Following is all the information you need to join in. Help us to know what you do.

Submit your Entry

Thank you for your interest in Lights. Camera. Help. Here, you’ll find all the information you need to submit your film to the premiere film festival only for non-profit and grassroots  organizations.

On this page are all the details you need to know as well as the submission form that you can use to make sure your entry is complete.

Good luck!

Submission Deadline: Midnight on June 30, 2009

Submission Form:  Click Here to Download (pdf)

ELIGIBILITY
Films about or by non-profit and grassroots organizations will be considered.

FILM SELECTION
Feature length, short films, and public service announcements of all forms will be considered including dramatic, documentary, experimental, and animation. A Film Selection Jury will pre-screen all entries for eligibility. The film festival reserves the right to determine the eligibility of any submission.

LANGUAGES
For all works where the spoken language is not English, English subtitles or narration are required.

SUBMISSION DEADLINES
Submission deadlines are not post-mark deadlines. In order to be considered for the festival, submissions must be at the Lights. Camera. Help office by June 30th, 2009.

SHIPPING
The participant will pay shipping costs and insurance of all materials sent to the festival.

ACCEPTANCE NOTIFICATION
All participants will be notified via email whether or not their work has been accepted. A preliminary list of selected films will be announced at www.lightscamerahelp.com.

LIABILITY
We will receive only copies of the submission - not master copies. The festival is not responsible for items damaged or lost in transit.

PROGRAM SCHEDULING
The festival reserves the right to determine in which program section the selected films will screen, and to schedule selected films at the date, time and location of its choice.

by David J. Neff

Video Marketing Expo

May 13^th, 2009

Austin Hilton Downtown at the Convention Center

The Video Marketing Expo (VMX) is the conference for producing compelling and entertaining online video. Educational sessions cover cutting-edge methods for producing online videos for marketing, blogging, lead generation, and social media.

Keynote speakers include industry experts and celebrities in broadcasting, online advertising, high-definition video production, and Interactive marketing.

• Brigitte Dale, ABC Family
• Brian Brushwood, Bizarre Magic, Scam School, Twit.TV
• The Bui Brothers, New Media Experts from Los Angeles
• Troy Lanier and Clay Nichols, Online Multimedia Experts with DadLabs
• Ingrid Vanderveldt, On the Road with IV
• Jim Warren, Founder of Infomerical.com
• Hank Jones, New Media Attorney specializing in Online Technologies

The conference price includes all meals/drinks/snacks and track sessions for both technical and non-technical attendees interested in producing high-quality online video.

Austin Social Media Club members can attend for $199 by using the discount code: SpecialGuest1971

For more information and registration, please visit http://www.videomarketingexpo.com/ or call 1-800-457-0905.

For our May gathering, the Social Media Club will tap into the creative community of Austin to demonstrate how community and music, jazz to be specific, interrelate. As always, this will be an interactive session that will appeal to newcomers to social media and those who live the social media lifestyle.

This upbeat workshop, led by Aaron Bramley, will use the fundamentals of jazz to discuss how to effectively use social media as part of an overall communications strategy.

Together, we’ll explore call and response, authenticity, and innovation as they apply to the theory of sound social media communications. No prior knowledge of jazz is required to feel the rhythm and use it to become a better social media communicator.

About our speaker:
Aaron Bramley is the Director of Digital Media for Ridgewood Associates Public Relations, Inc., a boutique PR agency based out of Tucson, Arizona. He specializes in nonprofit and governmental communications with an emphasis on multi-media and social media as part of a larger communications strategy.

Aaron has spoken before the Executive Directors Roundtable of Southern Arizona, Literacy for Life Coalition, UT PRSSA and 501 Tech Club and he has taught numerous clients how to successfully implement social media to build robust communities.

Additionally, he is the Co-founder of Lights. Camera. Help., the nonprofit film festival, launching later this summer.

Location and Sponsors:
Thank you, Vignette, for providing an awesome location for our events. Also a shout-out to our co-sponsors, Small World Labs and FG Squared who, along with Vignette, will be providing food and beverages for the year.

