and in education. Storytelling builds on trust and may involve a 'storylistening trance' if it is successful in gaining the reader or listener's full attention. Effective storytelling requires sustained immersion. Listeners sometimes report being in a timeless state when they are wrapt by the story.

Digital storytelling weaves together sequences of digital images, layers of music or sounds, and /or voiced commentaries. It is these multiple elements working together that making digital storytelling such a powerful means of communicating a multi-media message. Easy-to-use software means that complex and intricate or detailed narratives can be composed deploying material gather from a variety of people or sources.

At its most powerful effective storytelling depends on familiarity and novelty, on enchantment and surprise. Elements of good storytelling can be learned as a set of craft skills, but great storytelling is quite rare, and is quite difficult to define or explain.

Both in terms of the variety of source materials and the multiple authorship roles that can be accommodated,  digital storytelling presents opportunities for collective and collaborative community activity. There is also the risk, with intricate materials and infinite subtlety passing through too many hands that the core message(s) is lost.

If your aim is advertising or advocacy, or promotional fund-raising then you will want to have one clear message that has a lasting impact. Remember that Penelope devised a simple story that was quite effective in its own right. Her husband also, as we later learn, was the brilliant narrator of own his own fantastic and marvellous adventures. Both genders participate in the weaving of narrative.

But Penelope's weaving is part of a larger weaving on an epic scale. So enjoy complexity, take your time and weave a delightful, multi-stranded,  marvellous canvas. Tapestries (see Bayeux) recorded history and served as a collective memory in much the same way as the oral epic poem which served as the memory and memorial of a culture's history, its customs and traditions.

We now know that the great foundational classics of the Western tradition - Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey were in fact the amalgamation of a range of storytelling. In ancient times, 'Literature' was more collective and collaborative than the romantic notion of the solitary genius.

With modern technologies digital storytelling opens up opportunities for collaboration, parody, transmedia transformations, mashing and mixing. Mind weaving is the warp and weft of digital storytelling.

          *           *           *         *           *            *         *             *           *            *

© Dr Ian McCormick. 

But please do contact me if you want to use this article as a guest post on your blog. 

With attribution offered I seldom refuse!

How to 'republish' free material from Wikipedia IS a Corporate Scandal

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 (erich666) said on Slashdot

"In recent months a flood of so-called books have been appearing in Amazon's catalog. VDM Publishing's imprints Alphascript and Betascript Publishing have listed over 57,000 titles, adding at least 10,000 in the previous month alone. These books are simply collections of linked Wikipedia articles put into paperback form, at a cost of 40 cents a page or more. These books seem to be computer-generated, which explains the peculiar titles noted such as 'Vreni Schneider: Annemarie Moser-Pröll, FIS Alpine Ski World Cup, Winter Olympic Games, Slalom Skiing, Giant Slalom Skiing, Half Man Half Biscuit.' Such titles do have the marketing effect of turning up in many different searches. There is debate on Wikipedia about whether their 'VDM Publishing' page should contain the words 'fraud' or 'scam.' VDM Publishing's practice of reselling Wikipedia articles appears to be legal, but is ethically questionable. Amazon customers have begun to post 1-star reviews and complain. Amazon's response to date has been, 'As a retailer, our goal is to provide customers with the broadest selection possible so they can find, discover, and buy any item they might be seeking.' The words 'and pay us' were left out. Amazon carries, as a Googled guess, 2 million different book titles, so VDM Publishing is currently 1/35th of their catalog, and rapidly growing."

Finally I note  this comment from  Geoff Brigham

"The creators in the free-knowledge community are in fact copyright holders, just like the creators in the media industry, but unlike most industries, creators in the free-knowledge community volunteer to promote progress and innovation by releasing their content under a free license that provides their creations to the world for no cost." 

See

The power of free knowledge