Using Social Media to Enhance Community

I'm doing a new community film project entitled 'Using Social Media to Enhance Community' (until I can come up with a better name). This film will briefly explore what social media is (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, blogging, wikis) followed by interview clips, short screencasts, and some fly-on-the-wall views of at least one in-person meeting of people who are involved in social media.

Right now I'm looking for some non-technical people who would provide a balance to the tech-savvy people who I am interviewing. The focus for the interview and video with non-technical people is to explore how their reaction to using social media applications for community-building. Although the tone of this film is intended to be positive toward the use of social media for communities, hearing some of the difficulties would also be constructive.

I may also explore how social media is used in secondary or pre-secondary education, how it is perceived and used by the leaders and workers of the future, although I haven't decided if this will make it into this film.

If you are someone interested in participating in this project, to be interviewed or to recommend others, please contact me.

Community Film Production and Basic Rights Oregon

I'm taking a Field Production class from Portland Community Media and this Saturday we had our first filming session. Our class is divided into two groups, the other group is producing a short film on the pinball craze and our group is producing a film on the effects on families of the injunction on the Oregon Family Fairness Act. On Saturday we visited a family of four in Southeast Portland. Our goals were to get some interesting commentary on the effects on their lives from the two parents and to get some background filler material including their two children.

And wow, were our expectations met and far exceeded! After setting up the Sony DS250 on a tripod, doing the technical preparation (white adjustment, iris setting, audio settings), Kevin, one of our team, sat down next to the camera as the interviewer. The subjects (I don't want to reveal names here in the interest of their privacy, although you will surely be able to see them when the film is aired on local community television) were asked how they met. Let me say, that was all we had to do. These two women gave us such a spirited, interactive, friendly and intelligent story that no other questions were necessary (although we did ask a few others just to give them a break from talking).

I was so entertained by their story! Full of funny stories and poignant moments! Then they naturally gravitated to the subject of the Family Fairness Act and how the current state of the world in Oregon, that they are not officially married, that although they have had two separate wedding or union ceremonies, they are still not legally considered married. The student film team has the tough task of trying to scale this film session down to a short film. Maybe we will be able to convince our instructor, Tim, that this needs to be a longer film.

Before moving on, I can't help but comment on the interview with their two cute daughters who gave us some remarkably nice interview material.

I can't imagine anyone who sees our final film believing that these wonderful people are not a true family and deserve every single right that heterosexual couples receive for their families.

So we learned how to setup equipment, how to film, we did a little roaming camera work to pick up some interesting household views, including some home-schooling, and then we were off. Next Saturday we go to Basic Rights Oregon to do some additional interviewing.

A Homecoming and a Digital Media Holiday

I'm looking forward to my time off from work after Christmas. The best part will be having my daughter (right) back with us in Portland after a semester in Quebec where she has immersed herself in the French language, both Quebecois and native French. It's a nice feeling to see your children reaching out into worldly spheres where you yourself have not been (in this case, the language immersion) but there's no substitute for a hug and a smile and hours of good conversation with them as you see them growing up in front of your eyes. Ken and Laura have given us so much to be proud of in the last few years and we look forward to celebrating the (immediate) family reunion. Laura will be graduating in June from Portland State University while Ken has just achieved second in the district in personal banking sales at Wells Fargo.

The other part of my holiday vacation will be all about digital media. As I've said in an earlier post, I completed a digital storytelling class this fall and am actively seeking out projects to practice the craft. I'm putting a proposal together to develop a story about the Hoyt Arboretum in Portland. For the past half year, as a volunteer, I have been scanning thousands of the Arboretum's photographic slides for digital storage. It's been an incredibly tedious task but I'm one to two hours from completing the project. The digital story I'd like to tell would ideally be told, in voice-over, by the staff and maybe former staff of the Arboretum.

I'm also hoping to work with some NGOs doing good work in Cambodia, as a way to continue perfecting my craft, as a way to promote their work or cause, and as my continuing education on that developing country's history and progress.

Another part of my digital media holiday will be devoted to research into setting up a podcasting program dedicated to social causes. I'd like to interview people involved in specific issues such as the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), Cambodian development, microfinance and sustainable approaches used in developing countries. I'm hoping that I can develop an audience for such a podcast and possibly tie in an online donation process that will allow listeners to contribute to the various causes promoted by interviewees.

Creative Media For the Community

I'm finishing up a Digital Storytelling course at Portland Community Media this week. This course has been a gentle, but exciting, introduction to creating a story with digital images, voice over, music soundtrack and Photoshop-created graphics. Taught by a born storyteller, Tim Rooney, a staffer at PCM, the course is geared toward digital media newbies interested in learning the art of digital storytelling to tell their own personal or a community-interest story. No video is used in this course, just still images and graphics. The goal of the course is to have each student become familiar with the basics of these tools: PhotoShop, Apple's Final Cut Express and GarageBand, and to learn how to tell a simple story. My story is entitled From East to West and is about my move from the east to the west coast. From the many themes that I could have chosen, I decided to focus on my own personal feelings, in particular what may have (or not) motivated me to want to move and what places I have here in Portland that replaces some important places to me in the Boston area. It won't be a perfect project. The idea is to get your feet wet with the tools and finish the project. So Tuesday night I plan on finishing it in the three hours alloted to me during class. If it's not done in time, I hope to be able to finish it very soon, before Tim chooses the time to have the stories aired on cable tv and put on the PCM web.

I'm really stoked about this medium of communication! I've always wanted to apply myself to the creative arts, having tried drawing, watercolor painting, photography, acting and guitar. I never got enough traction with any of them. But the combination of left and right brain synergy that is required to do great digital storytelling feels just right to me. I get to be technical (I'm sure my programming will enter the fray at some time in the future of a project) and I get to apply my creative instincts.

After completing this first project I will be looking for another project to do. I might even take the other PCM digital storytelling class which includes video. As Maria embarks on her para-legal education in January, I will be embarking on my new, exciting hobby.

Now... how can I use this new found talent to help eradicate poverty, or make for better communities in the Portland area, or help reduce the effects of global warming, or get people to eat locally and organic more?