Cinekid Industry Forum Report 2020

INDUSTRY FORUM REPORT 2020

A GAME A DAY, KEEPS THE DOCTOR AWAY? Hanneke Scholten & Ken Koontz GEMH Lab toppers Ken Kootz (Creative Director) and Hanneke Scholten (professor, behavioural scientist) talked about how they combine their disciplines in creating games to benefit kids with mental health problems.

Hanneke started off by explaining how their work (which they started in 2013) focusses on high levels of emotional mental problems in youth. One in four young people suffer from mental health problems, a figure that is rising due to Covid.

One problem has been that only 50% of these sufferers are helped by the interventions that GEMH introduces. Another problem was that they were only getting to see 20% of youths with mental problems in the first place. The other 80% didn’t know they needed help or didn’t want help, or felt stigmatised by the need to seek it.

In 2014 the director of the GEMH Lab wrote an influential paper on the benefits of playing video games, underlining how ‘play’ regulates their emotions, influences their decision to try out certain behaviours and/ or try to find alternative solutions. It helps deal with unavoidable failure and promotes perseverance in the face of failure. Importantly, this is as pertinent to online as well as offline play.

One of the biggest advantages of video games in engagement, Hanneke said, closely followed by the retention skills that they

help develop. There is less stigma attached to playing a game, rather than going to a psychologist, and they are very accessible and can be personalised to needs.

The GEMH Lab framework is based on development psychology, intervention design and design thinking, she added at this point.

Their mission is based on transforming how mental health interventions are designed, delivered and experienced in as impactful a way as possible. What is essential is that all their work is grounded in science and evidence and practices, Hanneke added.

Ken said that the focus of his creative work was in observing what was useful and effective and to develop that experience more into the design of future games. He can therefore co-design and co-create using this evidence, not just qualitative but quantitative, which helps form an impact framework for producers. “The coolest part of what we are doing is when we really get into the science side and the science side joins our side.”

They discussed the example of Mindlight, the neuro-feedback 3D video game designed to prevent and treat anxiety among children between 8 and 12 years of age. It is used as prevention and sometimes as treatment.

In the game a boy goes into the haunted house of his grandmother, a really scary place (especially for young children), but the kids/users

wear a headset that they can use to guide them through the game using their minds. It uses evidence-based psychological mechanisms, translates them into game mechanics and then uses that to decrease anxiety, said Ken. It is their most tested game for which they made randomised control trials. In one study they screened the game for 1200 kids between the ages of 7 and 12. The ones that were scared were asked to participate in the study. These were split into two groups.

One played Mindlight for 5 weeks at school, whereas the other group got “gold standard” cognitive behavioural therapy treatment.

In the study the children that undertook Mindlight treatment performed as well as their counterparts undertaking the cognitive therapy. These results were “mind-blowing,” Hanneke said, in showing the impact of games and how they can be used in the future, both in a preventative and a treatment setting.

Hanneke’s favourite study in determining what part of Mindlight worked best was in observing and coding the behaviour of kids playing the game. She discovered that the kids who were really facing up to their fears showed a marked decrease in anxiety 3 months later. But for the kids who were looking for safe spots, or hiding, or turning on lights as they watched, their levels of anxiety stayed the same or even increased.

Hit and Run is a game developed to help young people (aged 16-25) who want to quit smoking. Hanneke and Ken based the game on impulse control, whereby the players are encouraged to respond to images of non-smoking, and inhibit responses to images that showed smoking.

The game also places increased focus on a better (healthier) future, as well as the supportive network of peers, which is very important for young people, Hanneke said.

In their research, they talked to young smokers and they were surprised to discover that even at an early age they really wanted to quit already. Also that they didn’t want to talk to a psychologist about it, nor take medication. They wanted a way of quitting that they could do on their own, preferably something tailor-made which they could turn to at the point of craving a cigarette, and something that could emphasise the support of their peer group.

Ken said that ‘runner’ games were a good place to start, but also something that added a strong sense of competition and a support group component. In the game he designed you therefore have to both co-operate and compete within a team that is set daily challenges. These act as smoking replacement therapy. Instead of having a smoke, you play the game, help your team out and at the same time chat via the game to offer and receive encouragement. The game had a soft cap of 15 mins (about the length of time to go outside for a cigarette) so as to not simply replace one addiction for another.

The results were a little disappointing as it didn’t perform any better than unusual self-help material.

But changing behaviour is a tough ask and great results were never to be expected.

That said, those participants who invested in, and liked, the game showed much better results, whereas the effect on those who are not into games in the first

not into games in the first place was poor.

Also the people who had a more supportive peer network showed the best effects.

What was interesting was that the game offered real world results as people played it in their own time on their own phones, as opposed to Mindlight which was very much a controlled study.

The team have garnered more research money to both further develop and test Hit and Run.

TAKE-OUTS: The GEMH work is grounded in science, evidence and practice Ken can co-design and co-create using evidence, not just qualitative but quantitative, which helps form an impact framework for producers The children that undertook Mindlight video game treatment performed as well as their counterparts undertaking cognitive therapy.

BEYOND INCLUSION; MAKING SPACE FOR MORE PERSPECTIVES Wa’qaar A Mirza, Sandhya Nankani & Jillian Emanuels Entrepreneur Wa’qaar A Mirza (UK), award-winning producer Sandhya Nankani (NY) and educational consultant, a project coordinator and trainer Jillian Emanuels formed the final panel at Cinekid Forum to discuss the need for cultural diversification – both on and off-screen.

Wa’qaar kicked off with a two-part anecdote describing how he was racially abused on a London bus by a kid of no older than six or seven. Aside from this, as a grandad he was aware that some of the programmes that kids were watching were, in his opinion, utterly valueless. When he thought about it more, he could see a link between the two facts. Busy parents, kids who are being ignored and without stimuli to keep them adequately engaged were, he felt, factors which contributed to the behaviour he had witnessed. And so

he decided to react, producing Zayn and Zayna’s Little Farm, a pre-school animated show dedicated to seeding inclusive ideas and teachable moments in kindness, mindfulness, family, and community within all children.

Sandiya spoke about producers as advocates, describing that she works at the intersection of education, entertainment and research, always connecting the dots and mulling over the industry’s responsibilities to kids.

She therefore sees herself as much as an advocate as a producer, often thinking of children as consumers who rarely have control over that which they are consuming. There are multiple gatekeepers within the consumption of children’s content, “so when

you are creating for kids you are also creating for parents.”

She defined ‘inclusion’ as a feeling of being part of something, and which she adheres to on a daily basis. How can she help a child feel seen or represented? This is a question which are guiding lights for her.

She quoted from the key rights for children as determined by the Designing for Children’s Rights non-profit organisation, highlighting specifically the assertion: “you don’t know me, so make sure you include me.”

Sandiya further stressed how a metaphor describing literature as windows, doors and mirrors is, for her, a guiding principle to offer opportunities for her consumers – kids.

The production process does not need diversity sauce, she added. It needs something altogether more robust and thorough, a series of ‘milestones’ to guarantee inclusivity in the production process that must be considered when creating a product from the very start to the very finish, across all stages of the making process, from hiring to concept design, to casting, art production and marketing production. And the best way to guarantee this is by closely following detailed check-lists.

And system change starts with children, she stressed, “giving the kids the tools to change the inequity.”

Next up was educational consultant Jillian who defined what she meant by anti-racism.

It is about deeds, not words, she underlined.

“It is a firm and active stance against racism.

It is not neutrality, it’s not doing nothing. It’s actively working against the system of racism.”

If you see that people of colour (or indeed gender) are being unfairly treated, she said, then you speak up. You have to put in the work for change. And as kids are so receptive to what they see, consuming media all day, then integrating anti-racism into content underlines its fundamental necessity as a principle.

This means no stereotypical representation, and doing intensive research that includes the active involvement of people of colour.

It is imperative that children of colour see themselves equally represented on screen, which Jillian didn’t feel was currently the case. “It is harming all children, not just children of colour.”

Representation leads to self-esteem. Non-representation leads to self-doubt, and is therefore limiting, she added.

Wa’qaar was asked if he felt it was difficult to inject the concept of diversity and inclusiveness into the heart of companies.

“Everybody is about money, about commercialisation, about monetisation,” he answered. “There is this thing that it is not really an asset worth chasing.”

But he senses a change in the air. “Now I think probably for the first time in history that diversity will start to play a part into the media. Where we are today, in my opinion, is we are in the greatvest time in media. I do not think there has been a better time to reset the moral compass, to move away from true reality and bring us some real values in messages that are for the pre-school or kids market,” he said.

