Author: Lucia Palmarini

Lucia Palmarini is Production and Technology Manager at Free Spirit Media. She was formerly with Chicago’s CIMMfest and Community TV Network. Her professional mission is to bring people together across difference–age, culture, class–through arts and cultural expressions and experiences. Lucia is committed to a participatory process that values collaboration and emerging visions; she believes that the key to success is unlocking the strengths of others and asking the right questions. Her passions include but are not limited to storytelling, documentary work, databases, potlucks, film screenings in unlikely places, entrepreneurship, cross cultural immersion and public art.

Mapping Our Desired Futures Lesson Plan

This lesson plan was developed for Free Spirit Media’s Pathways initiative, a professional and creative workforce development program that helps emerging creatives 18-25 years old develop careers in the media and film industries. The prompt was inspired by The Alliance’s 50 states Dinner Party Project, where youth media practitioners and participants from around the country come together to reflect on the future of youth media, the wider media landscape and the world. Students who participated in this lesson have been involved in our programs for over a year, and we wanted to explore with them how the program has helped them achieve their goals, what goals they had for the next chapter of their lives that we could help them achieve, and their desired future was for their career and the industry.  

To learn more about the project and our student’s desired futures, please see the accompanying article, Mapping Our Desired Futures: Dreaming with the Next Generation of Creators and Crew.

Time

2 hour approximate

Intended Audience

Young adults pursuing careers in the film and media or any creative industry; anyone who has a dream and a desired future; works well with groups that already have built some relationship and community

Overview & Context

This exercise is focused developing a core 21st workforce development skill (as defined by MHA Labs)—Planning for Success. Students reflect back on what they are proud of in the past year while charting ambitious goals for next year. Students are challenged to dream of their desired future for the film and media industry and where they see themselves in it. The exercise is also a helpful tool to explore how a program has impacted participants in unexpected ways.

Goals

  • Students own at least three points of pride from the past year.
  • Students map at least three SMART goals for the next year.
  • Students define/redefine what long term success looks like for them.
  • Students make a plan to hold themselves and each other accountable to their goals.
  • Program gathers valuable insight to inform future planning and understand impact.

Materials Needed

  • Meal or Snacks
  • Post It Notes galore
  • Digital/Video Recorder
  • Pens & Markers

Lesson Plan Overview

    • 20 min / Warm Up + Eat
    • 15 min / Open the circle + Introduce the exercise
      • Go around the room, and state one next step you have recently taken on a personal or professional goal
    • 5 min / PROMPT: What are you proud of? List at least three things on different post it notes
  • Facilitator Notes: It does not need to be an accomplishment. Can be as small, or as big as you want. Don’t just think about things you did, but things you learned, behaviors you changed, ways you opened up to possibility in your creative life.
    • 10 min / Students go around the circle and share out one to three things they are proud of, depending on size and time allotment. Once shared, post it notes go up to a wall, self sorted by common themes
      • Facilitator Notes: Be sure to acknowledge each other’s triumphs with snapping or clapping or whatever you do.
    • 5 min / PROMPT: What do you hope to be writing on a post it note one year from now, as something you are proud of in 2017? List at least three things on different post it notes
  • Facilitator Note: One fellow had the excellent idea of starting statements with “ I Will…” as in “ I will produce a web series about being a young artist in Chicago” to bring about the powers of manifestation
    • 10 min / Students go around the circle and share out all of their goals (one at a time, around the circle multiple times or all together, depending on time. Once shared, post it notes go up to a wall, self sorted by common themes
      • Facilitator Notes: Be sure to acknowledge each other’s triumphs with snapping or clapping or whatever you do.
  • 5 min / PROMPT: What is your desired future for our industry —the film and media industry–here in our city, our country or our world?
  • 10 min / Students go around the circle and share out their desired future. Once shared, post it notes go up to a wall, self sorted by common themes
    • 5 min / PROMPT: Finally, imaging that the desired future for our industry is true, where do you see yourself in it? What do you aspire to?
    • 5 min / Students stand and reach their aspirational statements
    • 10 min / Wrapping up: Our group decided we wanted to hold each other accountable by meeting every two months to check in on our goals, see how we could support each other, and continue to measure success as the year progressed. We decided next time to make it a potluck.
  • Be sure to either collect post it notes, or take photos and type up for program records.
  • 5 min / Closing Circle: PROMPT: What’s your one word for 2017?
  • Follow up: Consider documenting/ collecting participants goals on a google spreadsheet and share with the group, and then continue to add onto the document through the year, as participants take steps to document collective progression, accountability and success.
  • To see Free Spirit Media Fellow’s Desired Futures, see the YMR Article Mapping Our Desired Futures: Dreaming with the Next Generation of Creators and Crew.

