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Non-Profit Deal Flow Room Semi-Finalists:
Community Based Media
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CONTACT
Virgilio Bravo, Executive Director
877 Empire Blvd. Suite A6
Brooklyn, NY 11213
Tel/Fax: (718) 735-3554
veebravo@aol.com
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Community Based Media ["CBM"] is a not-for-profit (pending) multi-media literacy organization that serves young people located throughout New York City's five boroughs. CBM provides young people, ages 14-21, with practical tools such as training and organizing in video and film production, print and web production, and graphic design, which they can then utilize as they see fit. These tools are designed to enhance the personal lives of the young people as well the lives of the people in communities where they reside. CBM's approach to media literacy is based on a popular education model, one which stresses that self-determination is best achieved if people, and the communities which they make up, own and operate the tools by which popular culture is created, expressed, debated, and ultimately distributed. To date, CBM has successfully launched two programs.
The "Estilo Media Project" is a year-long, transient media literacy outreach program within New York City that serves over 5,000 young people, ages 14-21, who may be located throughout public and private schools, community organizations, religious institutions, and prisons. EMP utilizes short films to engage young people in issues about culture, media, and its relationship to community. The outreach program culminates in an 18-month media literacy internship that offers young people sophisticated training in various stages of video production, including basic camera, audio, lighting, and grip work, as well as digital editing on a FinalCut 3 platform.
"The Cell Block Project" is a grassroots initiative that, for the last six years, has utilized live hip hop performances and, as of late, media literacy workshops within New York State prison confines to engage inmates and hip hop artists in a socially progressive dialogue about community and self-empowerment. The Cell Block Project is currently taking place at Rikers Island at the GVRC facility, which houses over 2,000 male inmates. Twice a month live performances and film screenings are held at the facility's gym- nasium during a one and half hour stretch. Currently, the Cell Block Project has been granted permission by the New York State Department of Education and the New York State Department of Corrections to begin a series of media literacy workshops for inmates at the GVRC facility. Inmates who demonstrate promise and dedication will be invited to participate in the ongoing Estilo Media Project internship. To date, the Cell Block Project has served over 10,000 inmates.
Ethical Marketplace
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CONTACT
Series Creator
Hazel Henderson, Chair, Editorial Board
PO Box 5190
St. Augustine, Fl 32137
Tel: (904) 829-3140
Fax: (904) 829-8676
hhlibry@hazelhenderson.com
Producer
Alvin H. Perlmutter
The Independent Production Fund
45 West 45th Street, Room 808
NY, NY 10036
Tel: (212) 221-6310, ext. 14
Fax: (212) 302-1854
ahp@ipf45.org
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Ethical Marketplace is a 26, half-hour television series showcasing sustainability solutions and success stories benchmarking the highest ethics and standards of 21st century capitalism. The series is focused on catalyzing social change toward global economic and environmental sustainability, stories largely untold in mainstream media. A team of media and television entrepreneurs, successful TV producers, and leaders in the field of sustainability are spearheading the series. After the pilots are completed with foundation support, the group will raise another $1.2 million in private, strategic, and program-related investment funds to produce the entire season via an independent production company. The revenue stream to support the series past launch will be generation of income from socially responsible corporate underwriters and advertisers (80%) wishing to reach this audience of 50% of all U.S. adults owning stocks in 401Ks, pension plans, mutual funds, and other investments. Advertisers and underwriters ("best in class" in most industries as well as in specific "green" markets) will be screened on SRI standards by the pro-bono Editorial Board to assure integrity with the series mission. Also anticipated is income from distribution of education portions of the series, website and license opportunities in Europe, Latin America, and Asia (20%).
Ethical Marketplace is a window and forum for the frontier thinking, best practices, and leading innovators helping to evolve capitalism for the next 100 years. What are we growing with our investment dollars? How can ownership be most equitably distributed? What changes in thinking in leadership support new visions of capitalism? And what kinds of businesses provide social, as well as financial, value? Who's doing the work, and how did they connect with it? What industries are changing and how fast? Where is this happening around the world? How much success has there already been? What are entrenched stakeholders doing to prevent progress? This is a storyline with the vividness of "reality TV", visionaries and charismatics, fast growth industries, big ideas with "legs" in the U.S. and abroad mostly unknown to audiences today. Many points on the frontier, such as social investing and sustainable technologies like fuel cells and wind power, have quietly built to substantial industries. But their stories are still secreted away in niche publications and conferences. Other frontier areas like microfinance, rethinking consumerism, new models of development, and women-owned enterprise are sources of inspiration. These major innovations can provide alternatives to our Enron's and the current economic and ethical malaise. Ethical Marketplace is conceived as the first offering of an ongoing media enterprise to satisfy demand for a new narrative about the future of markets on a small, interdependent planet.