“I think we will see this change, this sea-change where diversity will come in, you will see

more characters of different colour and different backgrounds and I hope of different faiths too. And the only way they are going to do this is to bring in stories that are rich in culture, rich about other people’s way of life, their traditions and what makes them tick, and I think that is what is going to happen, and that’s what needs to happen.”

“I agree with Wa’qaar,” added Sandiya. “We need media and shows and music videos and YouTubes that show and help children understand each other’s cultures and connect them to unfamiliar worlds… Children are just consuming things we don’t even know about anymore. I am learning things on a daily basis.”

Added Jillian: My hope for the future is that more people become aware of the importance of showing children the diversity of the world, exactly what Wa’qaar said, that it is normal to see people of colour just being in society, just being a doctor or being a lawyer or just being themselves. I hope more people are seeing the importance of it but also [be aware] of the little part they can make.”

TAKE-OUTS: Production milestones must guarantee inclusivity in the production process, underlined by comprehensive checklists.

Representation leads to self-esteem.

Non-representation leads to self-doubt.

CREATING DIGITAL HANGOUTS David Kleeman David Kleeman, Senior Vice President of Global Trends for strategy and research at studio Dubit, looked at how behavioural dynamics shifted with Covid-19, turning many kids’ home lives into their only lives.

Unsurprisingly, since March, ‘in-person’ play hasn’t been possible in many places or for many children, so physical time with friends has been a missing component in their lives. Thus they have had to seek other ways to remain in touch.

This led the widening of social and communication channels within the ‘big three’ online games (Fortnight/Minecraft/Roblox) that allowed kids to socialize well beyond the scope or terms of the games. Millions attended the Travis Scott and Marshmallo concerts via Fortnite for example while Roblox offered up the One World: Together at Home – Global Citizen COVID-19.

Kids are creative beasts and therefore embraced and adapted what they were offered, extending the possibilities of Zoom and Discord for example.

Facebook Messenger Kids saw a rise of 66% year on year in the US, David explained, which changed the conversation in two ways, firstly from a parents’ perspective who were better able to stay in touch with their kids, and secondly it enabled kids to stay in touch with the schoolfriends or team mates they couldn’t meet up with physically.

Kids also wanted a way to watch movies with their friends (with accompanying annotation via text annotation, of course) and platforms responded by creating satisfying ways to enable kids to watch together, such as Teleparty, GroupWatch and PrimeVideo Watch Party.

David spoke of the series Lockdown out of Canada (from Sinking Ship Entertainment) that was entirely shot by the kids in the cast, building its story around events in lockdown, but going well beyond just Corona-related stuff. It offered audiences therefore a familiar platform setting (cast related to each other on social media, whether it be Zoom or TikTok dances, or texting etc) to talk about interesting and topical issues such as race, family economics, health vulnerability etc. The concept was, David said, pitched and sold in a day, then developed, shot and edited within 6-8 weeks to get it on to YouTube originals. A second series has been commissioned. It was very of the moment, with no three-year development process involved. (In three years’ time who is going to watch a series developed during, and about, lockdown?, David asked.)

David then examined why social games are so popular before moving on to the example of Animal Crossing. He then looked to Roblox, home for so many so many games and which is considered to be the YouTube of games.

Many games are intuitive, immersive stories,

ones that gamers can live through, he said.

They can cater for small groups or for a mass of players. They involved interaction via in-game conversations. They can be competitive or collaborative size, and players can meet together in online hang-outs. What’s more, they inherently involve problem solving or strategizing that can be applied to real-world situations.

Animal Crossing was a huge hit in early lockdown ,“a perfect game for the moment”.

We all had lots of time and we didn’t want any added pressure or complications. It was open-ended with neither clocks nor timers, nor winners or losers. Like Minecraft you could dip in or really immerse yourself into it. It was social but safe and you could monitor who to engage with on it. It was constructive and community-building and parents and kids could play together with kids acting as teachers.

Roblox has 150m monthly active users, David told us, and half of all kids in the US play on it weekly. 16 games have over 1bn players, and ‘Piggy’ had 5 billion plays in the past 6 months sonce its January 2020 launch. For young developers, there is a low cost to designing their own games, but the potential community is massive. (Roblox comes highly recommended by Dubit).

Brands are finding greater user awareness via Roblox than through their own marketing efforts. Many brands may already be up on Roblox before brand managers are even aware. What’s more, savvy brands are happy to maintain a hands-off attitude and will happily embrace user-generated content, as long as it isn’t harmful to the brand.

There are 40 million games on the platform and kids love getting creative on it, which feeds into kids’ desire to share and interact with fellow gamers/users, and to meet-up.

The site isn’t age-gated, unlike most social platforms. In July 2020 Roblox launched Party Place for private gatherings. Kids as young as 5 play but Roblox is encouraging more complex games on site to hang on to teens and young adults.

In conclusion, David said that everyone is now in the kids business, and therefore it is imperative to pay close attention to laws and policies. Even if there is an age gate, even if your platform was not designed for use by younger kids, even if you believe it is secure and non-hackable - you are always responsible for its misuse!!!

On the subject of digital loiterers, yes you may wish to get rid of them, but they may well be your customers of tomorrow, the ones you really want to attract when they are the right age. If you can find a way to welcome them in, build a safe version of your platform the way Facebook built Messenger Kids. If you can find a way to let them Zoom in a way that feels safe to them, to let them play in Roblox and have a good satisfying experience, then it’s a lot easier to hold on to a happy customer than to try and win back a disgruntled one.

TAKE-OUTS: Facebook Messenger Kids saw a rise of 66% year on year in the US Roblox has 150m monthly active users and half of all kids in the US play on it weekly.

Brands are finding greater user awareness via Roblox than through their own marketing efforts.

Think about embracing digital loiterers rather than discouraging their participation.

EARTH SPEAKR – KIDS’ CLIMATE MESSAGES Peter Lund & Taylor Dover Taylor Dover, co-director of Encounters at Studio Olafur Eliasson, and Peter Lund, Global Chief Creative Officer of creative solutions company AKQA, came to Cinekid Forum to talk about the interactive EarthSpeakr app.

Earthspeakr is an AR app designed by artist Olafur Eliasson that enables children to digitally transplant faces onto their environment and allow them to speak on behalf of the planet, thereby giving them a voice in discussions about the climate crisis. The faces, designed by the kids, are CGI and three-dimensional and, in mirroring their own expressions and movements, also mirror their environmental fears and concerns.

These faces are then superimposed onto the kid’s surroundings or objects therein, be it a cloud, a pond, a plastic bag or a cloud, and uploaded with an accompanying verbal message to give the impression that the superimposed face is talking, and hence that the environment is talking. Because at the heart of the exercise is the question: if the planet had a voice, what would it say?

At the same time, adults can “amplify” their favourite messages and share them with others using Loud Speakrs, or AR playlists, that can be located specifically within prominent locations on the virtual map (such as the European Parliament in Brussels) and accessed using the app.

It is an artwork made with kids not for kids, Taylor underlined, and invites kids to speak up for the planet. Every bit of content will be made by kids, because it considers the kids to be the ‘experts’. They will be on the planet for a lot longer than most of the people who are currently making decisions on their behalf, he stressed. We have politicians whose job it is to make decisions about our future, so it is incumbent upon them to listen to the ‘expert’ opinions of kids, which are core to Earthspeakr.

Fully participatory, the app is free and accessible to the public across the whole of the EU, and thereafter across the whole world.

It was created to celebrate Germany’s presidency of the Council of the European Union this year

The audience for EarthSpeakr is potentially vast: 28 EU member nations, 377 regions and 91,422 municipalities and 120,255 public elementary schools. And beyond. It will need therefore to be speak (at least) 24 languages.

“We really believe that we have to be hopeful in this project,” said Taylor. “Olafur wants to focus on the future, but we are not interested in a future that is worse than yesterday.

We need to think of a future that is better than yesterday…As an artist studio we believe that the best way to be hopeful about the wellbeing of the planet is to be creative, and using the creative experience with kids to express hope and to find ways of sharing hope and solutions.”

An initial goal was to make sure that there was activity within every country of Europe. This ambition was met soon after the Eathspeakr launch in July 2020. There have been over 100,000 downloads of the app and every 30 minutes there are 700+ active users online. The Europe-wide creative community is growing and both Taylor and Peter are targeting World Children’s Day on November 20 for which they are planning a collective Europe-wide (and worldwide) ‘listening moment’ involving all adults - politicians and parent alike – to listen, acknowledge and share the messages of kids.

