Photography by Hanul Bahm (c) for Sundance Institute. Above, Wendy Levy (left). Below, Dawn Porter (right).
Marketing for the Sundance Institute
The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program (DFP) hired me to market and associate produce on their Stories of Change initiative. A multi-year partnership with the Skoll Foundation, Stories of Change sought to bring together staff at non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with Sundance filmmakers and story consultants.
Photography by Hanul Bahm (c) for Sundance Institute. Above, Kamal Sinclair (right). Below, Kirsten Ward of New Teacher Center.
Thought leadership
The partnership leverages similarities between nonfiction media artists and social changemakers in tackling the world’s big problems. Stories of Change takes the NGOs’ on-the-ground work and seeks to retell that work filmically.
The Institute wanted to create awareness about the partnership, particularly to companies, media outlets, and people in positions of influence. Sundance’s business model relies in part on funding, deal-making, and generating clout. Their marketing goals reflected those aims.
From Global to Local
The Sundance team produced a week-long residency in Oxford, England as part of the Skoll World Forum. We explored content partnerships with social changemakers from the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Australia. This was my first international live production.
I was tasked with producing the marketing and content related to Stories of Change’s project work and Oxford residency. The main vehicles used were an e-newsletter and Facebook. I served as managing editor on the inaugural newsletters, including assembling an extensive distribution list. I also lensed nearly all photos.
The big idea for our campaign was to bring global audiences along with us, and to share best practices in equity, access, and sustainability. Underlying that hope was showing connections being forged.
Photography by Hanul Bahm (c) for Sundance Institute. Above, Tabitha Jackson (left).
Copywriting & Production
There’s a ton of copywriting, editing, and interfacing with editorial and design teams in creating a newsletter, as well as outside contributors. It then all has to squeeze into a particular form factor. Ideally a compact one.
This is my first draft for the June newsletter. Below, what people saw in their inboxes.
Photography by Hanul Bahm (c) for the Sundance Institute. Above, Safeena Husain of Educate Girls (left) and Nicole Newnham (right). Below, Sundance workshop attendee, Finding Your Story and Making it Count.
Showcasing a film’s impact
Parts of Stories of Change’s Facebook campaign highlighed Disruption, which we screened at the Skoll World Forum. I curated Disruption’s film stills, obtained approvals from the directors, then submitted them for posting. The stills depict Colombians, Brazilians, and indigenous Peruvian women from lower-income groups. The image selection necessitated care.
Copyediting
The newsletters’ embedded content has since been repurposed as blogs on the Stories of Change website. Some of those are dispersed throughout this case study. I copyedited nearly all of them.
Copyediting has specific goals. Depending on the clarity of what’s inherited, one has to do a little or a lot to make the final version intelligible. The primary goal is to retain the author’s voice and intention. Another is not to frustrate your reader. A misshapen or poorly expressed thought must be reworked. The last goal is to regulate length. The piece should be long enough to formulate a takeaway, and not so short as to be an incomplete thought.