Finding Balance Poster

MediaStorm Releases New Client Project for the United Nations Forum on Forests

We are pleased to release Finding Balance: Our Future, Our Forests, produced in collaboration with the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) for the upcoming Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. Part of the UNFF’s mission is to change the way policymakers view forest-related issues. Previously forest preservation was considered an environmental issue. In order to create more lasting and far-reaching change, the UNFF believes it is necessary to also include social and economic values in discussions about forest preservation. Forests are, in many complicated ways, interconnected with the lives of people and cultures. MediaStorm worked with UNFF to create a piece that shows the landscape view of this issue, including why forests are important, why they are under threat, what is at stake, and what might be the solution.

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MediaStorm Two Premieres

Recap: MediaStorm World Premiere of A Shadow Remains and Rite of Passage

From left: Brian Storm, Maggie Steber, Phillip Toledano and Tim McLaughlin at the premiere. Photo by David Keenan. Last night MediaStorm hosted the world premiere of A Shadow Remains by Phillip Toledano and Rite of Passage by Maggie Steber at Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn, NY. MediaStorm founder and executive producer, Brian Storm, started the evening by welcoming the audience to the event and then quickly turning to the films, first screening Rite of Passage by Maggie Steber, then Phillip Toledano’s A Shadow Remains. After watching the films, Brian invited Phillip, Maggie, and one of the films' producers, Tim McLaughlin, (producers Jennifer Redfearn and Rob Finch were not able to attend the event) to the stage for a Q&A with the audience. Before opening the floor to questions, Brian explained how the projects came to be. He initially approached both Maggie and Phillip about working together on their pieces over four years…

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A Shadow Remains Poster

MediaStorm Releases A Shadow Remains and Rite of Passage

We are pleased to release two new MediaStorm projects A Shadow Remains by Phillip Toledano and Rite of Passage by Maggie Steber. Phillip and Maggie are both celebrated photographers who turned their cameras on themselves and the ones closest to them at a time of deep introspection—the end of their parents’ lives. While both originally started photographing these events for their personal albums, their experiences magnified in importance over the years spent with their aging parents. As time passed, caring for their parents brought them through a process of self discovery that taught them as much about themselves as the loved ones for which they were caring. In the end, both Phillip and Maggie were left with bodies of work that relate not only their personal journeys, but speak to universal themes of love, life and family. MediaStorm is proud to have partnered with both Phillip and Maggie to tell their individual…

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Why We Switched to a Pay Per Story Model

Today we launched two new MediaStorm stories. We worked on these projects for almost a year and everyone on the staff contributed to them. Over the past seven years, we’ve done this countless times: used our resources to produce something we believed in, then distributed the final product freely on the Web. As an early producer of online documentary multimedia, our primary mission has been to raise awareness about important issues through a robust social media network. We’ve also tried to create a model that others could use so that more storytellers could harness the medium to effect change. By distributing our stories for free, we’ve been able to reach millions of viewers and bring attention to important causes ranging from climate change to conflict resolution. But the reality is, no company or industry can sustain itself for long without producing a product for which people are willing to pay. At MediaStorm…

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Bring it to the table

Support ‘Bring it to the Table’ on Kickstarter

Talking Eyes Media (TEM), a non-profit organization with a long history of producing powerful media for pressing issues, needs your support for their Bring it to the Table Kickstarter campaign. What is Bring it to the Table? It's a video and web project that brings citizens together around issues that normally tear us apart. The Problem Somewhere along the line, politics replaced sex as the one thing in America we don't discuss in mixed company – even amongst friends and family. Democracy is founded on robust dialogue, and if we can't have conversations across party lines, democracy doesn't work. The Solution Bring it to the Table is a participatory online platform, community engagement campaign, and a series of webisodes aimed at bridging political divides and elevating the national conversation. The project is for those who are tired of hyper-partisanship and want to steer political discourse back into the hands of the American…

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