The films always come first. Judith and I came together, from our separate backgrounds and separate professional experience because we had one common belief: that excellent documentary films speak in a universal language. Stories that are compelling, persuasive and personal reach audiences and individuals in a way that almost nothing else does. Over the last six years we've seen this proven again and again. Excellent films can move audiences to action - powerful storytelling presents unique moments and unique opportunities for our compatriots, organizers and activists, in fights for justice. When we started we felt that film, and social issue docs in particular, was being underutilized in that role. There was a lot of rhetoric around film as a tool for social change but there wasn't a lot of convincing evidence in the field.

Our first goal was to create and support good filmmaking: maximizing the potential of the persuasive power of the documentary. We wanted to link documentary films and video - vividly illustrating the struggles and triumphs of our lives - to long-term community organizing and activism. From the beginning we were interested in strengthening the link between filmmakers and organizers, filmmakers and activists, filmmakers and educators to say "here is the potential these stories hold, we just need to exploit them in the best sense of the word". We were dedicated to respecting and balancing the narrative needs of the filmmaking process with the strategic needs of organizing initiatives.  

When we started Working Films, we had very enthusiastic responses from funders, both large and small, but almost no early takers to our idea. Most said, "this sounds like a great idea: we think you should go do it, but we can't support your startup." We think this was partly because funders, especially the mega-funders, were increasingly having doubts about general support to the independent media field because there wasn't a lot of convincing or concrete proof that their support of independent media was making a difference in the areas they most cared about: progressive social change. There was no clear evidence, at least in the funders' minds, of the impact that independent media was having beyond increasing the diversity of voices and expressions in American life. They certainly believed and still believe in that core value, but all the other arms of their funding may have been more systematically addressing the inequities in American life in a much more direct engagement, even at the grassroots, "on-the-street" level. Everyone in the field was talking about potential for creating change but it was more difficult to actually point to what change looked like. That was a fundamental question when we opened Working Films: How do you measure change enacted through independent media? How can we talk about in a way that's authentic and real? And how is the film connected to the change that's happening on the street?

We link non-fiction film to activism: that's a shorthand description. Our core methodology is to embed our film projects into the commitments and promise of savvy effective organizing. Our core compatriots are cutting-edge advocates who make use of our films as part of their efforts to successfully effect change. The independent documentary community often asks, "How can the movement be in service to my film? We insist the better question is, "How can my film be of service to the movement?"

We believe the best way to start these partnerships is early on. We work with filmmakers when they're in pre-production - not to have them re-edit their work or reshape their stories but so that they can begin to understand the "narrative needs" of the organizers. If filmmakers truly want their work to be effective, then they can't work in isolation. If you're not taking your film out of your editing suite and not looking at the effect your film can have on the ground, even in pre-production, then you may miss the film's full potential. That's not to say that filmmakers don't control the artistic side. They do. What we have found is that a very influential part of our work is to act as a relationship builder between the savviest, most productive organizers on the appropriate issues and connect them with films and filmmakers who want to tell stories that are relevant. When we take on a film that addresses some crucial issue, we ask "What holds the promise of change?"

We think the most effective campaigns balance the narrative needs of the filmmaking with change-making potential of the organizing. Organizers need these stories; they may need 10 minutes of a powerful narrative to open a dialogue with legislators, or a national broadcast with the potential to reach millions of PBS viewers who will be introduced to their issue, maybe for the first time. Organizers are hungry for these opportunities. And, most importantly for us, when the credits roll, whether it's for a home viewer, on the screen of a suburban cineplex or at a fellowship hall in a community screening, we want to ensure that audience are linked to and motivated to act by the expertise and strategy from amazing advocates in the field.  While some outreach practitioners call themselves "neutral conveners of dialogue" - we have higher aspirations: we are totally dedicated to progressive and significant transformations that we know these films offer. 

Judith and I met when she was doing a rough-cut of her first film, Uprising of '34 in Charlotte NC.  I was a curator of media there at a regional museum, and had been supporting independent media for many years. Judith felt from the beginning that all her films had to have authentic organizing attached to them. She's both an activist and filmmaker.

