Topic: Impact Production
In the landscape of media production, the main focus is often put on the creation of breathtaking visuals, engaging stories and on reaching as many people as possible. In the advertising area all of this is used to help companies promote themselves and their products. In the film industry it is utilized to create the experience for the audience. On social media it is used to influence people to keep watching the video, follow the accounts or buy any kind of product. No matter what part of the media production sector you look at, usually the main goal is to generate a good amount of profit.
But what if profit wasn’t the main goal? What if filmmakers and video producers used their skills to help the society and the environment? What if these breathtaking visuals and engaging stories were used to make a difference for everybody rather than just generating profit for big companies?
There is an answer to these questions, and it is called: Impact Production.
What is Impact Production
The term “Impact Production” is used to describe a certain type of filmmaking, where the centre of attention is the achievement of “[…] social and cultural change that has been driven by a documentary film and its associated campaign strategy.” (Finneran o.D., S.4)
The core thought behind impact production is to create strategies and take advantage of storytelling in movies (especially documentaries) to drive positive change regarding crucial areas like human rights, social justice and the climate crisis. (cf. Loader/Maasdorp 2024, S.41)
With the help of movies, such important topics can be made more accessible for people, information can be provided and most importantly: empathy can be evoked. Liani Maasdorp and Reina-Marie Loader state: “Impact is achieved not just by a film’s own power to make people aware of and care about an issue. It requires thinking strategically about how to channel that emotion into meaningful and measurable change.” (Maasdorp/Loader 2025)
Impact productions want to enlighten certain groups of people about a topic, show them what the problem is and maybe even give them approaches on how to solve these problems. The main goal is to give them a reason to think about the topic and empower them to do something about it. Sometimes the goal is also just to view the issue from another angle and show the audience a new perspective on a topic they might already be familiar with (e.g. climate change).
To achieve this two of the most important questions the filmmakers have to ask themselves is “Who is my target audience?” and “What do they have to do, to create the change?”. The target audience is so important, because depending on who the movie reaches, different effects can be achieved. For example, documentaries targeted to politicians have a different impact than movies targeted to educators. Both are very important groups who can achieve change in different kind of ways. The politicians can influence policies, while the educators can bring the topic to the classroom and shape future generations in this way. And with these different groups of people in mind, the movie or documentary must be created accordingly to the needs and desires of the audience. (cf. docsociety 2019, 1.2 The Power of Film)
Change
What impact producers have to think about is what kind of change they want to reach and how this can be achieved. There are two systems that describe how change can be evoked: Top down and Bottom Up.
Top down change targets the politicians and people who are in charge of lawmaking as well as CEOs, boards and stakeholders of corporations. The underlying concept here is, that the overall system has to be changed, to create a difference for the individual people. (cf. docsociety 2019, 1.4 How Change Happens)
Bottom up change on the other hand works the other way around. It targets the individual people and groups that are affected by the topic to create a movement of many people which eventually lead to achieving the overall desired goal. (cf. docsociety 2019, 1.4 How Change Happens)
Reaching the Audience
No matter which of the two possibilities is chosen, the important thing is, that the documentary or movie matches the needs and desires of the chosen group. Even though the documentary film is the go-to genre when it comes to impact production, sometimes it is not the most effective option to drive change. Thinking about the decreasing attention span, sometimes shorter films and videos might have a bigger impact on some groups of people. This is one of the reasons why some impact producers started to focus on the production of documentary shorts rather than full-length documentaries. (cf. docsociety 2019, 5.1 Why Shorts)
Thinking about this, another field comes to mind where impact production could be implemented to reach a large amount of people: Social Media. By using free Platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube the general public could be reached in a rather easy way. However, since the framework conditions regarding social media contents are different to the conditions in the field of documentaries, the impact producers would have to adjust their workflow accordingly. But even with the need of adjustment, the overall idea of creating impact through film and videos could as well be implemented in the social media sector.
Implementing Impact Production
Whichever medium of contribution is chosen, the important thing is, that, when possible, filmmakers should start to incorporate important social and environmental topics into their work. They should use their skills to create artwork, that does not only look good but also gives the people something to think about.
With the power of filmmaking, the audience can get a new view on important topics and can be moved to take action. That’s why incorporating the idea of impact productions in the filmmaking process is a very crucial step towards creating a better world.
Bibliography
| docsociety 2019 | docsociety (2019): The Impact Field Guide & Toolkit. From Art to Impact. In: Impact Field Guide, https://impactguide.org (zuletzt aufgerufen am 06.10.2025) |
| Finneran (o.D.) | Finneran, Patricia (o.D.): Documentary Impact: Social Change Through Storytelling. In: hotDOCS, http://assets.hotdocs.ca/doc/HD14_Documentary_Impact_Report.PDF (zuletzt aufgerufen am 06.10.2025) |
| Loader/Maasdorp 2024 | Loader, Reina-Marie/Maasdorp, Liani: Impact production in higher education: shaping future change makers through film education. In: Film Education Journal 7,1 (2024), S. 40-57.< https://doi.org/10.14324/ FEJ.07.1.05.> |
| Maasdorp/Loader 2025 | Maasdorp, Liani/Loader, Reina-Marie (19.01.2025): Films can change the world – why universities and film schools should teach impact strategies. In: The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/films-can-change-the-world-why-universities-and-film-schools-should-teach-impact-strategies-242043 (zuletzt aufgerufen am 26.10.2025) |