"final" project web pages viewable at:
http://www.masspeaceaction.org/angela/index.html
http://www.masspeaceaction.org/angela/learn.html
http://www.masspeaceaction.org/angela/watch.html
http://www.masspeaceaction.org/angela/action.html
http://www.masspeaceaction.org/angela/contact.html
more to come, reflecting on the process! a.k.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Project Planning
Introduction
In 2007, Peace Action celebrates 50 years since it’s founding in 1957 as the Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy. Peace Action is a national nonprofit organization, powered by a grassroots network of activists engaged in education, advocacy, and community organizing to promote a just and peaceful foreign policy based on global cooperation, human rights and democracy, the elimination of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, and federal budget priorities that build human security through social, racial, economic and environmental justice. For my project, I wish to highlight Peace Action’s 50-year history – and prospects for the future – in a multimedia presentation that can be used at the organization’s various commemorative events planned for this spring and fall. The 5-7 minute presentation will combine text, photos, graphics, music, and very short video clips of interviews to document 5 decades of the organization’s leadership in the evolving U.S. peace and justice movements, with an emphasis on local events, individuals, and community groups, as I hope to present the first version of the presentation at the Massachusetts Peace Action 50th Anniversary Celebration at the end of April. The final product will also include links to a “Call to Action” that will feature ways viewers can get involved in supporting Peace Action’s ongoing work and current campaigns. The product will also be designed to build organizational capacity as a tool for presenting funders, donors and prospective members a compelling presentation of Peace Action as an organization worth joining, supporting and sustaining into the future.
Main Idea/Theme
The main idea for this project is that it will celebrate and document the organization’s past actions and accomplishments, while conveying a sense of the organization’s continued effectiveness, relevance, and purpose as we look to the future, grounded in today’s current political moment, in which work for peace is particularly challenging and desperately needed. It is meant to be both an inspiring and educational piece that will build a sense of shared community amongst those who view it. The theme that will run throughout the presentation will be based on Peace Action’s long-range strategy of building “Real Security through Global Cooperation, Human Rights and Democracy, and Nuclear Abolition”, which is also the framework around which our programs and campaigns are structured. Images will document activists’ participation in demonstrations, rallies, marches, cultural events, political actions, and educational conferences addressing issues related to this theme. Text will identify key people and events in historical context, and will make references to the issues and values that drive the organization’s mission. Stylistically, the project will use fonts and color schemes consistent with the organizations’ websites, publications and existing branding (logos, etc.), specifically a lot of blue and orange hues.
Elements of the Project
The project will include photographs of the organization in action across the last five decades, complemented, when needed, by text captions/descriptions/transitions, accompanied by music, and occasionally punctuated by footage of key players (board members, past organizers, current staff, notables) speaking briefly in interviews about the organization’s role in building grassroots movements for a more just and peaceful world, as well as the interviewees own personal experiences with the organization. The first priority is to create a presentation that will be shown to an audience of ~150 folks attending Massachusetts Peace Action’s 50th Anniversary Celebration this spring, but eventually other elements will be added for viewers accessing the presentation individually, via the web or on a DVD. These other elements will include links to websites and access to documents and information that will further the viewers’ active involvement in and support for the organization – i.e. petitions, membership forms, etc.
Final presentation (Web, CD, DVD, etc.)
Initially, the main feature (a 5-7 minute presentation) will be saved on a DVD and projected onto a screen at an event, but as the project evolves, it will also be available on a DVD to be distributed to individual users and the presentation will be accessible on the web on the organization’s websites.
Project Flowchart
Click here.
In 2007, Peace Action celebrates 50 years since it’s founding in 1957 as the Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy. Peace Action is a national nonprofit organization, powered by a grassroots network of activists engaged in education, advocacy, and community organizing to promote a just and peaceful foreign policy based on global cooperation, human rights and democracy, the elimination of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, and federal budget priorities that build human security through social, racial, economic and environmental justice. For my project, I wish to highlight Peace Action’s 50-year history – and prospects for the future – in a multimedia presentation that can be used at the organization’s various commemorative events planned for this spring and fall. The 5-7 minute presentation will combine text, photos, graphics, music, and very short video clips of interviews to document 5 decades of the organization’s leadership in the evolving U.S. peace and justice movements, with an emphasis on local events, individuals, and community groups, as I hope to present the first version of the presentation at the Massachusetts Peace Action 50th Anniversary Celebration at the end of April. The final product will also include links to a “Call to Action” that will feature ways viewers can get involved in supporting Peace Action’s ongoing work and current campaigns. The product will also be designed to build organizational capacity as a tool for presenting funders, donors and prospective members a compelling presentation of Peace Action as an organization worth joining, supporting and sustaining into the future.
