How can you help? 1) Most importantly, follow your bliss. Do whatever it is that you are most passionate about. 2) Find your peers, surround yourself with allies and collaborators. 3) Give back to a bigger idea. That might be the Michigan Movie Makers, a resource only as interesting / awesome as we decide to make it.
Assume an ongoing responsibility or jump on a short range project. The following is a list of ideas for M3 volunteers, find something that fits you. If you’ve got an inspiration for a project / effort not listed here, by all means get in contact. Remember – ideas are cheap, initiation and follow through are what truly dazzles.
Links
“All the grains of sand on all the beaches on the earth are not as numerous as the stars in the cosmos.” Carl Sagan, Cosmos 1980.
The resources of the web are also incomprehensibly vast. Our mission – to extract and share what could be relevant to the community. Give us your links, what’s helping you get where you want to go.
Writing
As new Michigan Movie Makers collaborate on this blog, the content grows more comprehensive and pithy! If you have news to report, announcements to make or a project that needs crew, then you’re invited to become one of M3’s contributing writers.
As a Michigan Movie Maker your likely pretty savvy, so make sure your writing reflects this. Every blog post makes an impression on our peers, the larger community, funders supporting M3 projects and professional writers who are thinking about contributing. Keep your posts readable and engaging by following these basic guidelines.
1) Use correct spelling, grammar and sentence structure. Spelling and grammatical mistakes can make you seem careless or even not so smart. The impression you make about your competence and intelligence is as important as your message.
2) Keep your posts concise and to the point. Say it once, simply.
3) When writing a new post, use “Save Draft” and then “Preview” “Save Draft” is above and to the left of the “Publish” button. Save your post as often as you want with “Save Draft”. If you’d want feedback before publishing, ask an Editor to check your post, a list of Editors is coming.
4) Fix errors BEFORE you post. When you think a post is ready, read it aloud – either to yourself or someone else. This is a great way to catch problems.
Eventually, M3 will budget for a freelance copy editor to check and fix pending posts, which will be great for anyone who doesn’t write a lot but has valuable information to share.
If you plan on writing frequently for M3 on legislative issues, our own policies and projects or maybe news of projects / job opportunities coming to our region, then invest in a copy of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. This is the essential reference for writing – and it’s thin enough to carry around.
Documenting meetings / events
We so need competent and reliable meeting / event coverage (audio and video, still) and the will to post. Who’s out there?
Connections
Organizing and building alliances with the talent community – models, actors, dancers, musicians.
Web development chops
We have a variety of simple but profoundly important projects that need a dash of geek. Specifically, we are considering creating a search interface for MichiganMovieMakers.com that would give visitors the ability to search LinkedIn for our members. We have a test group on LinkedIn for Michigan Movie Makers, join this group ONLY is you want to help research and develop the search interface. linkedin.com/company/michigan-movie-makers, then join the group.
Legal and fundraising
To really kick it, we need part time / full time staff and a revenue stream to pay them. Ongoing movie production could be a huge boon to the regional economy, so we ought to be able to make a solid case for funding expanded operations with the help of local and regional businesses.