Gearing up for distribution with Google Maps

So the task of sending spots to local stations, while seemingly straightforward, has been a bit daunting for me. Primarily because we'd like to do more than just send them by mail. Shipping every spot to a station where managers likely receive dozens everyday is not the best way to stand out.

We spent a great deal of time developing eye-catching packaging and I wanted to hand deliver each one and ideally have a scheduled meeting with each manager to explain the campaign, make a connection and gain their support. With over a dozen stations, a full-time job and only a few weeks left, I've accepted that this may not be realistic.

Using Google Maps, I was able to plot the TV stations and create a visual aid to help determine which stations to make personal visits to and which stations to just mail in the spots.

Google map of local TV stations in Los Angeles

Kudos to our Creative Team!

Volunteering as the department head for a PSA is not easy. It's a test of maximizing creativity with minimal resources and all our volunteer creative team passed with flying colors. There was a little hand wringing here and there, but everyone made it happen. A special kudos to our creative team for their support!

Production Team

Elizabeth Bayne is the Director and Co-Writer. A recent film grad from Art Center College of Design, she studied public health at Yale University and worked as a research fellow on the U.S. EPA public outreach campaigns for childhood asthma and radon awareness, before pursuing her MFA in film.

Montana Mann is our Writer. A fellow student at Art Center College of Design, Montana is a filmmaker and advocacy worker with PROTECT, a children's rights organization. Being half-Iranian, Montana feels strongly about women’s rights in Iran and organized a group to publicize the issue via protests and by releasing viral videos filmed by activists in Iran.

Clora Ferguson is our Producer. She recently finished UCLA's Producer's Program while working full time as a middle school teacher and assistant producing on multiple short films and web series. Inspired by her students, Clora's dream is to produce full time and use film to tell their stories.

Sandra Valde is our Cinematographer. She's a graduate from the American Film Institute (AFI), where she currently teaches classes and has become a much in demand Director of Photography on many independent film projects. She is currently in production for her 10th feature film!

Elise Om is our Wardrobe Stylist. A recent graduate from Art Center College of Design, Elise majored in product design and developed her own clothing line while in school. Our PSA is her first production.

Lawrence Kim is our Production Designer. A graduate from the American Film Institute (AFI), Lawrence also trained as an architect during an international fellowship to the prestigious Architectural Association School of Architecture in London.

WRHAP HIV PSA launches online March 10th!

This Sunday is National Women & Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day!

It's also the day we're launching our HIV awareness PSA Campaign on behalf of local non-profit, Whittier Rio Hondo AIDS Project (wrhap.org). Please share this important message with the women and girls in your life. Let them know you care and remind them to be smart and know their status.

"Sharing" HIV PSA Campaign from WRHAP.ORG

80% of women diagnosed with HIV are in a relationship and many don't perceive themselves to be at risk. Be smart, know your status and remove the blindfold!

See the 30 and 15 seconds spots in English and Spanish here:
https://vimeo.com/channels/wrhaphivpsa

The BetaSPs are here!

Just received the BetaSP dub tapes that we'll be distributing to stations this month!

After much searching, we were able to identify a distribution company willing to give us a generous discount to print and encode our PSA tapes.

Now we can track each time the PSAs air on local stations!

As you can see, we've picked the official (unofficial) slogan for the campaign...the look and slogan was inspired by our campaign's graphic designer, Angie, who we recruited to create a unique look for our branding. Customized branding helps PSA campaigns stand out to station managers and increases recall among audiences. We also have custom packaging designed around the campaign's branding that we'll unveil next week. Stay tuned!

4 Hours Left...for the Campaign Fundraiser!

Exciting news! We're 70% funded with just 4 hours left in the campaign. Thank you to everyone for your support!

This has been an amazing experience and I appreciate knowing I have such wonderful folks behind me. Keep an eye out for updates on the campaign rollout after the fundraiser ends today here at: INDIEGOGO.COM/WRHAP

Color Correction Results for 35mm PSA

Here are the results from our color correction session with the wonderful Damian at CO3:

I really appreciated the time, effort and patience they put into our little PSA. It was my first color correction session at a post-production company, let alone one as big a deal as Company 3, but they made me feel comfortable and very welcome as I proceeded to use up nearly each and every minute allotted for our two hour session. See how it compares to our initial vision in the last post.

Thanks Damian!