“Planning for Success.” MHA Labs. Accessed Jan 19th, 2017

“The 50 States Dinner Party Project.” The Alliance for Media and Culture. Accessed Jan 19th, 2017

About the Author

Lucia Palmarini is an educator, program manager, and mobilizer with Free Spirit Media whose mission is to bring people together through the creation and experience of the media and creative arts. As Pathways Manager at Free Spirit Media, she oversees FSM’s professional and workforce development programs that help emerging creatives build careers in the film and media industries. Before Free Spirit Media, Ms. Palmarini was a driving force as Director and Festival Manager at CIMMfest, the Chicago International Movies and Music Festival, and Community TV Network, Chicago’s oldest youth media organization. She started her career in non-profit program development and strategy with the co-founding of Cincinnati’s first community based bicycle shop, MoBo Bicycle Co-op in 2007 before turning her focus to developing youth & community arts programs. Ms. Palmarini has designed and facilitated numerous intergenerational community arts programs in topics from hip hop arts, photography, peace education, oral history,  creative writing, artrepenuership, community exploration, documentary filmmaking and more.  With a Masters in Arts Management from Columbia College Chicago, and a Bachelors in Documentary Studies from the College of Santa Fe, Ms. Palmarini strives to connect the bridge between vision and strategy, program and process. Her passions include but are not limited to storytelling, databases, potlucks, film screenings in unlikely places,  social entrepreneurship and making the impossible possible.

Mapping Our Desired Futures

Author’s Note:

In this article, I explore how I used the key inquiry of “What is our Desired Future” to inform program design, evaluation, and personal and professional development of the young emerging filmmakers in Free Spirit Media’s Industry Pathways program. Using the Mapping Our Desired Futures Lesson Plan, we explore how these participants define and plan for success in their creative journeys, while envisioning a desirable future for themselves and the film and media industry. The embedded quotes are the aspirational visions of the program participants.

Background of Free Spirit Media Pathways & The Chicago Track

In 2014, The City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events partnered with Free Spirit Media and Young Chicago Authors to launch “The Chicago Track”, a creative workforce development program for diverse 18 – 25 year old young creatives from across the city of Chicago interested in pursuing careers in the film and music industries. Through panels, workshops, and networking events with industry leaders, The Chicago Track was formed to create pathways for young people to develop the knowledge and skills needed to advance their careers in film and music, while building relationships with professional industry mentors who can link them to their next opportunity. At Free Spirit Media, the Chicago Track aligned perfectly within the vision of our Pathways initiative—-to equip the next generation of creators, producers and crew, contributing to a diversified media industry that values & amplifies stories & voices of marginalized peoples.

In the first year of the program, Free Spirit Media led the film track, serving ninety six students in seven workshops with a total attendance of two hundred and forty. Workshops featured over twenty industry professionals as mentors and instructors in camera, post, documentary, producing, and more. Curricular content was focused on career exploration, developing professional and technical skills, and networking with peers and industry mentors. The primary outcome of the program was defined as, “ Participating aspiring/emerging creative professionals gain awareness of the breadth of jobs and career paths in the creative industries, and are linked to professional resources and job opportunities that can advance their careers in the regional creative sector.” Survey feedback demonstrated that we were successful in engaging participants in connecting with peers and mentors, and building skills and knowledge:  85% of participants surveyed developed skills needed in order to compete for jobs/ opportunities in the industry;  89% connected with professional mentors, and 89% connected with other aspiring / emerging mentors.

Free Spirit Pathways Program Model and Participant Progression

Drawing on the first year’s success, the program expanded in 2015 to serve one hundred and thirty one students in sixteen workshops with a total attendance of two hundred and eighty six. We deepened our engagement with our most passionate and dedicated students, recruiting a cohort of twelve students who received over ten additional intensive skill and technical based opportunities. These students were then connected to paid summer apprenticeship opportunities through an expansion of our high school summer internship program, as well as other next level paid production on set gigs and opportunities. With our 2015 expansion, we realized that we could have greater impact not by increasing the reach of the program with more participants, but by deepening our investment in a cohort of students who would receive consistent, comprehensive and ongoing technical and professional training and career placement and support services.

Learning from the pilot cohort, we developed a new comprehensive curriculum in 2016,  launching an Industry Pathways Certification Program for ten students in the Spring of 2017. The program will encompass over hundred hours of training in career exploration, professional development, production bootcamp, on set project based experience, portfolio development and a culminating apprenticeship and mentor matching fair. By building a clear, scaffolded career pathway from the cohort program to the apprenticeship program, we ensure that students are equipped with the knowledge, skills and mindsets they need to be successful in the fast paced, competitive environments the film and media industry is known for.

