Creatively Empowering Generations. A Free Download.
Ideas are rarely solitary. One begets another until like agitated atoms hitting each other they leap above an entropy state into consciousness.
This is a story of three different ideas involving family, trends, and innovation that congealed into one to create an “aha” moment that went international. The result would be surprising. Now, I’d like to give it away as a download.
In recent years I’ve increasingly been asked to speak to secondary school (high school) students about careers. I tell stories, paint pictures with words, yet there’s one thing they all latch onto — the power of the visual and its associated theme.
Seems obvious, and I somehow think I should know. My mentor was one of the great TV producers in the 80s for advertising giants Saachi and Saachi, Jon Staton. But I’d realise something new from my interactions.
The First Lady Michelle Obama’s powerful oratory resonates. “There is no limit to what we , as women, can accomplish….”, she says. How could I creatively convey that?
Family
I’m inspired by my two sisters, Ama and Di. Ama raised her five children whilst attending university as a mature student after falling out of love with being a post woman. She became a successful art teacher, well loved by parents and school.
On one memorable school inspection, she entered the class with a tutu, dive mask and flippers, sporting a multi-coloured wig. She scored high in her teaching skills, but it’s what happened next that still gives me the giggles.
One of the inspectors, a suited spectacled stern-looking man, quietly asked Ama if she could inform him when she was next going to do something like this, because (er) he’d love to join in.
My older sis, Di, was our matriarch taking on responsibilities of looking after us growing up, away from our parents. She’d go onto work with young people in care.
Last year, both left the UK and their jobs bound for Ghana where we grew up to establish a new school. No limits!
Trends
Every year students across the UK assemble online on a platform called Rocking Ur Teens — a programme that inspires young men and women to see past stereotypes.
I’d been asked if I could share ideas with them around merging the arts with science, reflecting my background as a maths-chemistry grad who went into storytelling.
I’d retell a similar story as a guest lecture to New York University’ students in the UK, courtesy of the indefatigable Prof Jonathan Wilson. The photo by Jonathan above captures the moment we finished the lecture.
But moments earlier, as I led them through a historical journey of culture and innovation, they were all politely seated. I showed them a startling photo I co-produced, based on the iconic 1950s image of “A Great Day in Harlem”. It lines up some of the UK’s most respected TV producing talent, and with a book opens questions about how they made it. It moved them.
Then I showed them images of what they could do, or even become. Something amazingly different happened.
Innovation
What happens when the power of the image transcends the present, wrapped together with music which sends the imagination to new locales? Photography and film tell us. Invariably, these involves a range of resources, but what of now?
A decade plus ago a leading UK composer and conductor Professor Shirley Thompson (who played for the Queen and subsequently King Charles III) asked if I might provide a story to accompany her classical score, “Voices of change: 100 days of Barack Obama”.
Of course, I hesitantly said, not knowing whether I’d chewed off too much.
“Voices of change was scheduled to play at the Purcell Room, Southbank Centre and with Shirley’s score would attract rapturous applauds. But if not for a stroke of good fortune, I might have put a dent into a perfect day.
With four days to the concert I’d run my course finding content I could use to create a montage. Then a last throw of the dice. A desperate thought; I’d call friend Tom Kennedy (former video editor of Washington Post) to pour out my angst. Tom listened and said he would ring a friend, who would later ring me and me and leave me a message that would get me out of a hole. I pulled of my part of our agreement with Shirley with a day to go.
A week went by and on reflection I thought I could ideally have done with a wider range of material to tell this incredible story. But I should be grateful for small mercies. Tom rang me back. Did his friend come through? Yes I said. “Who was that?”, I asked. That‘s Pete Souza, chief official White House photographer for Presidents Obama and Ronald Reagan. Small mercies indeed.
The Present
You can be anything you want. Seeing it creates a reaction in our neuroplastic mind — a process called neuroplasticity. If you can see it, somehow it seems in reach. Otherwise as civil rights activist Marian Wright Edelman put it “You can’t be what you can’t see”.
My sisters saw something emboldened by experience. The students locked onto images and narratives when describing a future. Obama’s presidency created the feeling that anything is possible.
I’d been having my usual free-flowing conversation with a friend early January 2024. Sometime later he came back to me reminding me of something I’d said: the prospect of a woman President in the US and Prime Minister in the UK — a Black woman. In both cases Kamala Harris was still a VP, and the idea of a Black woman leading a party in the UK was still remote.
Dr Carlton Brown is nothing, if not politely insistent. He’d return to the theme, explaining how it could be impactful for a successful conference he runs for entrepreneurs, showcased at the NatWest Conference centre.
From one thought three ideas coalesced.
Unlike the Obama video, what if you could let the audience literally see a hero’s journey? Instead of the theme being about a presidency, what if the story captured a plethora of offices — inspired too by my sisters? Rather than being hamstrung by the lack of images, what if Gen AI was used, trained too on some of my own library?
Moreover, for the cost of next to nothing, the ability to convey an idea that resonates with an audience could now be fully in anyone’s hand.
The result was this, opening the UK Black Business Entrepreneurs conference, “Empowered”. The narrative is a young girl dreaming of breaking glass ceiling, after glass ceiling to a live score by London’s GT Choir who have appeared on the BBC, Children in Need and ITV.
Empowered would subsequently be chosen last November to play in theatres at the first AI film and Arts festival in the US, in Arizona and has garnered warm words on social media: “Impressive and stunning” “amazing to watch” and “Don’t miss it!
It’s been a fulfilling journey, but truly for the film it shouldn’t stop there.
It’s often said Art, like life itself, is meant to be experienced, shared, and celebrated, so in that spirit I’ve decided to make available the cinema quality version of this AI made film for anyone working to inspire youngsters, working in careers or otherwise champion diversity.
If you’re interested drop me a line at David(at)Viewmagazine(dot)TV.
