Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/2024 International Film Festival WikiPortraits Initiative (ID: 22592299)
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Applicant Details[edit]
- Main Wikimedia username. (required)
Jenny8lee
- Organization
N/A
- If you are a group or organization leader, board member, president, executive director, or staff member at any Wikimedia group, affiliate, or Wikimedia Foundation, you are required to self-identify and present all roles. (required)
N/A
- Describe all relevant roles with the name of the group or organization and description of the role. (required)
Main Proposal[edit]
- 1. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be the Meta-Wiki page title.
2024 International Film Festival WikiPortraits Initiative
- 2. and 3. Proposed start and end dates for the proposal.
2024-06-01 - 2024-09-30
- 4. Where will this proposal be implemented? (required)
International (more than one country across continents or regions) * Organized by U.S.-based participants
- Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France
- Venice Film Festival in Italy (if budget allows)
- 5. Are your activities part of a Wikimedia movement campaign, project, or event? If so, please select the relevant project or campaign. (required)
Other (please specify) * WikiPortraits
- Wiki Covers Events
- 6. What is the change you are trying to bring? What are the main challenges or problems you are trying to solve? Describe this change or challenges, as well as main approaches to achieve it. (required)
Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects prioritize and require using freely-licensed images. This presents a challenge when it comes to photos of notable people, because most published photos of notable people are press images with full copyright and non-permissive licenses. This results in a significant number of biographies with poor quality or no photos. This challenge is quite notable in itself, having been covered by various publications including the New York Times in their 2009 article, "Wikipedia May Be a Font of Facts, but It’s a Desert for Photos". While that article was written almost a decade ago, the problem persists, so much so that @badwikiphotos is an account on Instagram. The English Wikipedia category, "Wikipedia requested images of people", has over 5,000 articles in it.
An effective way to gather freely-licensed photos of notable figures at-scale is to go to where they are. Gage Skidmore is particularly notable for publishing freely-licensed photos of celebrities at pop culture conventions and political events. German Wikipedia has been covering the Berlin Film Festival with its Berlinale-Projekt since 2017.
Indeed, our SXSW WikiPortraits Rapid Grant project added photos that were added to 57 wikis and collectively viewed just under an estimated 4 million views per month. Our early self-financed Sundance 2024 WikiPortraits project adds an additional 500,000 or so views per month.
Cannes and Venice Film Festival have many more global film celebrities than either SXSW or Sundance, so we would expect that number to be higher for photos if our photographers get credentialed to have meaningful access.
With this grant request, we will be subsidizing experienced photographers to attend Cannes and Venice Film Festivals in 2024, if they agree to upload photos to Wikimedia Commons. WikiPortraits will attempt to help them obtain press credentials, sometimes in partnership with media organizations, with a letter from the Wikimedia Foundation. We can also help them gain similar access to notable individuals even if we don’t have full press access through various partnerships. We are also in discussions with the American Pavilion at Cannes and Venice to take photos of notable people, whom they attract, in panels or in a pop-up studio. While we understand the Red Carpet access is globally competitive for these international festivals, we see our initial presence at very least as a building year to show the festivals the reach of Wikipedia images.
- 7. What are the planned activities? (required) Please provide a list of main activities. You can also add a link to the public page for your project where details about your project can be found. Alternatively, you can upload a timeline document. When the activities include partnerships, include details about your partners and planned partnerships.
For this project, we will be doing two main things:
First, we will help photographers obtain press credentials for Cannes and Venice Film Festivals 2024, and then subsidize their travel if they agree to upload photos to Wikimedia Commons.
In addition, at Cannes, we will partner with the American Pavilion, which is the large trade booth presence of the United States film industry, to take portrait-style photos of notable individuals with Wikipedia articles and also cover their panels. We possibly could partner with other national pavilions in the future, but currently, AmPav will be our pilot.
If there is sufficient demand and surplus WikiPortraits photography labor time, we may also take photos of people who do not have Wikipedia pages as a courtesy. This was highly successful at SXSW where we took photos of over 300 individuals, many of whom learned about Wikimedia Commons in our house. In addition to creating freely licensed photographs of people, this gives us an opportunity to do Wikipedia outreach with the broader public.
We also plan to take this opportunity to photograph notable features in Cannes and other locations in the southern coast of France, given its density of notable landmarks, historic sites.
Please note that while the Toronto International Film Festival is not currently part of this proposal, if we hit dead ends for credentialing at Cannes and Venice — part of the funding may be rolled over towards Toronto, where we are more confident in a successful credentialing process. Similarly, if we find that we can recruit enough photographers to be credentialed for Cannes, we might get our greatest value by working with multiple photographers there.