TAKE-OUTS: At the heart of the exercise is the question: if the planet had a voice, what would it say?

The audience for EarthSpeakr is potentially vast: 28 EU member nations, 377 regions and 91,422 municipalities and 120,255 public elementary schools. 24 languages.

100,000 downloads of the app and every 30 minutes there are 700+ active users online.

ETHICAL MARKETING, AESTHETIC ADVERTISEMENT Safi Graauw & Pete Robinson Director and cinematographer Safi Graauw joined researcher and strategist Pete Robinson to discuss how to build and maintain an ethical dimension within advertising.

Safi was a curious kid, he said, as he described his trajectory towards filmmaking. He developed an acute awareness of the planet and the dangers it faces early in life when watching the Documentary channel and National Geographic docs. “I was enriching myself about the world I wanted to change.”

He further went on to study environmental sciences. When introduced to the possibilities of film by a friend he targeted the advertising industry. ‘I took my first steps towards an industry that was completely ready to be changed,” he said.

Researcher Peter Robinson, Chief Strategy Officer at KidsKnowsBest, explained his modus operandi: “My job is to help the creators understand how their text and content is interpreted,” he said. “I can look at it from an ethical perspective, I can look at it from an audience perspective. I can also look at it from a creative perspective… and start to make sure that the communication that is going out there is something that audiences want to see and makers want to make.”

Did Peter see Safi’s need for industry change? “Yes, not only does the industry want to change, it has to change,” he responded.

“Nowadays people are always switched on.

People choose a content to watch, and that creates an algorithm that sets the next piece of content so we are the commissioners

of our own content. And in order, as an industry, to be able to deliver the stuff to people that they want, then we really have to listen to them because everything is set up to help make sure that what we want to hear gets heard, and thankfully we have seen really good movements out of the back of that, the environmental sciences being a really key thing.”

He added how his father was head of Climate Change at the Met Office at a time when climate change wasn’t even a proven fact, “and now it’s kids leading that way forward, and that’s why I really like working in kids media because we have these empowered young people who have grown up in digital, know how to use and communicate through digital and the industry has to keep up with that….[and now] digital natives are entering the work place.”

Safi spoke passionately about the ability of humans to create “fictive’’ narratives that sets us apart as a species, especially as they help us create belief structures. “If stories can drive such human advancement by making humans believe in something, then an industry like the ad industry that operates on such a large scale has a very large role to play in spreading norms and values that make humans believe in (and invest in) things.”

Pete agreed, responding how brands these days “for longevity have to be able to stand up and say this is what I stand for, and the best example of this I can give of this is Lego,

which has done a fantastic job in talking about sustainability, of driving forward innovation in sustainability, but I always go back to the single fact that Lego has always been such a sustainable product because we don’t throw it way, we keep it, we pass it on through generations.”

Safi gave the 2015 example of his ad work for the NGO JustDiggIt, on landscape restoration in sub-Saharan Africa, a project which now focuses on Eastern Africa. “It was the first time I realised you could harness the power of advertising to actually do something good…As soon as I met them the questions that I had about the advertising industry - how am I going to change it, how am I going to harness it, how does it work? were answered by them.”

Three months after hearing a presentation by the NGOs founders, after which Safi

introduced himself, he was in the middle of Kenya sleeping with the Masai and making a documentary about how they are coping with climate change. “The impact of JustDiggIt has been insane because this documentary was about the socio-economic benefits for the Masai,” he said. “In the Masai population itself you could see that the relationship between males and females was different because females were empowered… [and] you could immediately see results in the landscape restoration project [which entailed land perforation to allow rain water to reach old seeds in the soil] and in one rainy season all the vegetation grows back.”

That was the result of one project, he commented, as the idea of regreening took hold, “and seeing that belief grow and also seeing that ‘story’ can make people believe and rally around a certain idea. That was one of the big first impacts I have seen from doing

doing these projects.”

Peter agreed: “Ethical research is going and sitting there and observing humans behaving, and looking for solutions. That’s where the best advertising and ability to change things comes from, because you are solving problems.”

Safi looked at the issue within a wider context: “Me, myself, I do think we are in a paradigm shift of looking at the perception of young people to their environment. That paradigm shift kind of leads to gaining the curiosity of young people, and that’s why they are looking into and trying to understand their environment, and for that part I am very optimistic.”

Peter was not quite so optimistic, arguing that those who needed targeting, and convincing, by the adverting industry are older generations. “The thing I think is important is that it’s not just about kids. Adults, some of them are pretty clueless at interpreting information… Climate change has been going in for a long time…and issues with diversity in terms of race and gender.”

“We have all these things that exist out there that need to change. They are not going to change quickly and they do need these steps, and I think they will change but there is a lot of people abusing the system and taking the opportunity to drive wedges between us.”

“But I am really hopeful when Safi gives the example of parents and kids going to the streams and taking readings of the water.

Little things that to me feel like it’s a start, and you have to build and build on that.”

TAKE-OUTS: Brands must listen ever more attentively to consumers who are “commissioners of our own content”.

Brands must both articulate an demonstrate their ethical probity to an increasingly sophisticated and media savvy customer base.

Younger consumers may be forcing industry change but more conservative/ reactionary consumers still need a lot more convincing.

GENDER REPRESENTATION Diana Sno & Thorn Roos de Vries Screenwriter Diana and actor Thorn came to Forum to talk about the SpangaS series and the creation, for the first time on Dutch television, of a core non-binary character, that of Lesly. Thorn is also non-binary.

Diana has a non-binary kid herself and insisted that the show she was writing should reflect the world she recognised. “I think everyone deserves representation. It was never done before, I thought it was about time.

My own child is non-binary and I really realised how important it was for them to see representation in mainstream media,” she said.

Thorn was tagged in a Facebook post which led to their audition. Prior to this Thorn had never acted before although they harboured

ambitions as a child, but felt very shy to pursue it at an earlier age. They said that they went with their gut feeling – “as long as you believe it, other people will too.”

Moderator Fadoua Alaoui asked Thorn about the use of personal pronoun. Some binaries use him and her, but Thorn prefers they/them. The best practice is to ask first, they said, although they would like to normalise the they/them usage.

Despite Diana’s insistence on writing a non-binary character, this was never to be Lesly’s raison d’etre within the series. What was more important was that Lesly had “a lot of nice, fun personality traits. Being non-binary is not a personality trait. Lesly is non-binary but Lesly is so much more. Lesly is an excitement character so there is always a

of fun, a lot of chaos around them…a lot of drama.”

Diana also insisted that Lesly was introduced as a complete character from the word go, avoiding the tropes of the secret, the big reveal, bullying etc.

Some cast members suggested that more explanation was necessary, but Diana did not want to be limited to telling the non-binary story in a cliched manner.

Thorn pointed out that after broadcast the conversation about non-binary moved pretty seamlessly from the TV screen to living rooms without having to spell it out. They also said how most reactions from the public were positive, especially from the parents and kids who experienced the situation themselves.

Inevitably

there

was

also

a

negative

backlash and Thorn received death threats from what they referred to as “keyboard warriors”. This was an indication of the importance of the subject, Thorn expressed.

Has this role limited Thorn’s future choice of roles? “Of course I hope that there will be more parts like this, non-binary characters where it is just ambiguous and the whole gender identity doesn’t even matter and it’s just a character. I am hoping that for now I am good at this show. I need to learn a lot more and let’s see what happens.”

Writing and shooting the show during the pandemic was difficult, whereby nuanced conversation on character development was rendered almost impossible, ”so we were left with what we wrote,” said Diana.

But subsequent conversation was played out on set between the two.

There is constant C-testing on set, and everybody is masked up when not in front of the camera. There are always tests before kissing or fight scenes. Extras are scarce, so the mise-en-scene is, a lot of the time, devoid of people other than main actors and five extras maximum, which contrasts with the people-packed scenes of the past.

How did the role change Thorn’s outlook?

Yes, there is finally a non-binary character represented on TV, but it is only one. So they feel the burden of responsibility to be a role model. They receive a lot of sweet messages but it can be emotionally draining to supply endless answers to questions on Instagram.

And what of the future of the SpangaS series? “Representation will always be part of my work,” Diana answered. “In everything I do. That has mainly to do with the fact that when I grew up I was always looking for somebody on television, film or in books who looked like me. And there was no-one. That kind of made me who I am, and I don’t want that for other people. I doubted myself. It did something in the way I saw myself. I was not important [enough] to tell the story with or around. I could only be a person who was either the best friend or the punch-line of a story.”

How did Diana try to change this for herself?

