The Healing Power of Story with Scilla Andreen

Scilla Andreen (pronounced Sheila) wasn’t like the kids she grew up with in Colorado. Her mom was Chinese, and because of her heritage, Scilla was teased and bullied.

Movies and TV shows became Scilla’s safe place and, eventually, her passion. Years later, she ended up in Hollywood as an Emmy-nominated costume designer—working on hit shows like “Dawson’s Creek,” “Party of Five” and “The Wonder Years.”

One day, Scilla had an epiphany. She wanted to use her love of storytelling to create films for good, so she started the iMPACTFUL Group to educate youth and families through stories and teach them about mental health, kindness, empathy, compassion, and trust to let people know they matter and belong.

She hopes to provide tools, build community, and move the needle on issues including mental health, bullying, racism, and the effects of social media.

We hope you enjoy our conversation with Scilla Andreen—a woman on a mission to change the world through film.

Resources from the episode:

Connect with Scilla on ⁠LinkedIn⁠.
Learn more about iMPACTFUL ⁠here⁠.
Watch iMPACTFUL’s short “⁠It’s Just a Stomach Ache⁠.”
Check out iMPACTFUL’s Creative Coping Toolkit (CCT) for ⁠schools⁠ and ⁠corporations⁠.
Learn more about the iMPACTFUL Fund and find ways to support it ⁠here⁠.
Check out the Indieflix ⁠website⁠ for thought-provoking, quirky, and award-winning independent films, shorts, series, and documentaries, and follow them on ⁠Instagram⁠.

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Transcript

The following transcript is not certified. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. The information contained within this document is for general information purposes only.

Speakers: Scilla Andreen and Mark Wright

SCILLA ANDREEN 00:00

Mental health is still this gray area. There’s still so much stigma. So, I’m gonna lean into it even more. At least as long as I can. And I bet the farm on it. And so, here’s the deal. If I die in the process, not die literally, but like, you know, then at least I tried. Um, but I think we’re gonna make some, some good headway and we’re gonna help a lot of people. And like you said, um, my mission in life is to let people know they matter, and they belong.

MARK WRIGHT 00:31

This is the BEATS WORKING show. We’re on a mission to redeem work – the word, the place, and the way. I’m your host, Mark Wright. Join us at winning the game of work. Welcome to BEATS WORKING. On the show this week, the healing power of story. Scilla Andreen wasn’t like the kid she grew up with in Colorado. Her mom was Chinese. And because of her heritage, she got teased and bullied. Movies and TV shows became Scilla’s safe place, and also her passion. She actually ended up in Hollywood as an Emmy-nominated costume designer, working on hit shows like “Dawson’s Creek,” “Party of Five,” and “The Wonder Years.” But one day Sheila had an epiphany. She wanted more. She wanted to use her love of story to create films for good. So, she and a friend started IndieFlix, a marketplace for independent filmmakers. Fast forward to today, Sheila’s latest venture is a company called Impactful Group. Its mission is to create and distribute award-winning, evidence-based film programs for schools, businesses, and nonprofits. Their hope is to provide tools, build community, and really move the needle on issues including mental health, bullying, racism, and the effects of social media. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Scilla Andreen, a woman on a mission to change the world through film. Scilla Andreen, welcome to BEATS WORKING, winning the game of work. I’ve been looking forward to our conversation. Welcome.

SCILLA ANDREEN 02:08

Oh, thanks for having me, Mark. I was looking forward to it myself.

MARK WRIGHT 02:12

So, Scilla, you are the CEO and founder of Impactful Group. You’re also the co-founder of IndieFlix. So, Scilla, I’ve been looking forward to talking with you because you’ve turned your, your amazing ability as a filmmaker into something that’s much more than just entertaining audiences. You’re really trying to help society, uh, when it comes to dealing with mental health issues. I’d love to just begin with, um, where did you fall in love with, with visual storytelling and filmmaking in the first place? Take me back.

SCILLA ANDREEN 02:41

Oh boy. That’s an easy one. I love that question. I, uh, grew up, when I was younger, I was in Breckenridge, Colorado, which is an old mining town. Well, it was an old mining town when I lived there. Not a lot of people there. I didn’t have a lot of friends. Um, yeah. I’m Chinese and I think my mom and I were really the only people of color in the whole, in all of Summit County. I don’t know why that was the case, but so I was teased, bullied a lot. I didn’t have a lot of friends. I had my dogs, I had my books and I had TV and movies and those were like, that was my community. So, you know, uh, people always say like, what’s one of your favorite movies? Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the original, hands down, and the last line of that movie is kind of what shaped how I view the world, which, do you know what the last line is? One of the last lines?

MARK WRIGHT 03:33

I, I, it’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie. I love the movie, by the way, but no, I, I can’t remember. What is the line?

SCILLA ANDREEN 03:39

Well, Charlie is in the great glass elevator going up with Willy Wonka and they’re looking at each other. They’re looking out all over the town and the village. And Charlie and Willy Wonka says to Charlie, do you know what happened to the man who got everything he ever wanted? And basically, he, he said he lived happily ever after. And I had always read stories like, you know, you could only have two of three things or like you just can’t have it all. And so, I kind of started my life that way, even though I was bullied, even though there were things that hurt or were uncomfortable or, you know, that I didn’t understand deep inside my DNA, I felt like. You can have it all and you can be happy and so movies did that for me. I also felt incredibly guilty when I watched and fell in love with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and wanted the outlaws to get away with it, right? Like, I felt really bad guilt for that, but no, I mean, movies were, and I will say my parents in those days, parents didn’t quite edit what kids watched. So, like for a while I was the only child, and they would take me to the drive-in and I watched, you know, the Godfather, right? Like when I was little, so like there was things that impacted me. So, visuals became kind of a way for me to feel things and communicate and, you know. Where I saw images and stories of families that sat at the dinner table. I didn’t. We didn’t. We had TV trays. And I was the remote control, you know, like I would turn on the channel and fix the rabbit ears. And, you know, we, I had a very different kind of upbringing.

