Share Creativity: The Making of the Video

By Al Giordano

Ter García and Marine Lormant at the School of Authentic

Journalism. Photo DR 2010 Karina González.

Today we roll out the fourth in the series of videos produced at the 2010 Narco News School of Authentic Journalism, this one outlining easy steps of how journalists, writers, artists, musicians and other creators can utilize “copyleft” and other Creative Commons licenses as alternatives to copyright:

The video was edited and produced by class of 2010 scholars Marine Lormant and Ter Garcia. They wrote the following about how they made it:

The video, Share Creativity, is based on a series of plenary sessions at the School of Authentic Journalism given by Marine Lormant, a scholar on the video team. Since the plenary was quite long, we decided to record the audio anew to narrate this video. The goal of the video is, above all, explain as simply as possible how to license a Creative Commons work. Utilizing the freedoms that other Creative Commons users offer, we borrowed from videos, songs, photographs and other elements available on the Internet that give support to the lessons.

Most of the videos were found on the Internet pages of Creative Commons and Internet Archive. The process by which the video was elaborated also offers a clear example of the opportunities that these licenses offer. We chose to put the song, "Copying Is Not Theft," by Nina Paley, which has been infused by other styles of other artists, as an example of how existing works can be used to create new ones with the explicit permission of the author.

This video (original in Spanish with English subtitles) succeeds at an important goal we tell all writers and media makers: Don’t just tell the audience, show them. It doesn’t merely lecture the viewer on how to license works using Creative Commons (and the many reasons why creators might wish to do so). The video also demonstrates what can be done using and amplifying upon works that are already licensed that way.

Ter and Marine have been working round-the-clock here in the Narco Newsroom since the 2010 j-school ended in mid-February; capturing the many hours of video shot there and storing it on hard drives, archiving it all properly, doing the final edits and subtitles on the three previous videos we’ve made public so far, taking the leadership on this one, and they have still more on the assembly line coming soon to an Internet screen near you.

Marine has to return to New York tomorrow for work duties, which we all lament. Her talent and work ethic will be missed. But not to worry: she’ll be continuing to collaborate on the post-production of the videos from there... and I always visit our graduates in prison, er, the Big Apple!

You, too, will have the opportunity to meet Marine and Ter next month at the Narco News Tenth Anniversary Celebration, April 17, in New York City, and hear of their work and experiences at the 2010 School, along with a dozen other graduates of various generations of the j-school. Here’s who has confirmed so far:

* Johanna Lawrenson * Bill Conroy * Katie Halper * Josh Bregman * Erin Rosa * Bruce Miller Earle * Milena Velis * RJ Maccani * Marine Lormant * Richard Bell * Mariana Simoes * Barrett Hawes * Ter Garcia * Al Giordano *

Each of us will offer comments or stories of about five minutes apiece to share just how special and important this School - and the Fund that supports it - is to continuing and expanding the work of authentic journalism. As on previous Aprils, from Los Angeles to Seattle to New York, the anniversary celebration will be a benefit for The Fund for Authentic Journalism. The Big 1-0 of course will be a very special celebration. Trust us on this, you really don't want to miss it. Space is limited, so make your reservation at this link while tickets are still available.