Tag: video content

Charity, Why how and when should you use a film

Eventing (with a film)

Not the sort with dancing, leaping horses. I mean the type where you wine and dine guests

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Image from John Harwood’s flickr  page

 

under the thinly veiled guise of a not-to-be-missed high profile social occasion which of course we all know is really about selling or fundraising.

But your event doesn’t have to be a soulless sell out. The swell of emotion that can grow in a room of people reacting and experiencing something together as they feed off each other is extremely powerful if harnessed and used positively.

The importance of an exclusive shared experience that can be generated at such events shouldn’t be underestimated, and how better to create such an atmosphere than through screening a film.

Last night Minty Films was proud to have played a small but hopefully significant part in a fundraising exhibition, ‘Aftershock’ by photographer Chris Gravett. The private view at Espacio Gallery kick started a week long exhibition of limited edition prints which detail the work of small charity Kidasha.

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Copyright Chris Gravett
(Other notable works by esteemed documentary photography Chris Gravett include the aftermath of the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh and the documentation of life in a small American town dubbed the Heart of Hometown America.)

 

Kidasha is an incredible organisation that works to improve the lives of the most disadvantaged children and families in Nepal. After the earthquake exactly one year ago yesterday, their work was impacted heavily. The risks the children they were already supporting increased dramatically, and moreover a whole load of new families suddenly were in need of the organisation’s assistance.

So last night saw a big fundraising push to keep the post earthquake aid flowing. Minty Films was asked to produce a film primarily using the stills produced by Chris, intercut with an informative yet impassioned interview with Kidasha CEO Janice Miller.

Photo courtesy Espacio Gallery
Photo courtesy Espacio Gallery

But here’s the thing, how best to use the film?

It could be been shown on a loop in the corner.

It could be put in a dark room with headphones for individuals to watch at their leisure.

It could just be on a website and a link provided in the brochure.

Of course had this been the case, most probably wouldn’t have bothered to watch it.

To turn the mini screening of the film into an event within the main event is key. Its no coincidence that at many high profile charity events the charity auction is held directly after showing a short film. Fresh in the minds of the captive audience are the real reasons they’re there.

And often a short film will be shown at an event after or preceding the keynote speech.

A film can galvanise an audience, get them on side, tap into their soul and subconsciously they feed off each other’s reactions. Ultimately it’ll help them dig in their pockets a bit deeper.

A number of prints were sold last night with all profits going to Kidasha, the silent auction seemed to be getting wildly competitive and it doesn’t close until the end of the week!  The Exhibition runs until Sunday 1st May and the film (above) can now be viewed across various social media and websites and of course can be seen on a loop in the gallery for quiet private digestion!

https://www.kidasha.org/aftershock/

 

aftershock poster

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What is Minty Films?

Minty on the farm
Minty Van New Zealand
Minty at the waterfall
The Minty Van

Minty Films is a collection of stories, about people, about life, about human nature, captured on film.

I’m not an academic, nor am I an artist, or analyst, but I am a person, privileged to have met a wildly diverse bunch of other “persons”. I’d always assumed this privilege came to me primarily through the course of my day job. But circumstances have ensured I do a bit less of the day job now, however I still seem to encounter odd, inspirational, joyous and not so joyous people and their narratives when I have a camera to hand. So, here I’ve tried to collate some of these films, past and hopefully future, I’ve produced outside the conventions, or maybe that should be, constraints, of mainstream film making. This blog serves no purpose other than to share these stories and contain a portfolio of my alternative work and contributions in one happy compartment.

But, why Minty Films? One of the first films I made outside the constraints of the day job, on a Sony handy cam with only the in-built mic for sound on the camera, could be described as self portraiture, semi autobiographical even. But in truth it was home movie with a target audience of 2, intended for display nowhere other than the four walls of my own home.

Yet part of that film made it to the television screens in thousands of homes across the other side of the world. The original film captured the very personal adventure of life in a 1958 VW campervan called Minty, in which we travelled to the glacial peaks in the south, and the bubbling geothermal lakes in the north, of New Zealand in 2010-2011.

Then, somehow through some internet wizardry, Volkswagen happened across my very intimate, somewhat embarrassing – technically speaking – little film.

And so impressed they were, they used, (with permission) some of this footage in a television advert aimed at celebrating VW’s 60 year existence in New Zealand.

And so it struck me never has the phrase, adopted by photographer Chase Jarvis, “The best camera is the one that’s with you” been so apt.

VW long ago washed their hands of any direct links to actual manufacture of camper vans but the legacy of their imagery and its inextricable link to the VW brand hold a value that would be imprudent and rather foolish to shake off. If VW had commissioned me to shoot some material for their modern day ad, my approach would of course have been wildly different and would have definitely lacked the intimacy, spontaneity and character that made it so attractive, so useable.

Here the advert VW created using hundreds of clips from individuals with archive just like my original Minty film.

So to me, Minty Films seems a right and proper title, the Minty Film experience sums up nicely my intention with this site, it’s a collection of stories, filmed or recorded for reasons not always obvious and not always conventional and not always intended for broadcast. But important in their own right and worth a share I believe.