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WITNESS has published a series of videos on How to Film Protests, meant as guidelines to ensure that the video documentation serves as evidence of the events for advocacy purposes while also protecting the people who appear in the footage.
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The five-part video series, created with the support and insight of video activists provides important information for anyone who might find themselves with a camera in the midst of a news-worthy event such as the Occupy Protests, the Syrian Uprising and anywhere else. The five videos on the series cover topics such as preparing to film, choosing the right equipment, filming protests in a team, capturing quality image and sound and conducting interviews.
This series, along with our Video for Change tips, incorporates the best practices we’ve developed with over 300 partners in 80 countries over the past 20 years. They also work to address the unique real-life challenges we’ve discovered in the last year working with and training exceptional activists – particularly those throughout the current epicenter of #video4change – the Middle East and North Africa.
This first video shows how to film safely and effectively by knowing your goal and intended audience, developing a safety and security plan both for yourself and for the people in your footage and filming details and always recording the date, time and location of the event.
The third video of the series is on the advantages of filming as a part of a team. By teaming up with people you trust, different people can take on different roles and film separately and also a team can provide support in case there are problems or something unexpected comes up if safety plans are made in advance.
The last video in the series is on How to conduct an Interview, starting with researching about the person and subject to plan ahead the questions you'll ask, follow the informed consent process so that the interviewees are aware of the risks and dangers of appearing in a video and how to conceal identities so the subject can decide how they'd like to be shown or if they'd rather not appear in the video at all.
Freedom from Fear...Now.