Film is big business. We keep track of how many billions of dollars it adds to the “entertainment” sector every year. But movies are much more than just a way to pass the time. It turns out that film is a great way to start a change.
Even though Oscar night is over, we still talk about the winners and losers on the red carpet and talk about the big show that honors the best films every year. Every year, this event reminds me of how movies can amaze and hold our attention in a way that nothing else can.
When we think of things that make us happy, movies are at the top of our list. Some estimates say that the average American spends about 33 hours a week watching TV or videos, and on weekends, millions of people go to the movies to see the newest movies. Few things are better than putting your feet up, getting a bowl of popcorn, and watching a good movie.
Since the first black-and-white images were blasted onto a big screen by projectors, film has been a powerful force in the lives of people. Film takes us to places we had never been before. Strangers change into people we know. We start to want to go to places we don’t know much about. Strange ideas suddenly make sense.
Martin Scorsese, a famous Hollywood director, once said, “Movies touch our hearts, open our eyes, and change the way we see things.” “They let people in and open their minds.
The film is a great way to start a change
Al Gore, who used to be Vice President, won the Nobel Peace Prize for his movie, “An Inconvenient Truth”. It changed the way people around the world thought about a controversial issue by combining complex science with a story. Before his film came out in 2006, all the important facts about global warming had already been written by academics, talked about by government leaders, and shown on the evening news. Still, the movie did something different to change minds and attitudes.
Before the movie came out, only about a third of the people who were asked thought that global warming was real. After that, 85% of the people thought that humans were partly to blame for climate change on Earth. This change in public opinion gave politicians the chance to start more than 15 new climate-related projects, and schools in many countries started showing the movie.
The activist film Food, Inc. gave an honest look at what industrial food production costs the public. It was a shocking expose of the food industry and how it affects people’s health, especially children’s. Important laws, like the Child Nutrition Act Reauthorization and the Food Safety Act, were changed because of the film.
Filmmakers are living in an exciting time. How we share information and ideas has changed a lot because of the Internet. Movies have always been a good way to get ideas and messages across to a large group of people. Now, thanks to digital media, we can keep those messages alive long after people leave the theater. More and more filmmakers are using their projects as the center of action campaigns. This extends the impact of the film and turns awareness of an issue into action that makes real change.
A few years ago, Vulcan Productions began trying out different ways to use film in social campaigns. We made a PBS documentary series called This Emotional Life. It was about how people want to be happy and how hard it is to get there. The movie coming out was just the beginning for us. We started a national outreach campaign and website at the same time. These two things have helped millions of people find social support and other resources. More than 200,000 toolkits were given to the friends and families of American service members all over the country. These kits helped them understand the stresses that come with deployment and gave them skills to become more resilient.
Apart from digital media, films also have the power to show what the future could be. It gives inspiration to many looking to be inspired. For example, movies can focus on certain subtleties that are often picked by ardent fans. Certain movies will have only iPhones in their characters hands and only use iPhone specific apps, like document scanning app for iPhones, and it will be later on picked by the audience, especially the ardent fans of the iPhones and Apple products. This document scanning app was often used in thrillers or courtroom dramas but the document scanning app for iPhone is often seen and has become generic in real-life use for all iPhones users.
Movies have the power to change the world one app, one device, one product at a time. It’s become so nuanced that its become a part that is no longer strange or deemed a surprise. Audience looks out for these nuances to later on associate himself with the talk of town movies.
We learned a lot from this project. Even after the film is over, it can still make people want to change.
When Vulcan Productions agreed to back Girl Rising, a soon-to-be-released movie about how important it is for girls to go to school, we knew we wanted to help bring attention to the issue and get people to do something about it. Girl Rising tells stories about nine young women in nine different places to show how education can help girls change their lives and their communities. The movie is the main part of a global campaign to get people to support programmes that help girls and push for policy changes that are related to this.
Even though the movie isn’t out yet, things are already changing. More than a quarter of a million dollars have been promised to help girls get an education. This includes money to build schools for girls in Cambodia and Afghanistan. The Intel Foundation has said that it will make sure that all of the girls in the movie have the resources they need to finish school.
Final Thoughts
Movies can really change the world, they can impact people’s life, give them life lessons and just be one of the ways to relax.