Executive Summary: Media to Movements Filmmakers Forum to Serve Strategies, Nov. 16, 2021

Overview

On November 16, 2021 the Media to Movements Filmmakers Forum to Serve Strategies (M2MFF2SS) met to bring together 22 creatives to source contents that are useful for MTM practitioners. We had a robust discussion on what type of media content can best aid MTM practitioners. The four lenses of M2DMM Content Creation has also been shared. Everyone was able offer their resources. The resource list and notes are below.

Who is This For?

This community is for any filmmaker, content creator or content provider willing to offer their services to the global media to movements initiative. Here is a video describing Media to Movements. Here are the notes from the May 2021 and August 2021 forum. The recording of the session is below.

Hosts and Impromptu Featured Presenter

Clyde Taber | Visual Story Network, Mission Media University, Mobile Ministry Forum
Tim Cowley | Reliant Creative, Global Creatives Collective. Currently working on creating a documentary series about the process of starting a Media to Movements strategy for the Yawo people of Mozambique and Malawi. [series intro]
Chris Villwock | OneKingdom

Notes – 10 Things Teams Are Looking For in Content

Started by asking some of the MTM leaders to share with us creatives what kinds of content they find works best.

1. Content that focuses on direct spiritual topics more so than just felt needs problems work better in a lot of context. i.e. rather than asking questions about marital issues that may be a more general felt need, honing it down into something that is more of a spiritual nature may help to filter the right kinds of seekers through the net.
2. Content that not only pushes the conversation towards Jesus but pulls them to Him in a constructive and thoughtful way. There is a need to ask people about life that may highlight the inadequacy of their current way of doing things.
3. Content that connects spiritual with cultural perspectives and helps you ask the deeper ‘why’ questions in any culture. Observe, and then bring Christ into the bottom tree roots or “yams” (language used in the training presented in Culture Meets Scripture).
4. Localized content is highly prized and effective.
5. Dubbed content is still okay, however balance is needed between local and imported.
6. Subtitling in local languages or providing the transcript to enable practitioners to subtitle is a great time saver. Videos without subtitles are usually not uploaded or posted on social media channels.
7. Content that is easy to adapt and use when provided without any producer branding. Allowing for the option to remix to some degree to make it better culturally is of highest value. Building and strengthening a local brand is key to building momentum in engagement. A foreign language, logo or watermark on a video that can’t be removed probably means the practitioner might not be able to use it in his or her context.
8. More Old Testament content would be great.
9. Content that gives the option to use multiple shorter clips/segments as well as a longer piece that gathers those different segments together. i.e. multiple 20-30 second pieces to draw interest on a social media post that can then direct to a website where a longer piece of several minutes.
10. Auxiliary pieces that go with your content can also be a great time saver. For example, 1-2 minute clips of longer videos can be used for ads. Stock images, from the video that are already sized for Facebook header, square images for posts and etc. are great additions. These pieces of additional content can round out a campaign and contribute to the overall engagement of the video itself.

Four Lenses

Chris V shared a presentation on the “M2DMM Media Content Overview” content creation is made up of four lenses:

- Lens 1 deals with “DMM” and understanding how we will draw UPGs into groups to replicate a conversation between a believer and a seeker.
- The second lens is “Empathy Marketing” where it seeks to understand how we meet people where they are at. We do our best to understand through the guidance of the Holy Spirit a person’s felt needs and to sit them down with Jesus and believers.
- The third lens is “Persona” where it seeks to understand who we make the content for to have a clear picture of with whom we are empathizing.
- Finally, lens 4 deals with “Theme” where it identifies what pain points will we target.
- This is explained in detail in this video.

Content that was used in the Bosnian materials we viewed together were mostly from videoblocks, a stock footage site. Footage is always reviewed by locals to ensure it feels local. Other stock sites mentioned worth using include Pexels and Envato Elements.

Another big help for the Bosnian footage came from a church in America who had a few media experts that offered to help in some way. The expat team in Bosnia requested they come out and shoot footage they could use in ongoing campaigns. This could be easily replicated for any context and shared in such a way, perhaps via something like ngostock.com, for other campaigns and projects that may be able to use that footage for other needs.

Suggested Resources

Save the Date:

Our next scheduled meetup, continuing on in this look at content types most useful for MTM campaigns, will happen on Feb 15, 2022 at 8AM Pacific.

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