Hip-Hop Theater Festival Comes to DC
Massey Media is thrilled to be the PR team building audiences for the 9th Annual DC Hip-Hop Theater Festival. Read the preview coverage here at the Washington Afro-American, hear it on WAMU, and blog at Brightest Young Things. Please join us tonight at the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage for the kick-off event to see the skills behind the art form of turntablism. This is when turntables, under the hands of the DJs, become instruments to rock the crowd. Special guests include legendary DJ Rockin’ Rob, from the Bronx, NYC and DMC USA Supremacy Champion, DJ I-Dee. It’s free and amazing.

Do you know Chispa? chispa: what artists + organizers + change agents are thinking + dreaming + doing
Join Sarah Massey this Thursday night at 7:00 PM at The Fridge. She’ll be talking about how to make headlines for social change and the arts. The fee for the event is only $5.

The Rivera Project Launches with Style
Those of you who have followed Massey Media’s almost five-year evolution know that we love social justice and we love the arts. What could we love more? A new non-profit and art show celebrates the intersection of arts and activism. Launched this June with the show “Arts in Crisis,” the Rivera Project’s vision is to bring the arts community and activist communities together to support each other’s efforts. Read more in this front-page story from the Washington Post Style section.

Do you want to make headlines in DC? Call on Massey Media.
Recent press results for our clients:

* 6/23/10, Washington Post, Cesar Maxit, Graham Boyle, other Artists Inspired by Community Activism
* 6/15/10, WAMU, Environmentally Conscious Consumers Catch A Break
* 5/20/10, WTNH, News8, Red Cross Workers Strike
* 5/11/10, Washington Post, Ernest J. Gaines’s ‘Lesson’ Prompts Teens to Grapple with Stark Realities

UPDATE: The amazing singer, songwriter, KUKU, the Afro-Soul Acoustic Experience (http://www.kukulive.com) is performing at the art opening. KUKU will be performing from 4:30 PM - 5:00 PM on Tuesday at 7th & M Streets outside of the Mt Vernon Sq/7th St-Convention Center Metro entrance.

The DC Convention Center is bringing its artistic side out. With a first-of-its-kind exhibit to fill windows and exterior gallery spaces with art, the Windows Into DC show is a reflection of our community. A little known fact about the Convention Center is that it houses a dynamic $4 million permanent art collection. With this new show, the Convention Center extends its inner-artists out to the sidewalk spaces around the building.

This is the time to take another look at the Convention Center. Thirteen DC artists created installations and new artworks for the exhibit. “Filling empty spaces with art is a great way to beautify the community and connect with new audiences,” says Windows into DC Artist Tim Conlon. “My Shaw Scrabble piece is a fun play with the words that connote the community. This way, area residents will see themselves reflected in the windows.”

The artists are: Beth Baldwin, Jason Clark, Tim Conlon, Liani Foster, Amber Robles-Gordon, Eve Hennessa, Michael Dax Iacovone, Anne Marchand, Cory Oberndorfer, Michael Platt & Carol A. Beane, Kelly Towles, Aneikan Udofia, Colin Winterbottom and featuring The New Community for Children.

The entire DC community is invited to a ribbon-cutting ceremony with Mayor Adrian M. Fenty at 5:00 PM on Tuesday, September 29 at 7th & M Streets outside of the Mt Vernon Sq/7th St-Convention Center Metro entrance. At that time, young students from the New Community for Children will be finishing their three-panel art piece that shows their pint-size view of Shaw. Pick up a Windows Into DC brochure at the information desks located in the Grand Lobby. The installation will be open through March 2010.

You have the frame, you have your message. The project is daring, the artists are world-class. But you have no press. Shouldn’t reporters be crawling out of the woodwork to cover this story? Doesn’t the visual just shout front-page? It may, but reporters don’t swoop in like fairy godmothers. They don’t have some journalistic version of “Spidey Sense” for great stories. They need direction, too.

The perceived success of any project is in part determined by the amount of press and attention it receives. Media pushes projects into the limelight and gives them a greater future. Garnering media attention is a competition, though. There are hundreds of stories floating about, and everyone thinks theirs is the best. To get attention, you have to make the effort.

The bread and butter of catching the media’s attention are pitch calls. Pitch calls set a foundation for future relations and are the most direct way of reaching a reporter. The frame of any successful pitch call will lay out the “5 W’s” for a reporter: who, what, where, when, and why. This is the basic information any reporter needs to have to decide in about one minute if your message is a story. It needs to be formatted in a succinct manner that catches attention and communicates how your project is different from every other group they have heard from.

Pitch calls can seem daunting at first. You constantly face the possibility of a negative response. However, you must proceed with confidence. You believe in your project and are passionate about it and that is the key element when talking to the media. To receive excitement, you must project it. No one is going to listen to a robot. A monotone mumbler will never make the 7 second news-bite.

Many also proceed under the impression that they are bothering a reporter or intruding on their busy schedules. Instead, you need to consider your call as doing the media a service. They are always on the look-out for a great story, and instead of having to go out and search for it, you have brought them it to their doorstep. Pitch calling is the beginning of building positive relationships with the media. It is a reciprocal partnership from which both of you will benefit. Forming these relationships will also aid you in future projects because once a reporter knows your work and that it is newsworthy, they are much more likely to continue providing you coverage in the future.