SPECIAL NOTE - PLEASE READ
The Vignette location is in a secured building. In order for us to continue using this location all members must follow the security rules.
Please read the following:

1) All attendees must leave the building and site by 9:00 P.M.
2) No doors can be propped open. If you need to go out of a locked door please advise someone to let you back in.
3) Attendees should remain in the meeting room not halls or secured areas. If you need to use your phone or something come all the way out to the main lobby. Please advise someone to let you back in.
4) No use of recording devices permitted outside of the meeting room.

Thank you for your special attention to these security policies!

Connie Reece, Lani Rosales and the other good people working on the New Media Collaborative coming up on May 15th, can take you from beginner to where you need to be very quickly. They really know their way around social media.

Brought to you by the New Media Lab, the Collaborative is a curriculum-based workshop designed for the professional who is new to social media. In addition to blogs, podcasts and videos, the instructors will walk attendees through setting up profiles on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and show them how to use these tools to achieve business objectives. It will be a great learning experience in a collaborative environment. When you leave this workshop, you will actually have hands-on experience and not wonder how to get started or what to do next.

The price is about one-half of similar conferences being promoted in Austin and other areas. The New Media Lab believes the top talent in social media is right here in Austin, and their goal is to be rainmakers for Austin consultants. Special rates are available for groups of four or more, if you’d like to bring your office or staff.

I’m not part of the New Media Collaborative and no one from the New Media Lab asked me to write this post, even though I bump into them constantly online and in person. I volunteered because when I look around at all of the many workshops, seminars and training being sold today, I become concerned that much of what is being taught isn’t grounded in the kinds of approaches that really work for all members of the community.

Connie, Lani and the team involved with the New Media Collaborative get it. They are ideal to teach you and your company the most effective and ethical approaches to social media, which just also happen to be the ways that will help you to succeed wildly.

Please feel free to ping me for personal testimonials.

~ @MikeChapman

A special thank you to moderator:

Omar Gallaga, Austin American Statesman journalist, tech culture writer, comedy performer (@omarg), and panelists:

Chelsea Stark, web producer, twitter lead for KEYE (@keyetv, @chelseabot)
Robert Quigley, internet editor for the Statesman (@statesman, @robquig)
Elise Hu, political reporter and blogger for KVUE (@elisewho)
Elizabeth Stoddard, news editor for the Austinist, (@elizs, @austinist)

They were all excellent! We also had a guest from the future. You’ll have to ask those of us in attendance who that was.

Friends and Family Events

We do have a number of activities in which our Social Media Club Austin friends and family are involved with which you should definitely consider attending. Here’s one that we highly recommend. Look here for more in the coming days.

~ Mike Chapman

Real to Reality

WHAT: Real-to-Reality: Films for a cause find their festival
WHEN: Thursday, April 30th 7:30-9:30pm
WHERE: Southwest Key (6002 Jain Lane)
RSVP: contact@lightscamerahelp.com
VISUALS: The beautiful Southwest Key Community Center. Non-profit and festival representatives speaking. Projected trailers of non-profit videos.

Reel-to-Reality will officially open the submission process for Lights. Camera. Help., the premier film festival for non-profit and grassroots organizations.

Several non-profits are already lined up to submit their films for judgement.  So far, the organizations that have promised submissions at Real-to-Reality are United Way, Capital Area Food Bank, Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, and the American Cancer Society.

Each organization will tell us a little about their film and then show a trailer or excerpt.

Additionally, the 501 Tech Club, Austin Social Media Club and Giving City have given us their full support and will be attending the reception.

If you would like to attend the event, please send an email to contact@lightscamerahelp.com.

	Brigitte Dale ABC Family In the 2008 Yahoo! Video Awards, Brigitte was named  Internet Personality of the Year. In late 2008 her video podcasts moved to abcfamily.com, and Brigitte moved from Lincoln, Nebraska to Los Angeles California. Read more		Troy Lanier DadLabs Troy Lanier is the CTO of DadLabs, the multimedia outlet for everything Dad.   As a co-founder, he has supervised all production, post production, and encoding of the company’s 400 plus online videos. Read more		Ingrid Vanderveldt On the Road with iV iV is a TV show host, CEO, patent holder, motorcycle racer and red-headed aspiring entrepreneurial supergirl. iV is the host of “On the Road with iV”, founder & CEO of the CLUB E Network (a social network for entrepreneurs). Read more		Jim Warren Infomercial.com Jim is an entrepreneur and founder of Infomerical.com, a leading online brand that hosts hundreds of products combined with hundreds of hours of interactive video. Jim is a pioneer in direct response marketing. Read more

