How Amanda Makes Films

Creative Collaboration

Amanda believes that the journey creating a film is as important as the film itself. This requires building trust, relationships and a culture of partnership throughout the production process. On every film, Amanda works closely with the client, interviewees, and relevant organizations to leverage meaningful opportunities for impact.

Production steps include:

Kick-off: discuss vision, goals, audience, scope of work, budget
Pre-production: draft storyboards, identify/prep interviews, marketing strategy
Production: conduct interviews, onsite audio-visual recording
Post-production: media management, editing, color grading, sound design, review & approval rounds
Promotion: promote films across platforms & parters to reach goals & audiences

Empathy Produced

The goal is to have an experience while making a film. Amanda is mindful that interviewees are often sharing personal stories and topics that they care deeply about. Amanda has been on both sides of the camera, so she gets it. Amanda coaches and supports interviewees throughout the production process, helping them to feel safe and comfortable with their story and style of expression.

Production best-practices include:

Consent and collaboration
Peer-to-peer
Trauma-informed
Strategic sharing tips
Motivational interviewing
Person centered
Identity driven

Theory to Practice

Amanda believes that making a film is both an art and a science. As both a researcher and creative strategist, she considers both the sociological and entertainment theories in crafting a film.

Entertainment-education is a type of narrative messaging intervention that emotionally involves the viewer in the storyline and aims to effect social change – which can occur at the level of individual, community, or society. Essentially, the goal is to deliver prosocial health messages to positively influencing awareness, knowledge, attitudes, and/or behaviors.

Theories and practices include:

Transportation Theory (Green & Brock)
- The extent that individuals are absorbed into a story (identification)
The Identification Scale (Cohen)
- The extent to which viewers identify with a character
Entertainment Overcoming Resistance Model (Moyer-Guse).
- The narrative format increases absorption in the drama, reducing resistance to the messaging.
Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty, Cacioppo, Shrum)
- Immersive engagement making it easier to influence beliefs, attitudes, and behavior.
Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura)
- The most commonly applied theory in the area of entertainment-education

Technology Mindset

We’re in a Digital Age now where technology is becoming more compact and higher quality every day. This allows Amanda and her crew members to leverage an overall minimalistic approach while not compromising cinematic integrity. This way we can move with the story physically or geographically, and be cost-effective and efficient.

Film Ambassador

Amanda believes films are a movement and call to action. She is a passionate ambassador of her films and the causes and organizations they represent. She leverages her public speaking platform to raise awareness on a larger scale. Since age 18, she has given over 150 speeches across the globe on filmmaking, mental health recovery, and social entrepreneurship.