Grants:IdeaLab/Cultural videos for Wikipedia

Cultural videos for Wikipedia
A team of professional filmmakers creates encyclopaedic videos about cultural topics - released under free licenses.
idea creator
Spinster
researcher
Spinster
this project needs...
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created on13:01, 21 January 2015 (UTC)


Project idea edit

What is the problem you're trying to solve? edit

Wikipedia would benefit from more videos! And in many cases, moving images are very good at visually explaining how something works. We already have quite a bit of animated gifs and small videos related to 'hard science' on Wikimedia Commons, but we could still use many in the fields of the social sciences and culture. How do various weaving techniques work? How did medieval painters apply gold leaf to their paintings?

What is your solution? edit

I want to hire professional filmmakers to make short, encyclopaedic and very well-made videos that aim at explaining such topics. Such videos are not cheap - in some cases travel will be needed, and professionals might need to be hired to demonstrate something, so there's a need for funding. I can imagine that the community creates wishlists for videos and then we work through these as time progresses and as funds become available. I see this project in the context of battling systemic bias on Wikipedia, so I'm pretty adamant about focusing on 'soft' topics (social, cultural)!

Goals edit

Get Involved edit

Participants edit

  • Researcher I've worked as a project manager for a cultural video website, and I've also directed several videos. I know how to do this! I know several good filmmakers who would love to be involved, and myself I'd be good at research and direction of videos. Spinster (talk) 13:03, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Endorsements edit

Comments edit

  • I'd like to think we can find folks in the community or recruit volunteers for such an effort, and not necessarily need to hire filmmakers. But I am with you that the idea should be explored more. See what we do on en.wp now at en:Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wiki_Makes_Video-- Fuzheado (talk) 20:05, 23 November 2016 (UTC)