Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Our great team...


From left to right:
Joep, our driver
Alex, moviestar
Guus, assistent producer
Stefan, our assistent director
Jord, our devoted cameraman
Selma, producer
Ursel, communication
Anne, camerawoman
Inga, moviestar
Janosch, our Polish friend

behind the camera: Joris, our director
behind the people: our firetruck and best friend ever...

questions unanswered

we have been on the road for 9 days, visited numerous projects, interviewed countless people on the street, talked among ourselves and with our coaches, all to figure out what exactly is Social Innovation, one of the buzzwords of our time.

What we know now is mostly that we still don't know a lot. But our quest has risen some important questions for me:

How come that so many initiatives are so young? Is it that they have a hard time surviving, or is it that they only now start to thrive? And how come they mostly survive on funds and grants? Was Mrs Schreiber from Democaris right when she said that we are not used to express social value in hard coin?

Another learning was that the more concrete the project was where we interviewed, the easier it was to show the passion of the founder or co-worker to the viewer. The more abstract the idea behind the project, the more words it took to explain, and the less emotion we were able to capture.

the way back


On Monday morning we left Vienna after some early deep cleaning of the appartment we had stayed at.
In the evening we arrived at Würzberg where we stayed in a hostel that reminded of good old DDR times. Inga and Ursel would stay in Germany so that we did a quick check-up to see where we are with our project, and what needs to be done still in the post production: a lot...
Jord, Stefan and Guus celebrated St. Patricks with green beer and figured there is no 'Wurst' in Würzberg.

Tuesday: there was such a stiff traffick jam that we took our picknick table out and ate our sandwiches on the highway, not unnoticed by the other truck drivers who could appreciate the joke. Back at school was the joy of reuniting with lovers and friends, and the overrated Dutch rain that welcomed us back home. So far for the trip!

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Bratislava - the beauty part

Bratislava - housing innovation

Bratislava - revelation

Where will we be?

Where will we be tomorrow? I am listening to our directors voice in the kitchen. We are back in Wien, after a day in Bratislava. We got good footage, especially from an old ma. He could close our movie with his words. But how will we close? We will split up the day after tomorrow, and what will happen then? Will this trip have done something with us, something innovative? I know it has, to all of us. Our time with each other, with the movie, with the people we met, was extremely valuable. "When we get out of the truck in Rotterdam, tuesday night..." are the words that I am hearing Alex uttering now. "A last mission..." Joris says.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Wien_15th

This morning our interview did not work out very smoothly. We will still ask ourselves why, but later. The afternoon interview went pretty well, we visited brunnen.passage and took part in a dancing workshop of classical ballet. Nearly everybody danced. Leuk!
The mood is a bit tired, we are now thinking about going out for 3 hours already. Let´s see if we are going to leave in the end...but I have good hopes. We have Alex with us! :-)

Especially for Ragnar




Old Town Square (Staromestske namesti) in Prague

Authenticity

Friday, March 14, 2008

Prague_14th

Roma people are not nomadic but they live in Czech Republic and other places for generations. The interview with a journalist who organizes Roma-cultural events and other stuff really impressed Alex and made him change his mind about these people.
Yesterday´s interview with the White circle of safety and the In-between house DOM were interesting as well. But is DOM really innovative? It is definitely a good project, but innovative? Houses to help children with a difficult past get o with their lives by giving them a home and helping them integrate is not all that new...but still very good. And needed in society. In order to be social innovation, does the project have to deal with issues in a new way or do the issues have to be new?

Anne and Stefan


We have to pleasure to have Anne and Stefan on board, two film students from the HKU. They are first years, full of ideas and full of things they want to learn, and above all, full of positive energy. Together they contribute lots to our trip, Anne with her laughter, honesty and filming skills, Stefan with his enthousiasm, jokes and in his role of assistent director...

let's have some more 'young' kids around at KP more often and all learn and enjoy together!

language contest

after a 'check up' and a stiff discsussion of the program to come, Guus dared Inga to see who knows more languages... 3 characteristic faces where the result

Snow!