MARK WRIGHT 05:15

Scilla, when, when someone is bullied as a kid and treated that way because of their ethnicity, does that ever go away or does that, does that stay with you for your whole life?

SCILLA ANDREEN 05:25

Oh, I think it stays with you a hundred percent. You just learn to live with it. It’s like a scar, right? Like, and you remember how you got that scar? But it’s not like you sit there obsessed about it. You, sometimes someone will bring it up and you look at it and you tell the story. I made a film called “Race to be Human” and I started the film, I was curious because I knew the moment I, I was not white. And so, I mean, it was third grade. Otherwise, I think I just thought I was like everybody else that I saw. And I was in a white world, and I just thought I was just like them. Um, and so I opened the film with asking everyone I interviewed, do you remember? The moment that you either realized you were white, or you were not white. And it’s interesting, all the people of color that I interviewed knew the exact moment that they realized they weren’t white.

MARK WRIGHT 06:16

Wow. And I’m guessing most white people don’t remember ever having that, that thought.

SCILLA ANDREEN 06:23

It’s mostly, they remember the first time they saw someone who was not white. And they remember that, and a lot of people were like, oh, interesting, cool. Others had different responses based on kind of like how they grew up, what they were exposed to and so, um, or what they saw in media. Um, so it was really interesting.

MARK WRIGHT 06:44

Yeah. That’s really interesting that movies, that you fell in love with movies because of their ability to make you feel something. And I love movies for the same reason. When did you start to turn that love of movies into something that allowed you to start to make them?

SCILLA ANDREEN 07:00

Yeah. You know, it’s funny. I, I um, I wanted to be a litigator. I love the law. And I was at NYU studying political science and I fell in love with a, a director who made commercials and industrials and you know, I was working three jobs and, you know, paying my way through school and I met him and ended up, long story, helping, I won’t go into it. Helping him on a commercial, which paid me 800 a day, which was so much money. And so, I ended up taking a break from school, a permanent break, started getting involved in commercials and then moved right into television. But I worked on great shows. So, I did “The Wonder Years.” I did “Party of Five.” I did “Dawson’s Creek” and especially “The Wonder Years” and “Party of Five,” the quality of those scripts. And the stories that was my foundation, great writing, great acting and, and great storytelling. So that is how I fell in love with great story and the standard was the highest it could be. So, um, as far as how I turned it into good, that’s a different path. Um, I was. So, I was working on a pilot, I won’t mention too many names, and I was chasing down.

MARK WRIGHT 08:18

Oh, feel free to if you’d like to. We don’t mind. We don’t mind name-dropping on this podcast.

SCILLA ANDREEN 08:23

Well, I was working on a Disney pilot, it was a sizable pilot, with a very famous actress from a very famous show called “Sex And The City.” And she needed, she was playing a soccer mom. And she needed to have a $150 thong that she would be wearing. And I said, but you’re a soccer mom, you wear jeans and sweatshirts. And you’ve got a side hustle as a little, like, neighborhood detective. Um, but you never take your clothes off. She goes, I know, but I need that thong. And it was made by a company in France who had gone out of business. And I couldn’t find that $150 thong. I offered to make one. I called the designer from “Sex And The City.” I said, do you have one laying around? Nope, nope, no. And so it was, I was in Beverly Hills in my big car and I’m driving like a bat out of hell with the sun in my eyes. And I almost ran somebody over trying to find this $150 thong. And the person slammed their hands on my hood, and they said, you know, watch where the bleep you’re going. And I had this gestalt, I had this revelation and I just thought, surely, I must have something more to offer in the world. Then what I’m doing right now. And so it was, that was the pivotal moment that I decided I love story. I want to use film for good. How do I do that? And so, um, that kind of set me off on this journey and that’s how I, with my partner, how we started IndieFlix via marketplace for independent filmmakers.

MARK WRIGHT 09:47

Yeah, so we’ll talk about IndieFlix in just a sec, but I, I would love to talk a little bit more about your time. You, were you based in Hollywood at that time?

SCILLA ANDREEN 09:54

No. I was working at Warner Brothers and Sony.

MARK WRIGHT 09:57

So, this was, I guess, kind of the glory days of TV when the networks had all the marbles, right? There was no cable at this point. And, and so all the great script writers, all the big budgets were, were just thrown into these massive productions. What do you think was the most important thing you learned through that? I’m guessing, you know, you’re working with people at the top of their games. Um, but do you have a story or, or two from, from that period that, that sticks with you?

