Making Your Media Matter

Media That Matters

Media That Matters

This year's theme is Change for Good - and early bird registration is officially open! Join us February 10-11, 2012 at American University. Check out the conference agenda, get directions, and connect on Facebook.

 Get details...

Visiting Filmmakers

Visiting Filmmakers

CSM hosts visiting filmmakers in the fall and spring semesters at American University. These successful independents offer their wisdom, mistakes and victories, in the process of making socially engaged media.

 View the schedule.

Pull Focus

Pull Focus

Closely linked to Visiting FIlmmakers is our Pull Focus Series. Pull Focus is an ongoing online discussion that explores the practice and purpose of documentary filmmaking with a focus on the technical, ethical and economic challenges confronting experienced and emerging filmmakers. CSM hosts online podcasts and transcripts of the Pull Focus interviews with filmmakers to serve as a resource for students and the community at large on the subject of social documentary.

 Read interviews.

Educational Materials

Educational Materials

In addition to the Pull Focus series, the CSM website is home to a number of additional educational materials available for usage and download. 

 Browse materials.

The Center for Social Media is committed to providing resources and showcasing cutting-edge practices to help you make your media matter. Making Your Media Matter (MYMM) is a program that explores the evolution of documentary film and video in the digital and transmedia age. We ask questions and look for answers about effective outreach, audience engagement, distribution, funding, partnerships, impact, and how to be strategic from the start with your socially engaged media.

 SPOTLIGHT ON: Making An Impact - including examples of creative media projects that have propelled massive social action and our new report, Social Justice Documentary: Designing For Impact 

 

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Related Materials

Articles

Center Releases New Publication on Digital Distribution in Television: The New Deal
Read the Center for Social Media's new Report, entitled The New Deal: How Digital Platforms Change Negotiations between Public Media and Independent...
What Keeps Social Documentaries from Audiences--and How to Fix It
What happens to U.S. social documentaries after they are first seen at a film festival or on television? Far too little--in spite of evidence of...
Judith Helfand and "Making Change, Making Movies"
Judith Helfand, the maker of A Healthy Baby Girl and co-director of Blue Vinyl and The Uprising of '34, shares strategies and secrets for fundraising...

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Best Practices

Honest Truths: Documentary Filmmakers on Ethical Challenges in Their Work
This study provides a map of perceived ethical challenges that documentary filmmakers—directors and producer-directors—in the United States...
Code of Best Practices for Sustainable Filmmaking
Welcome to the Code of Best Practices in Sustainable Filmmaking. This site currently contains the Code’s Principles (see below) as well as its...

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Case Studies

Case Study - STATE OF FEAR: The Truth about Terrorism
State of Fear, a project of Skylight Pictures, is a longform documentary film at the center of a multiplatform local/global strategic human rights...
Case Study - Out In The Silence
Out in the Silence is a feature-length documentary film that shows how the citizens of a small, conservative town in western Pennsylvania...
Case Study - Lioness
Lioness is a feature-length documentary film that dramatizes the increasing role of U.S. women in combat, despite an official policy banning such...

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