Driving through Czech we found ourselves in this fairy tale world full of snow... we stopped for a quick snow fight and Joris thought it funny to throw a ball at a huge truck.
it stopped. the guy jumped out. run towards Joris and started shouting and pulling. joke? joke! we need call police! another truck stopped, the restaurant owner came out, we jumped off the truck...

and then it settled and turned into a good story

Prague - non violent movement


Ursel made some colourful friends down in Prague... They were actively doing some social innovation right on the streets

Leaving Poland

We stayed in this great house in Poland in a tiny village. It was totally peaceful after Berlin... And ofcourse there was group pictures with the bus

Poland


taking shots of the road in Poland we ran into the most beautiful places...

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Our learnings so far_Ursel: Filming



Today we watched the footage together with Floris (who arrived yesterday) and he had a lot of comments. We need to improve on our shots, the way we interview and how the people are in the picture, the sound quality, the setup of the scene. When interviewing you should set up the environment, so that you get good footage. So many things to focus on before you even come to the content of what people are acutally saying.
Clear roles help a lot: who is directing when going out in teams of 3-4 people, the cameraman? The interviewer? The cameraman makes sure the sound and image quality are good, the interviewer briefs the interviewee so that he/she does not look at the other persons, but focusses on the interviewer. 1000 little things like that.

Our learnings so far_Ursel: How money comes into play

The lady from Democaris in Berlin is financing her project mainly through fundraising and via Ashoka. Of course she asks as well money from the schools, her clients. But they often don´t want to pay, because how do you price things like: "get more connected to each other", "create a safe learning environment", "find inspiration" and other non-material values? They are definitely valuable and our society is build in a way that all things that are deemed to have value cost money. Or not? Family and friends have a big value to people, but they are fro free. Should non-material things that people create themselves through good interaction have a price in money? No, I don´t belive so. But the process that is necessary to guide them there is a service that deserves a payment, since the value that is created, is of value. Not necessarily a financial one, but a human one.

Flashback: Berlin_11th

There was something, right...events run so fast, we see so much, it is incredible.
But memory is a great concept, although sometimes it only comes to you afterwards. Here we go with the memory of the in depth interview filming day in Berlin:
Selma, me (Ursel), Alex and Anne visited democaris e.V. A very cool project of a lady who works with schools and helps them become more beneficial for every party involved: pupils, teachers, parents. She runs processes with them in which they find out how they would like to work together and how they can support each other. She puts a lot of attention on that these processes are acceptable and beneficial and safe for everyone. It includes comparing the image one has of oneself with the image that others have of you. Usually these don´t match too well... this can be quite a shock for teachers, but it helps them a lot. Before going there and facing the opinion of others, a good prepparation is done, so that this more of knowledge can be taken in and can help the person instead of making her insecure or feeling stripped.
Parents volunteer to do small things for the school or the class, this can range from painting a classroom to giving medical advice for free. Democaris created a database where all these nice favours can be exchanged and remembered. It works!

The other filming team went to visit a football project, more info on that is yet to come.

Message from Stefan


On behalf of our very dear crew member Stefan I say Hi to his parents and he loves his gilrfriend!

A night out in Prague_wednesday 12th

Uhu!!!! Disneyland is nothing, this castle is just great. I am still looking forward to seeing it during daylight today. We got a "Geheimtipp", secretative advice from some German tourists we met: go to the Karlsbridge! What would we have done without them! ;-)
We found a very nice club, nice cocktails, rock music. Then searching for a place to dance resultet in a much longer walk through the rain than intended, but finally we arrived at a club with 3 dancefloors. Can we please upload Stefan´s breakdance performance, Guus?
Afterwards we wanted to fit 6 people into one taxi, but there was no way. I think all the taxi drivers hate us by now, since we asked pretty much everyone of them. In the end they did not want to take us any more at all, at least not for the price they offered in the beginning.
We got home anyway. Money does not make you happy, but it helps you solve a lot of problems.

