1. Know your subject and issues
What is the broad thematic subject that your film will address? It should be narrowed down to a concise log line. Have these issues been explored before? Where does your take fit into the continuum of this topic—is it breaking news, or a continuation of a dialogue?
“Find a tipping point,” says Chad Boettcher, executive vice president of Participant Media. “That is, what policy, system or other socio-political construct could use the power of a story well-told to tip the issue forward. This doesn’t have to be a big national piece of legislation. You can often find opportunities to influence state government funding, a public company’s investment policy, a city council or school board vote. The power of even a small film can have a big impact.”
Maryan Heinen and George Langworthy’s Vanishing of the Bees gained attention when its narrator, Ellen Page, appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher
Holly Mosher (producer of Hummingbird, Vanishing of the Bees, and upcoming Pay 2 Play) says, “Goals depend on the level of awareness about certain issues to begin with. If an audience is educated about the facts already, you can focus on making an impact with laws, rules or mandates.” Vanishing of the Bees has screened at over 1,000 house parties worldwide and resulted in the forming of a Los Angeles bee-keeping advocacy group, Honeylove.
2. Shape your narrative
Analysts and observers agree—it’s the storytelling which makes an impact film. Dan Cogan, executive director of Impact Partners, says, “I don’t see documentaries as being different than fiction in terms of what it takes to tell a great story. Usually it’s the story that draws in the viewers, and the issue is something they take in along with the great story.”
There are dozens of choices you have to make. Is there a way to tell the story in a narrative manner, or through the prism of someone experiencing the situation? Is voiceover necessary to tell the story or can the subjects tell it? How long should your film be? A detailed explanation of narrative techniques is beyond the scope of this article, but simply put, they range from emotional appeals (e.g. the polar bear in An Inconvenient Truth), and empowerment (a call to arms, or examples of how change on a parallel issue has manifested), to exclusivity (i.e. never-before-revealed information), familiarity (i.e. viewers identify themselves in the film) and fear (i.e. “Something bad will happen if…”).
Lee Hirsch’s The Bully Project distributes tool kits with graphics like this to educators who use Bully in curriculum
3. Choose your characters wisely
Which characters best represent your standpoint? If you put yourself on screen, is there a good reason for it? AV Lab’s Schneider suggests, “Try not to fall into the ‘good vs. evil’ trap. We learned this with Farmingville, by Carlos Sandoval and Catherine Tambini, set on Long Island in the wake of a violent incident against day laborers from Mexico. One of the characters, Louise, a native-born suburban mom, talks about how she’d like to know more about the men on the street corners—without being called a racist. Even though the film is very sympathetic to the immigrants, diverse audiences embraced the film because they saw themselves reflected in Louise. Now we look for Louises in other films: interesting, conflicted characters who ultimately change in the course of the story. If you want audiences to go on a journey with you, don’t demonize characters with whom they might relate. Embrace nuance.”
4. Identify your audiences
Yes, audiences in plural (and the “broadest reach possible” isn’t an answer). Who can affect change on this issue and how can you reach them? How do you need to communicate to appeal to them? How will you preach beyond the choir?
Ines Sommer’s Beneath the Blindfold (2012) explores the stories of four torture survivors. A difficult topic for a broad, commercial audience, the film found its niche via educational and community screenings with educators, psychologists and social workers. A screening on Capitol Hill for members of Congress and their staff, in conjunction with Center for Victims of Torture, helped keep the 30-plus treatment centers in the U.S. open via the Refugee Relief Act. “The congressional staffers in attendance were riveted and for the first time understood how their funding impacted torture survivors,” says Sommer. “The folks from Center for Victims of Torture were blown away by the impact of this screening.”
A scene in Ines Sommer’s Beneath the Blindfold
5. Define objectives for each type of audience
Are you trying to influence policy makers, corporate heads, or the people who make choices with their wallets? Chad Boettcher calls this building a “change theory,” or determining the task your film seeks to assign each audience. “It might be important to have your film seen by as many consumers as possible because you’re trying to change public opinion. On the other hand, you might want your film to be seen by teachers, in the hopes of getting new methods of teaching into the classroom. Or maybe what matters most is getting a couple of key influencers in a government agency to see the film, hoping they change their hiring policies for contract workers. The point is that a change theory will help guide your social action campaign decisions.”
Be mindful about what you ask, too—presenting an audience with a less effective solution might even hurt your impact if people consider their ‘duty done.’ Looking back, Girl Rising producer Holly Gordon says, “We would not put a text to give message at the end of the film. The message is too big and powerful to be solved with a quick donation.”
6. Gather experts and stakeholders
Once you know your topic, you will know the organizations most likely to engage actively in the issues. Research them thoroughly. Meet with them, get their buy-in. By having key stakeholders involved as early on in the film as possible (not just talking heads), organizations are more likely to offer support at various phases of the project. “You don’t need to be the expert on the issue, but you need to be an expert in finding the experts,” says Boettcher.
