Outreach in filmmaking

What is outreach in filmmaking?  Outreach and distribution are often confused,  but they are distinctly different things and it’s important to understand the difference if you want your film to make a social impact.

In this weeks episode, we go into detail on how to make outreach work as part of your films strategy so that you can maximise on the impact it can have and get the most out of your work.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to the Moonshine Moonshot series. Today we are going to be talking to you about outreach.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

What is outreach? Hi Sue.

unknown 0:12

Hi Mike.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Well, the reason I'd like to talk about outreach today is because I think it's um an often pretty missed and misunderstood part of impact filmmaking.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Yeah, I think it's more important to all filmmaking as we go forward, actually, because more and more films are designed to do something, to activate the audience and get some kind of outcome. And to do that, um we need to reach beyond traditional distribution.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Yeah, we do, and um I think distribution is often confused for outreach. So I think just kind of trying to separate those two different, both very important but distinctly different things. So distribution is how you get your film in front of an audience, and outreach is about how do you get your film to do something, to get people to do something.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

So what is an outreach? I would say things that aren't outreach is uh putting your show on TV most of the time where it's just passively consumed by people, not always the case, because there are some shows that are more targeted to be interactive and to drive engagement, but most of them are more passively consumed. I'd say putting your films into cinemas in a general release where people just rock up and pay their ticket price and watch it is less likely to be classified as outreach. Um, putting things on video on demand, subscription video on demand services often I would not consider to be outreach. Uh, however, now we're going to get into all the nuances because there are events that are hosted in theaters, for example, that would very much be classified as outreach. There would be some types of TV live events that would definitely be considered to be outreach, and there are all types of opportunities through social media and digital media distribution, which could be classified as outreach. So the biggest difference from my perspective is whether the audience is passively engaging with the content as opposed to actively engaging, getting involved in doing something after they experience the content.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Yeah, that's absolutely right. So you can go to the cinema and you can see an amazing impact film. I mean, there's some amazing impact films, but they don't necessarily have an outreach component. So, for example, um, one that's coming to my mind right now, um, a film that I really love called The Blind Side, the Sandra Bullock story of um the young boy who becomes a football star and the you know um white family who embrace this black boy who um then becomes um so it's all about racism and um acceptance and all these other things, and it's a really powerful film and it really makes you think and it really starts some powerful conversations. But I saw it as a um film on television, so it wasn't an outreach film. Um whereas if I'd seen it in a cinema environment, but afterwards there was a panel and a discussion, and um people were asked to join a mailing list or make a donation or get involved with a particular charity or do something, then that becomes an outreach event.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Right. So outreach has more to do with movement rather than just audiences. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 3:34

That's right. So it's about helping people to do something, to get involved, to make a difference, to be part of a change process, and you know that that can be anything. That can be from making a donation to signing up to a website to sharing content, all of those things are outreach. Um, but it it is it's active participation.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Usually it's tied to communities as well. So either you're being invited to become part of a community or a community is putting on the event, even if it's an online event, or sometimes a TV event, um, or an event at a theatre.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Or you're being asked to support a community.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Yes, that's right. So normally this idea of outreach goes with community, which often goes with this idea of a movement, people getting together to make something happen. So that can take many forms, but it it is powerful when you see it happening, and it would be quite distinctly different from distribution in terms of your budget, for example.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Yeah, that's right. And so um you you can have a really powerful um film, but it maybe only is shown to a local community, um, and then it's got a huge outreach campaign, and and maybe it's just simply designed to fund a local sports team to get their next season funded, or whatever it is. It doesn't have to be a huge global kind of a thing, it can be very localized, it can be very specific, um, and then that outreach has a really meaningful impact that you can see, or it can be a really big global thing that you're getting huge amounts of audiences engaged, and you're getting a lot of different groups and community groups, and um they're all working together to make change within their local communities.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