SCILLA ANDREEN 10:26

My gosh, I have so many. I mean, I, well, first of all, in those days, I mean, I haven’t been back in production at that level, you know, of doing television where we would do 25 to 26 setups a day. You’re working with a crew of 130 people, you know, I tend to, “The Wonder Years” was a period piece, so I had to, I couldn’t just go down the street to find what I needed quickly with their, if there were script changes. We’d get pages sometimes in the middle of the night of how they’d rewritten some stuff and I’d get to work at 4:15 in the morning and it’s like, oh that whole scene changed. So now it’s like they’re not camping. They’re at a beach, right? So now I need period bathing suits and bathing caps and how do we create that when there’s not even a store around or anything open, right? Like those kinds of things you learn to become incredibly resourceful. I think one of the biggest things I learned, and I don’t know if it’s a story to share, but you learn to be a great communicator because you have to coordinate with the, the network, the production company, the directors, the producers, the writers, and then ultimately the actors, you’ve got to sell it to all of them. You need to let them know they have all been heard and they had their contribution of why, what they want to see on screen. Um, and so, and then you’ve got, you know, like what, I can’t remember the name of the organization that says this you can say, or can’t say, and this is okay and not okay. Blank on the name. But, um, so there was a lot of people to please and a lot of people to, to really do take in their, their contributions. So, um, I mean, gosh, do I have stories. I have stories where, um, you know, the person wore the wrong outfit through the whole thing. So how do we fix that? And they have to rewrite things. And how do you have the courage to go to the production and tell them? And, um, I’ve had actors who come in, where everything was set. Everything was approved and organized. And then the actor comes in and says, I don’t want to wear that, I want to wear this instead. It’s like, okay, you do know that that’s going to have a domino effect on everything. And you’re an hour late and they need to shoot now. And so, like just the struggle, right? Like you have no life. I had no life. I slept with my kids when I would get home at midnight because I didn’t see them all day or at night, right? I had a nanny. I had a pool person. I had someone who would drive them to the set to see me during dinner and then take them back home. Um, you know, on Fridays that was, they’d bring a play date to, to set, which was, we were very popular play dates. Um, and you have no, in those days you had no life. Um, your, your family, your family was the crew that you worked with. And I happened to work with incredible actors. I remember on “The Wonder Years.” Like Juliette Lewis, Brad Pitt, and Julian Lennon. And like Julian Lennon was dating Olivia Dabo, who was the sister on “The Wonder Years.” And Juliette Lewis played, uh, the girlfriend to, uh, Wayne, who was the, uh, Jason Hervey was the brother on “The Wonder Years.” And, um, Brad Pitt was there because he was dating Juliette Lewis. So, he came to visit Juliette on set. I mean, like, it’s just funny, um, to having met all these people back in the day, or Alan who wrote “Wonder Woman,” right? The first one and just how you hang out and everyone’s just so incredibly talented and fun to create with.

MARK WRIGHT 13:53

What, what was your job title back then? Like, what different roles did you play on those productions?

SCILLA ANDREEN 13:59

So, I was the costume designer. And it was interesting because I actually worked, um, I came in on “The Wonder Years” on the second episode. The first episode actually aired right after the Superbowl, and I happened to watch it and I fell in love with that show. Like some, it was like an arrow, a shot into my DNA. And I was like, I need to work on that show. And I had done, you know, uh, styling and working on commercials and industrials, but I had never done TV. And I found out where their office was in Culver City. And I went down there, and I just said, I want to work here. And they said, well, we’re not hiring. And are you union? And, you know, I said, I’ll do anything. I’ll sweep floors. And they kept saying no goodbye. And I kept going down there. Like I’d go down every couple of weeks and I’d say anything, I’ll do anything. Well, like probably my third time there, the costume designer was in the lobby, like area, and she heard me, and she said, I could use someone who could sort hangers and help me clean up the wardrobe area. I said, I’ll do it. And I’ve done some styling for national commercials. So she goes, great. So, I went in and that’s where I started. And by having to sort and size and organize racks and racks of clothing, I learned the entire stock. So then when I was like sweeping and in the background and she was fitting an actor and she’d say, we really need like a dress for a cocktails, blah, blah, blah. And I looked at the actor and I knew him. I’m like, can I go grab you some things? Cause I have an idea that you might like. And so, I would bring her stuff. She was so happy, I became her assistant. And then she got fired. So, then I was back there and, but I had, I knew the stock. I knew the, all the actors I knew, I come to know everyone. And so, they brought another designer in, and they said, show her the ropes. So, I showed her the ropes. She was awesome. And she’s like, why are, why am I doing this? You should be doing it. I said, well, they don’t want me. They want you. And, um, she said she kind of was struggling with them. She ended up leaving. And as she left, she said, you need to tell them you’re doing this job. And so, they said, we’re going to find someone else until then just hold down the fort and then you need to train that person. I said, why don’t you just give it to me? And they ended up saying, which I thought was so funny. Well, you weren’t alive during that time. And I said, okay, who does “2001 Space Odyssey?” Who did “Ben Hur?” Like who did “The 10 Commandments?” Like research. And so, they were just like, they kind of, we all kind of chuckled for a minute and they just had never.

MARK WRIGHT 16:38

That’s like going, that’s like going to a doctor, you know, and, and not believing in them because you weren’t around when penicillin was invented.

SCILLA ANDREEN 16:43

Exactly. And so, I was just like, we all, we did kind of all laugh for a minute, but I realized they didn’t see me as a designer. I didn’t present myself as one. So, their confidence was low. And so, I said, just give me a shot. You can keep looking for someone, but give me a shot. So, I then took over on the third episode, or yeah, because it would take us like a month to film and do like, you know, we would shoot for like 12 or 14 days per episode. So, I ended up taking it over and they were so happy with me that I kept, I, I stayed on it. And then I remember I was in a costume house up on a ladder with cell phones, then I got a call and they said, congratulations on your Emmy nomination. And I said, what’s an Emmy? Like I didn’t even know what an Emmy was. And they said, and I said, oh, well, what’s it for? And they said, for best costume design. I said, no kidding. Awesome. And so, um, yeah, that’s a whole other story, the Emmys, because my husband got car sick in the back of the limo. So, he had to sit up front with the driver and I wore this chiffon dress that got this black tar on it. So, I went to the bathroom and rinsed it out in the sink. And in those days, we wore pantyhose that, you know, came up and I accidentally tucked my chiffon dress into my pantyhose. So, when I walked back down to the front to grab my seat, my butt cheek was hanging out because I had tucked my dress into the pantyhose. And it was like, um,

MARK WRIGHT 18:15

And to be a costume designer, to have that happen. That’s amazing. Did you win the Emmy? Did you win?

SCILLA ANDREEN 18:21

I did not win. Um, uh, Beauty, what was the Beast, “Beauty and the Beast?” No, it wasn’t “Beauty and the Beast.” It was about that one where the underground New York, um, Ron, the big guy, Ron, I’m blanking on his last name. Um, anyway, it was, she was flown to Paris to buy fabric and built everything. And I mean, of course they would win. I was just a period show that, uh, we built lots.

MARK WRIGHT 18:47

What an honor to be even nominated.

