The Day I Found Out Project

‘The Day I Found Out’ website began with 22 professionally produced videos focused on cancer patients and survivors telling their stories about the day they found out about their cancer. We are looking to expand the scope of the project, by offering cancer fighters and their loved ones the opportunity to download their own ‘day they found out’ stories. We are prepared to link your facebook page, twitter account, webpage and other links to your video.

FAQ:

Who can participate?

Anyone intimately and personally affected by cancer may participate, including patients, survivors, and loved ones.

What about children?

We are excited to have children participate, though how a child participates is up to their parents or guardians. Children are especially encouraged to include their grown-ups in their videos.

What should the videos be like?

We want your story in your own words. Hopefully these guidelines will be useful:

The videos should start with the exact day of your diagnosis, if possible.

The following questions can serve as a guide. If a particular question doesn’t mean as much to you, don’t worry about it. Also, don’t feel like you have to answer them in order. These questions are geared towards the patients and survivors but loved ones making videos can amend the questions to fit their own stories.

• Did you suspect something was wrong? If so, did you see a doctor right away?
• What went through your head when you heard your doctor say, ‘it’s cancer?’
• Were you alone with your doctor? And how did you break the news to your family and friends?
• What did you do as soon as you left the doctor’s office/hospital?
• What sort of treatment options did your doctor offer? And how did you decide on a treatment? Was it a clinical trial? If so, why did you choose that route?
• What was the emotional turning point? Was there a moment you thought, ‘I’m definitely going to beat this?’
• Who or what helped you get through it? Where did you draw inspiration? Did your cancer inspire you to get involved with a particular project, movement or organization?
• If you could go back in time to before you had cancer, would you have done anything differently? Would there be anything you would change about what you did after you found out?
• What makes you tell your story today?
• What would be your advice to someone who has just been diagnosed with cancer?
• What else are you besides a cancer patient or a survivor? What makes you 'you'?

We want your honest story. Maybe you've come to terms with your cancer; maybe you haven't. Maybe you've made peace with it; maybe you've not. We are interested in the real emotions that you felt or are feeling.

You mentioned that we could talk about cancer related projects, movements or organizations. What does that mean?

Many people directly affected by cancer have made lemonade out the lemons that have been seemingly dealt to them. Millions of these people have turned their focus outward into fundraising, research, merchandising and other ventures, all to fight the good fight against cancer. Supporting these causes is often a major part of healing and renewal and we want to hear that part of the story, too. However, the main focus of your video should be you, not your project. As a reminder, we’re more than happy to link the videos to your web pages, facebook pages, blogs, etc.

I’m not much of a filmmaker. Can you help me edit my video?

We can do some basic editing and would be happy to help out with that, free of charge.

Can you help me film my video?

We're based in Seattle, Washington, USA. If it's convenient for you to get here, we'd be glad to. Contact information is listed below.

What about the technical side of it?

Our video requirements are basically the same as Youtube’s requirements

· Videos must be smaller than 2GB in size

· We will support

o WebM files - Vp8 video codec and Vorbis Audio codecs

o .MPEG4, 3GPP and MOV files - Typically supporting h264, mpeg4 video codecs, and AAC audio codec

o .AVI - Many cameras output this format - typically the video codec is MJPEG and audio is PCM

o .MPEGPS - Typically supporting MPEG2 video codec and MP2 audio

o .WMV

o .FLV - Adobe-FLV1 video codec, MP3 audio

· We recommend that videos not be more than 5 minutes.

· We are subject to the same copyright laws as anyone else. Please keep that in mind when you are creating your videos. There’s no point in going to all the trouble to make it only to have it pulled from our site for copyright infringement. You may want to read what Youtube has to say about it.

· When the new version of our site has been completed, you’ll be able to upload videos with a few clicks of a button. Until then, you may send videos directly to us at cmccloe@copacino.com. There are also dozens of file sharing sites online.

· Please include your full name and a few ways we can reach you. Obviously, contact information will not be shared with anyone without your permission. If you feel comfortable doing so, list the city where you live, as well. Also, please tell us the exact kind of cancer or cancers you have; we want people to be able to search the site by cancer type.

I have other questions.

Please feel free to email me at cmccloe@copacino.com; you can also tweet me at @thedayifoundout.

Thank you again for your interest in this project. We’d be grateful if you mentioned this to your friends, colleagues and other people in the cancer community.

Sincerely,

Cliff McCloe

www.thedayifoundout.com