Activist Video training in Bristol’s Stokes Croft

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0bTIh5hqmo&w=420&h=315]

I shot this brief, smartphone film this morning using a visionOntv video-making template, warming up for a day at the Bristol Radical Film Festival in Stokes Croft.

This week-long event has a hoard of film treasures, meaning the 15 or so participants in today’s training workshop didn’t need any explanations about why our conventional media need a root-and-branch revamp themselves.

The results were impressive, many people buddied up to produce three-shot, no-edit films explaining a where, what, why story of their choice.

The why of using a template is to cut-out the black holes of editing, processing and the rest that accompany conventional video film-making. What you lose in quality you gain in spades in productivity – the good kind – and in getting stories out there that otherwise just wouldn’t get told.

I helped out as a volunteer so as to practise using the template myself and to begin learning how to train others to be reporters – a core part of my conclusions in Fraudcast News.

Everyone here is talking about how to get funds to continue their work, meaning I will be giving away more PDF copies of the book than selling paperbacks.

That’s fine by me. Send me an email or make a comment below if you want one.