SCILLA ANDREEN 18:49

Oh yeah. No, it was, it was pretty surreal.

MARK WRIGHT 18:52

So, what an amazing foundation that kind of really set you up for the rest of your life. Um, let’s talk about how you co-founded IndieFlix. Tell the story. How did that come to you?

SCILLA ANDREEN 19:03

So, um, I’ll pick up where we left off, where I realized I had something more to offer. And, um, I actually, um, my, um, one of my dearest friends, Carlo, he and I were always like big supporters of independent filmmakers. And, you know, I’d made some short films and a feature film and, you know, we just were trying to figure out how do we help independent voices, right? Uh, it’s really hard when Hollywood kind of owns all the pipes and channels and platforms. So, we thought, let’s start a marketplace for independent filmmakers and let’s have it be everything that doesn’t exist right now. Like it’s nonexclusive. You get to keep your rights. Um, you get paid a very fair to more majority share. You’re going to help market it. We build a community of a kind of a marketplace. And I was, I had a dream about it. I was, the dream was that I was in New York and these Florida ceiling windows. And I was, you know, like, I dream like a filmmaker. So, the scene is that you can’t see me. It’s mostly like legs and bodies and people talking and they’re saying, oh yeah, have you met Scilla? She started a company called IndieFlix. And they’re really great. They represent independent filmmakers. And then I stand up, dream ended, and I thought IndieFlix, I wonder if it’s available and it was available. So, I bought it, and I called Carlo and I said, Carlo, I’m the name of our company. And so, um, yeah, we kicked off IndieFlix and I remember walking into Warner brothers. I was working on a show called “What I Like About You” with Amanda Bynes. It’s my first and only sitcom, um, which my team begged me to take because we’d have so much easier hours. And, um, I said, okay, I have the name of my company. And he said, what is it? I said, it’s called IndieFlix. They’re like, oh yeah, I’ve heard of you. You’re the Netflix of independent film. And I said, well, no, I just bought the name. Like we’re not even live yet, but everybody thought we’d been around, and they knew exactly what we were. And so, we started off with DVD on demand. Cause that’s what Netflix was doing and launched with 36 titles.

MARK WRIGHT 21:06

Wow. What a brilliant name. And it actually came to you in a dream. The thing that’s interesting about that business model is that it’s kind of the opposite of what’s happening with music streaming now. I’ve heard just so many complaints from artists now who are barely getting compensated for millions of you know, streams of their, their art, uh, on, on the music streaming services. And those companies are making a lot of money, but, um, it doesn’t seem like it’s as fair as the model that you just, uh, outlined there.

SCILLA ANDREEN 21:38

I think what’s hard is, I mean, for us to be perfectly honest, it’s a, you know, it’s a small audience or we are competing with Netflix and, uh, Disney and Hulu and HBO. We’re also competing with social media, and gaming, and sleep. And so, there’s a lot of distractions. So, you really, it’s, we have really a niche audience which is not huge volume, but it’s important to us to continue to help those stories and raise awareness because there are some unbelievably talented filmmakers. And if there’s opportunity to take that content and even introduce them to the bigger players, because we do kind of know them, um, just from having worked in the industry. So they, they will take our calls. That’s not our job is to function as an agent or representation. But I think sometimes you just find that gifted person and you want to help them. But I think I got away from the question. Oh, the music business. Okay. First of all, I mean, it’s no secret. It’s tough. It’s really tough out there. And you know, you go through these ebbs and flows where Netflix is at Sundance and they’re all, you know, like everybody’s buying, right? Like they’re buying and they’re bidding wars and they’re spending a lot of money. And then there’s years where they hardly bought anything or they already, they basically debuted something they’d already bought for far less earlier on or using it as a marketing thing. I mean, there’s all kinds of scenarios. Right now, I think COVID was an interesting, uh, COVID and the strike like, um, took a toll on the industry and kind of, oh, you know, popped open the hood to take a closer look and you know, I wear many hats. I’m a filmmaker, I am a distributor. And I, I think that people think that the streamers make so much more money than they really do, right? There may be 4 or 5,000 titles on there, but they’re not all being watched. It’s probably 10 percent or less. It’s actually being watched. And the cost to deliver and adhere to all the protocols and the, you know, like all of the deliverables, everything is expensive. And then the marketing, like it is an expensive business, and it ebbs and flows. I’m not defending, I’m just saying as a kind of a matter of fact. Um, and I think that it’s really hard. So, we work with filmmakers, and we say be on multiple platforms. That’s why we’re nonexclusive. Do the long tail, collect it a little bit from everywhere. Um, but you got to market it too, because you can’t rely on the platforms to market it. And, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s hard.

MARK WRIGHT 24:21

So, let’s talk about, I think we spoke a number of years ago when you told me about the social justice arm of IndieFlix, where you were really trying to move the needle, um, using films to bring community together to discuss topics. Um, when, I forgot to ask you, when, when was IndieFlix founded? What year was that again?

