Chapter 5: Editing for Advocacy

This chapter, written by Katerina Cizek, features a guide to editing video for a variety of audiences, including local communities, international audiences, courts and tribunals, as well as online audiences. Intended as a companion to more technically-oriented video editing manuals, this chapter focuses on the unique concerns of editing video for advocacy in human rights, social justice, and humanitarian contexts with a particular focus on storytelling and ethics. Sections include: introduction to editing for advocacy, explanation of particular concerns with audience and intent; storytelling and genre; practical steps to the edit and the editing process; and the ethics of editing. It utilizes case studies drawn from WITNESS partnerships and beyond to demonstrate varying approaches to creating videos designed to affect broader social change.

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Chapter 6: Video as Evidence

This chapter, written by law professor and former WITNESS Program Coordinator Sukanya Pillay, discusses how to record video for evidence and how to use video before judicial or quasi-judicial bodies (i.e., tribunals or other non-court adjudicative bodies). It shows how to navigate legal rules and provides guidance on general considerations regarding how these bodies make decisions on admissibility and weighting of evidence. It also provides practical guidance on how to gather footage that is more likely to be accepted as evidence and how to present it in the most effective way.

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Chapter 7: Strategic Distribution - Reaching Key Audiences In Innovative Ways

This chapter, written by Thomas Harding, author of the acclaimed "Video Activist Handbook," discusses the ins and outs of strategic video distribution. For an advocacy video to make an impact, the videomaker needs to ensure it reaches key viewers with the power to act. Harding examines some innovative ways of getting a video to its intended audience by exploring various grassroots distribution strategies as well as some more traditional venues. These include distribution through: community screenings; professional, religious or student networks directly to decision-makers; and broadcast on the Internet and on television news. This chapter also features case studies of successful initiatives from around the world. It draws primarily, but not exclusively, from the success stories of experienced video advocates in the human rights and legal field.

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Appendices, Resource List, Glossary, Index

The publication also features the following appendices:

• Sample WITNESS Video Action Plan
• Shot-list and log formats
• Sample script format
• Tape documentation form
• Sample legal releases
• Glossary
• Resource list

Download Appendices:  Video for Change_Appendices 194.26 Kb

Download Resources:  Video for Change_Resources 96.67 Kb

Download Glossary:  Video for Change_Glossary 107.01 Kb

Download Index:  Video for Change_Index 112.73 Kb