Free Campaign Videos for Non-Profits

Would you like the opportunity to work with a filmmaker on a short video to help create awareness about your organization, or for fundraising purposes? Cineworks is looking for interested parties, and has issued the following call for expressions of interest:

As a non-profit, Cineworks recognizes the challenges in finding the resources to realize all of your ambitions, and that frequently, creating quality media to highlight your achievements is outside of your reach. The goal with our program Play it Forward is to plug that gap for 10 non-profits in the Lower Mainland this year, while also pushing our mandate to support independent filmmaking.

We're still hashing out the specifics, but wanted to get the ball rolling by getting a sense of who out there will be interested in participating this year, by letting you know what's up for grabs. Thanks to a grant we received from Telus, we'll be able to pay honorariums and provide technical support to ten filmmakers to make 1-3 minute videos to raise funds and/or awareness around your group's work.  It is important to stress, however, that our primary concern is encouraging the creative expression of our artists, and as such, an open mind and compromises will be required from the groups.  Obviously we want to create something that you'll use proudly for some time to come, but we can't have a situation where the group simply dictates a list of demands for the director to robotically complete without their input.  Because it will require no investment from you apart from your time and expertise, we hope that you'll all be open to exploring new avenues and ideas for how to get your message across.  It is also important to stress that we are inviting more groups to participate than we will be able to support with videos, so indicating your interest today is no guarantee of acceptance.

The first stage of the program will be an open house (tentatively scheduled for mid-December) where we'll invite interested groups and filmmakers to come down and meet each other and look for common ground to create pairings. After that groups and filmmakers will have one week to nominate themselves as a pairing for evaluation. In January 2015, we'll announce the ten projects going forward who will then have three months to complete their work, before we theatrically screen them all and release them for broadcast on Telus Optik's community channel. Cineworks will retain copyright on all of the projects but will allow both the group and filmmaker unlimited opportunities to show their videos.  

If you have questions, don't hesitate to ask, and please get in touch as soon as possible if you'd like to be considered for this year's PIF to be kept abreast of things as they develop.

Jon Ornoy
Facilities and Equipment Manager
Cineworks
equipment@cineworks.ca