Five Points Media
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CONTACT
Jonathan Berman
Five Points Media
195 Chrystie Street
#600E NY, NY 10002
Tel: (212) 505-9912
www.fivepointsmedia.org
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Five Points Media is seeking funding and strategic partners for the documentary Commune: Another Way To Live, which enters post-production in January. The challenge: how to acknowledge unrecognized changes in our society and reenergize the public towards progressive activism. The film looks at how ideas, particularly ideas of community and community involvement, are floated, debated, and created. Through the case study of three decades of a California community, the film will inspire viewers to see the possibility of new or renewed idealism and innovation in their own lives, work, and neighborhood. The project presents this wilderness commune as symbolic of much an alternative culture that ultimately led to a number of profound successes, such as civil rights, feminism, environmentalism, and a rediscovery of natural medicines. The film points out that much of that work lives and breathes today. The film has been funded by NY State Council on the Arts; the work in-progress was shown at SVN Fall 2002. It is a 501c3 not-for-profit project of the NY Foundation for the Arts and is produced by Jonathan Berman.
Five Points Media is currently involved in pre-production and fundraising on A Slow Roast, a documentary about corporate animal farming vs. the individual farmers as seen through the passion and love of barbecue in North Carolina. Sustainability meets sauce in this pork epic that crosses Michael Moore with Upton Sinclair's The Jungle to create a thought-provoking feature about our minds and our meat. The project is being produced under the fiscal sponsorship of the Earth Pledge Foundation. In addition to the film, we are cutting a half-hour infomercial from the material and other interviews. Our project partner, Robert F. Kennedy of Waterkeeper, has pledged to find the funding to buy commercial time on regional and other networks for the piece. The two-tiered project has some commitments in place for funding and seeks environmental foundation partners for this to be the media arm of the battle against corporate hog-farming.
The Fund For Jewish Documentary Filmmaking
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CONTACT
National Foundation for Jewish Culture (NFJC)
330 Seventh Avenue, 21st Floor
New York, NY 10001
Tel: (212) 629-0500
Fax: (212) 629-0508
www.jewishculture.org
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The Fund for Jewish Documentary Filmmaking, created in 1996 by the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, was developed with seed money from Steven Spielberg's Righteous Persons Foundation and has provided finishing funds to thirty-eight (38) documentaries to date. The Righteous Persons Foundation has pledged a further $1 million challenge grant toward a $4 million endowment to support the Fund. This challenge grant enables pledges of any size to be matched on a one-to-three basis.
The Fund supports original documentaries in the final stages of post-production that address significant subjects, offer fresh and challenging perspectives, engage audiences across cultural lines, and influence the way various publics understand and interpret Jewish experience and concerns. Examples of the Fund's dynamic grantee films and their subjects include Promises (youth and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict); From Swastika to Jim Crow and Brownsville Black and White (historical interactions between the Black and Jewish communities); Trembling Before G-d (gay struggle in the Orthodox community); A Healthy Baby Girl (women's reproductive rights and the environment); and Strange Fruit (legacy of lynching and the song of resistance). Recipient films of the Fund for Jewish Documentary Filmmaking have won wide acclaim, important awards, and critical recognition, including:
Ten (10) films broadcast on PBS (roughly one third of the films have been on PBS)
Seven (7) films have been released theatrically
Two (2) Emmy awards
One (1) Peabody Award
One (1) Academy Award Nomination
For more information about the Fund for Jewish Documentary Filmmaking and opportunities for investment, please contact:
Judith Rubin, Director of Development, and/or Nancy Schwartzman, Associate Program Director, Grants and Awards
Turned Out: Sexual Assault Behind Bars
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CONTACT
Jonathan Schwartz
Interlock Media, Inc.
The Greenworks Building
160 Second Street
Cambridge, MA 02142
Tel: (617) 864-5625
director@interlockmedia.com
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Inmates in our nation's jails and prisons are subjected to rape with staggering frequency. In fact, the level of sexual coercion in U.S. prisons has been cited in violation of international human rights law. Traditionally, the flip treatment, given to the rape of male prisoners, by the entertainment media has reinforced a cynical view that depicts sexual predation behind bars as a morally justifiable act, indeed, one that is often served up as comedic fodder. Little attention is given to the impact prisoner rape has on its victims or the communities and families of former inmates who inevitably return to society confined by patterns of shame and secrecy that preclude healing. Now, with the Prison Rape Reduction Act of 2002 under debate in the Senate, combined with the momentum from the large number of prison rape lawsuits now pending and the successes of grassroots organizations, we are faced with a unique opportunity to eradicate prisoner rape. Turned Out: Sexual Assault Behind Bars will be a modest tool in this effort.
