Media Mission Projects

[Clyde Taber]

Media Mission Partnerships: The Lord may be opening up doors for those of us in the network to be a part of coming alongside visual story practitioners with less experience in order to help them develop their craft. I’d like input on what this could / should look like. Here are my first thoughts…

a. This should be need driven. If someone (filmmaker, organization, television station, production house, etc.) has a real need, we should be specific about what the need is in order know what resources to bring to the need and to evaluate if the need has been met.

b. This is intended to serve those with a missional mindset. This will most likely be non-profit organizations.

c. We must link those with appropriate experience and talent with those in need. The media mission should not be a training ground for the media missionary, although there could be a few apprentices getting trained along with those being served.

d. Ideally we would like those serving to cover their own costs so the one being served is not forced to pay. The receiving party can help offset costs by providing housing, meals, etc.

e. It would be helpful if the group serving could view this as more than a one-time event, but an ongoing opportunity to serve through long distance mentoring (email, calls, etc) and perhaps follow-up visits.

[Tom Khazoyan]

Great to hear your vision for this Clyde. We have done pieces of this in our ministry over the years through internships and recruiting folks who spend time here and then move on to other things. We have also tried to link various schools who are doing the basic skills training in order to give their grads or students a chance to do more 'real-world' stuff. However, it is just one aspect of who we are and it's mainly driven by personal passions to serve rather than as a high level strategy for our piece of the ministry. We are a non-profit and all of our staff are supported by donations, so that makes us eager for interns who want to work in that setting but it also limits our maneuverability in project timelines and resources to establish a real firm program for training.

I think VSN is already able to accomplish a lot of this if we are intentional about connecting and really doing things together. Groups like ICVM and CEVMA are also connecting people. It really depends on how members perceive the mission and their contribution. If we come merely to network like in so many other places, then it becomes mostly about finding resources to help meet personal goals. If we come with the personal mission to serve, then it can create an entirely different community.

Creating a resource hub here or someplace where each participant can offer services could be interesting. I have discovered some new friends here and we are beginning to work together, but I have never tried to search here to find others with special skills I don't possess.

Does any of this make sense with what you are thinking about?

[Rich Sheeley]

Clyde, I really like what you are saying. A bit like Tom's reply, we have always tried to help others, including interns and those who planning to start their own organizations. As long as your goal is to see people reached in any and every way possible then it makes perfect sense. A little time invested in someone or an organization that is going to go out and duplicate what we are doing multiplies the impact and helps achieve the ultimate objective.
We have actually started a program called Media Challenge, (www.mediachallenge.org) that has two audiences. Basically, the way it works is that we do a week long intensive workshop for high schools students in the USA, and the following summer we take them on a mission trip overseas where the same workshop is conducted. The overseas results have exceeded our expectations, and have opened doors for ministry that are pretty amazing. In one country a local team took our materials and started conducting their own version of Media Challenge! Our training is very hands on and fairly basic, but it instills a lot of vision—enough to start people down the path.
Paul instructed Timothy, “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.” (II Timothy 2:2 NIV) This verse applies here, to people of our culture and to reliable men and women in other cultures. Most of the times we’ve applied this to media training has been overseas and we have been blown away with the results!

[Clyde Taber]

Thank Rich.

I just had lunch with Carol and Calvin Conkey. They've got a good thing going with their training centers. They spoke highly of GNPI (as does Tom Silkwood...another call this morning). If this idea does get more traction, we will definately want your expertise down the road. Good input. Thanks.

CT

[Wayne Larson]

As one overseas where having professionals expand impact, I would say these are good key starting points. Esp. underlining appropriate exp. and talent for what is needed. I would add

f. Individual or group serving should have a servant heart, go with attitude to learn (esp. culture, needs, and different film/TV business) not just to give (because they are the 'expert'), ideally with some cultural understanding/study in advance.

[Clyde Taber]

Consider "f." added. Very good.