- 8. Describe your team. Please provide their roles, Wikimedia Usernames and other details. (required) Include more details of the team, including their roles, usernames, Wikimedia group, and whether they are salaried, volunteers, consultants/contractors, etc. Team members involved in the grant application need to be aware of their involvement in the project.
Kevin Payravi (User:SuperHamster): Kevin has contributed to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites since 2007, and is currently a co-organizer of WikiConference North America and Wiki Loves Monuments in the United States. He also serves on the Board of Wikimedia DC. Jennifer 8. Lee (en:User:Jenny8lee): Jenny is a co-founder of WikiPortraits, an adviser to the Wikimedia NYC, a founder of WikiCred project, film producer, and an adviser to SXSW Interactive. She has been to the Cannes Film Festival 8 times. She is a volunteer for this project, but will help coordinate the logistics and the press credentials. Andrew Lih (()): Lih is 2021 Wikimedia Laureate, an internationally-renowned Wikipedia expert, author, professor, GLAMs activist, and long-time Wikimedia contributor, including on Wikicommons photography.
- 9. Who are the target participants and from which community? How will you engage participants before and during the activities? How will you follow up with participants after the activities? (required)
There are two main target populations for this project:
Notable individuals who have Wikipedia articles, particularly ones lacking a photo or need a better photo taken. If we get press credentials, we will be able to cover the red carpet and the press conferences, which have notable numbers of celebrities from around the world given Cannes’ global reach. In addition, the sister festivals of the main Cannes Film Festival, such as Directors Fortnight and ACID, are where up-and-coming and diverse filmmakers, including a number from the Global South, are highlighted. As a result, this project can help us obtain portraits of notable individuals from backgrounds that are commonly under-represented on Wikipedia, as well as individuals who are rising in their respective industries. Editors of individual biography pages across all languages who are looking for photos of the subjects. Our WikiPortraits SXSW photos were used across 57 wikis with an estimated 4 million monthly views across all of them. These include ruwiki, hewiki, rowiki, nowiki, ukwiki, elwiki, viwiki, dewiki, itwiki, svwiki, kowiki, zhwiki, jawiki, arwiki, arzwiki among many others.
If we take individual portrait style photos (in addition to the red carpet photos), we capture contact information through a release form powered by Harbour, and can follow-up with information about the results of this project. For individuals with Wikipedia articles, we can inform them if and when their biography has been updated with their new portrait.
- 10. Does your project involve work with children or youth? (required)
No
- 10.1. Please provide a link to your Youth Safety Policy. (required) If the proposal indicates direct contact with children or youth, you are required to outline compliance with international and local laws for working with children and youth, and provide a youth safety policy aligned with these laws. Read more here.
N/A
- 11. How did you discuss the idea of your project with your community members and/or any relevant groups? Please describe steps taken and provide links to any on-wiki community discussion(s) about the proposal. (required) You need to inform the community and/or group, discuss the project with them, and involve them in planning this proposal. You also need to align the activities with other projects happening in the planned area of implementation to ensure collaboration within the community.
Given that WikiPortraits’ SXSW 2024 photos were added on 57 different language wikis, with a collective estimated 4 million monthly views, we feel there is strong community demand for what WikiPortraits is adding.
WikiPortraits has a presence on the Wikimedia Commons, at Commons:WikiPortraits. We have also created a meta page to catalog related efforts called Wiki Covers Events and to share best practices. Among notable related efforts are the German Berlinale-Projekt.
Wiki Covers Events + the WikiPortraits initiative has also been discussed within the GLAM Global Telegram group, which has over 200 community members.
Our origin story, for background: the WikiPortraits idea was originally the brainchild of Andrew Lih, a past Wikimedian Laureate, who presented on a Wikimedia panel at SXSW 2023 with WMF CEO Maryana Iskander. Andrew has done similar self-funded photography efforts and book festivals and comicons and saw the potential of SXSW for doing that on a larger scale. He has socialized this WikiPortraits idea in the GLAM Telegram group, as well as on Meta Wiki. Jenny also discussed the idea at 2024 Wikimania in Singapore with Frank Schulenberg, who is the secretary of the Commons Photographers Users Group. He was so enthused that he decided to self-finance a trip to the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, and obtained an assignment letter from Nadee Gunasena at the WMF, which was submitted to the Sundance Film Festival press office by Jennifer. This then built our led to our SXSW 2024 WikiPortraits project, has had its photos incorporated into 57 different wikis.
