…and engaging with organizations in ways that are meaningful and long lasting for the movement!
Tackling a social action campaign for a Michael Moore film is a daunting task. As the most successful documentary filmmaker of all time, Moore’s films spawned movements long before terms like “impact producer” and “social action campaign” entered the daily lexicon of the independent film world.
Fahrenheit 9/11 changed the 2008 election, and the effects are so far reaching that even today’s presidential debates address the implications raised in the film.
Sicko arguably planted some of the first seeds of Obamacare.
Bowling for Columbine brought gun control into the national conversation.
While it’s unfortunate that we are still having that same conversation, the film helped inspire the movement for gun control and has certainly made an impact on many social issue documentary filmmakers and impact producers.
So, how do you create an impact campaign for a film giant like Michael on his latest film Where To Invade Next?
Put the power in the hands of the people making the change.
The 10%
Michael Moore said it best himself: “The first thing I want to do is for you to have felt the film was a good way to have spent two hours. I want you to enjoy the movies. At the very least you were entertained. Entertainment can mean that it was thought-provoking, you laughed or cried, or maybe you even got mad. If 10% of the audience commits themselves to doing something about this, that would be huge. I don’t expect that from everyone and I don’t demand it.”
Even if only 10% of viewers take action after seeing Michael’s latest film, Where to Invade Next, that’s still a significant number of people. Especially since this film is so far the largest grossing documentary of 2016 and Moore’s second largest film opening EVER.
Our goal — and challenge — was to provide concrete ways for that 10% to take action. Rather than reinvent or start movements of our own, we decided to collaborate with the issue area leaders to use the film as an engagement and mobilizing tool for their work. We established partnerships with dozens of organizations that are aligned with the core issue areas in the film, including gender equality, political mobilization, voting, mass incarceration, criminal justice, drug reform and education. We also developed more extensive partnerships and specific initiatives related to the following initiatives:
Student Debt
In the film, Michael invades Slovenia where attending a university is free — even for Americans! In Slovenia, there is no such thing as a student loan. When you graduate from college, you have the opportunity to choose any job you want- your true passion. In the U.S., recent graduates often feel forced to take a job because of the massive amount of debt they accumulated.
Since this is such a big issue in the U.S., we partnered with Student Debt Crisis to co-brand and launch their #WithoutStudentDebt campaign. WithoutStudentDebt.org is now a place where people around the country can share their vision of what life would be like without student loan debt. Visit the WithoutStudentDebt.org wall to tell us what you would do
Gender Equality
Where To Invade Next created an opportunity to start a national and serious discussion on gender equality in the U.S., a right we should all demand. In order to build national awareness around the fact that women in the U.S. do not have equal rights under the Constitution, we designed a one questionquiz that simply asks:
“Do men and women have equal protection under the U.S. Constitution?”
In our experience, interactive content , like quizzes and polls, add a more engaging and participatory dimension to our “word-of-mouth” marketing and advocacy efforts . By pushing this quiz through more diverse , social channels to people outside our normal partners, we further enticed people to join the campaign and share their thoughts and results on social media.
The quiz not only created widespread awareness on the fact that men and women are not guaranteed equal rights under the Constitution, but also generated substantial buzz in the week leading up to the film’s release. We worked with over 40 women’s groups and leaders, including the ERA Coalition, NOW, Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem, who were all excited to use this quiz and the film as part of their efforts to raise awareness about the Equal Rights Amendment.
Hammer & Chisel Awards
In the film, we see how the small actions of one person can lead to monumental, generational shifts. We sought to honor those courageous individuals working to undo injustice and make America a better place for all. Coinciding with the release of the film, we established a partnership with the Huffington Post culminating with a blog series from the award recipients. The “Hammer & Chisel Awards” honor individuals who are working to make life better for the working class and working poor in our country. Not only did these recipients feel empowered by the award, but they also became active partners in promoting the film.
Additionally, we coordinated a selection of word of mouth & influencer screenings to build public support and awareness around the film’s release. We arranged for screenings at Facebook, Google, and Spotify, and separately with the Innocent Project, U.S. Congress and New American Foundation.
And then what…
The legacy of the impact campaign will exist beyond the film’s six-month marketing window. The Hammer & Chisel awardees have national recognition for their work, the ERA Coalition has helped better-educatr the broader public and fostered an email list of people ready to mobilize, and Student Debt Crisis has a storytelling tool that visualizes and empathizes debt numbers.
The prospect of working with an enormous celebrity like Michael Moore may capture the attention of movement and nonprofit leaders. But for a film — even a Michael Moore film — to make an impact, it takes relationship development and collaboration between the film team, impact team and the movement leaders. Its not just about promoting a film. Its about collaborating to build a movement around these crucial issues, on which a great film shines a spotlight.
The results of the impact and influence of this film are yet to be seen, but change does not happen overnight. We can measure our progress quantitatively in the form of reach and awareness, and qualitatively in the depth of the relationships we’ve developed with our partners. We know the film broke records opening weekend. We know thousands took the ERA quiz and our messaging on equality reached millions of people. We know that the time we spent working with the organizations on the ground will help ensure that the initiatives we built around the film will continue to make an impact long after the box office closes.
And we hope that Michael continues to make great films like Where to Invade Next.
Darcy Heusel is Picture Motion’s Sr. Vice President of Impact, where she has led strategy and campaign management for some of the most influential impact films in the last few years, including Where to Invade Next, Fed UP, Bully and American Promise. Outside the office, Darcy serves on the advisory board for the Minority Independent Producers summit and volunteers in her free time with Ghetto Film School NYC.
Julie Kohn joined the Picture Motion team in 2015 as a Campaign Director. She has since organized over 800 screenings of JR’s short film Ellis, all within a two-week window, and has developed impact strategies for a range of upcoming criminal justice reform films. You can also see her work in the film A Place at the Table, for which she was an associate producer.
