Over the course of 2017, Film & Campaign’s continued collaboration with Moving Docs took major steps forward. Ben Kempas worked on a series of research projects, including the award-winning ‘Amplifier’ which proposed a radical new model for collectively leveraging campaign data. Alongside this, we delivered core elements of Moving Docs' campaign for FREE LUNCH SOCIETY – demonstrating that even a small budget can have a big impact when combined with a content-focused strategy.
Outreach Workshop focusing on measuring impact
For the second year running, Moving Docs convened a three-day outreach workshop in Athens, bringing together their European-wide network of partners with industry experts to share their knowledge. As a special guest, Ben had invited Caty Borum Chattoo (Director at the Center for Media & Social Impact at the American University in Washington DC) who helped us explore how documentary filmmakers and distributors can measure impact. Reflecting on the event, Caty said:
“The workshop offered a crucial opportunity for leaders to come together and exchange ideas, which will tremendously benefit the program's success now and in the future.”
Caty and Ben were supported by additional speakers including Kay Meseberg, Head of VR/360 at ARTE, and Ziad Ramley, Social Media Lead at Al Jazeera English.
At the workshop, we developed campaign ideas around the Moving Docs titles FREE LUNCH SOCIETY, DOLPHIN MAN, and LAST MEN IN ALEPPO.
Online session with Kartemquin
In December, Ben organised an online session with Tim Horsburgh, Director of Communications and Distribution at the iconic Chicago-based ‘documentary powerhouse’ Kartemquin Films.
Gordon Quinn, one of Kartemquin’s founders, had once told Ben that they “had been doing community outreach with their films for 50 years” – which certainly put a current buzzword into perspective.
This triggered a conversation with Tim about the importance of this type of work whilst offering up analysis of several Kartemquin documentary titles as case studies. You can listen to Tim in conversation with Ben here.
Research on new platforms and strategies
2017 was a packed year when it came to research. In order to build towards the roll-out of Moving Docs Home Cinema, we carried out an experimental setup with VHX – now acquired by Vimeo and rebranded as ‘Vimeo OTT’. We also explored different options for virtual screening rooms – investigating the possibility of extending the ‘event cinema’ experience to online audiences in remote locations. This helped us build towards a comprehensive study of the potential for event cinema - a theme that would go on to form a major focus for our work with Moving Docs in 2018.
Amplifier: a data tool for indy docs
A particular highlight of the year was Ben’s development, together with Patricia Finneran of Story Matters, of the Amplifier proposal at the Propellor Film Tech Hub in Copenhagen. The proposal sought to address a perennial headache for impact producers – the need to build a fresh group of ambassadors and enthusiasts from scratch at the launch of every new documentary. Amplifier sought to provide a solution to this problem by outlining a framework for a data-driven tool that could provide ‘good data for great causes.’ After an intense weekend of collaboration, we really knew we were onto something when the project received the jury’s Mentor Award at CPH:DOX.
FREE LUNCH SOCIETY: the power of smart content
The aim of the FREE LUNCH SOCIETY outreach campaign was to engage an audience beyond the world of documentary film by looking at the big socio-economic and political questions posed by the concept of a Citizen's Basic Income.
At the centre of this campaign was an original short animation – produced entirely in-house by the team at Film & Campaign and shared by Moving Docs partners across Europe. This animation was so successful that it went on to be used to directly support the German-wide theatrical release of the film.
On top of that, we commissioned a series of articles on basic income, written by author and journalist Christopher Silver, which were shared on Moving Docs partners' websites and social media. These original articles helped draw attention to a complex issue, and offered additional content for partners to use in their own releases of the film.
Expanding Moving Docs social reach
Well over 50,000 people watched our FREE LUNCH SOCIETY animation across platforms, showcasing the potential of Moving Docs to act as a campaign engine room. Other content that helped shift Moving Docs social platforms up a gear included an original article by award-winning writer Kirstin Innes about DOLPHIN, reaching nearly 45,000 people, and the launch of the Moving Docs Home Cinema, with an article on the film MARTHA & NIKI reaching more than 40,000 people.
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