Emergency Working Artist Project Grant FY21

This funding will help free me up to focus on this artistic project entirely. Being able to focus solely on this project during the editing phase will be beneficial as I will be doing 10 interviews and with each interview I finish I will be able to take what I learned to the next one. During the time it will take to complete this project, the grant funding will help cover my living expenses. I am working hard to shift all of my artwork to a virtual environment to ensure social distancing. This funding will help me navigate this period, while I'm changing over the way I work. This project will help me bridge the gap between my current work with Catalyst Story Institute meeting with TV/film industry professionals to build an online platform and my work as a filmmaker because it will give me more work sample material. I will be able to share these interviews directly with these influential connections making me more credible and opening the door to them wanting to collaborate with me. A recent video on my web series The Creativity Show (TCS), is an interview with Adam Gee a London-based Producer working with Channel 4. He's won an Emmy, 5 BAFTAs, and over 80 international awards. My reputations for commitment and consistency I'm my artwork engendered his trust and collaboration. The same is true for the 25 local artists I interviewed in the past year. They trust me to document them because of my commitment and my body of work. Since starting TCS last year I've published 31 episodes and accrued a powerhouse audience of important industry execs including Melonie Marnich (Amazon Studios Exec and Duluth Native,) Philip Gilpin Jr. (Dir. of Catalyst,) Shari Marshik (Upper MN Film Office), and many more. I've already shot all the interviews I am going to edit and I have edited many interviews before that you can see on my web series. I own the editing equipment necessary to complete this project. I won the best director at the 2019 Duluth 48 hour film project. Mile markers on the road to success for ?Duluth Creatives Project? will be; - Having 10 completely edited, sound mixed, color graded video interviews of 10 different local/regional artists/creatives that I can watch on my computer. - Pressing the "post now" button on each video as I publishing them on social media and Youtube. - Seeing the videos appear in my news feed and watching the likes and comments come in. And finally, I will know I have successfully completed this project when the last dollar of my Social Media promotion campaign budget is spent on April 1, 2021. Then I will tally up the total reach of these 10 videos. I expect each of these videos to reach 15,000+ people with each video and over 150,000 people with all 10. I will attach the results of my Social Media paid promotion campaign in my final report listing how many views the videos got organically (aka without the assistance of the paid promotion) and how many views the videos got because of the promotion.