Making a Pitch Call:
1. Place your pitch call plan in front of you. Make sure you have read it through enough times so that you will not sound as if you are reading a script.
2. Pick up the phone and dial the first person on your press
3. Smile. When you smile, your voice changes inflection. It is infused with enthusiasm and warmness. Always pleasant to hear on the other end of the phone.
4. When you call, politely, yet firmly ask for the person with whom you wish to speak. Make sure you state your name and the group you represent.
5. If you reach the reporter, follow the pitch script you practiced. If you reach a voicemail, leave a message that includes all your major talking points, along with your name and contact information.
6. At the end of a pitch, always gather the reporter’s contact information including name, phone number and email address. Make sure you jot down any pertinent notes so you can follow through in the future.

Congratulations! You can now begin forming important press relationships and grabbing the spotlight for your project!

-Kimi Killen

Photo Credit: Sarah Massey

(Washington, DC, July 17, 2009) — Usually, when commuters step off the train at the Rhode Island Metro Station, they are greeted by shopping outlets, street traffic, and a vast stretch of concrete. However, as of this week, travelers are starting to see change. What was pockmarked and covered in grime, a vast stretch of wall in the parking lot west of the station now gleams white. Albus Cavus and 45 DC youth, with the help of artists Pose 2, Quest Skinner, Decoy, Joshua Mays and Chor Boogie, and in conjunction with the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Summer Youth Employment Program, have begun the transformation of a parking lot into a work of public art.

Today, the wall exists as a blank canvas, waiting for the ideas of the artists, participants, and community to traverse its surface. The artists and participants have collaborated to create a plan for the 300-foot wall, considering the history and timeline of the Edgewood neighborhood during a period of transition. “We’ve talked to the people who live in Edgewood and the young people who are working on the designs and painting with us. Everyone is excited to see their ideas included in the mural,” artist Alicia “Decoy” Cosnahan explained. By soliciting input from the community, the mural becomes a piece of art that is owned by the community, not the individual.

A significant part of the mural plan is to bring together the people and places of DC. Through paint, the wall will present images that are singularly DC, yet are defined by the artists’ personalities, as well as the neighborhood’s. The wall will be a veritable collage of viewpoints. “Through this mural and in this space, the whole city is interconnected. DC’s young, the old, and everyone in between is involved in the Edgewood mural and gets to be a part of what they want to see in the city,” artist Quest Skinner said.

On August 15, Albus Cavus is hosting a “mural jam” for local artists to contribute their work and extend the mural down the sprawling wall to the street. On August 22, the mural will be unveiled at a Public Opening. The event invites the community to learn and appreciate the artwork and will feature live music, deejays, giveaways and an artist market.

The mural will be transforming lives and helping the neighborhood transition towards its potential. The new Metropolitan Branch Trail will run alongside the mural, bringing cycle wheels, rollerblades, and jogging shoes to the neighborhood. When the mural is complete, the grey wall seen from the Rhode Island Metro stop will have ceased to exist. In its place, colors and designs will have appeared, wheeling across the wall. It will have transcended artistic ownership and be a gift to the Edgewood and greater DC community. Artist Quest Skinner concluded, “Our goal in life is not just to express ourselves but to give our natural gifts to the public.”

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Photo Credit: Mika Altskan

For interviews and high resolution photos, please contact Massey Media at 202 518-6186

(Washington, DC, July 2, 2009) – Armed with cameras, notepads, and a new knowledge of their community, the 45 young participants in the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Summer Youth Employment Program hit the streets in Northeast to put art into action. They approached residents of Edgewood, interviewing them on what they would want to see in a community mural. Answers varied from education to famous DC monuments to empowering children to dream.

The young artists explored how the community could be reflected through a cohesive vision. Under the direction of Albus Cavus, a public arts non-profit, and artists Pose 2, Quest Skinner, Decoy, Joshua Mays, and Chor Boogie, the 45 participants are learning the meaning of public art, that it is a responsibility to their creative self and the imagination of the community. What should it be called? “45 artists, one vision,” participant Machee Kelly suggested.

The second week of the Edgewood mural project began with a history lesson. The participants learned that to understand a space, they must appreciate the lives and stories that live inside of it. During the morning session, they received first-hand accounts of how the neighborhood looked a decade ago, ridden with crime and drugs. Today, there are diverse cultures represented in the neighborhood and a renewed sense of possibility. Public art is continuing the revitalization effort and connecting the community.

To foster their artistic vision, DC photographer Alton McDougle showed the muralists his photos of famous DC landmarks, dewy flowers, and even a chimpanzee kissing a trainer, and discussed the ideas of lighting and framing. In addition to aiding the visual construction of the mural, this training will serve the participants as they document the process. “Photo documentary is important because it’s memory,” McDougle explained. Participant Michael Edwards echoed this sentiment, “Sometimes when you finish something you forget what it looked like to begin with.”

In words and pictures, the participants developed plans for the 300-foot wall along side the Metropolitan Branch Trail. They want it bright and vibrant with a feeling of hope and the possibility for change. Some suggested renderings of college, Abraham Lincoln, and famous DC monuments; others envisioned a more local, rooted design with images of children playing and smiling faces. One idea that caught attention was to utilize the history lesson from that morning to create a visual time-line of the Edgewood community. The Edgewood mural project team will meet weekly throughout the summer to create plans and execute the large-scale mural.

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For interviews and high resolution photos, please contact Massey Media at 202 518-6186.