Documentary Producers

"Environmental (educational or activist) documentary projects and community outreach are symbiotic: They need each other to succeed. A good documentary can provide the visuals and the stories to inspire viewers and raise awareness of the issues. The outreach provides viewers the means by which they can take action in order to create real impact on those issues." Kristi Laguzza-Boosman - Outreach Consultant

If you are a documentary producer and feel committed to creating real impact around your issues, then consider creating a community outreach campaign to accompany each one of your film and video projects. Why? Because without a tangible follow-up to your visual work, you may have unwittingly engaged in what I refer to as the "dump and run" phenomenon. In other words, all you may have really managed to do with your documentary is dump a load of bad news on viewers and left them wondering how to clean it up after you've moved on. Instead, why not give your viewers additional information, lead them to resources and empower them to act on the awareness and inspiration you've generated in your film? That is what a good outreach campaign does; it answers the viewer's question, "What can I do now that I know what I know - and how can I get involved?"

If you need another reason why you should create outreach around your documentary work, how about this: Funders love outreach. If you want to fund your next project more easily, include an outreach component that creates measurable impact around your documentary issue. Funders don't want to merely fund an attractive film - they want to fund impact and change. And the best way to create change around your documentary project is to create an outreach campaign to accompany it.