Landowners & Managers: WLA Call for Video Submissions

Dear Western Landowners, Ranchers and Farmers,

 

With your help, WLA is building an organized and engaged community of forward-thinking landowners in the West with the potential to drive significant, positive change on the ground, socially and in the political arena. We are working hard to empower landowners with the necessary knowledge, social and economic support, and public policies to implement sound stewardship.

Your experience on the land drives our work. And our ability to share your stories helps ensure WLA’s continued success in our policy and outreach work on your behalf. As many of you know from our highly successful Stewardship with Vision series, one of the most powerful tools we have to tell your stories is film. And no one is more qualified to tell your stories than you.

So, we’re launching a Where Land & Community Meet “tiny films” project, and we need your input to make it work!

 

Where Land & Community Meet

Deadline: March 7, 2018

 

In short, we’re looking for homemade videos created by landowners, ranchers, farmers, stewards, managers: 2-4 minutes long, shot on your cell phone or hand-held camera, and accompanied by a short narrative and a few photos. We’ll be working with a professional videographer to select the top 15 videos. We’ll edit these selected videos down to the most compelling, visually powerful 30-60 seconds and incorporate text from accompanying narratives (your words), and possibly photos. We’ll use the final, edited “tiny films” to show off the people and landscapes of the American West through our communications and outreach initiatives.

We want to use video to tell your stories because video is powerful. And we want to do all this within 30-60 seconds because, well, the world has a short attention span that we’re trying to capture and then, hopefully, slow down a bit. So, if you’re thinking of participating, think about how best to capture the most captivating, powerful images that will compel people to want to learn more. And don’t hesitate to include yourself in the video. We want to show people on the land, as part of the land and part of the surrounding community.

If we end up using your video submission, we’ll pay you for it! And of course we’ll give you credit for your original work in the video credits, and make sure you have the link to the final film so you can use it as well.

Take a look at this Call for Submissions for detailed information, including instructions for how to submit and associated required submission forms. The overarching theme for this project is Where Land & Community Meet, with two sub-themes: “Women in Ranching” and “Ecology & Economics.” Pick the one that speaks to you the most, and use the guiding questions to help you create your video and draft your narrative.

We hope you’ll have fun with this project and we look forward to receiving your videos, narratives and photos! Please send questions to Virginie@westernlandowners.org. All submissions are due by March 7, 2018.