SCILLA ANDREEN 24:40

Well, so DVD on demand launched in July of 2005. Oh no October 23rd of 2005. And yeah, we, we’ve been through it all. I’ve been through the world economy going into the toilet in 2008. Um, we, I remember when streaming came in, thank God ’cause I could not figure out download or download to own or progressive download. And then you know, when I decided to stop aggregating, cause we used to also aggregate content for Netflix and iTunes, just how we have a relationship with them, I decided that that wasn’t really the best use of our time doing all this work, curating, cultivating, and then handing it off. To then see the reports come back of what they could make that wasn’t even enough for us to take and that was on the big platforms. So, I went around and started asking everyone, like, how do we become our own streaming service? Even though we were already our streaming service, and people said well, you, you know, you, you can’t, and I said, why? Well, you just can’t, it’s not, that’s just not how it’s done. And then I realized at the end of the day, okay, nobody gave me a good reason. So, on Monday, we are just going to be a streaming service. We are our own streaming service. We are, we’re just going to be very, very, very public about it. And so wasn’t anything exciting that we just now we’re our own streaming service and I stopped aggregating content for other platforms so that that time would be used for us and for marketing and for curating our own library. Um, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. And you know what, the one thing I feel like I’ve learned so much and I don’t want it to keep me from growing and trying things, but sometimes you do something, and you think, oh, this makes perfect sense. Like, this is what they want. We’re gonna give them exactly what they want, and this is gonna be great, and then it doesn’t work. And it’s like, why? And then they say, like, okay, launching IndieFlix, everyone, I was one of them, filmmakers, complaining, you don’t get picked up by Warner Brothers, when you do you don’t get any money, you’re put on a shelf, you’re hidden, you’re this, blah blah, like all this stuff, you give up your rights for ten years, you know, you pay, you get a little advance, you use all of it to deliver the film, and then you get, you see nothing, right? So here we had a model where you keep your rights. It’s not exclusive. You get 70%. It doesn’t cost you anything to deliver, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We’re going to market together. Too good to be true. I don’t trust it. And I was like, oh my God. Like, it seemed like all the data, all the research, you feel like you’ve, this is it. And then it’s like, oh, I didn’t factor in the too-good-to-be-true thing. So, you know, the human condition, the psychology of it all is another important factor.

MARK WRIGHT 27:18

So, so when did that, when did that pivot start to happen? It, you know, during IndieFlix, you know, you started creating these films that you really hope were more instructional and, uh, dealt with issues that were really, um, of, of, of significance in society. Things like mental illness and bullying and stuff like that.

SCILLA ANDREEN 27:37

Yeah, really funny. All, I mean, not funny, but all things that, I mean, I came from the world of drama, narrative, right? Great stories, actors. I’d never worked on a documentary. Uh, by the way, documentaries are the hardest to work on because there is no script. Um, you don’t know what is, you’re going to capture when you’re out there. And then you have days, if not months, of footage that you have to go through and pull your story out. You know, it’s more social impact than social justice, not looking to make everyone into an activist. I really want to empower people to know that they have agency, that they are not alone, that they are not broken. That the things that we’re feeling, I mean, this is, these are all the things I learned in the process of making it. I was just minding my own business working as the CEO of IndieFlix, a global streaming service and a little film crossed my desk. A mom friend called me and said that one of her mom friends, their daughters made this movie about bullying, girl bullying. And would I take a look at it? And I said, sure cause they’re looking for finishing funds. So, it was called “Finding Kind” and I watched it as a rough cut in my living room. The first thing I wanted to do was to talk to somebody. And it, the first thing it did was it also triggered me. It brought up all of my own bullying from third grade. Where I was, you know, old fashioned bullying, kicked and spit on and locked in a cupboard in a classroom for an entire afternoon, where I was even too ashamed to like, knock on it to have someone let me out. I waited till the bell rang at three before I figured the next noise might be a janitor who would let me out, which is what happened. But I vowed to that third-grade girl in the cupboard that I would never let anyone else feel this way. I would do whatever I could. Of course, for decades I didn’t. I was a bystander. I wanted to be invisible and fly below the radar. But this movie reminded me of that promise. And I thought, okay, I’m, I want to test something. So, I said, listen, I will help you, but I want to take it up to one of my kid’s schools and I want to show it. And I want to see what happens. So, I took it up to St. Joe’s up in Seattle to the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. And they watched it, and it was so powerful and so transformative. That before we could even replicate it, we had schools calling and wanting to show it. And then they needed marketing materials and discussion guides and tip sheets and posters. And so, we had to throw it all together. And then it just started to spread. And then they’re like, what else have you got? So, then I started to work on other programs that I thought they were interested in. And in the meantime, still running IndieFlix. Of course, my investors were, like, looking at me crooked, like what are you doing? These little schools’ screenings? You’re supposed to be.

MARK WRIGHT 30:31

Works on return of investment, right?

SCILLA ANDREEN 30:33

Right. And like this is my passion, like this is the thing. And then from there we had people say, we want to help take this film and all of its now kind of assets, the companion materials that had grown from it. And we want to bring it as a whole program to other schools. And we would like to help support that. But do you have a foundation? Do you have any way to like help with that? And so, we started the foundation IndieFlix foundation, which is now called Impactful Fund and, and it just started to take a life of its own. And so, it has its own separate board, separate group, blah, blah, blah. And that helped to start fuel the ability to take content out into schools and IndieFlix became just the distributor, just sort of the, um, the mechanics of delivery. So, um, it turned into a meaningful revenue stream. And from there I worked on a film called” Screenagers,” which then really was the, you know, there had not been a film made about when should your kid, how old should they be when they get a phone, and what else is going on there? And, um, and then the executive director of the foundation. And stop me if I just keep rambling, sorry.

MARK WRIGHT 31:39

No, this is good.

SCILLA ANDREEN 31:40

Tina Helsel, who was our executive director, she, and she was a childhood friend also from, um, like junior high, middle school, and then high school. And she said, you need to make a movie about mental health. And I was like, Tina, no way, I’m not making that movie. Like, I don’t know anything. And forgive me if this sounds so insensitive, but we did not talk about that in my family. We didn’t talk about mental health. And the only thing I knew was from what I got from movies. So, it was Cuckoo’s Nest. It was shock treatment and straitjackets. I didn’t know what mental health was, um, or mental illness as we called it then. And so, I kept saying, no, I’m not going to make a movie about mental health. And she kept asking me, and then I got a call on New Year’s morning from a dear friend who said, did you hear about Tina? And I said, no, they said she died by suicide last night, Christmas Eve. And I, like, I, God, I remember it was a gray day in Seattle. I was looking out the dining room window. It was 7 A.M. on New Year’s morning. And, you know, I’m like, who’s going to call you in the morning? And so, I just, I thought, okay, I’m going to make a movie about mental health. I have no idea what that’s going to look like, but I, in hindsight, I look back and that’s where I channeled my grief, my guilt. It’s where I, and I think not knowing anything and not having experience with it, it helped me to approach the topic from that lens, which I think is why it’s so relatable because there’s so many people who really don’t understand it. And that’s where we made Angst. And then from there, um, we addressed anxiety, but then it always came up. Why is anxiety on the rise? Why are we talking about it so much? Um, have we always wanted, has it always been there? We didn’t have the vocabulary. So, everyone felt it was because of social media and technology. So, I made like, and from there I went on to make the upstanders. Cause everyone wanted to know why are people so mean online when they wouldn’t be that way in person? Um, and then I made “Race To Be Human,” which is the last one, which addresses race and racism and how it affects our mental health.

