Rarely a day goes by where I don’t thank the forces of social networking and how it has helped my film along in many ways. I credit Facebook- without hesitation- for bringing in thousands of dollars to my fundraising campaign on Kickstarter this past June from one single email plea to my friends, family and colleagues. This was the reason I was looking forward to attending Vision Maker Media’s Media For Change Workshop this past August during Santa Fe Indian Market Week.: to collect more innovative ideas to help strategize my media outreach campaign for my film, LaDonna Harris: Indian 101.

Hosted by the lovely Molly Murphy of Working Films, the workshop centered on the planning of your film’s audience engagement campaign. Because as we all know, the hard work really starts when you FINISH your film – you’ve got to get it out to the masses, right??

Molly took us through all the stages of getting this plan off the ground, including researching partnerships and audiences and how to approach potential partners in order to form a cohesive, long-term screening and event plan. She also discussed the budget, components and timetable for an educational strategy, which for me is of utmost importance to my film. I am going to rely on the educational component of my film in order to determine its success. My hope is to see the DVD on every bookshelf in schools across America and abroad, at both the high school and university level.

Through a successful outreach campaign, I can reach audiences in communities that are otherwise overlooked to build momentum for the film so that it becomes a film that educators include in their curriculum for years to come.

Another wonderful addition to the workshop was the inclusion of Native media educators from various universities and PBS affiliates. We had the opportunity to brainstorm together at small roundtable discussions to look at the challenges educators face and how they work with our media in the classroom – a really great collaboration to say the least.

I was also inspired by the presentation by Rose Poston (Sandia Pueblo), Community Outreach Coordinator at KNME in Albuquerque who shared KNME’s educational web resources on KNME.org. (http://www.knme.org/educate/index.php). It was giving me ideas and inspiring me to think on an even larger scale!

Of course with a larger platform, comes the need for more funds. But more and more, I’m seeing grant opportunities for film’s outreach campaigns, so I will be applying for those in the very near future.

Although it was a whirlwind trip (less than 48 hours for me), it was so great to catch up with all my old friends and colleagues in Santa Fe and so great to meet a new crop of filmmakers affiliated with Vision Maker Media– so inspiring and talented! All with the backdrop of the Indian Market… Indigenous creativity abounds! I left Santa Fe filled to the brim with green chiles and so inspired by all.