When apprentices graduate from the program, they become fellows, receiving continued support from the Free Spirit Media team in the form of career counseling and referral to paid production work and other opportunities. Our vision for the fellows as they level up to become trailblazer in the industry is that they have creative, fulfilling, financially stable independent lives of their own choosing, built by leveraging their strong social network of professionals that open doors for the next generation and peers that lift each other up by holding each other accountable to their goals, vouching for each other and collaborating on creative projects.

As we expanded the logic model of our Pathways program to chart the progression from Participant/ Member to Trailblazer, we turned to our first cohort and current fellows to learn what success looks like from their perspective, and what long term outcomes they have for their careers, and by extension, our program.

While we knew that the the fellows were setting and reaching milestones in their career, we had no standard benchmarks to chart their progress. In an industry full of freelancers, short term gigs, and fluctuating economies, there is no straightforward precedent for long term outcomes in creative workforce programs. Inspired by The Alliance’s 50 States Dinner Party Project central question of “What are our desired futures?” and a need to understand the existing and potential impact of our program, we gathered the fellows together for a night of reflection and prophesying.

While sharing a meal of tacos on a full moon, we pondered the question of success and of our desired futures—for the program, the industry, and ourselves. We used the Mapping Our Desired Futures lesson plan format to reflect on what fellows had accomplished in the past year, and their dreams for this year and beyond. By combining collaborative inquiry as a tool for personal and professional development,  focus group evaluation methods, and the fundamental components of the 50 States Dinner Party Project, we learned from the fellows what success looked like and could look like in their future.

When charting and defining success, three themes emerged as critical:

  • Creating and chasing opportunity
  • Activating network of peers and mentors
  • Creating Content

When reflecting on their aspirations for themselves and the industry, consistent themes were:

  • Equity of representation on and off screen
  • Intentional Inclusion
  • Original Content by Creators of Color

The thread from defining success to aspirational achievement is apparent. Students must both create and be connected to opportunities to grant equity of representation on and off screen. Both peers and mentors are key drivers of intentional inclusion, opening doors and supporting the next generation in creating a more open and diverse industry. Finally, content is the driving force of all mediamakers, and representation as both creators and crew is necessary to change the narrative landscape of the media we create and consume.

The following graphics summarize the fellows vision and journey as they become the next generation of trailblazers.

 

About the Author:

Lucia Palmarini is an educator, program manager, and mobilizer whose mission is to bring people together through the creation and experience of the media and creative arts. As Pathways Manager at Free Spirit Media, she oversees FSM’s professional and workforce development programs that help emerging creatives build careers in the film and media industries. Before Free Spirit Media, Ms. Palmarini was a driving force as Director and Festival Manager at CIMMfest, the Chicago International Movies and Music Festival, and Community TV Network, Chicago’s oldest youth media organization. She started her career in non-profit program development and strategy with the co-founding of Cincinnati’s first community based bicycle shop, MoBo Bicycle Co-op in 2007 before turning her focus to developing youth & community arts programs. Ms. Palmarini has designed and facilitated numerous intergenerational community arts programs in topics from hip hop arts, photography, peace education, oral history,  creative writing, artrepenuership, community exploration, documentary filmmaking and more.  With a Masters in Arts Management from Columbia College Chicago, and a Bachelors in Documentary Studies from the College of Santa Fe, Ms. Palmarini strives to connect the bridge between vision and strategy, program and process. Her passions include but are not limited to storytelling, databases, potlucks, film screenings in unlikely places,  social entrepreneurship and making the impossible possible.

The Chicago Track Creates A Bridge To the Professional Media World

November 5, 2014

In 2013, Chicago set a new record with the largest increase in film and television production in the city’s history with estimated revenues of $358 million and 2,198 filming days—a 20% increase over 2012 1. Recent increases to tax incentives for production in 2009 have helped promote Illinois and Chicago’s resurgence as hubs for the motion picture industry, creating opportunities and employment for thousands working in the fields of film, television and commercial production 2. Beyond the motion picture screen, Chicago has long fostered a strong commercial advertising base, supporting post-production houses, as well as a dedicated documentary filmmaking community. While the Department of Labor projects that occupations in the film and media industry will grow 3% nationally by 2022, they estimate that the growth in Illinois could be as high as 9% 3. There’s no doubt about it—the industry is on the rise.

In a commitment to extend burgeoning opportunities in the industry to the next generation of media makers, The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE), with support from The Chicago Community Trust, has partnered with youth media organization Free Spirit Media (FSM) and youth poetry and music organization Young Chicago Authors (YCA) to develop and produce The Chicago Track—a free professional development and networking series targeting aspiring media and music professionals from ethnically and geographically diverse backgrounds. The Chicago Track specifically zooms in on 18-25 year olds who have participated in teen arts programs and have a desire to continue developing in the field but may not have chosen the college track. The program is designed to bridge access to industry professionals in Film/TV and music, while giving a behind-the-scenes look at the growing industry and developing participants’ skills to promote themselves as artists, engineers, and producers.

