There is a budget of £200 for each of the films. Please consider what your costs may be and make good creative use of this.

This is an INDIVIDUAL task.

At this stage everyone needs to have decided on one viable project so it is time to think in more detail about the film content.

Objective: Write up the research, visual approach and client relationship that will form your campaign production. Write a 300-word treatment

Due: Workshop 3 on Wednesday 12 February

Guideline: The document should be written in a narrative form and you need to consider the following:

Client – describe who they are and what the target issue will be.
Style – what is your visual approach, mood, pace, sound and so on.
Impact – what’s your REAN framework and your social media strategy.

The treatment needs to be emailed to me before 11:00am on February 12: ferok@regents.ac.uk

Make sure your name is on the file.

One of the the students I supervised wrote a Dissertation called ‘President Barack Obama and ISIS The exploitation of audiences’ lack of digital media literacy to gain support’. It is a excellent piece of research that is relevant to campaigns that use social media and views the case studies of Obama and ISIS through the REAN marketing framework. You can read it here President Barack Obama and ISIS The exploitation of audiences’ lack of digital media literacy to gain support.

REAN is a marketing acronym. It is a simple, yet powerful, framework to plan ahead and/or analyse the often complex sequence of inter-related, multichannel, marketing activities that are needed to build and nurture a customer relationship. It stands for:

R – Reach: The set of activities needed to raise prospects’ attention for your brand, product or service.

E – Engage: The gradual, typically multi-channel, often recursive set of activities needed to engage the prospects you just won.

A – Activate: The activities needed for your prospects to take, eventually, the actions you wanted them to take.

N – Nurture: The activities needed to nurture the customer relationship you just managed to create.

What you need to do is give a thought as to how this could apply to your campaign production in terms of how it can fit into your clients wider strategy.

Today we are going to look at how radical activists use video in campaign productions. Activists have a political objective and use cultural and media production to demand a change or to bring an issue to public attention. Very often this will be done at risk of their own position and in some case this has meant imprisonment or worse. It’s important as film makers that you start to focus on what has meaning to you and how you can express it. We are going to be looking at two groups in particular, Voina and Liberate Tate. In these cases the combination of activism and art makes an effective media production.

Group 1: Liberate Tate

BP – polluters and exploiters since 1909 – have been corporate sponsors of the Tate Modern for some time and there is growing pressure to distance dirty oil from pure art. This is a interesting little film about an action that took place.

“The fact that BP had one major incident in 2010 does not mean we should not be taking support from them.” – Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster did not end in 2010 for the communities affected; BP’s harmful impacts are numerous and occur across the globe year on year. In 2010-11 BP pushed forward expansion plans into the Arctic in Alaska, Canada and Russia.

Oil extraction in this region is only possible because of melting ice caused by climate change. Spills in Arctic waters are immensely more complicated than elsewhere, and indeed BP is itself responsible for the largest oil spill on Alaska’s north slope, at Prudhoe Bay in 2006, where the company continues to drill for oil.

www.liberatetate.org

So does activism work? Liberate

Group 2: Voina

What is Voina? The group is based in Russia and is internationally known for several actions of political protest art. They describe themselves as “Political orientation: anarchist. Enemies: philistines, cops, the regime. Organization type: militant gang, dominated by horizontal ties in everyday life and employing vertical relationships during actions. The group preaches renunciation of money and disregard towards the law (“the no-whoring way”). Founded by Vor and Kozlenok in October 2005, the group was named after Vor (“War”). Initially, Voina actions were clandestine and anonymous, and were called “training” or “practice”. Voina has enjoyed public recognition since 2008. To date, over 200 activists have participated in Voina actions. At least 20 criminal investigations into the group’s activities have been initiated, some of them still ongoing.”

They have a manifesto here that outlines their work. What is Voina? During the lecture are going to view some of their actions and then discuss their effectiveness.

Above: Giant Galactic Space Dick

In 2011 some members of Voina left  to form Pussy Riot. They become internationally known for their actions against the State and the Church. The group were recently imprisoned after a trial that attracted international attention.

