The key to a successful screening of In the Name of Confucius film is to have a good plan, communicate with us timely, and give yourself enough time to prepare!
Location
Choose a location that facilitates your screening and is easy for people to get to. You can host a screening at any location. To achieve the best social impact, we recommend to host screenings at parliament, city halls, universities, NGOs headquarters, and etc.
Date and Time
Pick a date that gives you enough time to prepare and is convenient for your potential viewers. For example, you don’t want to host a screening in a parliament when it is not in session, or on your university campus when students are busy with exams or on summer/winter breaks.
Partners
Seek screening co-hosts who are influential in the society and interested in raising awareness of this issue through In the Name of Confucius, so that they could help drive audiences and media attention, and share costs. Good examples of co-hosts could be: elected politicians in parliaments or city councils, well established organizations and individuals,China related academia institutions, and etc.
People who care about this issue the most are: Tibetans and pro-Tibet groups, Falun Gong community, human rights organizations, pro-Taiwan groups, China democracy movement, China researchers, and etc.
- Download a toolkit to create your own posters, flyers, and etc. that help publicize your event.
- Set up a RSVP system (we recommend Eventbrite) so that you could collect names and email address for future outreach.
- Create a Facebook event page for your screening and add the In the Name of Confucius and any other partners as co-host. This allows the event page to show up on the Facebook pages of the co-hosts and increases the publicity.
- Write invitation emails/letters to targeted audiences and VIPs a month before your screening, and follow up with them.
- Invite director Doris Liu and/or experts to a post-screening discussion in person or online.
- Ask us for a Press Kit so that you could reach out local media to report on your event.
Preparation before Screenings
- Test Skype connection with guest speakers who join the Q&A discussion remotely.
- Test the video/audio playing system at the venue.
- Make sure the venue has good internet connection for a Facebook live streaming for the post-screening discussion.
- Make sure you have someone take photos as well as operate Facebook live streaming.
- Prepare microphones for speakers and audiences at the post-screening discussion.
- Print out materials you need to display or hand out at your screening event.
- (NEW!) Buy DVDs from the film producer and get ready for your sales at your screening event.
- Arrive early and test the video/audio playing system before audiences come in.
- Display all materials properly.
- Take photos and/or videos of your screening event.
- Film the Facebook live streaming of the post-screening discussion and publish at the end.
- Collect as many audience feedback forms as you could.
- Invite audience members to sign up the newsletter for In the Name of Confucius on your iPad or using a paper form.