Village in Poland_wednesday 12th


What an amazing landscape! Peaceful, harmony, where are all the hippies? Oh, look, there´s a huge fire truck approaching, that must be them!
Seriously, we had a great stay in Janowice. A road-restaurant (some people might want to call it snack bar) opened especially for us and prepared some (way too expensive, but still good) food for us, due to language difficulties we chose by pointing at the different types of meat that were there.
Feeling happy, relaxed, tired, beerful, enjoying. Jannik is a great host, he refuses that I do any cleaning.
Next day was perfect, we did some nice shootings at a Autistic people place we found. So much love there!
Then we took off to Prague.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Berlin: day2


We started out with a nice breakfast, prepared by Frauke. We had a tour around the HUB, it is still pretty empty, they are looking for people to rent places. Otherwise they´ll be financially screwed in 2-3 months. But as always, it will get sorted out! :-)
The HUB rents out places for social entrepreneurs, that can work there. So they escape the isolation of having to work from home, they get inspired by other projects, they can exchange knowledge and ideas. We had 2 interviews with two of the social entrepreneurs.
Joris, Selma, Anne and Stefan redefined the desired outcome of the movie. Now we have a synopsis and a better idea about what we want to shoot and what not.
For lunch we had a so called HUB lunch, the first one in the HUB Berlin. A HUB lunch is a lunch where everybody brings his own food, and talks about a case that is brought in by either a HUB member or an external party. Other external parties can join the lunch, too. Then everybody works on this case for an hour.
In our case it was the BMW foundation that had a case. They want to arrange a day for their alumni during which these should be inspired to be more socially active. So first we asked them a lot of questions regarding the day. Since they were not yet so far in the planning, there were still many open questions about the concept, what they wanted to get out of it and how they wanted it to be. Reminded me a bit of the TRIODOS process that we had. Afterwards we brainstormed on it and came up with some ideas. It was interesting, especially because I had gone through a similar process with TRIODOS. But I noticed how important it is to understand the project in depth, understand the atmosphere in the foundation, find out what they really want (or, by asking questions, at the same time help them find out themselves). An hour was not at all enough to indulge into this.
And the two ladies seemed a bit scared by the "wild" brainstorm, where we did silly stuff like drawing random pictures in order to create a pool of inpirational ideas. I understand why IDEO does this behind closed doors.
Only Selma and me (Ursel) participated in the HUB lunch, everybody else went out and filmed. I heared they got some nice shots.
For dinner we had self-cookd rice with orange and tomato sauce. And now Alex, Inga, Anne and me are sitting here, enjoying the stillness, everybody busy with his/her laptop. Looks funny. 4 people in a room, heavily interacting with their computers. Maybe I should start chatting with one. ;-)
The others are out, partying.

P.S. Inga´s purse with everything in it got stolen.

Our learnings so far_Ursel: What is social innovation?

Social innovation - big word. I never knew what to associate with it. What does it mean? Now I know more. It is actually a concept about which I had already thought, but never under this label. It is about "how do you bring social change about?" How to make small things big. How do you, as an individual, have to act, or to be, if you want to trigger social change? Of course no individual can change the world alone. The people around him/her have to pick it up and help it grow. So it is also a lot about leadership. And the time has to be right. Anyways: social innovation for me would be, to notice what the time is right for and then be able to live it in a way that makes others follow. Otherwise it does not grow big. Followers of course don´t have to copy the idea, whatever it is, but they have to cooperate and further build on it.
Don´t dream it...be it!

Night out in Berlin

Playing pictionary with Alex is great. Funniest drawer on earth! We played that for hours in the fire truck while driving through Germany yesterday.
And then Berlin at night! After a very nice welcome in the selfHUB with food being cooked for us by Frauke Godat, we went out. The Kaospilots who are currently staying in Berlin showed us around, Anna, Simon and Anders. Babsi and Matthias from the selfHUB were also with us.
So we went to this gay bar, great place! Very funky, with fur on the wall, it was just too cliché. Guus and Alex were quite drunk, but fresh this morning! And I hope Inga finds her way home soon...
Now we are having breakfast at the selfHUB and are getting ready for the first day of real filming!

