May 1

2006 Immigrant Rights Rallies - Open Documentary Project

This open documentary project presents videos from around the United States of recent immigrant rights rallies. MediaRights invites anyone to submit video of their local event, using open internet TV to broadcast and watch socially-relevant community media.

Watch Videos of the May 1st Events

Watch the videos that have been submitted of immigrant rights rallies and events around the country. (Video submissions coming soon.) We hope to gather footage from any recent event, whether it be from March 25, April 10, or May 1 -- so please submit your own videos and help spread the word to others.

How to Subscribe to this Channel of Video

You can subscribe to the May 1st channel in the Democracy Player, or in iTunes. In the Democracy Player, simply copy the location of the channel, click "add channel" (in the lower-left hand corner of the player), and paste the channel. Now you can download videos from around the country as they're published, watch fullscreen video at your convenience, and share compelling videos with your friends through the Democracy player.

How to Submit Your Video

This open channel will be composed of links submitted by videomakers to their videos around the web. To post your video file online, we happily recommend using the free media hosting service Our Media, but you can link to your video anywhere on the web. To use OurMedia, simply create an account once -- it's entirely free of charge -- and you can use it thereafter to host media: OurMedia.org registration instructions, and to upload your video, consult this how-to page. If your video file is greater than 15-20 MB, you should use the free OurMedia Publisher tool.

A few suggestions for your video itself: anyone can submit videos without needing extensive technical expertise, we welcome all submissions. Keep it video-bloggy, keep it local -- no need for elaborate production. Edit as much as you have time for. The ideal video for this project is probably 5-10 minutes long. Videos can be as long or short as you prefer -- the main limitation is the size of the video file, you probably want to keep it under 40 MB if possible, otherwise it will take too long for viewers to download. Your video file needs to be in a format that plays in QuickTime version 7 -- so the following formats are acceptable: .mov, .mp4, .mpg. The following formats are not acceptable: .wmv, .avi.

Once you've posted your video to OurMedia.org or elsewhere, you will have a direct link to the video itself, a URL that will probably end in ".mov" -- this is the link you will use to submit your video to be included on this May 1st channel. First, go to this publishing page. Second, click on "link to a file," and paste the link to your video. Third, fill in title, description, specify a thumbnail image, and choose your Creative Commons license. Fourth, in the box that says "publish to these channels," check the box next to "Immigrants' Rights Events - Open Channel." Then click publish, and you're set! Your video should appear right away in the online gallery of videos on this channel, and it should show up in the channel if you're subscribed in Democracy Player. Thanks for submitting your video and being part of this open project in commmunity media.

For help, or if you encounter technical hurdles, feel free to contact us, we're happy to lend a hand and troubleshoot. Please contact David Moore of the Participatory Culture Foundation at e-mail :: david@pculture dot org, or cell phone: (603) 661-3968.

About this Project

You can read more about the mission of this project here on MediaRights News.

Contact people: Wendy Cohen, Outreach Coordinator, Arts Engine, Inc. :: wendy@mediarights.org // David Moore, Outreach Coordinator, Participatory Culture Foundation :: david@pculture.org.

Another place to watch community media about immigrants' rights is on the "noborders" user page on Videobomb.com. You can also subscribe to the "noborders" channel in Democracy player by pasting in the channel location, or by browsing the built-in Democracy Channel Guide and subscribing from inside the player. If you're blogging about immigrants' rights events, or using social bookmarking services like del.icio.us, or publishing video to a hosted site like YouTube, you're encouraged to use the tag "noborders" to help users find more media.