Past
High Impact Television
Overview
With support from Ford, we signed up 15 communities that wanted to leverage this story about one HIV-positive woman’s crusade against AIDS. The campaigns forged new partnerships between mainstream groups like the American Red Cross and women’s collective health clinics. Using a method we’d soon call “High Impact Television,” we helped each partner coalition see how this stunning film—made available free of charge to virtually every American—might harmonize relationships between competing AIDS groups, raise the visibility of public services, even educate lawmakers on the implications of pending health legislation.
We experimented with content, partnerships and the roles of stations and filmmakers. Debbie Hoffmann’s Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter (1995) became a tool for Alzheimer associations; a Cleveland chapter, for example, attracted local press coverage when it held multiple screenings for daughters caring for their afflicted mothers. When we learned that Laurel Chiten’s Twitch and Shout (1995) might prevent people with Tourette Syndrome from being confused with violent criminals, we helped police departments in several urban centers use the film as a sensitizing tool for officers.