The studio had a big impact on my perspective, not only as a student but as a communicator, and as a person. The project was a process of building critical thinking, and personal development, it helped me to see options in the media field that I wasn’t aware of, which is essential in this field when you want to create a social impact and a positive change. I wanted to use more of my time to help others, but I didn’t know how I could make it while I was studying full-time and working part-time. This studio showed me an opportunity to do what I wanted and at the same time work and develop my skills as a media student.
As my first experience producing a project focused on human rights, it was very enlightening for learning purposes thus even with the challenges it encouraged me to explore in a different way my creative side and develop my editing skills. Through this project, I signed up for a volunteer project to help to edit a video of a not-for-profit organization allowing them to run and build a successful fundraising event to support ongoing services for young people. It is a project that also focused on human rights although I didn’t participate in the initial development of the idea, with the project already structured. From my experience of the Pacific Women Project, I can dig further my editing skills using the structure of a call to action video, which makes easier to outline their goals, building engagement for the online auction.
Our strand had only two films for a group of three people, and due to the coronavirus, the course lost the experience of working collaboratively in a group, which became it harder to align ideas when it came to the production stage, evolving into a more individualistic project. When I watched Vai, I really liked the film because it was a portmanteau feature film that managed to portray the difficulties that women in the Pacific faces and that many of their traditions arose through the difficulty that they, as women, went through to support the family in an abstract and artistic way but creating awareness in the process.
Women in the Pacific still do the vast majority of unpaid domestic labour, this includes cooking, cleaning, caring for children, and other household works. Since young, they learn that housework is women’s responsibility and men are responsible for providing financial support only unless their families’ needs overcome this social structure and women need to work so they can have food and other needs met, the sexism projects an illusion in the men of power over women’s life, questioning and neglecting your decisions of being inserted in the economy and your leadership and decision making abilities. In an attempt to build their own financial independence and support themselves and their families, pacific women work in the informal economy, exposing themselves to risks like unregular payment, exploitation, facing high workloads, termination without notice and harassment, or sexual abuse. When we bring the information on how the women’s economic empowerment is essential for the development of the region and to eliminate the social issues the region endures, we re-educate the men’s sense of identity of power in a relationship in the current social structure based in the gender inequality. Men feel less threatened for women’s achievements, contributing to the process of equality and inclusion.
Covid-19 definitely affected the creation process. It had been a few months since I last used editing software because during my vacation I still hadn’t bought a notebook with the capacity to install heavy software and just traveled and worked in that time, so when I had to produce a call to action video it wasn’t that easy because I had to go after the information I have learned in the Advanced Diploma again. In the experiment process, I learned more about shooting techniques with my cell phone, deepening how colour grids the images, using editing templates (like changing the colour of the ocean). When I inserted the voice-over, I also had to relearn how to use adobe audition, especially when I tried to manage to align the voice recordings made in two different room tones and recorded in different moments. I wanted the soundtrack levels to be smooth and consistent to sound as more professional as possible.
For the experiment, my group and I did a brainstorming meeting at the beginning of the course to decide how we were going to produce the video. Our initial idea was using pacific women voices crying out for change, fighting against gender discrimination, each one speaking in their own native language, whether Maori, Solomon, French or English and in the next frame, simulating a dream that comes true, a pacific woman in an office occupying a leadership position and in a sense of empowering all other women’s voices, she says “We want to be heard”. Due to COVID-19, we faced difficulties to accomplish our idea, as we were unable to go out to record, then we had to hold a meeting to look for an alternative. We tried to keep the initial idea of using the Pacific women voices, I tried to contact organizations and agencies of development for women’s in the pacific, I made a post on Facebook focusing in reach as many people as possible, but unfortunately, we did not get any response. So, we had to leave the idea behind and think about different ways that we could empower these women and still make others aware of the problems, following the video actions and going forward to help the cause.
Watching my classmate’s videos and approaches were interesting because it gave me ideas of techniques to better structure my project, and to explore other options in the future, like a call to action video using animation. I think this field can give us ways to explore our creativity and expand our knowledge at the same time.
Even though COVID-19 limited the way we used to think media production, it benefits my personal development. I used to struggle and have an aversion of editing because I needed to be very focused and spend hours in front of my laptop, watching many videos teaching different techniques so I could achieve better results, and in my whole life, I struggled to keep focus in an activity or any specific thing for a long time. Being away from my working and social duties reduced the distractions that hindered me from focusing on my studies. I became aware of my lack of personal management skills and went after workshops to improve my management and priorities which helped me with my assessments on my first year of Uni and overcoming my editing dislike.
Working towards a social cause together with the change’s coronavirus did in my lifestyle also gave me an insight of how important is thinking about our self-responsibility in a way that every action has an impact, which I believe, and saw, that many people also experienced the same feeling, looking after different ways of living a more sustainable lifestyle and engaging more with the thought of looking the next as yourself and taking care of the planet as your home.
The Festival has a very important social role as an educator and promoter of social causes. Having a high number of audiences not adept at human rights events, it is an opportunity to raise more awareness and increase the group of people, who like me, want to participate in different ways but usually are exposed only to monetary donations.
Thinking about the personal approach, the impact that my call to action video can make in an audience of more than 50% don’t regularly attend human rights events can change lives. With over 16,000 people attending the festival in 2017, the traditional space of presenting projects in theatre suffered a big impact because of COVID-19, being forced to adapt fully to an online model. Seeking for opportunities, the online space increased our chance of the video call to action reaching a larger number of viewers. However, the consumption of online media also suffered changes. People were forced to spend more time in the virtual world and avoiding physical social contact increasing the emotional fatigue from not having time to process the amount of information whose were exposed to. It became a challenge the producers had to go through, not only in the execution but also in adapting the idea so that the video delivers the message in a clear and fluid way, fighting for the viewer’s attention to create awareness and engage more people to the cause.
The public presentation gave me a greater incentive thinking about the audience, how my brand would be presented to media producers, also focusing on the development of a network and my career as a filmmaker/producer. This made me see the project more seriously, working more hours in the project in order to deliver a video I would be proud to share.
Working my video in the context of the festival, I think it is fundamental that the first step is understanding why pacific women suffer many social issues, what is the roots of those problems, and that what actions we can take to reverse the situation. Even though donating money sometimes can be helpful we don’t see it as a long-term solution, so it is good to give options to see how we can contribute sharing our knowledge to others, spreading the word that can influence the current circumstances. When we provide sources, it becomes easier for the audience goes after information, creating tension and resistance that moves the government to act towards these causes, creating programs and strategies to prevent domestic violence, thus more women can be inserted in the economy receiving the same amount and reaching leadership positions, having their financial independence and educating future generations, both genders, to fight for the right to equality.
Having critical feedback was essential to give shape to my project. Often, creators have in mind an idea that we try to develop but is not always suited to the concept or deliver the message clearly, especially during the editing process when we usually watch the images over and over. It is also important having other’s opinions with a different point of view that can add value to the production. It was likewise a good experience for me because I was afraid of ended up locked in an idea that wouldn’t flow and I couldn’t develop and being unsatisfied with my overall project, so seeing that I could overcome and absorbed the critiques adding value to my video was very rewarding for my personal and professional growth.
I still believe that I have a lot to learn and that in the future I can develop projects and expand even more my creative ideas, getting involved in more projects will give me more experience and help me refine my skills.