	One of a Kind Introducing the first conference dedicated to the professional production of online video. Read more		Experts Available Network with creative professionals and video production experts to make your ideas a reality. Read more		Tips and Tricks Interact with the professionals making and producing the best video blogs, online broadcasts, commercials and viral video. Read more		Affordable Attendance Registration includes food (no box lunches, guaranteed), access to sessions, keynotes, expo floor, demos and entrance to the Video Marketing Awards. Read more

To become an exhibitor or sponsor call us at 1-800-457-0905 or email us at info@videomarketingexpo.com

May 13, 2009 | Hilton Austin Downtown

The Video Marketing Expo is designed to help anyone deliver compelling and entertaining online video. Educational sessions cover cutting-edge methods for producing online videos for marketing, blogging, lead generation, and social media.

Countdown till VMX

19 Days : 10 Hours: 22 Minutes: 52 Seconds

NOTE: The meeting is free, but we ask you to register because space is limited. Please provide your first and last name and a valid mailing address. Additional information is optional, but your registration will be canceled without this minimum.

TOPIC: Old Media Rises From the Grave
The dinosaurs of mass media are on the precipice of change — they can either die out or jump headfirst into the world of multimedia, blogs and interactivity. Some outlets are doing better jobs than others at adapting, particularly some in Austin, but is there still more they can do? What changes do mass media outlets need to make to survive, and what can they bring to the table that bloggers can’t? How are members of the new guard getting changes made to their newsrooms, and what kind of resistance are they meeting? Are journalism schools preparing graduates to deal with the many forms of online journalism, or are they losing some relevance?

Our panelists represent the online presence for some of Austin’s media outlets, both print and television, as well as one of Austin’s most-viewed blogs. They’ll try to piece together some of the answers to these questions, and figure out if the mainstream media truly can rise from the grave and come to the forefront using new technology.

Moderated by Omar Gallaga, Austin American Statesman journalist, tech culture writer, comedy performer (@omarg)
PANELISTS:
Chelsea Stark, web producer, twitter lead for KEYE (@keyetv, @chelseabot)
Robert Quigley, internet editor for the Statesman (@statesman, @robquig)
Elise Hu, political reporter and blogger for KVUE (@elisewho)
Elizabeth Stoddard, news editor for the Austinist, (@elizs, @austinist)

Location and Sponsors:
Thank you, Vignette, for providing an awesome location for our events. Also a shout-out to our co-sponsors, Small World Labs and FG Squared who, along with Vignette, will be providing food and beverages for the year.

Fortunately, as I pondered what I should write about the meeting itself, I checked the SQUARED ROOT, a blog I write for that is associated with FG SQUARED, a company I consult for here in Austin. Steve Golab, who was a panelist during our meeting, has written a great summary and I am going to repost it here for everyone in the Social Media Club to see.

Personally, I feel like we’ve really come a long way as the Social Media Club here in Austin and throughout the world. Our subject is difficult to contain in easy descriptions and, just like social media, can be elusive. That is the attraction for me. Like the humans who are social media, there are potentially as many ways to correctly participate as their are people involved.

Without any more editorializing, let me hit Control V and turn it over to Steve Golab of FG SQUARED; who is not only a client, he’s a friend.

By Steve Golab

If you are reading this today, Saturday Mar 14, please go to @barcampaustin being held at the Paradox from 9am - 9pm. I can assure you that Whurley and Giovanni have genius up their sleeve for you. You do not need a SXSW badge to get in.

Experience City kicked off!

I’m excited to share the results of the Experience City conversation that occured at Social Media Club Austin on Thursday evening at Vignette’s headquarters.

Chris Heuer kicked off the meeting. Wow, what a guy. He is the original founder of Social Media Club, and let me assure you he has a great personal brand with my friends. After an evening getting to know him better, I can see why his brand is so good. Thank you very much for joining us, Chris.

Our emcee Mike Chapman then handed off to H&R Block. We all received 15 minutes of tax preparation tips geared for social media types. Forrester Research was in the house. Special thanks to Vignette, Small World Labs, and FG SQUARED who are the present sponsors of Social Media Club Austin.