LESS THAN 5 DAYS LEFT in our fundraiser, don't miss your chance to back a great cause: INDIEGOGO.COM/WRHAP

Color Correction Tests in Photoshop

To prepare for our color correction session for the PSA last week, our DP, Sandra, did the following color correction tests in Photoshop to screenshots from our footage. See how she added some contrast to let the whites go white and blacks go black and saturated the image so the reds stand out, but not so much that the skin tones get too red. She also brightened the overall picture to add a bit of punch to the scene:

She wasn't in town for the color correction session and I was a little nervous going on my own. It was my first time color correcting and my first time at a post-production house and I wanted to get it right. She prepped me with the following common sense tips on what to watch out for:

1) Be sure that everything matches from shot to shot
2) Check that all the actors skin tones look normal
3) Keep the whites white and the reds red
4) Be consistent with the lighting
5) And finally -- Don't worry about trying to talk to them in their terms, just tell them what you want in your own words and they should be able to figure it out from there.

Worked like a charm. Thanks Sandra!

Support the campaign at: INDIEGOGO.COM/WRHAP 
Only 8 days left!!!

How to Get Your PSA on the Air!

If you work in social marketing or health outreach, you probably know how challenging it is to get a public service announcement (PSA) on the air. The very nature of a PSA is that you don't pay for advertising time on television or radio, because as a public service - it's free. Unfortunately this has often relegated many PSAs to the nether regions of late night or early morning between the hours of 1 to 5AM, when most of our target audience is asleep.

To make sure our PSA gets aired during prime viewing hours during important HIV testing awareness days we are pulling all the stops to grab station managers' attention and to track the number of times each PSA is aired. We're raising funds and support via Indiegogo.com at: INDIEGOGO.COM/WRHAP

We're just $755 and 12 days away from reaching our goal, please help us make a difference in our community by supporting our fundraiser :)

Check out our instagram pics from our expanded online presence at tumbler and instagram !!!

Why is the room so light?

An award-winning post production house has generously offered to fit our spot in for color correction. While we wait to hear back on possible days and times, I've been going through the lighting references I collected during pre-production. We shared a lot of options with our DP, Sandra Valde, but what they all had in common was a flood of light. The goal was to create an ethereal feel to the environment. (I almost used "surreal" but that word is used so much...)

We wanted viewers to know that, while the characters are at a house party, it's not supposed to be realistic. The set design is highly stylized. The sofa and pillows tell us it's a living room, but it doesn't look like anyone's living room that we know. In order to suspend viewers' disbelief, we used an exaggerated amount of light so they know that the world is not real, so they know that it is a representation of real life.

This way audiences will hopefully not take the game and the card reveal at the end literally, but instead will recognize it as a visual metaphor. The game, the card and the blindfolds are all symbols. The game represents sexual encounters that we may have throughout our life. The card represents our health status. If we're wearing a blindfold by not getting tested, how can we know what we're passing around?

Can you tell which reference inspired our look?

Support the campaign at: INDIEGOGO.COM/WRHAP

The sound of "Sharing"

We were initially considering something dark and edgy. The term, "dubstep," was tossed around. We wanted something that would appeal to our target age group: 18 to 35 year olds

Our editor (John Carey) introduced us to composer Keith Kenniff's catalog and selected "Rituals" as our temp music. Temp music is a film term for the temporary soundtrack used during the edit until licensed music becomes available. "Rituals" is a playful indie pop track and the polar opposite from what we initially had in mind. We fell in love with it!

HIV/AIDS is a serious condition, but we are attempting to distance the diagnosis from the stigma. We want women to be happy and in control of their reproductive health, not distrustful or in fear, so we thought the playfulness of "Rituals" would be the perfect juxtaposition to lift the somber tone that our PSA might otherwise have.

We finally decided to make it official and contacted composer Keith Kenniff for permission to license his song! And he said, "Yes." We couldn't be happier with our music selection for the PSA!

Support the campaign at: INDIEGOGO.COM/WRHAP

Things change...Being Flexible with Your Vision

Some of you may have noticed that several things from the production still are different than in the original inspiration boards. For one thing, everyone in the cast is wearing black instead of white. Secondly, the blindfolds are white in the final production instead of black. This color switch isn't a mistake. In the time between development, when an idea is first shaped, and final production...things can change.

