Exposure Labs 2022 Annual Report : simplebooklet.com

Exposure Labs is the film and impact studio behind the Emmy-winning films Chasing Ice (2012), Chasing Coral (2017), and The Social Dilemma (2020). Through a unique model where film production and social advocacy are tightly entwined, we share and support stories to address pressing societal challenges and inspire hope and action for collective solutions. Beyond creating original films, Exposure Labs mounts large-scale cultural impact campaigns and offers skill and resource-sharing programs that support storytellers and movement organizers to build narrative power toward a more just, equitable and regenerative future for all. 2022 was a year of visioning and implementation: our team dedicated significant time outlining the next 5 years of films and impact, created roadmaps to actualize our values, and practiced new ways of being together and in partnership. As we continued to gain clarity on our role in the social impact storytelling ecosystem and deeply considered the change we want to make in the world, we adopted an org-wide theory of change focused on cultural transformation. While we planned for the future, we also invested in the here and now, augmenting our ability to respond quickly to the needs of our partners by hiring a short-form content team and beginning production on our first two short-form series. This work, designed to serve our organizing partners and rapidly-evolving social justice movements, allows us to contribute to urgent narrative change while working at the speed of trust and with deep intention on feature projects that will meet the public in the coming 5 years. This report highlights our impact and learnings from 2022, as well as our ambitions for 2023 and beyond. We hope you enjoy this window into our work and appreciate your support!overview2

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Our Co-Founder and Head of Original Productions Larissa Rhodes has always called us the #dreamteam. It’s true. Our people are our greatest strength. Part of our special sauce is our diversity: our backgrounds span film production and distribution, political and grassroots advocacy, movement-building, journalism, communications, and arts and festival administration. Despite our eclectic perspectives, we’re united around our dedication to storytelling for a better future and always exploring and reimagining what that critical work can look like. In 2022, our team practiced and got better at balancing the value of our work with the un-neglectable importance of self- and other- care. We moved across the country, to LA, Denver and DC; recovered from COVID, some of us multiple times!; explored the world, from road trips in New Mexico to silent retreats in Baja to honeymoons in Italy; welcomed a new dog to the ELABS pet family, and got another through cancer; were joined by three new team members, and bid goodbye with gratitude to four other long-standing teammates now on to other adventures. LEARN MORE ABOUT USour team3

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the problemThe systems upheld by dominant power structures are designed to fail most of us: they perpetuate climate change, reward extractive economies, divide and confuse us through misinformation, and proliferate a media landscape that is not representative of our communities.assumptions• Systems-level changes are critical• Storytelling has broad power and can be used strategically for change• Narrative change can lead to larger systems change• Audiences have innate power to make change• Because of deep and pervasive inequities in society, systemic work must be done through an anti-oppression lens • Working with grassroots organizers and those most impacted can leverage the power of storiesprogrammatic interventions • Storytelling production• Social impact campaigns• Storyteller capacity building• Field leadership capacity building• Organizer capacity buildingLEARN MORE ABOUT OUR MISSION & VISIONour new theory of changeIn spring 2022, our team underwent an intensive process to formulate an organization-wide theory of change. We will continue to revisit and refine this theory of change each year. Greater audience/public knowledge of systemic issues results in motivation and empowerment to affect systemic change.Increased support for a diversity of mediamakers who tell transformational stories about systemic change, especially storytellers with proximity to the issues.Active bridge- building and solutions-oriented partnerships emerge between storytellers, stakeholders, and movement organizations.Expanded and more resourced field of storytellers focused on systems-level changes.Storytelling leads to shifts in hearts and minds toward action.Storytelling becomes a go-to medium for social change.Cultural transformation alters mental models, fosters empathy, and shifts power to those most impacted by systemic issues, leading to systems-level changes that are just, equitable and sustainable for all people and the planet.desired outcomesMEDIUM-TERM5-8 years3 years10 yearsLONG -TERMSHORT-TERM4

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From inception, Exposure Labs has embraced storytelling as an essential driver of cultural transformation and a powerful accelerant for change. The stories we envision now are a beacon to guide us through the cataclysmic global shifts we are currently experiencing. For the first time in our organization’s history, we’ve scaled our film slate to work on multiple projects at once: a book adaptation; a new kind of nature program; a major feature; and a short documentary. All of these projects are designed with impact centered in everything we do, working with our partners to understand the audience, advocacy, and policy landscape before we even begin production. 2022 has been a time of research, reflection and relationship building, both with film participants and advocacy partners. We deeply considered our previous filmmaking practices and evolved our protocols – from how we hire contractors to what we consider “expertise” – to incorporate our values at every turn. Through a new Production and Impact Roadmap, we’ve formalized how and when our impact team and organizing partners consult on new projects, ensuring they inform key decisions in creative development all the way through distribution and campaign strategy. We’ve also laid the foundation for a film-specific advisory council, which we hope will serve as a model for future projects. In short, our ambitions are higher than ever. In 2023, we’ll be bringing on new full-time producing and operations support, entering production on several projects, and releasing another to the world! developing original social impact filmsour work5

