Host your own screening toolkit.
This toolkit is designed to be used by community
organizations, nonprofit, grassroot, and faith-based organizations, and
youth groups that want to screen Money Talks in
order to motivate, educate, and help raise awareness within their
communities about the issues in the film.
This detailed and user-friendly
program empowers you to create a fabulous event. Some parts may not be
applicable to everyone, so pick and choose what is necessary and works
for you. These are all suggestions from past experience to give you an
idea of what may be helpful to reach and impact your audience.
Our experience is that people
normally want to buy DVDs after a screening! If you would like to buy
more DVDs at a bulk rate to sell
as a fundraiser for your organization, order some here:
Thank
you for signing up to become a Money Talks screening host!
Getting The Word Out
1. Make a few flyers about your event.
Place these at local coffee shops, schools, churches, etc. and anywhere that has a message board near to your event.
2. Electronic / Viral
Outreach
Email,
social network messaging sites and blogs are some of the most effective
ways to reach people. With any electronic outreach, be sure to include a link to MoneyTalksTheMovie.com
so people can view the trailer, or better yet, embed the trailer from
our website. People love watching a trailer as a sneak preview of what
movies they are thinking of seeing.
3. Local Media
Before you make complicated plans
about how to promote your event, spend some time thinking about who is
most likely to understand and appreciate your event. Consider what
your target audience watches, reads and listens to. By targeting your
core audience, you might decide that it makes more sense to focus on an
alternative weekly paper or radio station that already covers innovative
community initiatives rather than the major daily paper. Create a
simple “press release” that gives the details of your event along with
the synopsis of the film and of course the website. See our other press releases to see how a press release looks.
Below are some basic tips
for your media outreach:
Find the contact details and make a list of a wide
range of local media you plan to contact.
Send the press release to everyone on
your list either by email or fax.• If press wants photos or a press kit
about the film itself, you can always direct them to the website where
those materials are available for download.
Get the event on calendar listings in
your city’s weekly publication(s) and on the web.
Make calls to local television and
radio programs. Let them know about your event, and be prepared to give
them contact and title information of local experts or advocates that
can be available for interviews.
Here’s who to contact:
Local TV news: assignment editors
Public affairs or magazine programs:
producers
Talk
radio or local/community radio: producers or hosts
A couple of days prior to your event
re-contact the media list and invite them to attend the event.
4. Co-Sponsoring
Organizations
We strongly encourage including other organizations in your event
plans, as it helps you broaden your reach and establish new,
potentially long-term coalitions. Allied organizations can get involved
in a range of ways depending on their capacity. This can include getting
the word out about the film through listservs or websites, contributing
time or resources to the screening event and/or participating in a
post-screening panel discussion. The key in approaching co-sponsors is
to help them understand how your event fits into their priorities as an
organization, and how they will ultimately benefit from being associated
with your event.
5.
Campus Screenings
As with community screenings, finding on-campus co-sponsors
is very important. Contact departments, research centers and youth
organizations that have an interest in the topic and ask them to be part
of this event. This increases the visibility and success of the event
and helps put a spotlight on the issues in the film. An educational
guide will be available here soon.
Money Talks: Event Planning
After defining your target
audience, objectives, and framing, begin planning the event:
1. Preliminary planning – at
least 6 weeks prior
Choose the date and book the venue for your Money Talks
screening event.
Recruit local organizational partners to broaden your reach, and
help identify roles for each one; such as publicity, panelist
coordination, reception planning, etc.
Determine speakers (including
filmmakers), panelists, and moderator (if applicable).
2. Logistical planning – 3-4
weeks prior
Create a flyer to publicize your screening. Get enough
photocopies of the flyer made.
Confirm that you have the right equipment to screen
the DVD. You’ll either need a DVD player and a large TV, or a DVD
player, a projector, screen and sound system.
Secure food for reception (if
applicable).
Draft
agenda and discuss with partners.
Order an appropriate number of the multi-pack DVDs
to sell at the event at a fundraiser.
3. Logistical planning – 2
weeks prior
Create an email blast to publicize your event electronically. We
suggest sending one announcement 2 weeks prior and another reminder
several days prior to the event.