She looked to the States. She saw shows like Cosby. But they were American, and there was still no-one bi-racial like her… “so I really really missed that, and I think that is why in my work as a screenwriter it is important, and I will always be working on that”. She said that when she looks ahead, all of her future projects will have something the representation of minority groups at their core.

TAKE-OUTS: First non-binary representation on Dutch tv.

Non-binary character presented as a complete character from the off. No clunky explanations necessary.

Diana saw non personal equivalence within Dutch media and set out to change this

KEYNOTE ALISON GOPNIK In her key-note, professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley, Alison Gopnik addressed the subject of why human childhood is so long when compared to that of other species. Basically, the longer the childhood, the smarter the animal. Childhood is also a state that involves multiple carers, and not just parents.

She looked to avine species for comparison. Chickens mature within weeks of hatching but show little by way of cognition in adulthood. A crow on the other hand, doesn’t come to full maturity until it has reached two years, in which time it has been fed and protected by a parent and has learned much in the process. This period is excellent for learning, during which they hone advanced techniques for feeding.

The same principle applies to children.

Between birth and the age of five, a period blissfully free of responsibility, all the cerebral synapses begin to form. Early brain development is designed for learning, not for doing. (Brain development in teen years determines that kids are good at doing but not so great at learning).

What’s more, at the age of five, Alison pointed out, 66% of calories go the brain.

But why is this this the case? These days, she argues, we are instrumental in affecting and changing our environment.

But during the early development of the human species, we ourselves were subject to climate change and the vagaries of a hostile planet, and therefore adapted to, or evolved within, an environment of unpredictability. This led to an evolutionary need for protection of the young.

The end result is an early-years period of exploration that eventually merges into a process of exploitation in later childhood. The signature element of this early stage of exploration is play, or ‘useful uselessness’, which can be broken into two broad types, external exploration, which is about engaging with the world, and internal exploration which is more to do with imagination and pretend play.

Gopnik showed an interesting study showing how babies react to ‘knowledge violation’. Watching the progress of a toy car that hovers in the air instead of falling to the ground, the baby completed the action by dropping it to the ground. When the car’s progress was arrested by it bumping into a wall, the child mimicked what it saw in banging the toy car on the desk before him/her.

Gopnik went on to discuss imaginary friends, pointing out these are very common and should not be a worry for parents. 60% of kids have imaginary friends, she said, quoting detailed research. Their function is to enable children to figure out the real world and their relationship with the people in it.

What is equally interesting is how research shows that the kids are fully aware that their imaginary are indeed ‘imaginary’, and what’s more are perfectly happy to admit to this. A video clip showed the young girl Hermione discussing her imaginary friends on the moon, proving that it is possible to produce imaginary friends who exist beyond the realms of reality.

TAKE-OUTS: Humans have greater cognitive awareness because childhood is longer.

Early childhood is characterised by need to explore, late childhood by need to exploit.

Signature element of the earlier stage of exploration is play.

60% of kids have an imaginary friend, a way of seeking to understand the world

KEYNOTE NICHOLAS MIRZOEFF As a visual activist, working at the intersection of politics, race and global/visual culture, Nicholas’ keynote was about ways of ‘seeing’ and the very specific ways in which young people see the world.

He started by pointing out the New Majority in the world since 2008. Most people are under 30 and by 2050 a quarter of the world’s population will be African, and many of those will be very young. Most people live in cities, most of these people don’t live in formal housing in the cities, rather in informal houses, aka slums or shacks, equating to 25% of the world’s population as a whole and 50% of the population of those who love in cities.

At the same time though, people have internet access, which makes it the first universal medium on which people can both post and receive info, in increasing numbers via smartphones, hence visually.

In the past all this would have meant a boom, but instead we are in the middle of a climate crisis, Nicholas observed.

How does this global majority assert itself?

It doesn’t, underlined Nicholas. It has no claim to power, meaning that as a whole our world is profoundly undemocratic.

New York When Nicholas first moved to NY 15 years ago, he learnt a lesson. His six-year old daughter saw a homeless person. When he explained this, she began to cry. Could they not bring him home?

We should all be upset by this sight and this experience, but for the most part we successfully filter out such upsetting things. This is the phenomenon of ‘unseeing’, he said.

He then showed us a photo of a homeless person to illustrate the pandemic in NY in 2020. The photo was actually taken in London in 1995 but from the perspective of the photo editor, there was no difference whatsoever, Nicholas commented. Both examples of homelessness were generic, both the same. “That reduction, that stripping of a person’s humanity, was exactly what my daughter could see and I could not.”

Nicholas cited Walter Benjamin who wrote about “the shock effect” in which the media train us, allowing us to experience scary and unpleasant events and then to filter them, so we become inured to them.

What’s more media shelter us from others, teaches us that we can be separated from others about whom we should in fact be caring more than we do. We can therefore, he said, filter out information about horrendous homeless numbers in the US for example (575,000 in the US, 78,600 in NY city, one million NY school kids get free meals).

But then the pandemic struck. When schools were closed, who would feed the kids?

Where would the unhoused spend their time during the day? In hesitating to shut down NY for a whole week, it is believed that thousands extra died. “We have also then to understand that not seeing

other humans as fully human has consequences for all of us,” Nicholas opined.

Nicholas stressed that he wanted to think about ‘ways of seeing’ as a concept, talking about how we view the world, how we filter it, how we draw conclusions from what we see or don’t see. We do this often unconsciously but it is often a learned process, he argued, and one that therefore can be unlearned or altered.

London The term ‘way of seeing’ was originally coined by poet and immigrant George Lamming. At a reading at London’s ICA he received louder than necessary applause – he effectively saw how he had been ‘seen’, reflected in the applause. Another poet later came up and verbally attacked TS Eliot who was in the room at the time. The new poet was booed and Lamming immediately recognised that the new poet was ‘seen’ differently, as not being one of the poetry community, excluded and separated by their way of ‘seeing’ him. So it’s not visual, it’s cultural, about how we distinguish ourselves form those who are not part of our group, and the consequences, said Nicholas.

We were then shown a picture of 1950s Notting Hill, then a far from salubrious area and, at the time, very much a centre of racial tension. It showed four West Indian men walking down a road. Eyes are straight ahead but wary. One West Indian however is looking at the camera. Four kids are staring at the men, showing a reaction of profound astonishment as the men go by. Ahead are four youths who are studiously ‘not seeing’ the West Indians, because seeing them would preface a violent exchange. And they

do not which to do so, so they are ‘unseeing them’. In this one photograph there were four ways of ‘seeing’, plus the method of ‘seeing’ employed by the photographer. How we identify with the scene depends on who we identify with in the picture, Nicholas underlined.

In 2020, we are part of a ubiquitous visual culture; 400 YouTube uploads per hour, 3.5bn SnapChat photos per day, 6 billion hours of YouTube watched per month, 1.2 trillion photos per year. “It is a culture that pays attention to itself through visual media, and one that identifies itself primarily through visual media forms. But there is text and sound, so it is not about vision, but about ways if seeing in examining and interpreting the world,” said Nicholas.

Changing conceptions of the ‘child’.

Juvenile courts began in 1899 (US) when the child was interpreted within a legal context.

A young person between the years of 7 and 21 (and later 18) could not be tried as they were not considered to be fully responsible.

But since 1980, more juveniles are tried as ‘adults’, whereby a ‘fiction’ is applied based on the seriousness of the crime. It is estimated that 250,000 juveniles are tried as adults, mostly African-American young men. This indicates that there is no given concept of the child, or young person, as the definition changes historically and culturally.

In 1960, “teenager” meant 12-25 in the UK (at the same time as the photo). Now, teenagers are deemed to be between 13 and 19, and the idea of the ‘tweener’ precedes that, making the concept of the child now somewhere between birth and the age 10 or so. “Child’ is therefore a relative concept in the same way that our ways of seeing are.

Space of appearance Nicholas told how Hannah Arendt spoke of the ‘space of appearance’, where the political, cultural and financial activity within a city takes place. She modelled this on ancient Athens. To be a participant in Athens you had to be at least 20 years old at a time when life expectancy was only 35. So the category of young person extended for over half your life. At the same time, all women, all non-Athenians and all enslaved people were also excluded from the ‘space of appearance’. Which meant that only about 4% of people could participate within Athenian ‘democracy’. It was deliberately exclusionary.

Black Lives Matter The BLM movement began with the murder of Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012.

It became a hashtag that year, and a social movement in 2014 which spread worldwide in 2020. Some of the signal moments of the BLM have been the death of children. Police witnesses rarely reported these as children, but as a “monster’ or “somebody who seemed so much older’, said Nicholas. BLM therefore exists very much as a result of the violent deaths of young people.