MocaMedia was the agency behind the campaign for Barbara Ettinger’s A Sea Change (about the world’s acidifying seas). They found that large international organizations were less nimble in their decision-making process. Seeking partnership with the small to mid-sized organizations was a better strategy: A partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration resulted in 400 copies of the film purchased for distribution with a special issue of Oceanography Magazine. Beneath the Blindfold’s Sommer agrees: “Large organizations like Amnesty or Human Rights Watch have their own media staff and want films to be tied in closely with their current initiatives. We are going forward with a partnership with a smaller anti-torture group that will use the film with all of its chapters nationally. “
7. Plan your budget for the long-tail
Most documentarians sprint to get their films completed, imagining a major festival premiere or distribution deal will help them find their audience. But as Dan Cogan says, “The truth is that to get from a first cut for a festival, to output for a television sale—forget about theatrical, which costs a lot more—there’s a whole other world of money that you’re going to need.” A thorough budget should include: production, post-production needs through delivery and licensing, a festival budget including travel and publicity, and an engagement specialist or agency to develop an implementable strategy and help apply for additional grants.
8. Work social media
At minimum, set up a WordPress website with Google Analytics and make regular blog posts with new content. Set up an opt-in email registration, and Facebook and Twitter pages. Enlist people from the community to share your content with larger audiences. Hire an SEO specialist if you can afford it. “We started our social media activity three years before the film came out, our strategy to build a core audience—super fans—for Girl Rising well in advance,” says Holly Gordon. Her director, Robbins, advises: “Recognize economies of scale. Reaching a million people with your film isn’t 10 times harder than reaching 100,000.”
Interact on as personal a level as possible. The team behind Bully, recognizing how Facebook played an integral part in both the lives of parents and the young people who were bullied, established a team of “Facebook responders:” members of their community who volunteer to help the Bully Project fulfill their policy to reply to every Facebook, Twitter or website communication.
9. Design distribution around your goals
As Sue Wilson says of her media policy doc, Broadcast Blues, “Getting the film seen by the right people is just as effective (or possibly more effective) than getting it seen by millions.” Is it better, then, to reach a smaller, interested audience than a wider, disinterested one? Plan to use these three main distribution models in combination, depending on what you want each to achieve.
A theatrical release or television broadcast will garner the most eyeballs and probably the biggest financial return. Robert Bahar, producer-writer of Emmy-winning immigrant worker rights doc, Made in L.A. (2007), says, “More than two million people have seen Made in L.A. on television. While of course things are changing rapidly, television still yields the biggest footprint.” The key thing to remember, though, is that a distributor’s job is simply to screen your film as widely as it can, not to lead the effort to create change—to garner reach, not impact. So don’t mistake your distribution deal, no matter how cushy, as a job done.
Several moviemakers choose to self-distribute online, using direct-to-consumer platforms like Vimeo or Yekra to support their endeavors. Robert Greenwald, for example, streams his films for free for a limited time. “It is media that moves along the same lines of how people are behaving,” says Axel Caballero, executive director of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers, who directed distribution at Greenwald’s Brave New Films. “It is free of any constraints and unapologetic in how a point of view is presented. That can be liberating. It ultimately moves core audiences.” But the trade-off of relying on on-demand is the risk of preaching to the choir—as Jeffrey Fleishman writes in The Los Angeles Times, “Greenwald’s films have emboldened the already converted but have alienated many conservatives and may be considered too didactic to take hold among wider audiences, especially given limited distribution… [they] have yet to penetrate a broader national consciousness.”
The power of an old-fashioned grassroots screening must not be overlooked. In case study after case study, most real activity came as a result of these community events, organized with demand-based platforms like Gathr, Tugg, Film Sprout. Gordon says that for Girl Rising, “Gathr generated the highest level of interest and awareness. Each theater ‘captain’ had to generate interest to fill his or her screening, leading to tons of hyper-local news coverage. Having a thoughtful introduction and a time to talk after the film is the key to impact.”
Bahar’s Made in L.A. team designed a tool for other documentarians to borrow with their ‘Host-A-Screening’ infrastructure: “One simple webpage [madeinla.com/host] provides a model for anyone, anywhere in the world, to host a screening of the film. The goal was to make it as easy as possible for small communities to do screenings, so we provided template posters, template press releases, website banners, etc… you can download a detailed toolkit.”
Director/Cinematographer Almudena Carracedo of Made in LA
It’s a strange contradiction that social issue movie makers find themselves in—a tantalizingly inconclusive understanding of the weight of their actions, and a fervent belief in the power of their work to change lives. Our best recommendation for aspiring change-seekers is to focus first on the end goal, then work backwards in storytelling and outreach to figure out how to accomplish this. Meanwhile, as the industry gets more adept at understanding the ripples that a social issue film has in the world, trust that your efforts will be transformative, even if they don’t seem tangible at first glance. You never know—they might influence anyone from a budding movie maker to a future Madame President. MM
Here’s a list of Agencies Specializing in Engagement Campaigns:
Active Voice // activevoice.net
(See also: “The Prenups: What Filmmaker and Funders Should Talk About Before Tying the Knot,” an Active Voice Lab Report // theprenups.org)
Fenton Communications // fenton.com
Fitzgibbons Media // fitzgibbonmedia.com
Outreach Extensions //outreachextensions.com
Working Films // workingfilms.org
For more information on To End Poverty‘s Indiegogo campaign, visit its official page here.
This article first appeared in the Spring 2014 issue of MovieMaker Magazine. Original illustration for MovieMaker by Sergey Maidukov. See more of his work here.
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