The purpose: building an on line archive will enable to create short videos/creations/stories on the basis of the human and social story, with the assistance of professional editors, communication students from Israel and abroad.
The goal: creating hasbara/media advocacy tools (ammunition) that would be marketed and advertisement through the different menus of media in Israel and around the world.
The SMC have contained hundreds of hours of video quality footage from the past over 2 years.
The material includes:
· Tens of hours recording Qassam rockets exploding in the town Sderot and surrounding area.
· Tens of hours of interviews with residents, children, city officials, social workers, psychologists, and community workers.
· Capturing real-time scenes that were distributed throughout Israel and abroad: filming children and adults running for their lives as sirens go off.
· Massive gatherings
The purpose is to build this archive according the categories on the SMC website, enabling special secured access to the archive.
It is clear today, after the ‘war in Gaza’- to the average Israeli and to the rest of the Western world who support Israel, the importance of media advocacy in balancing media coverage and world public opinion that have a direct influence on the Israeli polices and decision makers in Israel.
During these days the foreign press are entering Gaza, and reporting on the aftermath of the war: reports of civilian casualties, destruction and devastation in Gaza. It is therefore crucial for Israel to develop hasbara tools that emphasize the reality in southern Israelbefore the war, in order to justify Israel’s military actions in Gaza while balancing world and Israeli public opinion.
During the war, SMC hosted international correspondents from around the world. Most were astonished to discover the impact of the missile fire on Israel before the war in Gaza, and that rocket attacks on Sderot and the Western Negev have been going on for the past 8 years.
Anticipated Results:
Having the opportunity to have an on-line archive will allow the following to take place:
1. Will enable SMC to approach student audiences in Israel, starting with the Sapir college (the biggest communication college in Israel) and the Asper Department at the IDC in Herzliya. The idea is to initiate a video contest among communication students, where students would compete to produce the best 1 minute video presenting the human story/message from Sderot- emphasizing the Israeli prospective. The winning video will be awarded a cash award and exposure of the students name as a producer/editor of the video while marketing and exposing the students video in Israel and the world.
2. Second step- containing tens/hundreds of 1 minute videos from the students- exposure through marketing through the different menus of media, on the concept of the social networking.
3. Hiring professional editors to create short documentaries/videos/ artistic creations from the archive, hiring a media PR firm in order to sell/distribute to leading media correspondents, promoting videos to TV channels, and film festivals.
Budget:
1. Building an archive: 2 student editors- converting hundreds of mini DV taps to web-site, building categories: $2,000
2. Cash awards on each campus- $500 awards for two winners (as for now) = $1,000
3. 3 professional editors with different artistic specialties- producing at least 10 pieces- $10,000
4. PR firm- $2,500
TOTAL: $15, 500
