Megaphone Project is a nonprofit organization that produces videos for social change. Our partnerships with Public Justice Center, ACLU, Equality Maryland, Health Care For All, and others have helped bring reforms in health care, housing, education, marriage equality, and the criminal justice system.

We believe that in a country as wealthy as ours, every citizen has the right to fresh, affordable, healthy food. However, many of our neighbors don’t have access to healthy food, which hurts our community in many ways.

We thought we could help turn this around by producing a video that would increase the number of people who shop at their local farmers’ market. We are focusing on the Waverly Farmers’ Market because it is our local market (Megaphone Project’s office is in Charles Village.)

There’s no way to produce a video that will make a significant impact in this area without consulting with community partners. That’s why we are partnering with the 32nd Street Farmers Market board of directors. Working together, with your support, we will produce a video that will increase the number of people in our community who shop at the Waverly Market, which will help our neighbors, our farmers, our local economy, and the environment.

We are also using this project to raise funds for the Megaphone Project, which has been hit hard by this economic downturn. Ten percent of our proceeds will be donated back to the community.

We are asking you – Megaphone Project volunteers and the Waverly Farmers’ Market supporters – to help us make this project a success.

Megaphone Project’s Role

Megaphone Project is an expert in media production and message development. In short, we know how to create a great film. That’s not enough to create the change we want to achieve through this farmers market video, though. We need community involvement at every stage, from message development to distribution.

What We’ve Done So Far

We met with the farmers’ market board of directors to get their approval for the project We set up a little information table at the market that we’ve staffed every week for the past six weeks. We started a signup sheet for people who want to either volunteer for the project or just stay informed. We went to see Food, Inc. twice to get a better understanding of industrial farming practices and their impact on individuals, communities, the economy, and the environment. We’ve researched farmers markets on the Internet. We shot b-roll (shots of people shopping at the market). We shot a time lapse of the entire market (set up camera to run all day; when you view it fast forward you get an overview of the whole day in less than a minute). And our favorite part: We’ve talked to farmers, vendors, and customers. We’ve surveyed customers to ask them what they think we should emphasize in the video.

A Few Things We’ve Learned From Waverly Farmers Market People

One Straw Farm, has a CSA (community supported agriculture); for every 10 shares they sell, they donate one. Joan Norman is a wealth of information on industrial farming versus family farms, genetically modified seeds, and much more.

The chickens sold at the market live in open air pens in fields so they can eat the grass and fertilize the fields. The pens are moved every day to different areas. Chickens sold by mega-corporations eat feed made from corn because it is cheaper and they are kept inside, mostly in the dark, in big chicken houses. They are fed antibiotics and their manure does not produce healthy fertilizer.

It is better to eat local grown apples grown with minimal pesticides than it is to eat organic apples grown in Washington state that have to be shipped across the country. Dave Reid watches is trees to look for infestation and only sprays when needed. When he does use pesticides, he uses them sparingly and lightly. Apples grown in commercial farms are sprayed with much heavier pesticides whether they need it or not.

When the market started, about 25 years ago, it drew a different crowd. The first shoppers to arrive in the morning were women who came with curlers in their hair and bought tomatoes by the crate to make spaghetti sauce from scratch.

The Waverly Farmers’ Market is the only community-operated nonprofit market in Baltimore that gives back any profits to the community, according to Beth Strommen from the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability. The market is governed by a board of directors that includes farmers, vendors, and community people.

Mick the Pirate used to be a stunt man.

Chefs from at least three local restaurants - Dogwood, Black Olive and Woodberry Kitchen – serve meals prepared with local produce they buy from the Waverly Farmers Market.

Some Suggestions For Best Ways to Tell the Story of the Market

We spoke to other videographers and documentarians to get ideas for focus. Their thoughts:

• Don’t try to interview every farmer and vendor on camera, and don’t interview them at the farmers market when they’re too busy to talk and it’s too noisy.
• Identify the farmers whose farms best exemplify the key points and interview them at their farms, orchards, and fields.
• Show the fields where the produce is grown.
• Show how the chickens, cows, pigs, and other animals live.
• Film chefs as they 1) pick up produce from the farmers market, 2) prepare it in their restaurant kitchens, and 3) serve to their customers in the dining room.
• Identify a few interesting families who shop at the market and follow them home to prepare their meals.
• Focus each of the farmers’ stories on a specific issue to provide education the broader food issues at the same time that the stories are making personal connections -- like factory farming, pesticides, what kids eat, urban farming, redemption through connecting to food and land, history of this market or markets generally.”

Another way to get a broader context in (give the sense of mission and challenge of sustaining a market and societal impacts it has, not just what a fun, neato weekly adventure it is) might be to start with some fun graphic presentation of all the issues of food production at the beginning and then, as the stories of the individual farmers are told, icons of those issues pop up as relevant. I'm thinking of Food Inc and also a documentary called The Corporation http://www.thecorporation.com/ or http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379225/ It has a neat graphic structure to make something so complicated and mult-faceted seem understandable.”

If you’d like to contribute your own ideas or volunteer in other ways to help us make this project a success, refer to the attached list of Ways You Can Help.

We look forward to working with you!

Eileen Gillan
Executive Director, Megaphone Project
Producer, Waverly Farmers Market Video
eileen@megaphoneproject.org
http://www.megaphoneproject.org and http://www.farmersmarketvideo.org

Megaphone Project is also on facebook – sign up to be our fan for regular updates!

410-409-3197 (temporary phone number until we move into our new office in October)