Contact community calendars about your event.
4. Media outreach – 10 days
prior
Send out press releases to media outlets.
Make calls to local television and
radio programs.
5. Final planning – several days prior
Important: test screen your DVD of
the film in advance of the event to make sure there aren’t any
glitches. Be sure that the screen is high enough so that everyone can
read the subtitles!
Send second round of email blasts.
Follow up with press who expressed an
interest in covering the story.
Finalize agenda.
Make copies of handouts, including literature from
your organization, fact sheets, etc.
6. At The Event
As people arrive, ask them to sign
up to receive updates from your organization.
Before the discussion, announce that
you have DVDs for sale and that these sales will help cover the cost of
the screening! Set up a table near the exit and have someone stationed
with the DVDs during the discussion.
Have a timekeeper so panelists/speakers remain
within their assigned speaking time.
Encourage participants to spread the word and let
them know that they can learn more about the film at MoneyTalksTheMovie.com
Money Talks - Sample Screening Party
Sample program and
additional planning tips to help make
your event a success:
SAMPLE PROGRAM: 2 hours
7:00 – 7:30: Guests arrive,
sign in, enjoy refreshments
7:30 – 7:40: Host welcomes guests, makes
introduction and explains the evening program
7:40 – 8:30: Screening of Money Talks
8:30
– 9:00: Group discussion, comments, plans for continuing community
actions
Location! Location! Location?
The possibilities for where
to host your Community Premiere are virtually endless.
You might:
Invite your family, friends and
neighbors right into your living room.
Reserve a room in your local library
or community center.
Incorporate the screening into the regularly scheduled meeting of
a local club or organization.
Use space available at your church, mosque,
synagogue or temple.
Hold the event on campus in your dorm lobby, a classroom or the
student center or library.
Ask a local coffee shop, pub or other business to allow you
to use their space.
Find out if your local independent movie theater would be willing
to host a screening.
Choosing the right location for your event depends upon whom
you’d like to attend and the particular environment you want to
create. Can your own home accommodate a small group of friends? Where
do people in your community already like to gather? Where have you seen
similar events hosted in the past that you thought were really great.
If you are promoting the event to
the wider public, think about a place where most people, regardless of
race, religion, or sexual identity, would feel comfortable. If you want
to encourage your local public officials or other community leaders to
attend, select a location that would be appropriate for them.
Other factors to consider when
selecting a space include ease of parking, access to public
transportation, and the distance your guests must travel to get there.
Also remember that the central component of the evening is the TV
screening, so find a location with proper screening capabilities: DVD
projector, screen, large screen television, audio, etc.
Comments from previous screening hosts: Leland Lehrman - The new video regarding the massive subversion of the medical field is both terrific and a guaranteed winner in Congressional Hearings. We need to get this video onto the desks of every health and education committee member at the state and federal level.
Leslie - It’s a must see. Okay, so I knew that the pharmaceutical industry was bad, and the biggest lobby in this country, surpassing guns and oil, but I didn’t realize that there is a pharmaceutical sales rep for every 4 doctors in this country, and 2 pharma lobbyists for every member of Congress. They fund pet programs of the CDC, HHS, FDA. They fund American medical journals, research institutions and sit on the panels that regulate the pharmaceutical industry, drug studies and how those studies are reported. Since the Reagan administration took away major funding to the NIH in the 1980’s to fund drug studies, the drug companies have been more than happy to fill that gap.
Basically, they own us, our doctors, our medical research and the journals that give us supposedly unbiased information about that research. They own our Congress, too. Just look at the Prescription Drug debacle. They push the newest, most expensive drugs on our doctors as free samples to get them and us hooked. Part of the way the reps are paid is to make sure that those samples are moving off the shelves. And doctors eat this up, or worse, even buy into the belief that these pretty, young sales rep (and they are always young and beautiful so that doctors want to see them after being around sick people all day) actually know anything about medicine. It is sick, sick, sick.
Need Help?
Contact Holly for more help in
setting up a group screening. Call 310-902-8303.
"A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead