5000Dayskid.png

PROJECTS

“All my work with personal stories and filmmaking is based off of one core belief:

You own nothing more valuable than your own story.”

StoryQ captures the story you’ve been writing since birth– but have yet to write down. And it’s all done on video with the help of an expert guide.

You see, telling your own story is actually quite difficult. Most of us don't quite know how to connect the dots of our lives in a way that authentically articulates who we are. But we are all very good at answering questions. And the better the Q's, the better the A's.

Available to all ages, StoryQ’s personal story services deliver video of you or yours addressing life's key questions. Interviewers employ the tried and true StoryQ Method with over two decades of experience and half a million recordings. StoryQ guarantees 100% privacy with the video's ultimate use being left entirely up to the subject who owns the material.

Your story is the most valuable thing you own. Discover it. Tell it. Capture it.

StoryQ: Democratizing the Doc

Learn more at storyQ.com→

99.9% of us end up taking it to our grave, creating a monumental drain of human knowledge and capital in a world that can scarcely afford to lose it.  To paraphrase an African proverb, “When a person dies, a library burns down.”

The Human Library Initiative was formed to accelerate, empower and champion the telling of human stories fueled by the core belief that each of us owns nothing more valuable than our own story.

As a fiscal sponsor, HLI focuses on programs that accelerate and support transformational storytelling programs with the aim to scale the impact and reach each program has individually as well as the influence of the collective for the greater good of all.  The dedication of HLI's work today centers on our society's most precious resource, its young people.  

Simply put, young people today are growing up in an unfriendly world. They face looming challenges they will not be able to avoid as they become adults. Social media and video games are their main social outlets, in-person and cyber bullying is prevalent, global warming is happening all around them, easy access to deadly drugs exists on the streets, violent crimes are on the rise, and our world’s divisiveness couldn’t be more accentuated. We must equip youth with their own stories for their survival and for the sake of the world. It needs leaders. Leaders who are willing to be bold and vulnerable.

We currently serve as a fiscal sponsor for three youth-focused story-telling programs today that are designed to transform youth into warriors for human kind.

5000 DAYS and counting…

At the turn of the Millennium, Rick Stevenson ventured forth on a personal mission to try and solve the mysteries of childhood by interviewing kids for 5000 days (time from Kindergarten to grade 12). What began as a documentary project has evolved into a longitudinal educational initiative dedicated to helping kids discover that they can be the author of their own lives… and as an outcome, raise their emotional-intelligence.

The question is: Can we help kids find themselves before they lose themselves?  

For the past two decades, The 5000 Days Project has done exactly that by deploying Personal Story Mentors around the world with cameras to capture and help kids negotiate the minefield of adolescence. Using a brain science-based annual interview process, kids are given the questions to discover the deep well of internal wisdom that lies within them and hone their moral compasses so that they get to where they want and need to go.

Often referred to as “THE Project,” The 5000 Days Project currently films in-depth personal story interviews, creating an authentic video time capsule of growing up. This footage is all private. Often the stories span long past the original 5000 Days (K-12) and, with the participant’s permission, have been produced into films such as The LISTEN Series, MILLENNIALS, TWO BROTHERS 1&2, and ANGST: It Gets Better.

The Prodigy Camp is a week-long intensive camp for the most promising young filmmakers and songwriters in the world. Held just outside Seattle, Washington by Rick and some of the industry’s most esteemed professionals (including Emmy and Oscar winners), the camp creates a space dedicated to helping aspiring young artists explore and develop the art of storytelling through filmmaking and songwriting.

Filmmakers and musicians alike hone in on the fundamentals of their art, absorb hours of mentoring and instruction, and develop new scripts and songs, all the while pushing the boundaries of their own personal journey. At the end of the week, the film students are faced with the challenge of executing all their newly formed and fine tuned skills by shooting their own short film, while the songwriters are given the opportunity to professionally record one of their newly written songs.

With nightly campfire 101 sessions, participants not only leave with the skillset to catapult them into their craft but with a newly developed sense of self and a deeply rooted community. 

Learn more at ProdigyCamp.org→