Turned Out is the first documentary to look at the cycle of sexual enslavement in a way that links its psychological aspects with the underground prison economy; it does so from the point of view of predators and prey, by humanizing and making more accessible its subjects. By going behind prison walls and presenting a reality the public is not likely to have seen (and, for some, does not care to see), Turned Out seeks to foster a new and enlightening public discourse on this important issue. Though graphic and provocative, the film is not about sensationalizing the act of sodomy. Instead, its goal is to demonstrate that sex behind bars is not an isolated moment of penetration between nameless, faceless stereotypes, but instead an act of violence, humiliation, domination -- and in some rare cases love -- between individuals struggling with their own diminished humanity. Turned Out exposes prison rape for what it is: an institutionalized part of prison culture, one that serves both the regulatory needs of our correctional system and the sociological and emotional needs of inmates.
People Count
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CONTACT
Tel: (770) 436-2059
Fax: (770) 436-2109
byepyle@aol.com
www.peoplecountTv.com
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This project of the Barbara Pyle Foundation seeks additional funding for the worldwide distribution of a library of 55 films, a body of work that has won over 100 awards and prizes, including the UN Sasakawa Environment Prize, the highest international recognition in this field, presented by the Secretary General of the United Nations in 1997.This was the only time this was awarded to a member of the media. These films have demonstrated beneficial social change and activism, a true example of interactive television. The costs for updating and satellite distribution run approximately $7,000 per film, which can be brought down to $5,500 if the films are packaged and supplied in sets of 13. The cost per TV station using this series on social and environmental issues comes to $26 for a 13 half-hour series. Funds are also sought for continuing production of new films one on the successful elimination of female genital circumcision (FGC) in Senegal and another on corporate social responsibility. Completion funds range from $50K to 75K for each of these two films.
Each of the films in the library addresses multiple issues and shows the interrelationship between them (such as the empowerment of women, job creation, family size, health, literacy, population growth, over-consumption and the impact on the environment). The entertaining programs about grassroots exemplars working to solve these interwoven problems for themselves have inspired television viewers to take action in their own communities. Due to the immense distribution network, these programs reach the viewer in their own home or through their community TV set. Barbara Pyle worked at Turner Broadcasting System for 20 years, where she served as TBS' Corporate VP of Environmental Policy and CNN's Environmental Editor. Since 1987, she has developed relationships with a wide range of television executives and program managers throughout the US and the world. She has also used CNN's World Report (165 TV stations, which has a combined viewership of 2 billion) as a global distribution network. In 2002, by working through many other TV groups (Regional Global Broadcasting Unions, U.S. Satellite Networks and affiliations of U.S. cable stations such as the Urban American Television Network), Pyle expanded this network tenfold to some 3,000. The films are distributed free to broadcasters to be used in perpetuity ensuring their widest possible use. The films are transmitted via satellite - in the US and internationally. INTELSAT provides donated satellite time as it did in 2002 for the film ONE CHILD ONE VOICE. This partnership dates back to 1987, when Pyle began the international distribution project. The Barbara Pyle Foundation is a 501-(c)-3 founded in 1997.
Barbara Pyle Foundation, 4221 Brookview Drive, Atlanta, GA 30339
Population Media Center, Inc.
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CONTACT
Ashley Bryant
Population Media Center
PO Box 547
Shelburne, Vermont 05482-0547
Tel: (802) 985-8156
Fax: (802) 985-8119
Ashley@populationmedia.org
www.populationmedia.org
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Population Media Center, Inc. (PMC) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization that works worldwide to enlist broadcast and print media to educate people about the personal benefits of family planning, encourage the use of effective measures to prevent transmission of HIV/AIDS and other STDs, promote general reproductive health, elevate women's status and promote the concept of gender equity. PMC facilitates collaboration with radio and/or television broadcasters, appropriate government ministries and non-governmental organizations to design and implement a comprehensive media strategy for addressing reproductive health and sexual health as well as women's status. What makes PMC's radio and tele-vision programs unique are the use of long-running prime-time serial melodramas (on radio or television) in which characters gradually evolve into role models for the audience. This methodology, developed by Miguel Sabido of Mexico, has been remarkable in that it has attracted no serious opposition in any country in which it has been used. This stems, in part, from the thorough research conducted prior to the development of new programs in order to measure audience attitudes and norms with regard to the topics presented. Through the gradual evolution of characters in response to problems that many in the audience also are facing, soap operas can show adoption of new, non-traditional behaviors in a way that generates no negative response from the audience. PMC provides people with entertainment and information to help them make informed decisions without telling them what to do.