MARK WRIGHT 33:58

What I think is so beautiful about your story, Scilla, is that when I was a kid, and this is probably true for you. Whenever they brought out a movie projector, it was a product that was probably 35 or 40 years old. And it was completely irrelevant. It was like someone from another era, uh, teaching us about sex education or something. And what I love about what you’re doing is that this is stuff that the kids so relate to because it’s happening now. And it’s on a medium that they absolutely is part of their DNA. And that’s the visual medium that all of our kids have.

SCILLA ANDREEN 34:32

Do you remember Scared Straight or Mothers Against Drunk Driving? Or those kinds of things? Like, that’s what we watched too. And here’s the thing, I think even, even though we all watch tons of stuff, and the kids have their phones and, and so screens are very, um, commonplace, right? They’re the tools to learn, connect everything. There is still something about turning off the lights and watching a shared screen and it’s a story. The people pay attention, they lean in, they stop distracting themselves, and you actually can reach them.

MARK WRIGHT 35:09

If you think about our history as humans, think about how many, probably millions of years our ancestors sat around a fire and listened to a story in the evening, right? I mean, it’s, it’s kind of how we’re wired to, to gather and to listen to a story.

SCILLA ANDREEN 35:29

Well, and we’ll remember it more when it’s a story. Like, when you think about how much information is in our films, it’s all brain science. Like, it, these are movies about mental health. Maybe we enter it through the lens of bullying, online bullying, which is so insidious because you can’t see it, right? Or through the, through the lens of social media and FOMO and, and the, what the brain, what’s going on, the, the chemical release on the brain, when you’re looking at your phone that by design was meant to get you addicted, like there’s an anxiety with angst. Like learning about what’s going on there and learning about exposure therapy and, and, and, um, panic attacks and obsessive personality disorders and, you know, like all these things in story, you learn, you retain, you feel, and then you can take that information and you can like actually move forward with it.

MARK WRIGHT 36:25

I would love to ask you that question. Why are we seeing a rise? Are we seeing a rise in anxiety because I, I just think intuitively when I was a kid on the playground at school, maybe somebody said something, uh, mean to me, and it might’ve been in earshot of 6 or 12 other kids that was traumatic, it was, it hurt. But today with the reach of social media, which is always on 24/7, the, um, the impact and the size of that impact is so exponentially greater than my experience on the playground that I can’t imagine. I cannot imagine being a kid today and having the fear in me that someone’s going to bully me or to pick on me or to make fun of something about me online.

SCILLA ANDREEN 37:17

David, um, Molak who we followed his story in “The Upstanders,” which is the third film. And he was cyber bullied to death, basically, and he was popular, not the most popular kid. He was good looking. He was good in sports. He was the youngest of three boys and went to school and it started off as a joke. And then kids piled on and that sort of herd mentality, um, started to escalate. And then it became, and I think he felt like, it’s just words. I can handle this, right? Like, it’ll get out, you know, we always know things are gonna pass, right? But this kept escalating where suddenly like people were like creating the different persona on social media and on text messages and so it started to follow him everywhere. And by the time he finally ended up telling his parents he had been so like chipped away at just constantly, you know, when you’re just having a thousand darts thrown at you every day, and then you start to realize who’s doing it, like you can’t trust who it is. And it started to take a real toll on him. And by the time, uh, Matt and Maureen, his parents got involved, um, you know, there’d been so much damage done. And a lot of his friends who we interviewed in the film, you know, now they’re like, I wish I’d done something. I wish I’d said something. I wish I knew what to say and what to do. I wish I knew how to step up and because they just sort of thought it was a joke. I don’t think anybody realized. And this is, this is just one thing, right? Like, this goes on all the time, at least in the old days when it happened at school, you went home, and it wasn’t there. Now it’s 24/7 and they, the statistics are that only one in five kids will go to a trusted adult because they think they should be able to handle it. And also 9 times out of 10, the adult can make it worse. They’re like, oh, I’m going to go in and fix this, or I’m going to go after the kid who did this, or started, or I’m going to make sure the school knows to step in, or, and then what are the school’s rights? And so, when David passed, by suicide, um, his parents channeled a lot of that grief and energy into passing one of the most comprehensive bills, uh, and laws on bullying called David’s Law in Texas and, um, I mean, and they did it in an off-session year or something. And so, um, Maureen who I’ve become dear friends with, she is now lobbying in DC as well, and very, um, committed to COSA, which is Kids Online Safety Act to help to hold platforms accountable to really looking at the algorithm and looking at not just like bullying, but Fentanyl-laced gummies and predatory, uh, you know, behavior. Um, and just like the sex trafficking. I mean, it’s just, there’s so much there, but we don’t want our kids to feel like they have to be terrified online, right? We need parents and families to be informed. We can’t leave them hanging out on their own, trying to fend for themselves. So there needs to, we need to come together and that’s what I love about like, like, and the upstanders in particular have now sort of become a duo dual program in the sense that we teach online digital citizenship, online safety and harm. We have the like one-on-one course in “The Upstanders” one-on-one course, which are, um, they’re, they’re just, I feel like they’re kind of progressive. Um, and they use story as well to, to share information.

