|
 Why
Fund Media?
Edited by Karen M. Hirsh
©2002-2004 Council on Foundations
Intended as a guide for grantmakers, the following
chapters are also useful case studies for filmmakers on strategies
to employ as they seek funding for media projects. Below are chapter
descriptions to help you navigate to the sections that are of most
interest to you from this valuable, free guide.
Chapter
1: Why Fund Media
By Karen M. Hirsch
Why don't foundations fund media? Filmmaker and writer Karen M.
Hirsch examines four different road-blocks that foundations face
when funding media projects, from initial price concerns, to expected
public inaccessibility to independent media, to apprehensions about
funding individual filmmakers, and to the question of value and
benefits of funding independent media.
Chapter
2: The Coming of Age of Media as Art
By Jim Hubbard
Filmmaker Jim Hubbard asserts that film, video, and new media projects
are at the leading edge of the transformation of culture. He uses
four different case studies in his argument on the need to fund
media-based art.
Chapter
3: Activist Video: Expanding the Impact of Nonprofits
By Caron Atlas
Caron Atlas, a communications consultant, describes both the benefits
and challenges of funding activist video, noting its authenticity
and its filmmaker’s motivation on one hand and lack of infrastructure
and on the other.
Chapter
4: Radio Documentaries: A “Best Kept Secret” No More
By Mike Janssen
Writer Mike Janssen looks at how radio documentaries run into similar
funding problems as other independent television and film productions,
but also discusses radio’s problem with accessibility, and
the reliance on funding for showing a radio documentary to the public.
Chapter
5: Small Grants Seed Big Films: Film Arts Foundation's Unique Fund
for Film Development
By K. M. Soehnlein
Author Soehnlein looks at how regional media art centers are re-granting
federal funds to local artists. Re-granting is seen as a way to
jumpstart an exploration of new ideas that enriches the work being
done in communities and contributes to the position of different
art in our culture.
Chapter
6: The Documentary in Action
By Patricia Thomson
Using documentarian Arthur Dong’s Licensed to Kill
and Family Fundamentals as case studies, Thomson examines
both films’ funding histories and outlines the way Dong approached
funding requests for outreach and the ultimate lessons learned on
the funding problems that accompany first-time filmmakers.
Chapter
7: The Catalytic Role of Documentary Outreach
By Patricia Thomson
Writer Patricia Thomson looks at documentary outreach campaigns
as catalytic agents, helping to raise awareness and action on issues,
but argues that outreach’s catalytic nature ought to be expanded
into the long-term, extending funding programs to last three-years.
Chapter
8: A Voice of Their Own: Youth Media
By Kathryn Hunt
Using the youth media organization such as the
Global Action Project (GAP), filmmaker Kathryn Hunt outlines how
youth media can change the existing mass media culture.
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