PMC currently has programs in various stages of development and implementation in Ethiopia, Mali, Ivory Coast, Malawi, Nigeria, Kenya, the Philippines, India, Brazil, Mexico, Sudan, the United States and a project with the United Nations Population Fund, which works region-wide in 15 countries throughout Asia and Africa. For example, in Ivory Coast and Mali, PMC is working in partnership with Ben & Jerry's to develop radio serials to change practices with regard to use of child slave labor in the cocoa industry, while simultaneously promoting planned parenthood and avoidance of AIDS.
Spy Hop
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CONTACT
Rick Wray
Tel: (801) 949.5925
rick@spyhop.org
Erik Dodd
Tel: (801) 949.5863
erik@spyhop.org
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Apprenticeship Program:
Spy Hop Productions is dedicated to providing young apprentices with hands-on experience and real world applications. Participants in the program are given the opportunity to create digital media in the realms of video production, web design, sound engineering, and the graphic arts. This unique program emphasizes the artistic, communicative, educational, and sociological facets of media creation and consumption. Apprentices create work for local non-profit organizations and small businesses while simultaneously developing personal portfolios. Most positions are paid, providing apprentices with valuable creative, technical, and vocational skills along with a part-time income.
Organizational History:
Spy Hop Productions was founded in November of 1999 to provide Salt Lake City youth access to multimedia production. Realizing that multimedia production encompasses a broad range of communication disciplines, Spy Hop chose to focus on photographic (still, video, and animation), musical and Internet media. Spy Hop offers workshops, private tutorials, and apprenticeships allowing diverse groups to create and produce powerful and exciting multimedia projects that combine images, video, audio, and text. While Spy Hop is open to people of all ages, the primary focus is giving young people along the Wasatch Front access to these dynamic mediums.
Mission:
Spy Hop Productions is a unique not-for-profit center specializing in educational solutions through multimedia arts. Dedicated to providing hands-on experience in video production, digital photography, music production, and web-based mediums, we offer training in the technical and creative aspects of multimedia production. These experiences enhance self-confidence and foster valuable career and social skills. Spy Hop Productions promotes critical thinking and media literacy, helping youth to judiciously evaluate the media barrage that defines our information age.
Thou Shalt Honor Foundation
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CONTACT
Harry Wiland, Executive Producer
And Thou Shalt Honor
Wiland-Bell Productions
c/o Culver Studios
9336 W. Washington Blvd. Bldg. F.
Culver City, CA 90232
Tel: (310) 202-3370 Tel
Fax: (310) 202-3397
Cell: (310) 770-1308
harry@wilandbellprod.com
www.thoushalthonor.org
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Town Hall Meeting Series
A Multiple Media Presentation
We are a nation that has more parents to care for than children. Eldercare has replaced childcare as the number one health care issue. As a result, a monumental public policy debate has commenced again at both the national and individual state levels. It concerns perhaps the largest social and financial dilemma our nation has faced: how to fund the care of our elderly and frail. How we treat our elderly and vulnerable citizens defines us as a society. The Medicare and Medicaid programs have been the funding vehicles for nearly forty years. Both programs face serious funding challenges and are under attack. Policy makers, industry leaders, volunteers, and professional caregivers (over 50 million Americans) recognize the issues and are striving for resolution. A solution is not obvious. Yet never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has (Margaret Mead).
Building on the overwhelming success of the And Thou Shalt Honor?, a PBS Program "Pick of the Month" broadcast on October 9, the newly created Thou Shalt Honor Foundation proposes to produce a series of high-visibility CareGiver and Eldercare Town Hall Meetings in conjunction with local PBS stations in twenty major markets over the next 20 months, culminating in over 20 hours of regional PBS programming. The meetings are an objective forum to air diverse views and concerns about the issue; they are staged in multi-cultural and geographic settings. A state-by-state rating of caregiving effectiveness, authored by Consumer Union and Consumer Reports, is one planned outcome. The meetings will end in Washington, DC in September 2004 with a PBS nationally televised Town Hall Meeting and Washington Mall rally. All broadcasts will be supported with an extensive outreach campaign. Based on our ATSH multiple media model, a series of companion books will be published, interactive DVDs will be created, and an interactive online website with informational database will be created. We seek funding in the amount of $4.5 million to conduct our investigation and to timely deliver our findings through public television production and distribution as well as other companion forms of media.
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