The reason the movement went viral in 2020 was that the killing of George Floyd was recorded by a young 17-year old person.

Being allowed access to a data plan and a smartphone that allowed her to take the video is part of the new circumstances of ubiquitous visual culture. Her willingness to make that film is part of the way of ‘seeing’ exemplified by the new global majority of which she is part - young, a city dweller with access to the internet, said Nicholas.

George Floyd’s daughter was equally aware of the impact of a film made by a 17-year

old: “Daddy changed the world,” she said.

Change has been phenomenal and fundamental and we have stepped onto a road towards a world where black lives do matter, and why? Through the ways of seeing the world of two young people, opined Nicholas.

Unfair Young people understand that the world is unfair, accepting demands that they know to be unfair and which wouldn’t be made of adults.

Nicholas spoke of the statue of Theodore Roosevelt at the American Museum of Natural History. He is on a horse and is flanked by the standing and idealised figures of an African vand a Native American. Kids see its inherent unfairness. ‘Why is he on a horse and the others aren’t?’ kids ask.

When artist Titus Kaphar took his kids to the museum, his kids pointed this out to him as well. This caused him to reconsider his way of ‘seeing’ as an artist. So he started to white out white faces from classical pictures to highlight injustice. In a Frans Hals’ painting of a white family and a slave, the face of the African American is the only face left visible. Titus makes contemporary white people pay attention to the actions of our forebears and makes us realise that our present prosperity and comfort relies to a considerable extent on the wealth generated from past slavery, Nicholas noted.

Activism Since 2008 and the creation of the global majority there has been a wave of worldwide social movement predominantly sponsored and organised by very young people. It is part of their understanding that the world in which they are the majority does not offer them the benefits,

the responsibilities and the rights that a majority is due, said Nicholas.

Using the Young We need also - “those of us who are not young” - to take responsibility for our uses of the young, said Nicholas.

He showed us a picture of Dutch artist Erik Kessels’ ‘Destroy My Face’ exhibition of pictures of mainly women who had plastic surgery. Kessels (born in 1966) had large posters made, pasted them onto a skatepark and had kids skate over them, thereby destroying the photographed faces. The kids were effectively being asked to enact what has been widely described as misogynous politics, Nicholas said. “Rather than, as it were, taking responsibility himself as a photographer and stepping up and saying

‘this is what I believe’ he used the double screen first of the algorithm [which generated the images] and then of the acts of young people on skateboards to say ‘well, it’s not really me.’

The world that we live in, Nicholas concluded, the world of the pandemic and overheating due to fossil fuels, this a world that our older generation has built. The young see it as a world that is structurally unfair, that is racially discriminatory, that needs to pay attention to the global majority and the question for all of us is whether we will listen to them.”

“I encourage those of you with a platform to speak to those young people, to treat them with the due seriousness that they have claimed and that they deserve,” Nicholas concluded.

PROVIDING AND PRODUCING CONTENT DURING CHALLENGING TIMES Sandra Kooij & David Kleeman

Madiana Asseraf-Jacob, Robert Fortuijn,

Two experts in the field of entertainment Two experts in the field of entertainment Lucafor Milano that is designed and created families& Annemie Gulickx that is designed and created for families gave results of research conducted both begave results of research conducted both beRepresentatives from three major fore and during the pandemic.

SandraEuropean Kooij Zapp and Zappelin brands, stresses how fore and during the pandemic. Sandra Kooij broadcasters, and the European Broadcast is Qualitative Researcher at NPO & NPO his colleagues’ response “debunked the is Qualitative Researcher at NPO & NPO Union’s Head of Business Zapp while Cinekid favourite Development and returnee & statement that the Dutch public broadcasZapp while Cinekid favourite and returnee Young Audiences Madiana Asseraf-Jacob, met David Kleeman has, for 35 years, has led ting company was a very stiff and rigid orDavid Kleeman has, for 35 years, has led up children’s online to media tell theindustry Forum audience of their the in developing ganisation,” as they reacted to the crisis. A the children’s media industry in developing response to kid-friendly the pandemic. sustainable, practices, working programme that they had lined up called sustainable, kid-friendly practices, working at strategy and research consultancy Dubit.

Top Docs, about work in hospitals, was unat strategy and research consultancy Dubit.

Friday the 13th of March is a day etched in the derstandably shelved given the priorities consciousness of Madiana Asseraf-Jacob, she Sandra conducted research pre-Covid to of the medical profession, and replaced by Sandra conducted research pre-Covid to said. As lockdowns were announced wholesadetermine criteria for future programming a programme about sick animals, which is determine criteria for future programming le across to Europe, including schools, based that was designed increase family viewing currently on air. “There is a new creativity, designed to increase family viewing based the moment when “children’s content was a on joint needs and interests. “We want to sometimes born out of necessity,” he said. on joint needs and interests. “We want to top apriority” in terms offamilies education, parental play role in connecting at Zapp…

“Doing nothing was not an option.” play a role in connecting families at Zapp… support, information provision and survival, People want shared activities that everyboPeople want shared activities that everyboand simply in watching terms of keeping kids both actidy enjoys and TV together is one He also spoke of the Covid-themed series dy enjoys and watching TV together is one and connected. ofvethem.”

The Summer of Zoe which was quickly comof them.” missioned when it was obvious that another At that it was of also obvious that public She laid point out a series assertions/assump(musical-themed) series could not proceed.

She laid out a series of assertions/assumpbroadcasters across Europe had to commutions, that family viewing strengthens the Zoe is a horse-rider whose mother’s worklotions, that family viewing strengthens the nicate bond, more offers than ever.

“It was abouttime solidafamily up cuddle/quality ad is doubled after her husband contracts family bond, offers up cuddle/quality time rity, that we were all lostalland we needed to look and it enables members to find a coronavirus. “It is a feelgood drama as, of and that it enables all members to find a towards each other.

How can we survive this? common focus. It was important to show course, her father gets well, but it is very common focus. It was important to show A lotpeople” of adrenalin, in the end I would “real to keepand adults stimulated andsay actual. After Covid struck, we ordered it in “real people” to keep adults stimulated and that we could be proud of what was achieved. to show diversity in terms of different types March/April and it aired in August and was to show diversity in terms of different types were really there for our audience and for ofWe family.

Also, to enable equal interaction well viewed.” of family. Also, to enable equal interaction kids’ Madiana. on theneeds,” part of said all family members. on the part of all family members.

Annemie Gulickx, children’s content manaRAIthen Rigazzi’s agrees.

“We really She got toLuca the Milano nitty gritty in terms of ger at Flemish broadcaster Ketnet decided She then got to the nitty gritty in terms of felt local in the sense of being national.

Most what programmes should offer up. This very quickly to send home the rappers (the what programmes should offer up. This kidsshe offering is international, from the was, said, not overtly proscriptive, butUS it or network’s presenters) to make content on was, she said, not overtly proscriptive, but it maybe as Asia.

In this the national worked a guide forcase, commissioners indimentertheir I-phones for editing and broadcast to worked as a guide for commissioners in tersion was important because at that moment ms of determining content and approach. young audiences. “It was a very quick dems of determining content and approach. every nation was experiencing a different sicision, but a very quick way of working. It tuation… We discovered co-viewing in a promay have been less quality maybe, but the portion that was never seen before…even tedynamics of being able to work like that and ens and parents.” doing production like that was a very big lesson I think for us.”

Robert Fortuijn, channel manager for NPO’s

She explained how the broadcaster launched a fictional series that will air in December called Love You Too, filmed by the actors themselves and directed remotely over Zoom. “It was a very challenging production…so it was trying and searching for the right way to work, but it has become a very nice series and a nice way to show new creativity.”

Luca spoke amusingly of the “heroic moment when all bureaucracy disappeared and we could decide [on] changes and approvals from home with a phone call”, and he was also grateful to the EBU. “Not in all phases of my professional has EBU been so useful as is in this period,” he observed.

Madiana responded in kind: “We at EBU have different communities in different genres. This specific community working on children’s content for young audiences, I cannot say it is my favourite one because I am not allowed to say that, but it’s a very nice community, a very engaged community, a very active community,” she said, adding, “The engagement has always been there, is there and will be there.”

As for the future, while Robert (NPO) was eyeing up what he believes will be a successful 2021, both Luca (RAI) and Annemie (Ketnet) looked beyond next year to underline their belief that 2022 will bring great returns. European football and The Olympics (in 2021) will drain a lot of resources, Luca stressed, although his commitment to kids content will be stronger than ever, he argued.

