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Does the legacy of Riot Grrrl live on in your District of Columbia? Tell it to Sara Marcus and Cat Tyc, currently planning a video installation on riot grrrl called “Girls to the Front” to accompany Marcus’ upcoming book of the same name. Marcus and Tyc are looking for people of all genders and ages whose lives have been changed by riot grrrl and “punk-rock feminism.” “The point isn’t to wax nostalgic,” they write. “It’s to acknowledge and celebrate the countless ways that the legacy of Riot Grrrl is still very much alive in all of our lives.” Here’s how to contribute a video to the project:
It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. If you don’t have access to a real camera, you can shoot it on a cell phone or a laptop.* And short: 1–3 minutes is plenty.
In the video, tell us some or all of these four things:
1. Who are you?
2. Show us your life. (This means whatever’s important to you: art, work, family, home . . . anything.)
3. How did you first hear of Riot Grrrl (or punk feminism, or whatever)?
4. How has it shaped who you are today?
Camera tips:
Feel free to use different shots and angles for different questions. Make sure you’re well lit—natural light (like sitting by a window or outside) is always best—and make sure there’s minimal background noise. Have someone else hold the camera if possible, so you can just concentrate on telling your story.
*If you don’t have any way to shoot video, just send us a photo of yourself that portrays something important about you, and email us your answers to the questions. We’ll fit you in.
Technical stuff about how to send the video to us:
Don’t worry about editing the video before you send it to us, unless you really, really want to, because we’ll be editing it on our end.
Before sending, you need to export the file into a Quicktime file. In iMovie, you can do this from Share – Export using Quicktime. In Final Cut, you Export – Using Quicktime Conversion. A box will pop up and you should click options to adjust the codecs to these specs: H.264 video setting at 640×480 pixels. You can find where to adjust these settings in the same box that asks to name the file & where you want to save it to under Options.
If you don’t have Final Cut or iMovie, you can also just record your testimonial on your web cam (using Photo Booth on a Mac, or your computer’s built-in camera software on a PC—look in the Programs list for something that looks like the name of a camera, for instance on my Dell it’s under “Dell Webcam”) and upload it directly.
After it’s done, please send to girlstothefront@gmail.com via YouSendIt (www.yousendit.com) which is a free and easy way to send files.
You can find this call online, and pass it around, by going to the book’s Facebook page: http://bit.ly/cLSPku.