THE QUEST OF TRUTH
In this chapter, we are going to see that the movie strategy was build around the values of Snowden. He leaked classified information as a whistleblower : He was not hoping to gain anything out of this, he just wanted to inform the world. Snowden knew that his life would be unsafe after these revelations. However, Snowden did not try to hide his personal views on the subject and showed his face to the world.
The movie campaign follows the choice of the famous whistleblower to completely undertake his responsibilities. The communication strategy tried to honor Snowden's values, which are the right to be informed and the right to say his opinion about this privacy's issue, which concerns all of us.
A committed digital campaign
The movie campaign decided to associate with HIT RECORD to create a participate platform online called "Are you there Democracy ? It's me, the Internet." HIT RECORD is an online collaborative production company founded and owned by actor and director Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the main star of the movie Snowden.
A platform to exchange ideas about democracy and technology
Joseph Gordon Levitt is a big part of this project. He represents Snowden in the movie but also in the campaign strategy, because he is fully committed in the process and he impersonates the values of Snowden perfectly. Moreover, he uses his own digital platform to talk about his project, with a personal account, - he calls himself Joe - , so he seems really reachable through the Internet. He is introducing himself not as an actor, but as a citizen of the world who is concerned about theses universal issues.
In addition to the "Are you there Democracy ? It's me the Internet." project, he is donating his acting fee to produce a film, appropriately titled the "Snowden Optimism Project." The principle is simple : everyone is welcomed to create an graphical work to illustrate what Snowden is saying in his own video posted on HIT RECORD website. The rest of the money is being donated to the ACLU, which stands for American Civil Liberties Union.
It is pretty clear that for the actor, it's more than just a movie promotion. The issues at stake are important to everyone and he is chosing creativity and art over money and power to make people debate and exchange ideas about theses important issues.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the face of the campaign
"For this short film, the main thing I need from you guys is graphical work — illustrations and animations. I really want this to be an enormous collage of all different kinds of hand-drawn, stop-motion, cut-out graphics and little animations. So as he's talking, I want the different ideas that he's expressing to manifest visually all around him.
Last thing to mention — this project is a funded production here on HITRECORD. I've decided to donate my acting fee from the "Snowden" movie to facilitate this conversation about technology and democracy. Some of that money will go to this production, and the rest will go to the ACLU. "
Joseph Gordon-Levitt about his collaborative project, called "Snowden Optimism Project"
In the campaign strategy of Snowden, there is a real will to inform and make people debate about issues on technology and democracy. This initiative is represented by the digital platform created by Joseph Gordon Levitt himself, which exists to allow people to share their point of views about modern technology and its influence on democracy and daily life.
The platform is a list of short videos which can be created by anyone who like to share his opinion on these issues.
The project really worked because Edward Snowden himself uploaded his own video on the platform, from Moscow, where he is hiding from the U.S government. This contribution gave Joseph Gordon Levitt an idea, to reach more people and really make these issues the core of discussion : launching a call for art projects.