PRODUCING SOCIAL CHANGE THROUGH TRANSFORMATIVE MEDIA

The Change Making Media Lab (CMML) is an emerging organization whose mission is to foster positive social and environmental change by promoting research on effective media techniques and creating strategic high-impact cinema, television, and multi-media visual imagery to inspire individuals, organizations, and communities into action.  CMML’s vision is to have engaged community members leverage the power of the cinematic arts to achieve health, sustainability, and social justice.  In pursuit of this vision, CMML is working toward the following goals:

• Supporting cutting-edge research focused on the multi-dimensional components of the cinematic arts and their effects on human behavior and their ability to produce individual, community, and policy change
• Utilizing targeted research to inform, promote, and increase the production of socially transformative media
• Conducting post distribution effectiveness assessments through innovative evaluation techniques
• Enhancing the professional development of new social change media makers through holistic multi-disciplinary coursework that integrates research and applied practice
• Building the capacity of public and private entities to affect positive social change by providing them with the information, skills, tools, and technical assistance resources to create their own socially transformative visual media
• Becoming a national hub for social change media research, education, information dissemination, and production
• Becoming a fully self-sustaining entity by leveraging fee-for-service revenues

CMML is bringing together a wide range of multidisciplinary stakeholders from across the nation to achieve these goals.  CMML is strategically housed within the University of Southern California (USC) School of Cinematic Arts, one of the premiere film schools in the country.

CMML CORE DESIGN ELEMENTS

The following components and premises form the foundation upon which CMML operates:

Initial Focal Topics – Health, environment, community advocacy/engagement, and social justice

Synergies Among Allied Fields – Convene and leverage practitioners and researchers from multiple disciplines including media production, education, sociology, communications, public health, cultural anthropology, clinical/cognitive/media psychology, marketing, visual design, multi-media technology, entertainment education, and community activism

Research Elements – Supports research on the interrelationships between components of cinematic media and human behavior:

• Modes of Cinematic Media – film, video, digital production, web streaming and downloading, mobile technology, gaming, broadcast and cable television, public service announcements, and emerging alternative media forms and distribution
• Stylistic Media Variables – elements of the narrative, dramatic theory, documentary styles, animation techniques, performance, design, editing, sound and music, interactive media, and new digital techniques
• Human Characteristics – age, gender, race/ethnicity, culture, education, values, cognitive/emotional processing, and behavior
• Core Consumers and Beneficiaries – Researchers, academics, nonprofits/CBOs, foundations, teaching institutions, multimedia producers, artists and studios, public health entities, and community members and activists

SERVICES AND PRODUCTS

Research and Information Dissemination – Building an Informed Foundation and Multi-disciplinary Synergies

Through partnerships with renowned institutions and researchers, CMML supports and will fund targeted media research to expand knowledge of best practice media production techniques to motivate behavior change.  CMML will also be a central convener of academics, researchers, and media makers to share information and collaborate. 

Media Production – Creating Socially Transformative Media

CMML will be a critical media production resource for entities vested in motivating individuals and inspiring positive social change.  It will do this by providing in-house production services on CMML sponsored media projects and by supporting projects in the community through grants and/or technical assistance services.

Academic Seminars and Internships – Advancing the Industry and Empowering Practitioners

CMML is developing academic coursework and internships for students and film makers in order to nurture the growth of the socially-conscious change-making media industry and mold its next generation of leaders.

Capacity Building Workshops – Expanding Institutional Capacity

CMML will offer workshops to public and private entities desiring to develop or expand their organizational capacity to directly engage in media production.

Technical Assistance/Consulting – Brokering Resources and Building Partnerships

CMML will serve as a technical assistance broker by connecting its media production professionals with entities needing assistance in applying best practices during pre-production, production, and distribution.

TRANSFORMING A VISION INTO REALITY

Jeremy Kagan is the founder of the Change Making Media Lab, as well as an international award-winning director, writer, and producer of feature films, documentaries, and television.  During his work on the award winning 10-part documentary series Freedom Files (sponsored by the ACLU), which focused on contemporary civil liberty issues and critical citizen-led campaigns, Mr. Kagan gained a deeper appreciation for the important role of citizen-based and grassroots movements in affecting social change.  He was also able to experiment with a variety of cinematic elements and techniques in an effort to increase viewer awareness and action.   Inspired by this formative experience, his vision for CMML emerged.

In 2008, Mr. Kagan began to actively pursue this vision by partnering with a strategy and planning consulting company, as well as formalizing CMML as a sponsored entity within the legal and physical structures of the USC School of Cinematic Arts.  Simultaneously, Mr. Kagan also began approaching key stakeholders from across the nation to enlist the assistance and sponsorship of critical partners.  To date, he has recruited the following multi-industry leaders to serve on his Advisory Council:

• Ed Zwick, Award winning producer/director (Glory, Traffic, Defiance)
• Thomas Schlamme, Co-executive producer and director of West Wing
• Kenny Ausubel, Founder and Co-President of Bioneers
• Steve Anderson, Professor at USC Institute for Multimedia
• Lester Breslow, Former chair and professor at UCLA School of Public Health
• Kim Spencer, CEO of Link TV
• Doe Mayer, teacher, filmmaker, USC Pickford Chair
• Paul Stekler, Emmy award winning documentarian and public affairs professor at the University of Texas
• Michael Renov, Professor and Associate Dean of USC School of Cinematic Arts
• Nancy Lutkehaus, Chair of Anthropology at USC
• Belden Hull Daniels, CEO of Economic Innovation International, Inc.

ONGOING SERVICES

 Over the next two years, the Change Making Media Lab will be actively engaged in a series of projects that include:

• A best practices multi media document to facilitate effective and productive relationships for advocacy groups and media makers and present research on cinematic elements that are quantifiably known to effect behavior change
• Research on subjects like testimony, talking heads, factual vs. dramatic, endings, post production elements and participatory media. 

Relevant links

• WITNESS : See it. Film it. Change it. 
• PCI-Media Impact
• Center for Social Media at American University
• Independent Media Center
• Free Speech TV
• AlterNet
• Judith Helfand
• Project Zero
• Active Voice
• Working Films - Linking Non-Fiction Film to Cutting Edge Activism
• Participant Media