Berlin!

On our way to Berlin

Departure from Rochussen

Saturday, March 8, 2008

On the road!!!!!!!!!

Wuhuuuuuu!!!!! Yeah!!!!!!!!!
We are leaving
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our learnings so far_Joris

So here we are! Two days to go before we actually set off in our Mercedes Benz 508 Firetruck. More and more we are getting into roles. What i learned is that you need two things in order to make a movie:
a lot of positivity
not giving up
Today we went to LLink who is the ideal broadcasting company for us. They are involved in travelling and in all the good stuff that we are connected too. Unfortunately they have this magical piles of papers that we will dive into.. And as the new director I'd like to stop worrying about finance and practical issues. I want to focus on the content from now on!
So if there are people out there who could sponsor us.. every euro will no be waisted!

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Streetfootballworld - Berlin


We will visit Streetfootballworld on the 11th of March at 10am

Jürgen's global network brings hundreds of organizations using "streetfootball", a modified version of conventional football but with a social goal, together with the football industry, governments, foundations and other citizens organizations, to leverage their work and enhance their ability to serve society
By connecting carefully selected citizen sector organizations that use streetfootball as a tool for social change in a variety of fields such as HIV prevention, environmental protection, integration of immigrants, peace building, or gender equality, Jürgen enables them to exchange best practises and ideas for collaboration.
More than a mere network, however, his organization links its members with other citizen sector organizations in their fields and with local governments and foundations. He matches them with sports-related corporations and with global football associations, which channel new financial and professional resources into the social sector, simultaneously sharpening social awareness and changing policies of corporate social responsibility. These encounters crystallize into events such as the global streetfootball tournament and the Streetfootballworld festival, which he invented in order to change the perception and identity of the participants as well as the public view of them. Lastly, he brings together young people from all over the world who are involved in streetfootball into a global community through online virtual play and exchange.

http://www.streetfootballworld.org

Democaris - Am Mellensee, Germany


We will visit Democaris on the 11th of March at 10am

Dagmar, founder of Democaris, has created a model by which students, parents and teachers in Germany can collectively participate in shaping their school environment. In the present authoritative, hierarchical and factbased educational system, students are negative about school, teachers feel drained and exploited, parents are estranged, and none of the communicate. Taking advantage of the current momentum to bolster German student's poor performance on internatinoal standardized tests, Dagmar has developed a system to gather feedback from students, teachers and parents on their personal experiencees of their schools. She then uses this feedback and its evaluation as a springboard for group discussion and democratic decision-making, encouraging the three parties to develop common goals and take shared responsibility for improving their schools. The ensure this positive outcome, Dagmar has introduced and implemented new ideas such as student assemblies, teachers support groups, a parent support database and a regular school feedback day.

http://www.democaris.de

Dzeno Association - Prague


We will visit Dzeno on the 14th of March

Ivan, founder of Dzeno, stregnthens the Roma communities in the Czech Republic by providing mediums for Romani self-representation. While the Czech Republic is one of the countries with the most success in post-communist development it has been unsuccessful in integrating its Roma population, which is facing extreme discrimination. Just after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992 many Roma had their Czech citizenship revoked, which turned them into second-class citizens and many more were pushed into the outskirts of cities or into urban getthoes. Ivan strenghtens the Romani communiy by providing alternative means for representation by building bridges among the Roma and non-Roma people. He has created a media platform alternative to the dominant media in which he fights the anti-Romani stereotypes. In 1994 he established the Dzeno Association that gives a voice to the Roma. His association runs its own magazine and radio station tailored to tthe needs of the Roma. At the same time he is training and employing Romani journalists. Ivan is changing the position of the Roma in society by providing unbiased information from the regions and communities on issues facing the Roma population. He is substantially changing the perception of the Roma in society, changing their socio-econonomic status, and creating a multicultural society. His association has published more than 700 articles and press releases for the Czech media. Ivan is today one of the most respected Romani advocates and spokesmen for the Roman community in the Czech Republix as well as Central and Eastern Europe.