Concluded EBU’s Madiana: “Now we are ready for whatever might happen. We have learned to react fast to whatever might happen. We know that virtual and Covid is

Covid is probably here to stay for longer than we thought, and we are ready to react.”

TAKE-OUTS: European broadcasters showed great solidarity during the most testing of times.

They also proved flexible and quick to respond to change in terms of new programming.

2022 will mark a strong year for European kids programming.

SELF-ESTEEM THROUGH LIKES AND FOLLOWERS? Doortje Smithuijsen While philosopher and journalist Doortje Smithuuijsen in the main spoke about the business of developing and maintaining a significant online presence as an influencer or vlogger, she started off by explaining the origins of her interest in the subject.

“My world revolves around the internet [and] the digital human very much, and I think what fascinates me most about this whole scope is the endless possibility of it,” she said.

Before the internet existed, she continued, our possibilities to shape ourselves, showing ourselves to each other, creating our own identities were so much more limited than they are now. And the endless possibilities keep on growing, she added. “I feel like every week there is a new app or a new platform on which you can show yourself to the world in a whole different way, and for me this sort of battle between the analogue human and his or her online identity, that is a battle I can never get tired of watching.”

Is Doortje setting out to deconstruct the myth of the online vlogger? “What I am looking for is [to] understand the avatar version of the people who are running the internet right now,” she said, noting that while Dutch vloggers may not be as vast in numbers as their US counterparts they can nevertheless still sway opinion considerably.

And what she keeps discovering is that insecurities lie at the heart of what they are doing, even among people with 100,000

followers. Theirs is a need for validation, she opined. After 15 or so interviews with influencers she realised that it was this very insecurity that made them so successful on the likes of Instagram, as this is a space where you can ask for, and receive validation.

“And when you get it, you want more… They look to solve a very human problem that we all sometimes have with insecurities about ourselves, and they look for a solution online…I am always looking at this connection between human problems and digital solutions.”

How many influencers can there be? Or at least how many can earn a living from it?

Her new documentary addresses this head on. People who were influencers ten years ago are losing followers as they get older, she said, and as more competition enters the field. Originally the twenty influencers in the Netherlands could make a living out of it, but now numbers are huge, she added.

“Everyone can be an influencer, if you have a phone and determination and you really want it, it will probably work out. The question is how long? It’s like athletes on major digital steroids.”

She explained how she interviewed guys of 16 and 17 trying to make it on TikTok with millions of followers, and they made no money at all because there are so many other people with millions of followers on TikTok. “It’s endless,” she commented.

Do influencers therefore have to re-invent

themselves continually as trends change and as new platforms appear? Yes, and it’s tough and they feel they have to evolve in line with innovation. Especially now with TikTok which is a totally new way of showing yourself, she suggested. We used to have the perfect selfie with Instagram and now there is TikTok where you have to show everything, yourself cooking, doing the dish, making jokes with your dad.

“Everything is material for TikTok. And for these influencers it is very tiring.”

Are influencers therefore the most pure distillation of digital trends, asked host Hugo Emmerzael, or of the era in which they live in? “I do feel that the influencers are in some way the embodiment of the neo-liberal way of looking at things, making yourself into a brand, doing it for yourself, Doortje responded. “Aiming high, you can make your own success. You don’t need anything, you just go ahead and get it. That’s really the way we look at careers and life I feel in the western society, and that’s why I feel Instagram is really such a weird and also maybe a little bit dangerous app, because it sells itself to us as the way to go. Everybody can download it and you can go and post yourself online and find that million followers and get rich.”

But all this makes these devotees so reliant on Instagram, both for their sense of identity and for their very raison d’etre, she added. She pointed out how, when some people that she encountered lost access to their accounts, whether through hacking or another reason, they felt that their lives were over because they had given everything to the App, “and when it is gone it’s gone”.

On a more upbeat note, what were the aspects of influencer life on the likes of Instagram that Doortje found positive? “[BLM]

is a movement that could not have been this big and this strong without social media.

Everybody was talking about it. Everybody was posting about it, and still now things are changing and people are sharing their opinions, asking questions online that they never asked before.”

And her own current online obsession? The calming effect of online Korean food bloggers, she answered.

TAKE-OUTS: Desire to be an influencer may both reveal address issues of insecurity.

Despite having millions of followers, influencers are not guaranteed a living.

Keeping up with online trends and platforms can be exhausting for influencers.

Influencers are essential in spreading the word for causes and movements.

STORYTELLING IN THE DIGITAL AGE Dan Hassler-Forest The stories that we tell have continuity with the past, Dan opened by saying, but the way that we tell and engage with them socially changes with every new era. Dan is an academic, author and public speaker on media franchises, cultural theory, and political economy.

He showed us a cartoon image of Lt. Uhura from Star Trek, bending down to talk to a black girl who is saying “Representation matters.” Uhura was the first woman of colour to be featured in a top US TV programme, and the impact that had on young women of colour was considerable, in part leading to the phrase ‘identity politics’, he said.

This is a term which is often used negatively, suggested Dan, as a criticism of wokeness or to describe a “social justice warrior”, and in a way to suggest that people are too much invested in who they are, as if their essential identity defines every aspect of them.

But originally the phrase was intended to express how who we are brings with it positions of power or privilege - or lack thereof.

“For me, as a middle aged, cisgender, white man I have not run into a lot of limitations that were based on my identity, so I never really experienced discrimination for who I am. I never really had to worry about going home by myself after a party…I was never turned down in a job interview simply because I didn’t have a western sounding last name…In any number of ways I never experienced [this],” he said.

Privilege is a misleading word when he thinks about his situation, he added, and stressed how “white advantage” is more accurate. You have advantages in a number of ways that people who are not like you don’t.

We all have multiple identities, our age, sexual identity, socio-economic status, our education, religion, all of those things together (and much more) not only define who we are and how we have been able to experience the world, he said, but also how strong a voice we have in terms of how we are represented within the world.

But until quite recently this is not the way how identity was represented in films. Film was always about a white kid having a great adventure, he said, and it was therefore very easy to see representation of himself.

“It was really all about me,” Dan underlined.

In the age of social media, groups that previously had no voice in mainstream media have now gained a voice that is much more difficult to ignore. In the 21st century the impact of minorities speaking out on social media in response to questions of identity has become much stronger… on both sides. Hegemenous groups can be unwilling to accept that white is also a racialised group that gives access to advantages that other groups don’t have access to, said Dan. Representation is always an expression of power, therefore. When we engage with media we are given not just a story to watch but an indication of how power is organised in

the world, through representation.

As an aside Dan spoke of his approach to the business of humanities scholarship. What is most appealing is the study of the media’s relationship to power. How is the world organised? Who has the right to speak? He has always been attracted to American popular culture, he added, big Hollywood movies, huge tv shows, and the power that mass media has to attract us even if that runs counter to our interests.

He then spoke about the game changer. Black Panther.

With an enormous number of black cast and crew involved, it is the most successful of all the Marvel films that have dominated the global box-office for many years, and the 18th film in cycle that came after 17 others about “white straight males”.

Dan spoke of the problem that affected Hollywood films in the late 20th Century.

The blockbuster. Box office figures were low after the social transitions of the 1960s and 70s but, with the success of Star Wars, the industry hit upon that the perfect way to survive (and thrive). Produce films directed at a specific audience of 14-year white kids in America who will want to see them 5 or 6 times.

social media, in the same way that the Me Too hashtag has taught a lot of people what they already knew, that women have been constantly been harassed by men in the workplace. Hashtags like BLM or Oscars So White taught people to look at that representation, diversity and ethnicity in a different way.”

We are now at a phase of reckoning, Dan asserted, meaning that people are being forced to confront these voices that are ringing out much more loudly and taking up a lot more space around us.

He gave a fab example of mock Harry Potter posters in London whose main characters were replaced by black characters. “You can’t live in this world and not see colour, not see race. That position itself is a position of privilege because you have been able to ignore it, because it never affected you in a way that you were able to understand or realise.”

Moderator Fadoua Alaoui wanted to know therefore if it is now easier for minorities to take control in terms of putting their creative material out there?

Were the studios taking a chance with Black Panther?

Production-wise yes, Dan responded, as the tools of production are more easily accessible than ever, but there is the Spotify syndrome, referring to the fact that more than half the songs on Spotify have never been listened to.

Maybe. They didn’t know how successful it was going to be and certainly could never have predicted its astonishing success.

