Post by jamiestrickland on Apr 13, 2021 21:06:49 GMT
Over the course of my life, I've always thought about what representation looks like for me through film and television and for the most part it was almost non-existent if it weren't for shows like the Fresh Prince, Family Matters to name a few that displayed positive black imagery. So when I think of innovation I think of how this industry has slowly innovated particularly over the last 5 years through the work Dr. Stacey L Smith whom work I was introduced to by my girlfriend who studied film in college and now works in the industry a few years ago.
"Dr. Smith is the founder of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative @uscannenberg. The Initiative, under her direction, conducts programmatic research in five key areas: 1) on screen portrayals of gender, race/ethnicity, LGBT and characters with disability across the top 100 films per year; 2) behind the scenes employment patterns in film and TV by gender and race/ethnicity; 3) financial performance of females in film; 4) barriers and opportunities behind the camera for women and people of color in entertainment; 5) solutions for change."
- What is one way trait or behavior that they practice that encourages innovation in their team?
Just off the back Dr. Stacey L Smith embodies based on the Forbes article Traits 1,2,4,5. Dr. Smith looks at diversifying a complete sector to show how representation matters. Which in turn has caused many large networks to include more up and coming black and BIPOC films, and encourages the production companies to change their hiring practices.
- What is one thing that you took away from their work that you are striving to implement today in your work?
Extensive---extensive research with data to back it. Working in not for profits its important to connect our data to visualizations when looking at impact. I'm talking about clean data, factual data with easy to read graph that tells a story without having to look for context outside. She was able to tell a complete story using data that draws you deeper into the issues.