http://www.dzeno.cz/

DOM - Prague

We will visit DOM on the 13th or 14th of March

Michaela Svobodová is providing a unique combination of services for homeless runaways in the Czech Republic. Her goal is to get them off the streets and into a loving and affirming environment in which they can grow into productive and happy members of society.
In order to improve the quality of life of runaways, Michaela has started a series of related programs that are designed to meet the varied and complex needs of these troubled young people as they move from homeless runaways to productive adult member of society. To manage these programs, Michaela started an umbrella organisation called Pram, which means "raft" in English. Pram oversees the management and operation of three very distinct projects that Michaela has developed or is currently developing.

http://www.dom-os.cz

White Circle of Safety - Prague

We will visit White Circle of Safety on Thursday 13th of March during the afternoon

Petra Vitousová is creating a volunteer based support network for the victims of violent crime in the Czech Republic.
Petra founded a nonprofit organization, through which we works, named the White Circle of Safety. Through the services of a volunteer staff it provides a comprehensive evaluation of a victim at one of its three Prague center immediately after the person seeks out the Circle's help. Once the needs of the victim are determined, the Circle's team of experts moves into action. This team is comprised of a wide number of professionals and experts - including lawyers, therapists, doctors and social workers - all selected for their sensitivity and ability to listen to people.

http://www.bkb.cz/index.php

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Combining with the Thailand group


The other half of our class is going to Thailand, to find out more about social innovation there. They will also make a movie, so we will cooperate! Our lunch meetng today was very productive and we had a lot of fun! Juhu Thailand and Europe, here we come!

How is our trip socially innovative?

This question we asked ourselves during todays meeting, where we also got a huge step further in defining the synopsis. The tagline will be: Everyone is involved.

If we show this wanting to bring something positive into the world, this is already socially innovative. We are having problems in making this trip. And we still want to focus on the good stuff. The world will look for you in the way that you look upon it. We are still trying to look upon it in a positive way. This is social innovation.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Filmschool students

We are bringing film school students along, so the outcome of our movie should be even more professional! We already met Anne, a very nice girl, who will come along and give us a hand. Also in the editing afterwards, wich will be most of the work.

Our learnings so far

This is a huge learning. On so many levels. Group process-wise, project-wise, personally. Everybody will be taking different things out of it, and they will most probably play a part in the movie as well.

During the next time there will be some stories about learnings to be found here, so hang on there!

Means of transportation



A big, huge fire truck! With a driver! Man, we are really lucky here!

New route

We discussed about our route again and here is how it looks like now:

9th: leave to Berlin
10th: Berlin, visit selfHUB
11th: Berlin, hit the streets, drive to Poland
12th: small village in Poland, drive to Prague
13th: Prague, meet the white circle of safety
14th: Prague, drive to bratislave
15th: Bratislava, party!
16th: Ljubljana? Vienna?
17th: ?
18th: go back to Rotterdam
19th: reach Rotterdam latest at 15h

Clearing up

Today we met at school. We had a nice round where some people said how they felt about the project, especially those that had said no to it yesterday. One of them is definitely out, the other one joint back in. He will bring his passion into our trip: make the connection to the Thailand group and do some marketing for Team 2 on the way? Great!
I feel a bit sad that the other guy is not coming along, because I would have liked the whole group to come. But it also feels ok, because it feels like a real decision, without any hidden fear or any other negative feeling. He will still support us as much as possible, just that he will not be with us on the bus but physically in Rotterdam.
Sometimes you just have to accept things.

