ITG Comedy & Climate Change Short Video Competition

Standing Up for Climate: An Experiment with Creative Climate Comedy
(co-sponsored by The Center of the American West)

1st place: $400 prize
2nd place: $250
3rd place: $100

Submission Deadline: March 1, 2017

Competition Details

Humor is a tool underutilized in the area of climate change; yet comedy has power to effectively connect people, information, ideas, and new ways of thinking/acting.

In this call, we seek to harness the powers of climate comedy through compelling, resonant and meaningful VIDEOS – up to 3 minutes in length – to meet people where they are, and open them up to new and creative engagement. We are especially interested in pieces that deal with issues related to the American West.

The winning entry will receive a cash prize, and be shown during the upcoming ‘Stand Up for Climate: An Experiment with Creative Climate Comedy’ night on March 17 on the University of Colorado campus in Boulder, Colorado. The event will feature a range of comedic approaches, including stand-up comedy, sketch and situational comedy, and improv.

The primary audience will be University students along with members of the community in Boulder, Colorado (no age restrictions will be in place).

Award Criteria: Successful entries will have found the funny while relating to climate change issues. Each entry will be reviewed by a committee composed of students, faculty and graduate students at CU-Boulder.

Application Requirements
(1) 1-2 page pdf description of entry, including

- title of creative work,
- names and affiliations of all authors/contributors,
- contact information of person submitting the entry,
- a statement of permissions for use of content, as necessary, and
- 100-word description of the work.

(2)  A link to the up-to-3-minute composition, posted on Youtube or Vimeo or the like

Eligibility
Must be a citizen of Planet Earth; work created since January 2015 is accepted; works must be less than 3 minutes in length, captured through video; CU-Boulder employees are not eligible

Submission Deadline
- March 1: entries due to itgcomedy@colorado.edu
- March 13: applicants informed of decisions
- March 17: winning entries shown at ‘Climate and Comedy’ night

Contact:
Max Boykoff
Associate Professor
Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Studies (CIRES)
Center for Science and Technology Policy Research (CSTPR)
Environmental Studies Program
boykoff@colorado.edu

Beth Osnes
Associate Professor
Department of Theater and Dance
University of Colorado Boulder
beth.osnes@colorado.edu

This initiative is part of the Inside the Greenhouse project at CU-Boulder. This competition is co-sponsored by the Center of the American West.

This Inside the Greenhouse project acknowledges that, to varying degrees, we are all implicated in, part of, and responsible for greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. We treat this ‘greenhouse’ as a living laboratory, an intentional place for growing new ideas and evaluating possibilities to confront climate change through a range of mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Our project is also associated with the Spring 2017 ‘creative climate communications’ course (ENVS3173/THTR4173/ATLS4173) at CU-Boulder.