The Chicago Film Track, led by Free Spirit Media, is a natural extension of the organization’s emerging pathways initiative to “enhance opportunities for college and career readiness” 4.  The Chicago Track is the most recent advanced program that FSM offers to bridge the gap from its scaffolded in-school and after-school programs, to a potential career in the industry. Since 2000, FSM has been helping young people develop their skills and build their authentic voice through advancing education and digital learning through hands-on and project-based media production. FSM has long valued the importance of career development by creating opportunities through its social enterprise, Free Spirit PRO, and its internship program, Flash Forward. Free Spirit PRO, a commercial production company that employs both advanced media students and adult media professionals to create high quality products, provides training and economic opportunity for youth who want to take the next step. Flash Forward places young people into internships at professional media outlets, film sets, and production houses and provides professional development training. The Chicago Track is the next step, targeting a wider range of young adults beyond FSM alumni, to help make connections that emerging media makers need in order to launch their careers.

The Chicago Track program focuses on three key areas critical to success: knowledge, skills, and access. Many young people who dream of a career in the industry imagine themselves as directors or actors and may not realize the vast scope of careers and employment in the industry. The Chicago Track is designed to expose young adults to the diversity of opportunities in the film and television world—from professional unions to commercial production houses to entrepreneurial endeavors. The Track’s workshop format utilizes small group breakouts to pair media professionals with participants to share their background, experiences, and advice around specific topics like brand development, producing independent films, or preparing to be on set. In these spaces, young people engage with seasoned creatives and build relationships that create pathways into an industry traditionally known for its exclusivity.

At The Chicago Track’s first workshop, hosted in the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) offices in downtown Chicago, it was clear that the young people who showed up on an unusually sunny Saturday represent the most committed and driven of their peer group. Track participant Mark, shared, “I’m 18 years old and I’m hungry for success.” Another noted, “Just being next to people who are a part of so many great movies made me feel like the job was more possible for me.” The industry professionals who came out hailed from a range of backgrounds and offered their own personal experiences as testaments to the adage that there is no one right way to make it. One guest gave his business card to specific participants, telling them that he expected their phone calls. Another, who has produced films from half-million dollar budgets to 3.5 million dollar budgets, told his captivated listeners, “If you have a strong story, there is no reason why you can’t be producing content right now. If you have a phone, you can make a movie.” Another reminded youth participants of the value of collaboration, reminding participants that their peers are as much a resource as the mentors who were presenting.

By the end of the workshop, during the open networking part of the event, mentors and young people were exchanging emails and ideas and making plans for next steps. Participants shared their “Aha” moments from the day: “You can make it happen if you have the right tools and persevere.” “Networking and collaborating is essential.” “When talking to investors, I need to speak from a business perspective, and not a purely creative one. Investors want to know how to make their money back, not how great of a story I have.” Though it was just the beginning, the immediate influence of perspective, skills, and advice from the other side of the curtain promised to help bridge the gap from passion to purpose for Chicago’s next generation of media makers.

The Chicago Track initiative has flourished due largely to the breadth and strength of its partnerships. Working with Young Chicago Authors (YCA)—a reputable youth arts organization known for its Louder than a Bomb youth poetry festival—has magnified the impact of engagement within the youth adult community. The City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events has offered increased exposure and a connection to a greater vision for the city. An advisory committee, formed in collaboration with Rich Moskal, the Director of Chicago’s Film Office, represents leaders and industry professionals in the unions, education, commercial, and documentary fields that make up the city’s rich media ecosystem. Their support has leveraged relationships and resources that directly benefit the young adults participating in The Chicago Track. Finally, support from The Chicago Community Trust, one of the oldest and more reputable funders in the city, has provided much needed organizational capacity to allow YCA and FSM to invest in the success of the program.

In its first year, program and leadership staff have spent much time discussing the pedagogical and strategic approach of the program. What is the right concoction of soft skills and hard skills? What is the right dosage for sustained impact? What type of mentorship model is most likely to help young adults succeed? How can the program serve both the young person who lacks experience in the field and the young person just launching their new production company? These questions, reminiscent of any youth development program model, will continue to shape the Track’s ongoing development, as well as participants’ continuous feedback. Fundamentally, The Chicago Track is a bold leap into the uncharted territory of alternative, post-secondary pathways—a simple inquiry that high school graduates ask themselves daily: What’s next?

  1. “Chicago Sets New Record for Film, TV Production in 2013.” The Chicago Tribune, January 21, 2014. ↩
  2. “Welcome to The Illinois Film Office.” Film:. January 1, 2013. Accessed November 5, 2014. ↩
  3. “Film and Video Editors and Camera Operators Summary.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. January 8, 2014. Accessed November 5, 2014. ↩
  4. “Zoom.” Free Spirit Media, Accessed January 20th, 2015. ↩