Our mission is to inspire and support the creation of content that transforms the way Americans see and engage with each other across divides.
Elevate Awareness
We create and deliver unique content through high-profile summits, panels and other forums to elevate civic health and bridging America’s partisan divides as mainstay topics of focus and impact for the entertainment industry.
- Summits
- Events
- Panels
- Newsletters
Elevating Awareness in Practice
Mainstage Event: “Creating New American Stories of Us”
in partnership with the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future
September 2023
On September 28, 2023, from 2-5pm PT, join Bridge Entertainment Labs, the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future, and our many co-host organizations for “Creating New American Stories of Us,” our mainstage kickoff event for a Fall 2023 series of conversations about the entertainment industry’s power to reshape and transform America’s deep divisions. Join us for free, in person or virtually, by registering here.
Look here for details about future events in this series.
Summit: “Hollywood and Storytelling in a Divided America”
in partnership with the Social Impact Entertainment Society
October 2021
Our October 2021 summit marked an unprecedented convening of entertainment industry luminaries, bridge-building practitioners, and social scientists in creative exchange about how narrative and storytelling can help bridge America’s deep political and social divides. Executive producers, showrunners, show writers, directors, documentarians, and other entertainment professionals shared perspectives on this industry’s unique power and duty to help Americans find their way back to each other.
Panel: “The Power of TV and Film to Transform America’s Partisan Conflicts”
in partnership with the Impact Guild
June 2022
Impact Guild members joined a free-wheeling, off the record session with Dave Caplan, PhD, Executive Producer and Head Writer of The Conners, in conversation with Shamil Idriss, whose peacebuilding organization Search for Common Ground has leveraged popular entertainment to help broker peace in conflict zones around the world, from Afghanistan to Rwanda. Dave and Shamil challenged audience members to consider how the entertainment industry might help broker a wider peace and shared sense of “us” among Americans of diverse backgrounds, beliefs, and experiences.
Equip Storytellers
We offer storyteller workshops, project consultation, and writers’ room conversations that inspire and equip creatives to produce highly engaging content that also bridges divides and models healthy conflict.
- Briefings
- Consultations
- Site Visits
- Workshops
- Masterclasses
Equipping Storytellers in Practice
Workshops: “Can Storytellers Save America?”
in partnership with Resetting the Table
Ongoing
Our ability to create transformative stories can be unleashed when we open ourselves to inner transformation as well. Bridge Entertainment Labs, in partnership with Resetting the Table, offers reflective, interactive workshops to entertainment professionals of diverse political and ideological backgrounds and beliefs. Challenged to “find the bullseye” in any story, creative professionals gain insight about how to create nuanced characters and complicated narratives that transcend stereotypes and reveal our deeper truths.
Workshop: “Shaping Culture”
in partnership with Democracy Funders Network
June 2022
Attendees at this June 2022 philanthropic conference joined an engaging conversation with Chris Keyser, former President, Writers Guild of America West, in conversation with Sandra de Castro Buffington, Interim Executive Director of Bridge Entertainment Labs. Chris and Sandra provoked the audience to elevate storytelling across a breadth of genres – scripted, reality, comedy, documentary, and more – that convey Americans’ shared humanity to one another through inspiring characters and plotlines.
Script Consultation, Writers Room Conversations
Ongoing
Bridge Entertainment Labs offers script consultation on projects that strive to reach across America’s political and social divides, both to garner broader audiences and to depict diverse characters and settings with accuracy, integrity, and empathy. To date, our team has consulted on a wide range of genres from documentary film to “rom com.”
We also welcome opportunities to engage with writing teams, on a one-time or ongoing basis, to deepen understanding of America’s partisan conflict dynamics and how these can be portrayed and transcended through storytelling and narrative. As needed, we engage experts from the academic and bridge-building communities who can more deeply equip and empower writers with insights to deliver transformative stories.
Empower The Industry
We empower the entertainment industry with compelling data, research, and resources to inform and accelerate the creation of narratives that demonstrably strengthen America’s social fabric.
- Newsletters
- Tip Sheets
- Research
Empowerment in Practice
Program Impact Analysis
Ongoing
Bridge Entertainment Labs leverages a measurement platform, called Social Cohesion Impact Measurement (SCIM), to evaluate the impact of bridge building interventions. This platform can be deployed to evaluate how audiences are impacted by specific entertainment content, along dimensions such as “affective polarization,” “empathy,” “open mindedness,” and “belonging,” among others. Audience response can be segmented along multiple demographic dimensions, to gain insight about how the same content might impact different audience types.
