Entertainment Media's Role in Achieving Sustainability and Equal Rights
In briefAI summary — tap to read
Bill Ryerson, a legendary Disney animator who worked on films like The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Tarzan, discusses how animation and creative expression have evolved with new technology, particularly virtual reality, which allows artists to immerse themselves fully in three-dimensional storytelling rather than working on flat paper.
Key takeaways
- Animation is a deeply personal and immersive process where artists must embody their characters physically and emotionally to bring them authentically to life.
- Virtual reality technology is revolutionizing how animators work by removing the constraints of flat paper and enabling three-dimensional sculptural drawing in immersive space.
- The core of all creative art forms is freedom and the ability to imagine and express oneself without boundaries, much like the fearlessness children bring to their work.
- Technological advances like VR goggles allow artists to perceive characters at life-size scale in their imagination, making the creative process feel more like inhabiting a world than creating a flat drawing.
About Bill RyersonBill Ryerson is a legendary animator who spent approximately 38 years at Disney, where he animated iconic characters in films including The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Tarzan, and Pocahontas. He is the son of Bil Keane, creator of The Family Circus comic strip.
AI-generated from the meeting recording — AI can make mistakes, so check the recording for anything important.
MEETING FOR THE WEEK OF Nov. 11, 2024
This Meeting at a Glance:
Program: Entertainment Media's Role in Achieving Sustainability and Equal Rights
Speaker: Bill Ryerson
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Message from our president
As the 2024-2025 President of our Club, I welcome our members, fellow Rotarians, friends, and guests. Thanks for joining our weekly meeting!
This week, I am excited to introduce our speaker, Bill Ryerson, the Population Media Center (PMC) founder. PMC is a non-profit organization that operates in 57 countries. It uses storytelling to empower communities and create a healthier, more equitable, and thriving world for everyone.
Instead of lecturing about issues such as family planning, contraception, equal opportunity, and non-violence against women and girls—topics that can sometimes conflict with local laws, customs, and traditions—PMC takes a different approach. They focus on challenging harmful social norms by inspiring individuals, particularly women and girls, to rewrite their own life stories, and tell them to local media audiences through fictional videos or audio/radio narratives. By uplifting those most affected by these issues, who are likely to drive cultural change, PMC fosters significant community progress toward a shared goal: a more equitable and flourishing world for all people and ecosystems.
You will enjoy learning about this unique organization, which has succeeded in many countries, particularly North, Central, South America, and Africa. Their work contributes to greater global sustainability through slower population growth and increased rights for women, enabling them to make tangible contributions to their communities.
I also want to mention to our members that our latest Club Bulletin (also available today) is full of news and information specific to our members. Please read this week’s Bulletin, as it covers the lead-up to our annual Club nomination/election process and other news and announcements I know you will find interesting.
For everyone attending today, thank you! Your presence and participation in our unique asynchronous digital Rotary Club format are essential to our ability to bring you inspiring and informative speakers like Bill Ryerson. Please let us know how you feel about our program in the Discus following the program.
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And now, it is my pleasure to open this week’s Rotary Club of Silicon Valley meeting…
Weekly Funny with Shags
We believe laughter is an important part of life, and we should all make time to laugh a little. This segment of our meeting is meant to tickle you just enough. These funnies are curated by member Steven "Shags" Shagrin!
Twenty Like You
A paperboy said to a customer one day, " Mr. Smith, I wish I had twenty customers like you."
"Gosh, that's nice to hear," said Smith, " but I'm kind of surprised, considering I never tip all that well and always pay late."
The paperboy said, "I know, but I'd still like twenty customers like you. The problem is I have one hundred and forty!"
Calmly, the sleuth produces a small knife and a lemon, which he carefully cuts into small pieces. He then sticks the pieces of lemon on the wall in the shape of a door and, with a push, creates a doorway.
An astonished Watson asks, "How on earth did you do that, Holmes?"
"Lemon-entry, my dear Watson, Lemon-entry!”
Inspiration
There's something about the possibilities of art that capture our attention, make us want to be more creative than we think we are, and plant the seed that can flower into realizing we have so much more creativity within us than we knew. In this piece about artist Glen Keane, called Step into the Page, you'll see not just a connection to Disney characters you probably know, but also a sense of exploration that you probably should embrace more often!
Learn something new
Why does hitting your funny bone feel so horrible?
Cella Wright explores the complex anatomy of the elbow and explains why hitting your funny bone causes such an odd and painful sensation.
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Program: Entertainment Media's Role in Achieving Sustainability and Equal Rights
Speaker: Bill Ryerson
We bring you a new program every week on innovation, entrepreneurship, and education and how they contribute to service to others.
Some of the world's most intractable problems – like poor reproductive health and violence against women – are now being addressed through the medium of prime-time serialized dramas. Population Media Center (PMC) uses a special type of serialized melodrama (like telenovelas) for changing behavior on such issues as family planning, elevation of women's status, girls' education, stopping child marriage, protection of children, and protection of the environment. Characters in locally written and produced programs on radio, television, and social media evolve into positive role models for the audience and, in the process, lead to population-wide changes in behavior.
Bill Ryerson is founder and president of Population Media Center (PMC). He has a 52-year history of working in the field of reproductive health, including four decades of experience adapting the Sabido methodology of entertainment-education for behavior change communications to various cultural settings worldwide. PMC has broadcast its programs in 57 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the U.S. Bill will speak about the importance and effectiveness of PMC's work, including that of the shows.
Bill is Founder and President of Population Media Center (PMC) (www.populationmedia.org), an organization that strives to improve the health and wellbeing of people around the world through the use of entertainment-education strategies. He also serves as Chair of The Population Institute in Washington, DC (www.populationinstitute.org), which works in partnership with Population Media Center. PMC creates long-running serialized dramas on radio and television, in which characters evolve into role models for the audience resulting in positive behavior change. The emphasis of the organization's work is to educate people about the benefits of small families, encourage the use of effective family planning methods, elevate women's status, prevent exploitation of children, promote avoidance of HIV infection, and promote environmentally sustainable behaviors.
He received a B.A. in Biology (Magna Cum Laude) from Amherst College and an M.Phil. in Biology from Yale University (with specialization in Ecology and Evolution). He served as Director of the Population Institute's Youth and Student Division, Development Director of Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania, Associate Director of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and Executive Vice President of Population Communications International before founding Population Media Center in 1998.
Members and guests, please welcome Bill Ryerson!
To learn more, go to:
https://www.populationmedia.org/
Bill's slides:
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