[David]

Dear Brethren,
All your insight is the answer to my prayers for having people of a like mind and mission. You are welcome to Uganda, East Africa. God bless you.

David
The Divine Mission International

[Evan Davis]

Wow, this is so exciting! I just discovered Visual Story Network and feel like a kid in a candy shop. Ever since we at HMM embarked on the media ministry adventure in 1996, we have been passionate about the idea of training and equipping future media missionaries. We have not been as effective at this as I have always hoped, so this discussion is one of great interest to me. Thank you, Clyde.

[John Oliver]

These might help you and others acquire needed equipment.



Freecycle
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[Durand Robinson]

I'm not quite clear on what's being promoted. Is it primarily to place people who do media into settings where they can train others that are also doing media without sufficient training/experience? Or is this focused on getting media products produced for people that don't have access/resources for professional work? Sorry, I'm new to the network and trying to get a grip on the focus here.

CreativeWorks is committed leveraging creativity for ministry. One of those ways is through multiplying creative people. For example we provide "media ministry workshops" through our ministry networks around Europe.

In the commercial Irish media company we started called Clear Media, we have Irish interns that join us for apprenticeships for a few weeks at a time. We also have film students that work regularly on crews with us. Most of them are either believers or friends of believers from one of the half dozen film schools in our city.

Multiplication is integrated into our approach to projects for churches. For instance, we signed a six month contract to provide essential media for a city church in Dublin with the agreement that we'd help them set up a volunteer media team using pro-sumer gear and software. That way they could produce the 80-90% of what we call "disposible" media they'd use for services, reports, the web, etc. in-house and effectively work ourselves out of the picture by the end of the 6 months.

It's partnership but on a more local/national level.

[Clyde Taber]

Durand,

We've begun our first Media Mission Partnership between experienced media people (in this case, TV professionals) with a ministry that produces a life TV show for a country with a limited Christian presence. The goal in this case is to help the ministry increase the quality of the production given their limited resources.

Generally we want to bring experienced media folks alongside groups with less experience or resources to help them take steps to becoming more effective in their use of visual media. Very similar to what you've done with the church in Dublin with the exception that the Media Mission Partnerships are all done on a volunteer basis.

I'd love to talk over the phone sometime.

Clyde

[Thomas W. Silkwood]

Hi Clyde,

Good stuff you have here. I would also add another aspect and that is regional point of view. It would be extremely helpful to find like minded people already working in an area you would like to target. We did that for the movie "The Bridge". My team did the filming and editing (to a rough cut level) for the movie. Knowing there are people in a location with pre-positioned gear could save tons of cash for a partner and reduce those who would be needed to travel to a remote location. Possibly also people giving info on their gear and technical abilities.

I bring this up due to so many flying to Thailand and going through the nightmare of trying to set up a shoot, importing gear and TONS of local entanglements that local people know how to avoid.

Another point is that my team has a good deal of expertise but having pros come out and work with us has raised the bar on our ministry's ability. Rich, above, made mention of our club I believe. We have had it four years and train kids in media. We have had many of these kids help us on major shoots.

Networking partnerships, I feel, is the very heart of what our Lord desires.

Tom

[Durand Robinson]

Location, Location, Location (Ireland that is)

I've been thinking about things related to this issue of location, too. A lot of people love the mystical, natural surroundings of the Irish countryside, amazing skies and breathtaking seacoasts. (They see it on PBS mostly.) When talking about spirituality, the visuals are inspirational.

I know there are people doing thematic pieces that could use such dynamic backdrops, but budgets usually prohibit the jump across the pond. I'm living in Wicklow county, setting for most of Braveheart (20 minutes to Glendalough where the "village" was set, 30 to the field where the battles took place, 40 to the castle where they CG'd the horse jumping into the moat, etc.) If there were crews needing external shots to inter-cut with some inside shots you can stage anywhere, we'd be glad to talk.