But change was always afoot. “The voices of black people worldwide have become much more visible through expressions on

And while producing and making content isn’t a problem, there are fewer companies distributing it, and what they actually release is less and less diverse in terms of content. Back in 1995, he said, five of the top 20 most successful films were sequels.

In 2019 the situation was exactly reversed whereby 15 of the films were sequels or derivations or series continuations. What’s more, that year Disney had 40% of the total global box-office. “Even while diversity both in terms of content and representation is growing very much, the power of big companies to define what the market is and who gets access to it is also, at the same time, greater than ever,� he ended.

TAKE-OUTS: In the age of social media, minority groups have gained a voice that is much more difficult to ignore.

Black Panther, itself part of the Marvel franchise, was a game-changer.

But for producers of content, while access to means of production is easier, access to the mass market is as difficult as ever, at least via majors.

THE FUTURE Jacco de WitOF FAMILY VIEWING Sandra Kooij & David Kleeman Two experts in the field of entertainment that is designed and created for families gave results of research conducted both before and during the pandemic. Sandra Kooij is Qualitative Researcher at NPO & NPO Zapp while Cinekid favourite and returnee David Kleeman has, for 35 years, has led the children’s media industry in developing sustainable, kid-friendly practices, working at strategy and research consultancy Dubit.

Sandra conducted research pre-Covid to determine criteria for future programming designed to increase family viewing based on joint needs and interests. “We want to play a role in connecting families at Zapp…

People want shared activities that everybody enjoys and watching TV together is one of them.”

People want shared activities that everybody enjoys and watching TV together is one of them.”

She laid out a series of assertions/assumptions, that family viewing strengthens the family bond, offers up cuddle/quality time and that it enables all members to find a common focus. It was important to show “real people” to keep adults stimulated and to show diversity in terms of different types of family. Also, to enable equal interaction on the part of all family members.

She then got to the nitty gritty in terms of what programmes should offer up. This was, she said, not overtly proscriptive, but it worked as a guide for commissioners in terms of determining content and approach.

1.

Social Role Identification: Understanding your family: programmes to trigger conversation and interaction and empathy, as well as help to audiences to understand self and family, and emotions you can recognise with your parents. Kids came up with the show: Who knows their family best?, which would seek to explain funny/serious topics like dad’s early morning grumpiness.

Role reversal works really well, great conversation starter, imaginative and educational. Example Home Alone where kids have to live on their own for a few days, which triggers imagination and conversations.

Real people and failures: children have the need to see things go wrong. This is positive and works to reduce uncertainty. It is good to see failure, such as Children’s Bake Off, a good counterbalance combo of comedy, learning and encountering when things can go wrong.

Peaking or learning from a safe distance. Both parents and kids like to peek into a world they don’t understand, it is a safe way to see from a distance how other people do things. It means exploring new territory and also offers up topics for discussion, from which everybody can learn.

2.

Having Fun and Relaxing.

Humour and light-heartedness. Escapism, making a mess and humour, as long as everybody understands it. Spontaneous, not serious.

Unexpected twists, movement and variety.

Important to keep kids engaged, also important to keep it speedy, not too heavy on chat. Bear in mind kids attention span.

Discover and experience together 3.

Families on an adventure, solving together or escaping together, all the time offering up equal interaction, new conversations and

strengthening of family bonds.

4.

Competition: Guarantees family Interaction, eg The Masked Singer. It is fun, triggers conversation and interaction and allows for a meaningful joint experience.

5.

Quiz: It helps to learn together and stimulate interaction, while being playful and offering up playful opposites and competition, eg kids v parents. It is also interesting for kids to know that parents don’t know everything, and that mum and dad can also learn from them, not just the other way around, and that in some areas they know a lot more than their parents. Example Voor Het Blok, a quiz in which an incorrect answer sends you hurtling into a pit, allows for interaction, role identification and fun.

David Kleeman: How families adapted to Covid David told how his company Dubit wanted to look at how families managed to rally around in the time of pandemic. By way of background, he reminded us that Dubit Trends conducts research every six months into 2000 families in the US and 1500 in the UK and visits 18 other countries over the course of a year, looking at how kids use tech, what their favourite brands are, how they find their way to content. This time they asked how families were using media and tech together during lockdown.

“It almost goes without saying that kids have always wanted more time with their parents, kids crave time with their parents,” he said, and this always shows as a top desire in their surveys.

When cinemas closed, families invested in premium video on demand services that brought them more movies. UK numbers

were up 35% and US was up 47%. And more money was spent in streaming. In the main, monies previously spent on stuff that was now deemed out of bounds was reinvested into doing stuff together.

but you don’t know who will excel or who will fall short,” said David. “Families treat these as game shows themselves. They develop rooting interests. They cheer for different people on the programme.”

More linear television was watched. In the six weeks after lockdown 10% more time was spent watching the box, with a boom in the UK among 10-15 year olds.

And family favourite ‘shiny floor’ shows, like Bake Off, which offered a non-changing format but a plethora of potential exciting and entertaining outcomes were viewed heavily.

Disney + was a huge winner in lockdown family time, David pointed out, with 80% awareness among the public, a figure that he described as “off the chart”, adding that it was a brand new service that went form 0 subscribers to 60 million by August 2020.

When talking to US kids, Dubit found that 35% had watched Disney + that day or the day before.

You know what’s going to happen. You know it’s going to be a cooking show, you know who is going to bake cakes tonight,

But parents were cautious, he added, noting that turnaround of content wasn’t so high and that when kids returned to school the

service may seem like an expensive, and therefore unnecessary, option.

Parents were further concerned to offer their kids escapism in terms of viewing options and looked to protect their kids from living the pandemic online and on-screen.

But kids nevertheless were determined to know more, accessing the likes of YouTube and Google TV nevertheless “to be informed and to find comfort.”

In conclusion David felt that in the future, homes will still be a haven, and that feelings of caution will remain. Broadcasters can and will offer up comforting, tested programming for family audiences and parents will want family dinners to remain

post-pandemic. “Until people go out they will embrace the home experience for the foreseeable future.”

Brands that celebrate “normality” will thrive, as will brands that speak honestly and keep informed and help them to understand, ie brands that are seen as responsive to audience ideas and predictable content and the opportunity to “own moments” in terms of concerts, birthday parties, performances, stories and lessons.

Yes, kids will discover the great outdoors again and will put aside their screens to enjoy the new-found freedom, but they will inevitably return to them, “and when they do their lives will seem a lot more in balance,” David concluded.

TAKE-OUTS: Parents and kids want to watch together based on core principles of mutual identification and equal engagement with programming.

This must be fun, inclusive and have a common focus.

The family bond is beyond question, as evidenced by global viewing habits Families look for reassurance and the brands that can offer this will thrive.

The family bond looks certain to remain, and when kids eventually return to their screens they will do so with a greater sense of balance vis a vis the world around.

THE IMAGINARY FRIEND – NEW VR-PROJECT PRESENTATION Steye Hallema Creative polymath Steye Hallema came to Forum to talk about his latest VR The Imaginary Friend, a project very much in the works. It was an engaging warts-and-all overview of the process to date, and about having to overcome a serious of complex problems en route.

The Imaginary Friend is an interactive virtual reality experience about a young boy with an anxiety disorder and an extremely vivid imagination. He also has a friend, namely you: the user/spectator. You will help him overcome his fears. But can you also help convincing his peers and parents that you exist, to prove that he is not crazy?

Steye kicked off his address with two questions posed by VR:

1.

How do we do transitions?

2.

What is the place/role of the spectator?

Trying to answer these questions, he said, led to lots of fun and coming up with many new and cool ideas.

first at VPRO (Netherlands) then at a Silicon Valley start-up named JauntXR EMEA. Then he had the idea (in his VR Peepshow) to use the headset for the transition. Then, in 2016, he had another idea to imagine being Donald Trump (in the unlikely event that he should ever become president). But Steye began to detect a lack of empathy or dramatic purpose when the viewer/observer is being placed in somebody’s shoes.

So he went on holiday and had a eureka moment - What if the user would be the imaginary friend of the main character? This way he/she/we would have a main character to feel empathy for, and it would offer a fantastic role for the user, one with complete agency - the perfect VR story. What’s more, it would be a story about the valuable themes of imagination, reality and friendship.

Thus was born The Imaginary Friend.

Back in 2014, he had started to re-write the rule book on VR transitions, starting with a 360º video he made after discovering the Oculus via a blog. A simple hula hoop, in which the spectator was placed, was the driver/means of transition within the clip.

The questions he had to answer were: 1. Could he make the user feel like he/she is really a good friend of the main character in VR. How close can we come?

