What’s Your Issue? Will You Film It With A Proposed Solution?
Subscribe to the Blog RSS FeedVideo is a very powerful medium for creating awareness around important issues, as well as inspiring others to join in a solution. That's why the What's Your Issue Foundation runs an annual competition (now in it's 5th year) that calls on 14-24 year-olds to submit short videos about issues they care about, along with proposed solutions. It's called Film Your Issue, and this year Be the Change, Inc. is proud to be a partner. Here's the deal, as explained on the website:
We are seeking your innovative solutions to issues. We think that 14 to 24 year olds can offer a fresh, innovative approach to problem-solving. Specifically, we are looking for workable project ideas that can be locally launched that would tangibly tackle a problem. An example might be program or project in a city or town to deal with surplus cellphones, or with under-employed youth, or that would deal with national security or human rights.
Check out the eight front-burner issues we’ve listed on our Issues page. We’ve listed some considerations for each issue there that may get you started in thinking about your solution-project.
Then submit your three-minute video to the Film Your Issue competition that both articulates the problem and proposes a specific project to deal with the problem. Submission is open January 18 through April 12. When you submit your video, we will ask for a one-sheet outlining your project in more detail.
But that's not all. In case you think you can better convey the importance of your issue in song, What's Your Issue has added a new Issue Song category to the competition:
We are looking for songs of 3-minute length expressing a social issue. Any issues that matters to you. We want you to use the power of music—as only art can—to help illuminate the issue and touch hearts or minds. Any music genre you choose.
Winners will be selected by an international jury that is led by Tom Brokaw, and includes Jack Black, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Yoko Ono, Deepak Chopra and the founders of YouTube, Craigslist and Wikipedia. And there are some great prizes, too. According to the press release:
Winning submissions will be presented to senior officials in the Obama administration, broadcast on screens in Best Buy stores across the planet summer 2010, platformed on iTunes, and presented at an Awards Ceremony co-hosted by Sony Pictures in Los Angeles. Winners will also receive iPod Touches and a MacBook and a Student Filmmaker Pass to the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.
You can browse past Film Your Issue video submissions on YouTube. And now that you are inspired, bet busy singing or writing (you can sign up for helpful tutorials here). You have until April 12 to make it powerful, and submit it. This is a very cool way to get your priorities and solutions out in front of the country. And we definitely need your perspective and energy if we're going to rise to the many challenges before us.