It was all very well thought out (See Friday's post). So what happened? Why switch the wardrobe to black and the blindfold to white. It was a lighting issue. Even though 35mm film is more sensitive than video, an all white set design with actors dressed all in white would be too much. The scene would look, "blown out," which is a film term for when an image appears overexposed to light, and therefore hard to see.

We didn't want to blind viewers, so we switched the colors. We were still able to keep the red + white + black color scheme, though, which still helps the PSA stand out.

Support the campaign at: INDIEGOGO.COM/WRHAP

Using Color to Create Symbolism

In our inspiration boards, we pictured the actors wearing all white shirts so that everything but their faces blended into the background set design, which would also be mostly white. The idea was to create a cool, clean neutral environment without any distracting colors. This way the viewer's attention would be focused on the actor's faces and what they were doing. The card they're passing is small and we didn't want audiences to miss it.

The signature red represents compassion for those living with AIDS. The black blindfolds were supposed to represent the absence of light or knowledge. When the actor removes her blindfold at the end, it represents getting tested and knowing her status, because now she can see.

Another important reason why we choose such a stylized color scheme is because we really wanted the PSA to stand out. We want to grab audiences' attention before they tune out or change the channel during a commercial break. Choosing bold colors like Red + White + Black will hopefully intrigue viewers long enough to wonder what the actors are doing and why they're blindfolded. If we keep them watching, hopefully they'll pay attention long enough to get our message!

Support the campaign at: INDIEGOGO.COM/WRHAP

Creating Visual Metaphor...with Playing Cards

We didn't want audiences to pass judgement on any of the actors, so they all needed to be dressed the same. In the real world, you can't tell someone's HIV status just by looking at them.  We didn't want viewers trying to guess which character might be infected. The card is just a normal card when they start playing, but by the end its status has changed.

This is a visual metaphor for the fact that if you're not getting tested between partners, if you were to contract the virus, you may not know which partner you contracted it from. The message stresses the importance of getting tested, especially when entering new relationships.

Support the campaign at: INDIEGOGO.COM/WRHAP

Inspiration Boards for "Sharing"

These are the visual references used to communicate the look and feel of the PSA to our creative team. The Director of Photography, Production Designer and Wardrobe Stylist drew from these images to create the set design. You can tell that some things changed from the time they were conceived to the time we went into production in June...

Support the campaign at: INDIEGOGO.COM/WRHAP

"Suck and Blow" Reference Video

The concept for our PSA, "Sharing," is based on a kissing game called, "Suck and Blow." When we presented the script at a Women In Film, Los Angeles (WIF) PSA Program meeting, many of the members were not familiar with the game. I put together this video as a visual reference:)

Support the campaign at: INDIEGOGO.COM/WRHAP

Original PSA Storyboards

Support the campaign at: INDIEGOGO.COM/WRHAP

It All Starts Here...the Script

After we received a creative brief from the non-profit, Whittier Rio Hondo AIDS Project (WRHAP) in October of last year, we sat down with them to learn more about the organization and what they were hoping to achieve. They also allowed us to conduct informal focus groups with some of their clients to learn more about our target audience: latina women of child bearing age.

Their personal stories were incredible and we were honored to have them share with us. We collected all the information we could about their backgrounds, their interests, their fears, and their hopes and did our best to create a message that would resonate.

One piece of information that we learned from WRHAP that really floored us was the following statistic: 80% of women diagnosed with HIV are in a relationship

No one in that meeting had heard that number before and we were sure not many other women had either. We decided to make that the focus of the PSA. Our goal was to create a visual metaphor to represent multiple sexual encounters and the risk of not knowing your status. The PSA is intended to encourage women to be aware of their HIV status, especially when entering a new relationship.

Here's the script we wrote:

 

Support the campaign at: INDIEGOGO.COM/WRHAP

WRHAP Donates Swag to the Fundraiser

Elizabeth Mendia, Executive Director of WRHAP, was kind enough to donate the following swag items* to our campaign fundraiser that starts tonight. For a $100 donation, this could be yours, along with a DVD of the "Sharing" public service announcement and a mini-poster from the campaign:)

*Swag items are from the Strong Women Series, a program that builds HIV prevention awareness and empowerment skills for ALL young women. Participants can sign up with WRHAP for a 5-week workshop in their area.

Support the campaign at: INDIEGOGO.COM/WRHAP