MARK WRIGHT 40:58

I’d love Scilla for you to share how young people and their parents can connect with all of this content. And we should say that this content has been reviewed scientifically. It’s not like you just came up with these cool stories. They’re actually being reviewed by the experts. Um, so how do, how do we access this? And, and I was really struck by something that you told me when we spoke maybe three, four weeks ago and that is, you said my mission in life is that everybody matters and everybody belongs, and I believe mental health education should be free period. And uh, I totally agree with that and I, I think that you’re on an amazing mission. So, how, how do we connect with all of this amazing content?

SCILLA ANDREEN 41:40

So impactful.co. We did not forget the M, it’s just impactful.co is the, um, you know, that’s where we basically licensed to schools and corporations around the world. What’s interesting is we are also very popular in corporations, which I did not like, I’m not some visionary that put it on a roadmap and said, oh, and let’s go into corporation. It was parents who sat in those auditoriums at school and saw these programs and said, this needs to be at our work. And even though they’re mostly kids talking parents, brain scientists, mental health experts, educators, DEI, HR people as well. Yes. They’re all in these films and we didn’t even know, right? Like Microsoft, I will say, just because they’re in our own backyard was the first to reach out to say, we’ve had some parents mentioned this. We’d like to bring it in and start showing it. And they’d always supported some of our other films around women empowerment, “Screenagers” and “Finding Kind.” So, we did a screening. It was so, it, it, it was game-changing that they then ended up starting to license it for multiple years. And that’s what actually started us licensing into corporations where suddenly, you know, we’re at Goldman and Starbucks and Liberty Mutual and like KPMG, like suddenly we’re in these big corporations and it has become a multi-year licensed program for employees and their families. So that was the cool thing is we organically found a way to reach the parents because when you’re in the schools, maybe you reach 25 percent of the parent body because they’re all so busy. You can reach all the kids. One week of wellness, you showed in every classroom, you’ve just reached the student body and you, the educators, but to reach the parents, which is so key. So, the two together is really amazing. So Impactful.co and I will say that I, and we’ve been doing this for several years now and we continue to add to the programming and there’s fun brain hacks and activities that are evidence-based. And it’s interesting because the country is very divided. I mean, education is being politicized. Mental health is being politicized. You know, some of the, half the country that’s like, you know, don’t turn our kids into wimps, right? Like campy, all touchy, feely, SEL. And then you got the other half that are like, oh, this is the most important thing. You know, like none of it else, nothing else matters if you can’t do. So how do we please the whole country and all the English-speaking parts of the world? And so, uh, we work closely and follow legislation, which helps gives us the, the words or the context or the lens to present this content, because at the end of the day, we need to be able to hear each other and see each other and learn from each other from a place of love and curiosity not fear and judgment and how do we do that when our jobs are on the line? Our promotions are on the line. Our grades are on the line. Our scholarships are on the line. How do you look at a person who’s unhoused or homeless on the street? And feel like, I don’t know how to help them. I don’t have the time. I don’t have the money. I don’t have the knowledge. I can’t take them into my house. I don’t know where to go. I don’t know what to do. So, I’m just gonna step over them and go on. We can’t keep doing that. We need information. We need to know, like, what do we do? I think there’s this thought I learned. I used to think, remember, I didn’t want to make Angst. I kept saying no to Tina. Because I, who am I? What I have learned now is that it is on all of us to do a little bit and it is not going to take too much time money or energy from us. Just like when you want to cry really hard you think if you let it out, you’re just gonna cry a river and you’re never gonna be the ugly cry like you won’t stop, you only cry on average for seven seconds. When I learned that, I’m like, okay, I’m going to let it out because it’s not going to last forever. And I know I’m all over the place. I’m so sorry. I wanted to also add that beyond Impactful.co, I did sort of hit this point in June. Um, I had sold my company to a public company and, uh, soon after there were changes made. So, it wasn’t strategically a good fit. And I ended up having the opportunity to buy it back. And so, which was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. And I bought it.

MARK WRIGHT 46:11

This was IndieFlix.

SCILLA ANDREEN 46:12

This was IndieFlix. So, I created an Impactful Group to buy IndieFlix from the former public company that owned us, from the public company that formerly owned us and pulled it out and in that same time in June, I got a call from multiple people saying, did you hear about that suicide at this school? Did you hear about the kid who died? And I kept hearing, I was like, God, you know, and I hear it all the time. So, I, I, we are kind of conditioned because they’ll say, is your program good? We just had a suicide. Ideally, we’re more like on the prevention side, but we can come in with a little triage. So, I ended up hearing about these five suicides and then a counselor dying by suicide. And I thought, what’s going on here? Like, there’s more support out there than ever. There are benefits. People are talking about it more. Why is there even more kids dying? What’s going on? And so, I thought, I know our program is a premium program. It’s always been sort of for the schools that had funding or a really active parent board. And I just thought we need to, like, lift the, the bumpers. We need to like make it available more. So, I decided, uh, kind of crazy and super backwards, but I decided that yes, every classroom in the country needs to have free access to mental health education. Quality curated mental health education. You’ll find a ton of stuff on TikTok and Instagram, but it’s not vetted. You don’t know if it’s good for you. There’s so much on there that looks like it’s really good and it’s really not healthy for you, right? So, I decided to start, launch a pilot program. So, in Alaska, Washington State, and Illinois, and California. We have made it free to every K to 12 school, community college, and higher ed. And in the process, I’m identifying partners, and I’m learning and collecting data, because we also have an impact report we’ve built in. My goal is to figure out how to make it free across the country.

MARK WRIGHT 48:08

That’s amazing. So, in Washington, how do we, how do we access all that?