We kicked off to a crowded room.

Heather McKissick, President and CEO of Leadership Austin, opened the conversation by engaging with the audience to generate ideas and build a case for Austin as a nation leading experience economy. Afterall, building unique experiences is something that taps into our collective creative talents in Austin.

Just think of businesses like Alamo Drafthouse, Run Tex, Amy’s Ice Cream, Whole Foods. These are businesses that just flat out ‘get it’ when it comes to leaving lasting impressions.

As I understand it, Heather’s vision for Austin is as a City of Scenes. She has been building the vision with Bijoy Goswami - another sharp tack who leads Austin’s Entrepreneurial scene. I also understand that many others in Austin’s business community including Jon Lebkowsky have been aligning with these ideas for some time now.

It’s all about activating Austin Interactive scene via emergent leadership!

As good fortune would have it, Bijoy and Heather are applying their thinking to help us activate Austin’s Interactive scene. We are trying to help Austin show up as vibrant social media star in the universe of international businesses. This is a BIG goal, so we all need to cooperate if we want to have a shot at success.

Join us at Interactive Austin 2009!

Check out our flatstock poster art. Please share it with your friends and help us spread the word around Texas like a wild fire.

Interactive Austin 2009 (#IA09) is our platform for activating Austin’s Interactive scene. The event will be well worth the price – currently set at $155 early bird special with reasonable discounts offered to supporting organizations.

Many of us who are preparing for Interactive Austin believe that Central Texas economic development can be enriched through grassroots organization. We believe this effort will be a strategic advantage for all Texans – something that we can all be proud of.

If you are someone who would like to join Interactive Austin as a sponsor or exhibitor, please contact Jason Meyers at Austin Business District Magazine. You can contact me as well. There are still exhibition booth spaces available for those of you who want to get some better visibility with everyone who shows up.

Rock on with the Gods of Interactive Austin and all of our supporters!

Sincerely,
Steve Golab

The case for the Interactive Austin 2009 live streaming channel

Pirates like Chris Brogan have arrived in Austin for Pubcon and SXSW. It is so cool to see all of the goodwill that Austin experiences as a result.

According to my sources, he will be in Holland on April 27, and thus not able to join us in person at Interactive Austin 2009. The only shot we have to bring him in is through live streaming. The producers of our event cannot afford live streaming unless we sell out the show. And even then, I am not sure exactly how we are going to do it, but let me assure we have what it takes. Also bear in mind that I haven’t spoken to Chris about this yet, but I am sure he will appreciate the opportunity.

Please join our cause.

Join us for an evening of discussion and getting to know your fellow social media users/creators in Austin. Pizza & drinks at 6:00 & program starts at 6:30 pm. NOTE: The meeting is free, but we ask you to register because space is limited. Must provide valid mailing address, first & last name to register.

In the Lone Star State’s unpretentious capital city, you’re likely to find more guitarists than gunslingers, but you will find the ten-gallon hats if you look hard enough.

It’s easy to see we are a city of many and varied scenes: vibrant communities around music, film, technology, academia, art, environmentalism, and countless others. Part of what makes Austin special is how open and accessible these scenes are. With minimal history or prior social capital, anyone can engage, all are welcome, and creating a new scene is as simple as properly directing one’s enthusiasm.

In this session, we’ll explore how the components of community, entrepreneurism, experience, and leadership combine to create scenes and experiences - including an exploration of Austin’s Interactive Scene. What are its unique attributes, and who is leading the charge around making the Interactive Scene in Austin as vibrant as the others?

This is a free presentation for Social Media Club members and will be included among a full day of topics, panels and speakers who will be presenting at Austin Interactive 2009, on April 27th, at the Norris Center. Go to http://www.interactiveaustin2009.com/ for complete details and to register. Also follow @IA09 for updates and details.

Panelist include: Steve Golab (FG2) Bijoy Goswami (Bootstrap Austin) and Heather McKissick (Leadership Austin)

Location and Sponsors:
Thank you, Vignette, for providing an awesome location for our events. Also a shout-out to our co-sponsors, Small World Labs and FG Squared who, along with Vignette, will be providing food and beverages for the year. w00t!

April Meeting: Mark your calendar for April 16th and join our panelists as they discuss “Old Media Rises from the Grave.”