When Judith and I met, we found we both were coming to the same core beliefs albeit from separate directions. At that moment, I had been at the Mint Museum for ten years, running a progressive program of independent documentary and experimental films and I was beginning to recognize a recurrent frustration I was having with some of our screenings. We had always made a commitment to screen social justice documentaries, which after some years of building an audience were now beginning to regularly pack the house. I recognized that part of this success was simply because there was little alternative media being offered in Charlotte, a New South city of many transplanted workers, often from the Northeast, who were hungry to see the films they were hearing  or reading about, in places like the pages of the New York Times.  And I personally felt that the more progressive social justice films were especially resonant in this place that still had remnants of the Old South and Dixie, including occasional city politicians who were often borderline-fanatical - on the far side of the Right Wing.  
 
And increasingly, as I curated these screenings - with filmmakers often in attendance - I was becoming frustrated by what I saw as missed opportunities with our audiences. It was not uncommon to have 200 audience members be visibly moved, afterwards in the Q & A, folks would stand up and say, "How can I help? What can I do right now?" And there we were, 200 people in the room, asking to help. It was not uncommon for the filmmakers to say, not inappropriately, "but I'm not an activist, I'm a storyteller." In best-case scenarios they could name some national organization "in the fight" but there seemed an unnecessary gap between the film and the efforts "on the street".

Since Judith is as much an activist as she is a filmmaker, she always had excellent and grounded answers to that question in her Q & As but, in the first conversations we had about Working Films, we understood our effort couldn't be about turning filmmakers into activists. We did want filmmakers to understand that as just as they wanted to get to Sundance or to have a national broadcast, they should have high expectations that their films would be part of effective organizing campaigns.

While Judith and I were on different ends of film delivery, (she was making and I was exhibiting), we shared that over goal for social justice docs. There needed to be an institute or an organization or an infrastructure in the middle: to work with filmmakers so their films were connected to authentic change and to work with organizers to make sure they're using media as a truly effective tool for change. At the time, media would sometimes stump organizers and activists in surprising ways. We thought we needed an organization that would meet the needs of films and activism on both sides - and meet them half way and in the middle.

Judith and I are both certainly in the community, Judith as a filmmaker, myself as a curator who had relationships with doc filmmakers for 15 odd years. In the beginning, we sought out filmmakers we knew who were doing good work. We said "be in this experiment with us, partner with us and we'll do some good work around your film". Even as early as our first year, we started to get calls from filmmakers who would say to us, a grant application in front of them: "Question 6 says: "What is the intended outreach for your film?" and I know I have to have an answer for this but I don't know what the answer is."

Both Judith and I had a growing number of conversations with filmmakers and that became a problem because we were still trying to get started with our own work. We decided we needed to compartmentalize this a bit but keep our door open, so to speak. So we launched a "Connect: Filmmaker" sector on our website. Filmmakers fill out an interactive form, it posts to my calendar, and two designated Wednesdays a month we offer a free consultation for filmmakers, typically anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. We are talking to filmmakers in NY, CA the Midwest, the South, Everywhere! And it's meant to be is a one-time, free ranging conversation that will specifically deal with their challenge to develop and organize their outreach. It's almost like "Organizing Outreach 101", and filmmakers have clearly found our conversation useful. We may never have another conversation with the filmmakers again, we may see the film get released 2 years later and that's fine. In other cases, these conversations have led to ongoing relationships with filmmakers - where we had a great first conversation, got excited about working together and found ways to keep working together on the further development and implementation of their outreach.

Sundance is thinking along some of these lines as well. They're putting together a panel called "From the Multi-Plex to the Living Room: Marketing on the New Documentary Landscape". I, and four of five others from the industry will hopefully de-construct marketing beyond the traditional understanding. What's interesting for us is that "outreach" is a word that's been out there for a long time and it's definition, in some ways, is fatigued. People aren't really sure what it means, they sometimes think it's too touchy feely. Not at all how we think of it. I think actually much of what we do is marketing: intentional, focus and target marketing. If you think of marketing it's about engaging audiences and pushing them to take action - with traditional marketing this results in a purchase - you want to grab audiences, engage their attention and complete the sale: you want them to buy something. In our case the difference is the "buy." We want to grab audiences, engage them, and motivate them: get off the couch, get in the streets, join the fight, call your legislator, or host a screening.