2. How does he keep (a new kind of ) suspense of disbelieve going in a medium in which the user/spectator is present and in which he/ she plays an important role?

3. How can he expose backstory if he can use an ‘all knowing eye perspective’ ?

The clip itself was perfectly timed with the VR hype surrounding Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus and all of a sudden it was one of the most advanced VR videos out there which led Steye making many more works,

As this story is completely told through the eyes of the imaginary friend who is always connected to the boy in all the scenes, these were questions that could only be answered through experimentation.

Initially Steye felt that he needed to use VR technology that would allow for more interactivity than 360º video allows, but which would still let him work with real actors. And he determined to work a lot more on the script.

Via a residency at the Immersive Storytelling Studio at The National Theatre in London he tested out some scenes, trying a technique called Hybrid Volumetric Video and eventually landing on the adapted Full Volumetric Video. He was reasonably happy with the results but the main character’s movement was a problem, and that character could not plausibly (or realistically) follow your movements as his imaginary friend.

But then Covid happened, which turned out to be a boon for a creative, as he developed a software called Quill to create a virtual storyboard. This taught him a lot: 1.

Interaction is REALLY a great way to make the user engaged 2.

The script was far too long He put all the exposé in the mouth of 3. the adult characters 4.

He still didn’t have the right voice for my main character So he went on another holiday after which he met someone that really has an imaginary friend that genuinely helps her overcoming her fears.

So he: Rewrote the logline.

1.

Cut the number of scenes from 21 to 7 2.

Gave all the scenes interactive game 3. play of some sort.

Concentrated on gameplay that focus4. ses on you helping him overcome his fears Limited the interaction to the trigge5. ring of events by speech (no word recognition yet)

6.

Cut out all the exposé via other characters 7.

Set out to create greater sense of authenticity via an inter/actor coach Steye pointed out that creating VR is like writing a story - but inventing the grammar at the same time.

He ended his presentation by stressing where he is now. “Two years later I feel like I have finally identified enough ‘grammar’ to really start telling the story. We are doing the latest test and then in January we will do the real shoot.”

TAKE-OUTS: Pushing the boundaries of expression can mean pushing the boundaries of tech.

If you need to find inspiration, don’t be afraid to take a break.

THE PORTAL: INSTAGRAM STORY DESIGN The Kissinger Twins Dawid Marcinkowski and Katarzyna Kifert The award-winning creative duo The Kissinger Twins explore the intersection of narrative and technology. Presenting their new innovative storytelling project The Portal, designed on and produced for Instagram in collaboration with the European Commission, they seek to answer questions such has: how can they explore youth audiences on Instagram? What is the narrative potential of such platforms? And to what extent can you make use of user participation?

“What is crucial about us is the way we think about interactivity,” said Dawid at the start of the Kissinger Twins presentation to Cinekid Forum. He added that they hold a strong belief in experimentation, that a cinematic aesthetic underpins their work, and that a healthy balance between commercial and creative must be maintained by the pair.

They gave examples of their previous work on Instagram before getting down to discussing The Portal, which is being worked in collaboration with the EC. Former successes were @JacksonTorranceTrip, a moon-landing conspiracy series, and Sufferosa, described as a mystery adventure 25-part series designed for Instagram, each part introducing a new and unique character, and for which they won Webby Awards in Social and Campaigns categories.

When they were approached by the EC to make a youth-oriented Instagram series, they came up with idea of The Portal, through which transportation into the future is

possible. For people growing up in the 70’s, 80’ or 90’s the vision we were offered of the future was idealised and optimistic, Dawid opined. But now the vision offered to kids is horrific, one of a dying planet and pandemic and economic meltdown.

The Twins wanted to revert to a position of optimism and sell a different vision, one of pragmatism and scientific optimism, and one inspired/informed by scientific innovations such as Robofish and the Octopus project.

Focussing on the character of curious Anna, The Portal is thus described as a 15-part coming of age series for the smartphone generation which plays on Instagram Stories and is permanently saved to @theportaldiaries account’s Story Highlight.

Why InstaStories? Because of the plethora of interactive option that it offers, the Twins respond. Anna continually asks questions and asks for responses, such as should we still have hope? (80% of respondees answered ‘yes’). There are quiz options and a lot of hashtag and ‘tap’ activity designed to promote greater interaction. (Dawid pointed out that ‘tap’ can generate satisfyingly surreal and unusual responses in the viewer, such as flying). Anna will always offer validation to user interaction with her own responses.

Bespoke variations on minigames such as Tetris are introduced into the experience as well.

There is of course a narrative element to the

series too. Anna is smart, rebellious and adventurous, but also anxious about the planet. “But she has a beautiful inner world,” says Kissinger Twin Katarzyna. But her father is moving to a new job, and she must go with him.

But her life is transformed when she finds the Portal to the future where she befriends an AI, at which point we observe a transition from a person who is scared of the future to someone who begins to trust the uncertainties of the future.

The pace of the work-in-progress project is slow and a sense of intimacy underpins the whole thing, and it works like a personal diary, we were told.

“There will be many surprising elements,” says Dawid. “This is an experimental project… How to find the perfect balance between all this and the story is something we are learning.”

TAKE-OUTS: Current kids’ assessment of the future is bleak.

The Portal seeks to offer a science-based optimistic view of the future.

Choice of Instagram for the myriad opportunities offered up for user interaction.

WHAT THE APPLE CORE LEARNED AFTER ONE YEAR @TIKTOK Jacco de Wit Jacco de Wit, Project Manager Online at broadcaster NTR (Youth), came to Cinekid for Professionals Forum to explain how The Apple Core (Het Klokhuis) benefited from engagement with the phenomenally popular social media platform TikTok. The Apple Core is a staple of Dutch children’s programming/infotainment for 8-12 year olds, and has been broadcast for the past 32 years, entertaining via reporting and funny sketches.

Jacco showed figures about youth engagement with TikTok which justified his choice of it for social media use, ie 59% of 11-year old and 64% of 12-year old Dutch kids are users. Further stats showed that 68.13% of TikTok inflencers have up to 10,000 followers, 7.23% have up to 100,000 followers and 5.3% have 100,000+ followers. These dwarfed Instagram percentage stats of 3.7%, 2.1% and 1.1% respectively, and blew Twitter stats out of the water (0.6%, 0.4%, 0.3%) The first ‘Apple Core’ TikTok outing, on August 2 2019, immediately generated 114,000 fo;lowers and 1.9 million likes.

Jacco then explained what worked and what didn’t work as he experimented with the format. Emotion works, he said, showing a clip of a girl and her friend doing their homework as an inept dad tries to prepare dinner (103,312 hearts, 1,999 comments, 2,869 forward).

Music works too, as evidenced by a funny Beyoncé pastiche (51,863 hearts, 590 comments and 3,979 comments). But information drops don’t work so well, such as a video on nutrition which generated much lower number (9,179 hearts and 293 comments).

But the TikTok case was made strongly when we were shopwed engagement numbers on a video of a kid who ignores what a doctor is telling him because he can’t get off social media: YouTube: 3,100 likes, 93 comments, 503,808 views Instagram: 3,684 likes, 103 comments, 153,428 views TikTok: 109,148 likes, 861 comments, 789,874 views Jacco listed the specific things that he learned in the process. The atmosphere on TikTok is very positive, he said, illustrating his point with a musical number that sees the impact of divorce from a kid’s point of view.

Comments were posted in their thousands by kids who have signed up and are, in the main, positive, and very keen to engage by offering comfort to fellow users or articulating their opinions or experiences via chat.

There is a high degree of liberal activism, and both knowledge and understanding of contemporary issues such as LGBT and climate change concerns, and Jacco experienced no example of censorious behaviour.

From a technical perspective, ‘keep it short’ is a continual mantra, or ‘less is more’. Clips are between 15 and 59 seconds, but even then most are at the shorter end of the scale. That said, it is amazing how many 15-second clips can be subsequently generated out of a 59-second post, so possibilities for creative editing are considerable. Also, users are encouraged to edit, and quite often two videos are spliced for fun/entertainment. No editorial controls or restrictions were placed on such usage, and Jacco didn’t know of any violations of practice.

Jacco also learned that hashtags not only work but are essential in generating engagement. What’s more, being a slave to TikTok frequency was not a necessity, he said, as there were times when, after a significant gap between posts, users returned as hungry as ever.

TAKE-OUTS: TikTok way outperforms other comparative social media sites.

The platform is a safe space and use friendly for kids.

Songs and audio work, less so information transmission.

Keep posts short.