Brian Frye

Brian Frye is a filmmaker with a B.A. in Film History and an MFA in Filmmaking. Most of his experience in nonprofits has been in experimental film distribution and using his expertise in nonprofit law to give legal advice. He talked about different types of writing that he's had to do or review in his line of work such as program notes, press releases, and grants, and focused on two key questions: What is the funder looking for? What are they most likely to respond to?

He spoke to each group individually about their projects. As we went through our outline, he took note of the different types of text we were using. Frye warned us about being too text-heavy, because our audience [hopefully knows] that poverty is bad and it is an issue that needs to be talked about. However, I would argue that though people might understand THAT poverty is an issue that needs to be talked about, they might not know: a) how to talk about poverty

b) what factors characterize poverty as a concept

c) that poverty can operate on an intense vicious cycle that's difficult to escape

d) reasons why people fall into a cycle of poverty.

Though we can't address all of these questions directly in our video, I consider them to be valuable to consider, and these are things that my group would at least like to convey that the poverty simulation can partially answer.

Frye said that the video that my group would create and the simulation are not for the people who are in poverty, they are for those who are not and need to or would like to have a better understanding of poverty. Going off of that, the objective of the video is to show people a possible way that they can gain a better understanding of factors that contribute to poverty rather than lay out the factors themselves. Though the simulation itself may be problematic to a degree, we do have some agency when taking this explanation of our audience into consideration. While we can use statistics and quotes, it has more to do with how we use them than that we use them just to maintain organization. When we do use B-roll, it has to be effective. There can't be any aimless panning, it has to serve a kind of purpose.

Having gone through the video clips that we have managed to put together, it's more than enough to serve our purpose. Of course, there's a lot of extra footage that isn't needed, one second clips taken by accident, material like that. As long as we do not make the video too quote and fact-heavy and focus on our "thesis" that is the steps of the poverty simulation, we should come forward with a successful video.