- 12. Does your proposal aim to work to bridge any of the content knowledge gaps (Knowledge Inequity)? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)
Geography
- 13. Does your proposal include any of these areas or thematic focus? Select one option that most applies to your work. (required)
Culture, heritage or GLAM
- 14. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)
Geographic
- 15. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select one that most applies. (required)
Innovate in Free Knowledge
Learning and metrics[edit]
- 17. What do you hope to learn from your work in this project or proposal? (required)
This project, in conjunction with our work at Sundance and SXSW 2024, helps to build a repeatable and scalable template for experienced Wikimedia Commons photographers to get press credentials at well-established cultural events. Our intent with this, compared to our previous projects, is to elevate the Wikipedia presence at global-level events such as Cannes and Venice Film Festivals, given that the Germans have covered the Berlin Film Festival since 2017. We would learn if other international cultural events would be receptive to Wikimedia photographers with an assignment letter for the foundation and the German precedence. Secondly, we are learning different funding models to get more professional-quality Creative Commons-licensed portraits onto Wikicommons. Our rapid grant for SXSW covered only one-third the total cost of the 10-day project, with the rest coming from private donors and sponsors. With this rapid grant, we want to see if there is a blend between self-financed and wholly paid for WikiPortraits festival coverage — partially subsidized/reimbursed trips in exchange for uploading photos to Wikimedia Commons. We did a micro-version of this at SXSW 2024, where a photographer who was already on assignment at SXSW was willing to add her celebrity photos to WikiCommons in exchange for two nights of subsidized housing. We believe there are a number of professional level photographers, both already active on Wikimedia Commons and ones that could be recruited, who would donate their time and pay for part of their own travel if they can get credentialed access from big film festivals. They do this in part so they can build their portfolios.
Historically, volunteer Wikimedian photographers are not plugged into the media infrastructure that is built around credentials. Given the support of letters from senior leadership at the Wikimedia Foundation, we hope that the press office decision makers of these global caliber events will become more receptive to having Wikimedia photographers participate, as it only serves to amplify the cultural impact of their events across the many language wikis.
- 18. What are your Wikimedia project targets in numbers (metrics)? (required)
| Other Metrics | Target | Optional description |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 150 | 150 targets, at least 75 who are notable have Wikipedia pages |
| Number of editors | 60 | We have 4-5 photographers, 2-3 data upload people.
In addition, our SXSW WikiPortraits photos were added to 57 wikis. So we expect similar numbers of editors for Cannes/Venice if we get major celebrities. |
| Number of organizers | 12 | 2 on the ground organizers at Cannes: Jenny Lee and Kevin Payravi
2 remote organizers: Andrew Lih and Frank Schulenburg (who help with credentialing letters) 4 photographers who will be organizing amongst themselves 4 American Pavilion people (non-Wiki) to help with organizing photos of subjects |
| Wikimedia project | Number of content created or improved |
|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 75 |
| Wikimedia Commons | 300 |
| Wikidata | 100 |
| Wiktionary | |
| Wikisource | |
| Wikimedia Incubator | |
| Translatewiki | |
| MediaWiki | |
| Wikiquote | |
| Wikivoyage | |
| Wikibooks | |
| Wikiversity | |
| Wikinews | |
| Wikispecies | |
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
- Optional description for content contributions.
300+ photos of people uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, some of whom are notable enough to have Wikipedia pages in multiple languages. Note the 75 articles would span multiple wikis.
- 19. Do you have any other project targets in numbers (metrics)? (optional)
No
| Main Open Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
- 20. What tools would you use to measure each metrics? Please refer to the guide for a list of tools. You can also write that you are not sure and need support. (required)
We would utilize a tool like BaGLAMa to measure how many pageviews our portraits receive over time through their inclusion on Wikipedia articles and other Wikimedia projects.
Financial proposal[edit]
- 21. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/157Pdt2X7SgClAxU9F71FJTsfwcd2rmmakcdq2E7eFF0/edit
- 22. and 22.1. What is the amount you are requesting for this proposal? Please provide the amount in your local currency. (required)
5000 USD
- 22.2. Convert the amount requested into USD using the Oanda converter. This is done only to help you assess the USD equivalent of the requested amount. Your request should be between 500 - 5,000 USD.
5000 USD
- We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
Yes
Endorsements and Feedback[edit]
Please add endorsements and feedback to the grant discussion page only. Endorsements added here will be removed automatically.
Community members are invited to share meaningful feedback on the proposal and include reasons why they endorse the proposal. Consider the following:
- Stating why the proposal is important for the communities involved and why they think the strategies chosen will achieve the results that are expected.
- Highlighting any aspects they think are particularly well developed: for instance, the strategies and activities proposed, the levels of community engagement, outreach to underrepresented groups, addressing knowledge gaps, partnerships, the overall budget and learning and evaluation section of the proposal, etc.
- Highlighting if the proposal focuses on any interesting research, learning or innovation, etc. Also if it builds on learning from past proposals developed by the individual or organization, or other Wikimedia communities.
- Analyzing if the proposal is going to contribute in any way to important developments around specific Wikimedia projects or Movement Strategy.
- Analysing if the proposal is coherent in terms of the objectives, strategies, budget, and expected results (metrics).