Above: Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova

Above: How To Snatch a Chicken

Both these groups (and there are many others that you can investigate) have grown out of a tradition of action art which can be traced back to movements such as Fluxus, the Situationists, neo-dadaists and the Viennese Actionists. The body, performance, happenings and intermedia all become concepts for experimentation and artistic exploitation. 

How do the methods and approaches of these groups compare to the previous examples we have looked at? Is it just a matter of time before Pussy Riot are used to sell MacDonald’s? It is worth going to the Tate Modern to view some of the art work on show and explore what can be relevant to the campaign videos you are going to be producing.

This week we will be spent going through your concepts to help you in building a strong pitch & presentation (Assignment A). Here are the considerations methods that will be used to assess Assignment A which is due on the 26th February and which can feed into this discussion:

Depth

How detailed is the primary research?

Have you considered audience impact?

Are the ethical considerations clear?

Originality

How new is the narrative approach?

How aware are you of the cultural context?

How have you related this to the needs of the client campaign?

Presentation

How competent is the technical content?

How strong is the clarity in your writing?

How convincing was the pitch?

Today we will be investigating how social media can be used for campaigning production by looking at two examples of viral films that had a significant social and political impact – ‘Kony 2012’ and ‘Innocence of the Muslims’.

Above: Kony 2012

Above: Innocence of the Muslims

Perhaps not. Goggle were forced to take down the video due to a law-suit in the US. Perhaps you can learn more here but be warned some viewers may find this clip offensive:

http://www.liveleak.com/ll_embed?f=752db03e1484

archive.org Muhammadfullmovie

You will be researching both films, taking a critical look at both productions. If you can come up with another Viral Vision please do so. Consider the following three main headings for each film. Make these your own thoughts rather than existing opinion and cite sources for the information you use:

1. Content – Breakdown and describe the content of the film: it’s genre, style, production values and so on. What are the film makers trying to say and what methods have they used?

2. Strategy – Who made the film and who funded it? What are the aims of the campaign and it’s production history? How did the film makers consider the distribution of the film and how did they go about releasing it?

3. Impact – What was the reaction to the campaign and what is it’s residue? Quantify its audience and the scope of its political and social impact. What is it’s current status?

Through examining these case studies you will be then be in a position to consider how the headings of content, strategy and impact apply to the productions that you are planning.

Herzog has the luxury of waiting which of course comes from experience. In your cases though it can’t wait. There were some interesting issues discussed this week and others will come through. There have also been positive moves and some of you have already starting building a relationship with a potential ‘client’ which is excellent. On February 5 all of you need to have at least one real potential client. Even if contact has just been initial there needs to have been a positive response of some kind so that we know the project is viable.

Most of you will be familiar with the Research Plan for a documentary but this is one that takes into account the client as part of a campaign documentary. Download the document and use it for guidance to prepare for the ideas that you present next Wednesday February 5.

Workshop 1 Research Plan

Earlier we looked at some cinematic feature documentaries that had impact and were used in a range of campaigns. In general though most campaign organisations tend to need – and ask for – very short running times for their media artefacts ranging from 30 seconds to a few minutes. Most perceptions of campaign production is that short length and high visual approaches have more impact. There are of course always exceptions and this film is just one example. Going against the grain as usual, when Werner Herzog was asked to deliver a short film about dangers of texting and driving for corporate giant AT&T he took his time. This film keeps his unique documentary style whilst still delivering a powerful campaign message.

Think about any form of campaigning media you have seen and do some analysis on it. It could be television, advertising, political or any form of social media but it has to be image and audio based. Prepare to show the material in class and critique it by explaining:

1. Why you choose the campaign?

2. How effective was it?

3. What impact did it have?

4. What creative strategies were used that may be useful for your films?

Everybody will have a 3 minute slot to show the piece they have chosen and deal with the points above which will be discussed by the team later in the session.