Rada Film Group is one of the 2018 winners of the Journalism 360 Challenge. See all the winners.
Team
- Michèle Stephenson, Filmmaker, Rada Film Group and Changing Same Collaborative LLC
- Joe Brewster, Filmmaker, Rada Film Group and Changing Same Collaborative LLC
- Yasmin Elayat, Co-Founder and Creative Director, Scatter and Changing Same Collaborative LLC
- James George, Co-Founder, Scatter and Changing Same Collaborative LLC
- Alexander Porter, Co-Founder, Scatter and Changing Same Collaborative LLC
- Ayana Enomoto-Hurst, Associate Producer, Rada Film Group
- Katerina Cizek, Artistic Director, Co-Creation Studio at the MIT Open Documentary Lab
- Sarah Wolozin, Director, MIT Open Documentary Lab
- Opeyemi Olukemi, Executive Producer, POV Spark
- Diana Barrett, President, The Fledgling Fund
- Sheila Leddy, Executive Director, The Fledgling Fund
Project Description
Changing Same: The Untitled Racial Justice Project is an immersive, room-scale virtual reality experience where the user travels through time and space to witness the connected historical experiences of racial terror in America. With initial support from the Equal Justice Initiative, Skoll Foundation, and the Sundance Institute, Changing Same combines the narrative power of filmmaking with game-engine interactivity to immerse audiences in the eras of slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration in order to raise awareness of the United States’ history and legacy of racial violence. At the same time, it lifts the user into a visually poetic speculative afro-futurism, dreaming of a destiny of healing for the nation.
Changing Same combines the creative and technical expertise of award-winning filmmakers Rada Film Group, seasoned VR experts Scatter Studios, and media innovators at MIT Open Doc Lab to demonstrate the critical role that our history plays in forming a deeper understanding of our present, and the social and cultural conditions that continue to shape us as a nation. Participants will embark on a pilgrimage and leave the world of Changing Same better prepared to meaningfully engage in discussions of history, race, crime, punishment, identity, community, and more.