We're supporting two films right now that are in theatrical screening. One is The Real Dirt on Farmer John and the other is After Innocence. We are supporting the theatrical opening of The Real Dirt on Farmer John in four cities: Minneapolis, Chicago, SF Bay Area and Portland. We created a database of hundred of these allies in each city. We asked many of our allies to host a public pre-screening event or participate on premiere weekend by hosting a Q&A session.

In Minneapolis we are partnering with Ploughshare Farm (CSA) and the Food for Folk Project, a project linking small farmers with area food banks and soup kitchens, to host a community pre-screening event near their farm that will build interest in the film and educate about CSAs in rural areas and suburbs surrounding Chicago. Ploughshare Farm will also participate in the premiere weekend to host an information table. Another partner is May Farm CSA and Minnesota Food Association who will co-host a community pre-screening near the farm. May Farm and other CSA farmers will also host an information table during the premiere weekend.

Also in Minneapolis, the Wedge Co-op and Land Stewardship Project will co-host the premiere screening and Q&A with CSA farmers on January 20th. This event is already up on LSP's website and the Wedge is beginning its strong internet and print advertising for this special event. Student groups from the University Of Minnesota's Public Health Master's Program and Sustainable Agriculture Programs will host a Q&A at the Saturday matinee, January 21st. Their main goal is to highlight the health benefits of locally grown organic food. The students are recruiting and coordinating farmers and professors to participate on a panel. Farmers Legal Action Group will host a Q&A on Sunday, January 22nd.

Every screening during the opening weekend of the film gets enhanced because every screening is hosted by one of these organizations; they increase audience engagement and they do a huge push to get their membership to turn out. So this is, in some ways, very traditional marketing, if you take a step away from it. We're building a focused audience and we're giving them a role in the release of the film that is going to enhance everyone else's involvement and engagement and get a buzz started that will increase audiences and ticket sales. In many ways, that's very much like traditional marketing.



For another film we're working with Operation: Dreamland, with a wide theatrical release and national broadcast, we're pulling together a number organizations in for a summit meeting in Philadelphia. Those organizations are on the frontlines of doing work to push and support a national conversation about why we're in Iraq, how do we support the soldiers, how we can get out, and how do we ensure that we don't make unilateral foreign policy and imperialistic moves like this again.

All of our successful campaigns, including Blue Vinyl, Two Towns of Jasper, Thirst, Deadline, Freedom Machines, and Oil on Ice, started with a one or two-day summit meeting, linking grounded and on-going activism to the film's release and beyond. At these meetings, typically held while the films were in a fine-cut or rough-cut, we brought together the savviest and smartest activists and organizers we could find to create a coordinated strategy that embeds these independent titles into grounded and ongoing campaigns, including tying the timeline of the films - from festival releases to national broadcasts to community screenings - to timetable of the grassroots movement to ensure greater success. We encourage filmmakers to think of their film's timetable as catalysts for organizing moments and also to understand that the richest potential for their film may be long after their broadcast or their festival tour.  

At these summit meetings, aimed at designing an outreach campaign that is useful to the overall movement, we accomplish the following: determine the elements of a inter-related strategy of an outreach campaign that outlines how all the various organizations will work to accomplish our shared goals and outcomes; develop a two to three year timetable including the film's release, a pre-broadcast GET THE WORD OUT campaign and an extensive post-broadcast phase which ties the film's timetable more appropriately to an organizing timetable; create a comprehensive budget and a fundraising strategy for the campaign that compensates all players; and establish specific measurements of success and a strategy for on-going and responsive evaluation allowing us to capture the concrete outcomes and narratives as they happen and have the latitude to shift the campaign's direction and goals as the campaign evolves.
 
All these organizations have seen the film, come to us before the meeting with work plans they've developed with their staff and look, with us, at a 3-year timeline for the film beyond its film release and broadcast.

Occupation: Dreamland is quite extraordinary. It features soldiers in Falluja speaking firsthand, about why they're there in the full complexity of that issue. On the face of it, it's not an anti war film so much as it's a film about soldiers in Iraq. If we look at mainstream news and reporting, soldiers are the last folks we hear from. While the film is mostly about these soldier's points of view, these points of view will then support a national conversation that is shifting around "why are we there." So, how do you extend the life of the documentary? You make sure it's useful at every phase. It's not just about pointing to the broadcast and then having it be over. The end of a film's traditional release is not the end of the issue and we shouldn't let it seem that way. There's still a great deal of work to be done: by the film, by organizers and by us.