Main Idea/Theme
The main idea for this project is that it will celebrate and document the organization’s past actions and accomplishments, while conveying a sense of the organization’s continued effectiveness, relevance, and purpose as we look to the future, grounded in today’s current political moment, in which work for peace is particularly challenging and desperately needed. It is meant to be both an inspiring and educational piece that will build a sense of shared community amongst those who view it. The theme that will run throughout the presentation will be based on Peace Action’s long-range strategy of building “Real Security through Global Cooperation, Human Rights and Democracy, and Nuclear Abolition”, which is also the framework around which our programs and campaigns are structured. Images will document activists’ participation in demonstrations, rallies, marches, cultural events, political actions, and educational conferences addressing issues related to this theme. Text will identify key people and events in historical context, and will make references to the issues and values that drive the organization’s mission. Stylistically, the project will use fonts and color schemes consistent with the organizations’ websites, publications and existing branding (logos, etc.), specifically a lot of blue and orange hues.
Elements of the Project
The project will include photographs of the organization in action across the last five decades, complemented, when needed, by text captions/descriptions/transitions, accompanied by music, and occasionally punctuated by footage of key players (board members, past organizers, current staff, notables) speaking briefly in interviews about the organization’s role in building grassroots movements for a more just and peaceful world, as well as the interviewees own personal experiences with the organization. The first priority is to create a presentation that will be shown to an audience of ~150 folks attending Massachusetts Peace Action’s 50th Anniversary Celebration this spring, but eventually other elements will be added for viewers accessing the presentation individually, via the web or on a DVD. These other elements will include links to websites and access to documents and information that will further the viewers’ active involvement in and support for the organization – i.e. petitions, membership forms, etc.
Final presentation (Web, CD, DVD, etc.)
Initially, the main feature (a 5-7 minute presentation) will be saved on a DVD and projected onto a screen at an event, but as the project evolves, it will also be available on a DVD to be distributed to individual users and the presentation will be accessible on the web on the organization’s websites.
Project Flowchart
Click here.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Multimedia Definitions and Example:
Multimedia is the union of information, sensation, stimulation and participation. It is art and entertainment, education and interactive engagement. Multimedia brings together diverse and distinct vehicles for communicating information in ways that may inform, inspire, entertain and interactively engage, by presenting a combination of media modes, which may include text, image, audio, video, animation and/or interactive technologies.
While our Web 2.0 world has dramatically increased our engagement with digital and electronic multimedia presentations, the same defining principles of multimedia as a combination of different types of media are also evident in many works of traditional and fine arts and can be seen all around us in advertising campaigns and educational tools that combine words, sounds, still and moving images, etc. The first books many children read combine, at the most basic level, a mixture of text and pictures. Our families and communities document our shared experiences in albums or scrapbooks that may combine photos, illustrations, and written language. Advertisements that bombard us on television often include music, still imagery, and text, in addition to video. So while we tend to think of "multimedia" as primarily inhabiting a high-tech world, it can be perceived all around us in an ongoing way throughout our lifetimes.
That being said, the proliferation of multimedia presentations and possibilities via the internet, has and continues to dramatically expand our opportunities for engaging with new presentations of information that captivate us and provide increasingly accessible outlets for our own creativity, as well. As the ability to post text, upload images, and stream audio and video via the web becomes increasingly simplified, user-friendly, and open to "authors" of varying degrees of technical ability and media expertise, multimedia authoring is becoming an increasingly vital tactic and toolset for individuals, communities and organizations that are seeking to convey information to a wide audience, despite limited power, technical or financial resources.
To illustrate the enhanced communication and outreach capacities multimedia affords groups engaged in grassroots social change, I have selected a multimedia example recently used in a campaign with which I've been active. The "Not Your Soldier" flash presentation (accessible via the link and image below) combines words, video, animation, voices, music, photos and interactivity in a brief presentation that is entertaining, eye-opening, and informative, reaching out to young people to both engage them in considering the realities of the growing militarization of the youth community and presenting examples of resistance from previous generations. It is an interesting example because it is both an advertisement and promotional piece for another multimedia presentation (the documentary film Sir! No Sir!), while also serving as a multimedia presentation, in and of itself. Additionally, it connects viewers to the websites of the organizations affiliated with the campaign, providing creative outreach and awareness-raising about these organizations and contributing to their organizational capacity building by generating new subscribers to their email alert lists. Viewers can "interact" with the presentation by sharing it with peers via email, posting it to their own website, blog or myspace page, and clicking on one of the hotlinked images at the end of the presentation to sign a petition, make a donation, or purchase related merchandise on the web. As an organizer, I was impressed with how our campaign was greatly enhanced and expanded by this engaging tool, which spread virally to thousands of young activists online, demonstrating how increasingly accessible multimedia sharing has become in our web 2.0 world.
http://notyoursoldier.org/article.php?list=type&type=14Flash presentation to promote the film "Sir! No Sir!" and the Not Your Soldier Campaign, combining text, images, animation, video, audio/music and connecting viewers to interactive opportunities for viral online promotion and online engagement with the issues presented.
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