Building Participation in the Outreach for the Documentary The Water Front

Abstract

This essay describes how a local story effecting one hard-hit Michigan town becomes part of an international collaborative effort in outreach. Shared authority in the outreach phase of documentary filmmaking is often over looked by academics and filmmakers alike. As an independent documentary filmmaker, the author uses her documentary film, The Water Front as a case study to explore the challenges and opportunities of using new media tools to maximize outreach efforts on a subject of international importance—water privatization.