I remember back in around 2013 um we were working with an amazing group called Common Ground Canberra, who were had identified a big issue with homelessness in Canberra, and that there was an insufficient amount of housing for homeless people in that city, uh, and they engaged us to make a series of short films, three I think there were, um, that were really designed to raise awareness around this issue. But beyond so, in terms of the distribution raising awareness bit, these films were showed uh online, made available online, and also showed at film festivals, short film festivals. Um, but then the outreach kicked in, and the outreach involved doing things like taking these films and screening them at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, it's the capital city of Australia, inviting people who are in the film, so homeless people, to come into that seat of power, to also be part of the event screening, uh, to be recognized and also have their voices be heard at that event. And there are many other sort of fundraising and community-style events that happened around these films that have been produced. And the outcome was fantastic because uh this group was successful in raising, I think it was over $50 million, to actually build uh, you know, a brand new affordable housing complex, you know, uh where some of these people um could rebuild their lives, come out of chronic homelessness and rough sleeping and couch surfing, and actually get into a safe supported environment where they could, you know, sort of start over, get a fresh start. So that to me is like an example of outreach.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Yeah, that that's a really good example because it was a a localized problem um and it was a a local solution, but it required enormous amount of um input from the government and from local philanthropy um to make it possible and make it happen, and they did. And the the films that were produced that really helped them to um convey their message were the there were there was three of them, and they were I think from memory they're about five minutes each, so they were quite short. So the screenings for those were quite short screenings, um, but they had huge impact.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Yeah, so I mean the distribution part of that is you might have a budget to um apply to different short film festivals, you know, for the registration fees, uh possibly try and get it on TV if you can find a placement for short form content and publish it online, but then the outreach component might come into, you know, doing uh, you know, uh GoFundMe or an Indiegogo, you know, Kickstarter type campaign. So trying to crowdfund the initiative you're working on, I would see that more as being outreach. It would be hosted events which were more strategic, like the ones I'd mentioned at Parliament House and with funders. Uh, and you know, so for that you need a sort of different budget in terms of being dedicated to putting on events, an event coordinator perhaps, um, and you know, supporting those films, getting out there into the community, engaging the community.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Yeah, so I think um I think that's a really good example, and so outreach. I think I hope we've got that across in everything we've talked about. That route outreach is not about distribution. Outreach is what you do to get the audience engaged and doing something after they've seen the film content that you've produced.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Yeah, that's right. And I think you need both. You need great distribution, you need great reach because that's ultimately can do a lot of good and can shift consciousness and can help people look at things in a different way. Uh, the broader the better, really, if you're trying to make an impact. You also want really targeted good outreach, which makes sure that that content you've produced gets in front of the people who can help you make the change you want to see in the world. And I think that's the difference, and these are intertwined concepts. Um, but hopefully, we've helped to unpack them a little bit because I know they can sometimes get confused.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

So I guess the thing is you can have distribution without outreach, yes, but you can't really have outreach without distribution.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

So um when you're planning your production and you're planning your budget, if you're planning to do outreach, make sure that you have budgeted for it because um it can be a lot more um expensive than you realize because hosting events and um creating the materials that you need for people to make donations, for people to get involved, whatever those activities are, and the manpower to make it all happen, you do need to factor it in.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Yeah, so I think there's a big difference in terms of the amount of impact you can make through traditional distribution, let's say it's on TV or video on demand, it comes down your Netflix, you'll watch it, it makes an impression. It can change your heart and mind, and that's good. But is it gonna rally you and inspire you to take action? Um, even if there's a solid call to action at the end, in some cases, yes, but it's gonna be a small proportion of the audience. Now, take exactly the same piece of content and put it into an event format or an online event where you're highly engaged, it's interactive, you feel like you're part of a community, you feel like you're building a movement to make real change, and you're more likely to get involved. From my experience, many more people are likely to get involved, which makes your impact potentially bigger, and you can be, you know, really uh strategic and selective about who you invite to those events so that you can make sure the people who have the power in whatever it is that you're working on uh can be engaged, can be inspired, and be encouraged to do something really useful.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

So if you um if you're wanting to create an outreach campaign or um do more work on your um your films to to be able to develop an outreach component to them, um we've got a lot of experience in this, be very happy to share more. We just kind of need to know what you need to know. So once you've listened to this, um if you've got ideas or um questions, please just get in touch.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Yeah, and I think if you're going along that train of thought, it'd be really good to watch the episode around strategic communications planning because I think that takes in a lot of this, you know, it brings together the story and the mission and will give you lots of great ideas about oh what I could do with outreach? You know, how could this be utilized? So that might be useful as well.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

So I'll put those links in the notes below the video.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Alright, well, thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

Bye.