Activist Documentary Program

May 01-May 10

Spend ten days getting yourself intimately acquainted with a medium that will enable you or your organisation to produce an excellent tool for expressing and disseminating your message. Choose to produce a short documentary, or a more focused, made-for-TV PSA, and begin to broaden your impact through media activism.

For this program, Leanne Allison (director, "Being Caribou") and Diana Wilson (producer, "Being Caribou" & "100% Woman") have mentored a special extended Media Intensive Program with the goal of bringing together and empowering today's voices for change. Jennifer Abbott will be giving a workshop and providing critiques for the projects. If you are passionate about a cause, be it environmental, cultural or social justice, this course will give you all the skills and inspiration you need to spread the word with visual impact.

It has always been the hope of those of us at GIFTS that our alumni would use their guerilla media-making skills to make waves in this world. And indeed, many do, as do our mentors. Whether it's preserving ancestral stories, or striving to protect an arctic wildlife refuge, GIFTed folks have made their mark in the world of activist-oriented independent media.

To get an idea of how far you can go, check out "Scared Sacred," a provocative and inspiring film by GIFTS mentor and co-founder, Velcrow Ripper, or Canada's most successful documentary to date, "The Corporation," co-directed and edited by GIFTS mentor, Jennifer Abbott.

This course has been extended to allow for extra post production time, resulting in a cleaner completed project, ready for distribution. The course will run from a Tuesday until Thursday of the following week.

General MIP Outline - Focus on Documentary

NOTE: the following schedule is from our week-long program. While the days do not apply, it nonetheless gives you a view into the curriculum. Further scheduling details will be made available to registrants of the course.

• Sunday: Students arrive on Galiano Island (you will be met at the ferry terminal by the film school bus); check into rooms; introductions & ice breaking exercises.
• Monday: Media literacy, visual storytelling. Project development.
• Tuesday: Pre-production, Prepare & Schedule shoots, Tech workshops: camera, lighting & sound.
• Wednesday: On-location shoots, begin post-production - digitize and log/transcribe source footage.
• Thursday: On-location shoots, if needed; Complete transcribing, paper edit, begin editing
• Friday: Continue editing, sound design
• Saturday: Complete editing, creation of credit sequence, polish up odds and ends.
• Sunday: Public screening of the videos at 2 pm. Family and friends are welcome to attend. Catch the ferry home with a copy of all videos produced during the session.