Hurricane in Amsterdam





We went to Amsterdam, the original idea was to do trendspotting with the school. Nothing to do with our project, or maybe in a way, since we can spot trends on social innovation there. What actually happened was a little bit different. We felt we needed to finally take some decisions. So we talked for about two hours and got some frustrations aired and learned about mutual passions towards the project and how high the level of committment was of everybody.
We were sitting at a table in the university mensa, finding it a little bit hard to find our way through this. How to go on? Should we connect to the group in Thailand? In which way? Should they send us their footage (since they adopted our idea) and vice versa and should we make one movie in the end? Or still two separate ones that have the same topic? Should there be a movie behind the movie? In what way: as a separate, extra "making of" or as a read thread through the actual movie?
Many opinions, little space to combine them.
After not being able to decide what we wanted to decide, namely if we were going to call the guy with the fire truck and hire him or not, we met with the Thailand group in another building. They had done the original task of trendspotting, so they were at a different point. After listening to them we talked about our talk (in a way a trend in itself, the difficulties in integrating the individual side of persons into a group) and then it blew.
The wind rose, tension got higher, the atmosphere turned dense, there was a lighting and then two members of the group said that they would not come along. Not enough money in our budget, to enough identification-potential, no possibility to integrate their passion.
So, we did not reach what we wanted to reach: agreement on the fire truck.
Sometimes you just have to be patient.

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Learning how to film

Filming class in Amersfoort with Huub

You need to have a hell of a lot of things in place when making a movie. Wow! If I was not that exhausted right now, I would say the day with Huub was mindblowing. This guy raised our movie making skills from 0 to 100% in 6 hours. :-)
It is not just going out there with a camera in your hand and a vague idea of what you want to do. If you do that you must be either Superman and fly or crash. Probably the latter.
But! now! we! have! superduperfilmingflyingskills!
Video: Where do you place a figure on the screen? Follow the 1/3rd 2/3rd rule: eyes should always be about 1/3rd from the top. Mind the talking direction as well: there should be 2/3rds of space in the direction that the person is talking to.
Mind light conditions: you don´t want it opposite of the camera, but also not right in the face of the person being interviewed.
Sound: That´s 50% of the deal. If it is too windy, stop the shooting and arrange things so that you get better material. Same goes for other sounds like cars, people talking (you now have a good reason to tell them to shut up!). If you cannot avoid to record a noise: show it in the picture! When the eyes see where the sound comes from, the brain will accept it much more easily.
Time: There should be a timecode on the tape, because afterwards, when editing, you will want to be able to navigate through all the footage and find things again. Maybe you want to filme the tape on black before, so you are sure that it has a complete timecode on it and no fractions. Having the 30 minutes spot twice on the same tapes makes it difficult to find things.

Some useful hints:

Most important: Make sure your batteries are loaded and the tape you are using is empty.
Don´t use the first minute of the tape to be sure that it really tapes and for quality reasons.
See through the material every once in a whil during the trip to make sure that you really have something. It would be a pity to come home and find out that you have only bad shots, but could have improved along the way.
Make sure you write on the tape what is on it! e.g. Tape No. 1, HUB Berlin, by Joris, eurostars@kaospilots.nl If it gets lost, people might send it to us.
Read the manual of the camera before!
Don´t use inbuild effects like fade in/out. Just plain footage.
Use earplus while filming, then you hear how the sound will be.
Be relaxed with the camera, people should not notice it. They are probably scared already.
No talking during shots! You want the natural sounds, like doors clacking when closing.
Setting: every picture tells a story. Make sure it fits your intention. Nature tells about harmony, barbed wire gives you the impression of a prison or something.
Perspective: frog perspective makes the person being filmed seem bigger and more important, birds perspective the other way around.
Remember: your audience wants these questions answered: why? who? where?


Interviewing:

Do you want the interviewer in the picture?
The interviewer should be emathetic, but not say „hm“ all the time. It disturbes the sound.
Phrase good questions that focus on...your focus. So have a focus! Everybody the same on, at least that makes it a lot more easy for the editor.

We asked people the questions:

Who are you? They usually gave us their name, age and occupation.
What would you change if you were God? Worldpeace was common ground.
What was your best moment in the last year? ...
Have you come across the term „social innovation“? Do you know what it is? No.

So I guess we have some work to do here...find good questions!

Things to be clear about before making the movie (deciding on them is actually part of making the movie):

Aim
Target group
Content
Form/Style
Duration
Language
Show/Broadcast/Distribution

Again: lots of work ahead of us here!