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supporting storytellers & organizers to build narrative power ensuring movements have the stories they need In 2022 we further refined our role in the film and impact space by centering communities most impacted by climate change and exploitative technology, and using storytelling to build capacity towards a more just future. Below is a snapshot of the series of interventions we’ve built to support our role in contributing to meaningful change. our workSHORT-FORM CONTENT In spring 2022, Exposure Labs hired two new team members, Kerri Pang and Joshua Clark, to build out a short-form production arm of our organization to support our deep investments in the tech, climate, and broader social change movements in alignment with our impact work. A Tech Explainer series and Climate Wins series are both in production, slated for release in early 2023, and new series to be released throughout 2023 are in the works.CAPACITY-BUILDING GRANTSWe continue to support the movements we serve through capacity-building grants, tools, and mentorship. We launched a Chasing Coral Community Grants Program to support coral related and climate justice centered projects across the globe. In the tech space, we’ve extended our partnership with LookUp Live by co-sponsoring the next round of applications for youth advocates, storytellers, and innovators (18-25) with bold ideas to address the youth mental health crisis. Through 2023, we will be launching additional grant opportunities centered on 1) film screenings, projects, and film events that are utilizing storytelling to mobilize new and existing audiences, drive action, and create social change, and 2) enabling creators closest to the problems of climate change and humane tech access through critical initial funding, resources, and connections they need to tell their stories. 6

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supporting storytellers & organizers to build narrative power “Film in the Field’s second iteration has given grassroots leaders the much needed opportunity to share stories about their own communities’ environmental and climate justice fights, allowing them to engage in a visual format with community members to build a deeper awareness of these issues. Film in the Field has facilitated resources to advance educational and advocacy efforts in the climate and social justice movements.”– Sara Ochoa, Membership & Operations Manager at SCENour workFILM IN THE FIELDFilm screenings from our Request for Proposal 1 with the Southeast Climate & Energy Network (SCEN) wrapped in May 2022. In early 2022, we launched the Request for Proposal 2 with SCEN, which we updated to include an option for organizations to use short-form video to tell their own story. All five of our accepted grantees chose to tell their own story through short video production! Separately, this past summer we hosted a series of film screenings and workshops in Macon County, Alabama, Peach County, Georgia and Madison County, Florida with SCEN, Hometown Action, EFCWest, and Urban Climate Nexus as part of the Regional Integrated Science and Assessments program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In these workshops, partners hosted conversations and assessments to understand rural communities’ relationship to the climate crisis and its solutions. The project concluded at the end of 2022 with a white paper of our learnings for NOAA and a video by cinematographer Jane Macedo Yang. 7

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ONE-ON-ONES PROGRAMOur team reserves time each week for no-cost conversations with current and aspiring filmmakers and impact producers. The program was launched in 2020 to democratize access to industry professionals and expertise by eliminating a gatekeeper; anyone can sign up and speak to someone on our team based on their interests and needs. We’ll be further expanding this program to include additional team members in 2023.FIELD BUILDING In 2023, we will be releasing a series of offerings to support our commitment to mutual learning and growth, and to build reciprocity with the ecosystems we operate in and serve. In 2022, our team held this role through advising and coalition building with a variety of projects and partners and sharing the stage with many brilliant partners and thought leaders in the climate, humane tech, and storytelling spaces. Some highlights include:• Supporting the launch of the Good Energy Playbook – a beautiful and free climate storytelling resource for screenwriters – through editorial review, funding, and distribution.sharing our expertise & learning from others • Supporting Netflix with the impact campaign for its hit feature Don’t Look Up, along with a range of experts and advisors, with a focus on the Join a Climate Group call to action.• Ongoing advising and consulting with other filmmakers, including for the projects #WhileBlack, about the citizen journalist videos that ignited global movements and generated massive profits for exploitative social media platforms, and RICO: A Modern Gangster Tale, about Big Oil’s re-tooling of anti-racketeering laws to frame environmental organizers as part of a “criminal conspiracy.”• Joining the Age Appropriate Design Code Coalition, the Climate Disinformation Coalition, and the UNFCCC ENZA (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Entertainment Industry Net Zero Accord) working group • Speaking to our work and the movements we serve on panels at Mountainfilm Festival, the US Department of State’s Innovation Station, IDA’s Getting Real ‘22, the Headwater Science Institute, Arizona State University, and many more.our work8

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We are in a stage of growing as an established organization operating at the intersection of storytelling and social justice movements. Here are some highlights from the organizational development work we’ve undertaken in 2022 to build a strong foundation for the work ahead:launching a new phase of our organizationteam We restructured our org chart to more deeply integrate our production and impact teams and hired new team members to add capacity to our communications, development, and short-form content work. We invested in our skills through management training, continued learning opportunities, and new team processes designed around giving and receiving generative feedback. valuesWe continued to put into practice our values of equity and sustainability, integrity, creativity and inclusion in big and small ways, from revisiting our hiring processes to interrogating how our systems – from Google docs to Zoom – and ways of communicating create or undermine a culture of belonging. We deepened our commitment to justice, equity, diversity and inclusion through white and BIPOC caucus spaces, an ongoing team political education series, continued work around equitable filmmaking processes based on our previous learnings, and deep discussions both internally and in our broader field about not just the power of storytelling, but the power inherent in storytelling – who should hold it, and how. We continue to build shared language and understanding of current and historical events/movements that have shaped our identities, experiences, and the world around us so that we can show up within the work as our most authentic selves. development & communicationsWith our newly-formed development and communications team, we launched a large-scale fundraising effort to scale our production slate and impact. Thanks to our generous donors, we’re already a quarter of the way toward resourcing a 5-year slate of films, large-scale cultural impact campaigns, and skill and resource-sharing programs that support storytellers and movement organizers. We also honed our organization’s story, identity, audiences and community ethics to align and guide how we communicate externally through an equity and partner-centered lens. In 2023, we’re building out a new field leadership strategy in accordance with our theory of change, which will include new impact program hires. We’re also thrilled to announce that Exposure Labs is shifting to a co-director structure in the model of orgs we greatly admire, like Doc Society, Catapult and Working Films. Our leadership team will consist of Shirley Alfaro, Larissa Rhodes, Jeff Orlowski-Yang, and a fourth co-director slated for hire this year.our work9

Exposure Labs 2022 Annual Report

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