Media that Matters Recap

Dear playroom pals,

It's been two weeks since I got home from MTM (!!) but I feel like I'm only just starting to process what the experience meant to me.

From the kind, talented people I met, to the kismet connections, to presenting my Kids TV show idea (more on that later!) it made me feel like...

..maybe, things are going to work out after all?!

As I mentioned in getting bolder and weirder, I jumped at the opportunity to attend MTM this year, following my gut instinct to attend. The connection to the farm felt important and I followed the magic. I'm trying to trust the universe, people!

I packed up my coziest colourful clothes and headed out to the farm.

I was nervous heading into the conference for a few reasons:

First of all, Our family had planned to send the dudu to the moon (aka wean Mimi off breastmilk) over the days I was away (newsflash: it didn't happen. WAY harder to do than I anticipated...)

AND I had butterflies about sharing my kids tv idea with a room full of professional industry colleagues, many of whom are iconic documentary filmmakers and activists (!!!!)

I hitched a ride with incredible and truly genius human Kristina Lao, and felt honoured to receive her wisdom on the drive up.

Kristina and I drove by this green SQUID flying over a green barn..!

Lucky for me, the drive to the farm is 2 hours, and Kristina basically sorted out my life before we even arrived at the farm! I'm not even kidding! She is REALLY talented and one of her specialties is supporting artists in building sustainable creative careers.

By the time we arrived, I felt more clear about how all of these seemingly disparate career paths fit together (VR, Kids media, immersive storytelling, worldbuilding, art). And this was only on the drive UP to the conference!

Kristina helped me realize that so much of my work, across mediums, have been in pursuit of creating "serious fun." A lot of my work is pretty serious, and explores topics like mental health, generational trauma, climate change. But at the same time, through innovative interaction, they are playful and inspire self-reflection.

For example, my worldbuilding workshops are about imagination-building, playful hands-on process, unlocking story. Kristina helped me examine my body of work from a new angle:

Play can be powerful! Creating fun can be serious! It's all connected.

I had been thinking of my kid's media passion as separate from my previous work, but in fact, it's all under the same umbrella.

It was kind of a major ah-ha moment for me.

(PS. Reach out to Kristina if you need creative career support! Seriously!)

When we got to MTM, I was so pleased to discover that other attendees came from a wide range of places, career stages, and personal and professional backgrounds. But more than their fancy bios I had read in advance, it was nice to see how down-to-earth and friendly everyone was. It was truly a mixed bag of nuts, and each nut was SO special!!

I was surrounded by incredible filmmakers, artists, and musicians, all connected by a desire to make socially conscious work.

MTM gave us time to really get to know each other. We dove deep into conversations that you just don't get to have with artists in our field every day.

My new pal Michael Mann is leading us through some Improv in this photo!

I realized that this MTM trip was the first time I was in person with my film community in a camp-like, intensive setting since becoming a parent. (In the before times, I did travel to story labs and workshops a fair bit!)

I felt like I was meeting people with a new version of myself. Trying to balance creative work and toddlerhood has deeply humbled me (and we are just getting started!! haha!) It was a bit terrifying to show up as this person, but I felt relief once I realized how many folks there had gone through similar personal and professional transformations.

Having the chance to share and go deeper into our creative practices, struggles, and dreams with folks going through very similar experiences was very grounding.

I shared a room with a fabulous filmmaker named Candice!

During MTM we had intentional, deep conversations about topics including creating sustainable creative ecosystems, art-making in the time of collapse, paths to financial stability, mental health and resilience as artists, the experience of filmmaker parents/caregivers (and more!)

...While balancing more technical conversations like creating verticals, creating video podcasts, financing, and ethics around AI.

"Are the kids alright?" was one conversation close to my heart. It was all about parenting in the age of technology, mental health, and creating purpose-driven children's media. We covered a lot of ground, from media literacy to sharing tools and strategies for connection (One participant shared that playing racket sports offered a really great chance to catch up on things with their teen!)

A couple of magical things stand out for me at MTM:

The rain. It was a super rainy first day or two, which meant that the background to many of our conversations was LOUD rain on the tin roof of the barn! It was incredibly cinematic!
Caitlin and Mimi came up to the farm (our farm work weekend fell during MTM). This derailed any hope of weaning, lol. But also, it was so sweet.

The magic of intersecting worlds. Brett Gaylor gifted me "The Thing From the Future" at MTM. "I thought you might need it" he said. I didn't know if Brett knew I know Jeff when he handed it to me. But staring at the card deck in my hands quite literally stunned me. It was so bizarre to see it here, at the farm. This card deck created by the late, great Jeff Watson, who I knew in Los Angeles (despite being two Canadians). At first I didn't realize what he was handing me, but my worlds swirled together and collided. I just couldn't stop the tears flowing. Jeff was a legendary prof at USC and an incredibly generous, playful spirit who I got to work with at the USC Worldbuilding Lab. Jeff was THE play guy. He was silly and serious. He understood play as a force for social transformation. He was the guy doing the damn thing! He was an icon! He was beloved! And he passed away so suddenly in 2020. I felt like I never even really got to mourn his loss. And here I was finally back on my way to finding play, about to pitch a kids show, and this deck lands in my hands. It felt important.

"So: reality is an emergency, and we’re all in it together. That’s kind of the starting point here. I like to think of what we do as artists as a kind of mercy, a way to mitigate this dire situation of being alive. At its best, art is a gift we give others because we recognize on some level that our fellow beings, whoever they may be, are just as baffled and longing for insight and hopeful and fragile as we are, and we make art to make things better somehow, if only for a moment (but also forever because every moment is forever fixed in the landscape of time), by enlightening, distracting, comforting, empowering, thrilling, inspiring, tickling, or what-have-you. It’s a wonderful thing, art: it’s a light in this sometimes very dark world, and you know it’s true. What I’d like to ask you to do is take that merciful, giving, empathetic attitude that’s already obviously built into you in one way or another, into every corner of your lives." – Jeff Watson

And that's exactly what i intend to do.

So I know you must be wondering, how did the presentation go?!

Which brings me to the FOURTH magical thing...

If you can believe it, this is a photo that Sue Biely (of Story Money Impact fame) took of me giving my presentation to the Media that Matters folks!

Ahhh!!! I did my first share of Knick Knack Nook!

I had 7 minutes to share what I was working on/ dreaming about ...

I was so nervous! It did feel like 'coming out' as a children's media nerd! I was honest! It felt in flow! the vibes were vibing! It went well!!!!

A real human experienced media maker came up to me after the pitch and said:

"It's not a matter of if this show is happening. It's WHEN."

I nearly passed out.

You know those miraculous times when you are exactly where you are meant to be, saying exactly what you feel, and things just pour out of you easily? That's how it felt sharing my kids' show concept for the Knick Knack Nook! I could feel it resonating with folks but I was still waiting for folks to be like - you're nuts!

But they basically were like, yeah this makes sense. You gotta do this!!!

ANYWAYS - let' just say I may be riding the high of that experience for QUITE some time. It was enough of a giant thumbs up to get me through all of the thumbs downs that are surely in my future as I pitch this thing. (And there have been some since!!! lol! That's showbiz baby!)

So much more happened. So many incredible friendships and connections were made. Some creative collaborators for life, I can feel it.

Media that Matters has no website, like I said, it's all a bit mysterious. You'll have to take my word for it.

I'm not even sure if I'm allowed to post this photo: