HelloCoolWorld.com: E-Zine!

From a Moment to a Movement: HelloCoolWorld.com & Bevel Up

by Katherine Dodds

Bevel Up: Being the change. Reducing harm. Promoting dialogue. Join our mail list.

At Hello Cool World we like to think of ourselves as ‘idea distributors.’ We work with creators, stakeholders, and rights managers of films and projects to get them to the right audiences, not just to win popularity contests (though we don’t mind that!), but to make something happen. Something cool. Sometimes this means a mainstream release strategy; other times it means going deeper and paving the way for the long haul.

Currently through our microsite - BevelUpOutreach.com - we hope to provide online tools, outreach and strategies to engage audiences specifically around health care outcomes in order to create dialogue around the issues raised in the film. This site will link to the National Film Board's site - BevelUp.com - and to the Facebook group, as well as to a back-end for the outreach team to track their own efforts so have a way to measure the results. We have also created a Youtube channel currently hosting a trailer edited to promote the online campaign which is also linked to all the sites. We will have a “join us’ link on all the sites that feed into our HelloCoolWorld.com network and allow us to send campaign specific emails to those who are interested. This process not only gives us an opportunity to work on movement building around issues of drug policy, health care, addiction, homelessness and the overarching concept of “harm reduction,” but also to create models for doing this kind of work.

Our messaging for the outreach is: “Being the change. Reducing harm. Promoting dialogue."

Photo credit: Nettie Wild

The online universe provides expanded means of distribution and using Bevel Up, itself a multi-platform project, in the fashion that has become the new “new” of social issue documentary and media puts this campaign on the cutting edge of social media. Doing so expands the concept of interactivity from the DVD itself, to the communications continuum that having it out in the world, linking to online social networks, and offline events all with a way to manage and monitor what happens through our online tools.

What we hope to accomplish in this phase is to provide some tools and structure to the ongoing outreach for the film. There have been many successes to date with Bevel Up, and we’d like to map out how the project’s impact spreads, and with the help of our supporters expand the impact of the overall project.

So who are the heroes of Bevel Up? You are! If you care to join us to build a movement to connect the film to the issues…

Action Points

Join us

Watch the trailer at BevelUpOutreach.com

Send the link to the trailer to your friends

Discuss this on Facebook

Buy the film

Host an interactive screening (post videos of discussion to YouTube)

Use the film as an advocacy tool

KUDOS FOR BEVEL UP

Bevel Up has been shown at prestigious conferences in Toronto, New York, Poland, Mexico and more. It's been translated into Russian and has sold out festival screenings. It has won the prestigious American Academy of Nursing 2008 Media award, the 12th Annual PRISM award for Best Original DVD and was nominated for 2008 International Award for Action on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights. Not bad for a documentary that was originally intended solely for use by nurses! Much of this is due to the power of the outreach nursing program that the film follows, revealed through the masterful story telling of director Nettie Wild. (Wild is the award winning director of the films: A Rustling of Leaves, Blockade, A Place Called Chiapas and Fix: The Story of an Addicted City).

Also significant is the process by which Bevel Up is moving beyond both a traditional film launch or educational program to become a catalyst for movement building — at a moment where the need is great but the opportunities may be equally great.

"The film was far more successful with the general public than we anticipated. It became evident that what started out as an educational tool for nurses was also a powerful tool for community development, engaging public in critical dialogue, and catching the attention of policy makers."
—Juanita Maginley, BCCDC Outreach Program Manager

Donald MacPherson, Drug Policy Coordinator for the City of Vancouver says Bevel Up:

"should be part of a broad movement to establish Harm Reduction and an integral part of any health or drug strategy." He does note that the term Harm Reduction is a "lightning rod in the United States where it is linked with the issue of legalization." But there is a sea change with the Obama administration. In a statement issued in mid February, the US affirmed its support for needle exchange for the first time ever.

James Tigchelaar, Outreach Street Nurse Educator from Vancouver recently presented Bevel Up at the 2nd National Homelessness Conference in Calgary. Says Tigchelaar:

"What was incredible about this experience is that the conference illustrated how the work that is being done by everyone working with vulnerable populations is interconnected. We’ve long known that health is intimately connected to the broader social environment, so a conference like this one that brought together people from a spectrum of disciplines created a dialogue that was far richer than if it were simply confined to health."