This is a DRAFT of a text i wrote 09/08/2002
The #ENR was a global alt-media production/networking project in the USA, it went out on TV. I was responsible for bringing this project to Europe after it had been running in the USA.
This is my (failed) attempt to stop the project becoming irrelevant.
Every time this project takes a step I cringe, a shudder of shock go’s threw me. If we don’t ask the people who have done this before – and the are a number – then we are DOOMED to make the same mistakes, and I, for one, don’t have much hart or spirit to go through this sad alt-movement ritual.
So here is another go at writing up what I think the project is:
* It’s an #indymedia style project-that it is fundamentally decentralised and non-hirarckal, based on open publishing and non-re-editing of other people’s work.
* it’s a grassroots project, that it is about encouraging, facilitating and training people who wouldn’t normally use video as a tool for social change. In this, giving them their own voice.
* it’s a project that is designed to link and strengthen existing video production groups and help to create new groups both within the indymedia network and outside it.
* it’s a project that at its bases is about creating a public focus for activist groups to facilitate and strengthen local campaigns and link these local campaigns together.
*** it’s a TWIN TRACK PROJECT, the euronewsreal itself is a tool for internal communication with in the movement. In this the existing video activist groups are mentors of the newsreel rather than creators – of course we will all produces segments, but that isn’t our first priority.
*** the second track is OUTREACH – this is where the editing comes in, and our current higher production values are used to best effect. The Newsreel is the opening segment of the screenings, ie. The first half. The main-feature is where the power of video as a tool for social change comes in, and it is this main-feature that we as existing video groups should concentrate on producing. Our job is to produce the main-feature such as globalisation and the media from Undercurrents, CannalB’s Genoa film, TroshenTV’s Europe film etc. This is the outreach social change part of the project.
* That is the newsreel itself is a tool for networking and training for the movement, it’s about strengthening connections and bring new people in, and hopefully (funding permitting) training them how to hold a camera steady (:
So fundamentally for us existing groups it’s more of a mentoring job. A good opportunity for those who need funding to apply for some to run training and networking meetings.
We will produce segments, but that isn’t the end all, of our job. The half hour newsreel is actually about creating a distribution network.
We will kill the grassroots nature of the project if we add a higheracky of editorial, not only will editing store up trubbal it will also take a much higher level of commitment – which I, for one, don’t have.
So at its base it’s a very simple “open publishing” system with no perment central higheracy. It’s about expanding the alt-video moment at the grassroots and consolidating it at the level of existing production groups. It’s a low-level project to get us all co-operating. An internal networking project not an external social change outreach project.
Its power for changing the world is focused on the co-operation it creates, rather than the half hour of monthly video. In this, the video will have a much power fuller effect than any highly produced project that founders on disagreements and the enevertabil burn out lack of support brings.
WE NEED TO LEARN FROM THE PAST!!!!