SCILLA ANDREEN 48:12

Um, you can go to impactfulusa.org, click on Washington and you’re in. Um, and you can also, if anyone wants to help support us or wants to learn more about maybe partnerships, it’s going to take a village. I’m just putting a stake in the ground and I’m asking and inviting people to join us. And so, uh, impactfulfund.org is our foundation and yeah, it’s, I got to say as tired as I can be sometimes. And as, uh, as we were talking earlier, you know, the holidays bring about a lot of emotion just as the top of a year brings a lot of emotion of like clarity. This is going to be a good year. I’m going, you know, like when school starts, you get the clean notebook. I’m not going to doodle on it. I’m going to keep my stuff neat. There’s this sort of newness, right? That we are embracing right now. And so, I’m really excited about this. I am, yes, tired because people are, even my own family said, why are you supporting mental health? Why not diabetes or cancer? Why mental health? Like, that’s just, that’s drugs, and there’s so much stigma around it, right? At least diabetes is clear. Heart disease, it’s clear. Mental health is still this gray area, there’s still so much stigma. So, I’m gonna lean into it even more. At least as long as I can. And I bet the farm on it. And so, here’s the deal, if I die in the process, not die literally, but like, you know, then at least I tried. Um, but I think we’re gonna make some, some good headway, and we’re going to help a lot of people. And like you said, my mission in life is to let people know they matter, and they belong.

MARK WRIGHT 50:01

Well, this has been such an amazing conversation, Scilla. And I’ve, I feel like the work that you’re doing now, it, it sure looks like from my perspective that you were, you were made, made to do this work. Um, and you turned that life experience that was so painful when you were a kid into something that’s helping other kids maybe deal with that pain in a way that you didn’t know how to back then, and what a beautiful full circle that is.

SCILLA ANDREEN 50:31

Well, yeah, who knew, right? I just don’t know when you go through something that it’s actually an opportunity to give yourself a gift. And you know, it’s funny when not just a kid, but anyone lets you know that they’re struggling. They’re not looking to, like, check out or get out of it or give up. They’re asking for help to get through it. And they don’t need us to do it for them or fix it. They’re just saying, I don’t even know the words or whatever. I, I need help and you know, there’s one thing we can do as human beings is we actually can help each other, whether it’s referring someone, somewhere or just sitting with them quietly with their stuff and listening, you know, can I give you one brain hack?

MARK WRIGHT 51:23

Yep. Please.

SCILLA ANDREEN 51:24

I love brain hacks. I know we’re over time, but talking uses three executive functions of the brain of the prefrontal cortex. So, if you are stressed or you’re anxious. You talk, you have to, it’s emotion, you have to move your lips, you have to make a sound, and you have to form a sentence. And when you are talking, even if you’re just talking quietly to yourself, you are hacking your brain. And you can bring the energy down, you can calm yourself, you can ground yourself. You can move the energy from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex. And so, before I do big speaking things and I’m nervous and I can barely remember my name, I will say the months of the year backwards. December, November, October. I feel my biorhythms settle down. And so, there’s so many fun brain hacks. I actually wrote a book called “The Creative Coping Toolkit,” and there’s fun brain hacks in there as well. Um, and that’s on Amazon. But um, yeah, “The Creative Coping Toolkit.” “The Creative Coping Toolkit” is the program that we license into schools and corporations, and that’s where angst, like, the upstanders in race to be human. I’ll live so.

MARK WRIGHT 52:32

Well, Scilla. This has been yeah, who knew this this has been so much fun. I want to I want to ask you one final question before we wrap things up. This podcast is dedicated to redeeming work and that is basically just to show that work can be honorable, and work can have an amazing impact if you let it. Um, and I would love you to give advice to someone out there who maybe does have a skill set that could be used in a new and unique way to do much more good. Maybe it’s an accountant or maybe it’s, uh, you know, I don’t know, but just somebody who has a skill that hasn’t thought, wow, maybe, you know, when I’m, when I’m gone, I want to be known for making this world a better place. And it really is cool how you took, you could have, you could still be in Hollywood today. And, uh, making amazing, you know, shows, but you chose to take that ability and really move it outside of that comfort zone to a place that is changing people’s lives. So, what’s your advice to that, to that person who may be listening?

SCILLA ANDREEN 53:37

What a fun question. First of all, can I just say, I am actually a great example. I used to be, I used to feel like, what do they call it? An imposter. I got nominated for an Emmy for best costume design, and I cannot sew, I cannot sketch, I don’t know the names of all the fabrics, I just know if I like them, or how they feel on a body, right? And so, how does that happen? Passion. You know, something that truly brings you joy, something that you, you really like, you can apply anywhere. So, I did not check any boxes and found my way. As the CEO of IndieFlix. I didn’t start as the CEO. I was partnered with Carlo and then Carlo stepped back after about the first year and gave me the keys to the kingdom because he had to go take care of something else. So suddenly, suddenly I was the CEO and I’m like, I don’t even know what I’m doing, right? I don’t even know how to read a spreadsheet, but I started asking questions and I started learning and I learned that my skill set of talking to the network and the production company and the producers and the directors and getting their input and putting it together was the skill set I needed to be a CEO. And I started to realize that we build whatever it is that you do, you know, if you’re a mechanic, let’s say, and you love being a mechanic and you know, cars and you want to go and you want to help people who can’t afford to get their cars fixed. And yet they still need to drive their kids to school, or they still need to be able to drive to work so they can bring home money. There’s ways to do that. If you, if you are a builder or HVAC or anything like that, you can not only do your job, job, but you can apply it to helping other people who can’t afford to bring in the plumber or the person to help their house, to keep it safe, to keep them warm, to keep their children safe and warm. There are ways that we can help our neighbor, ways to help our community. It is, I mean, I just wish that was part of the fabric of our everyday life was that we learn to give how many of us even know our neighbors anymore, right? Like other than the occasional block party. So, unless you have kids that play with those kids, like you sometimes don’t even know their last name or anything about them. So, to answer your question, if it’s your passion, if it’s something you do in life, even if you sell shoes, right? You can help people. You can help them. I will use the shoe example, you know maybe it’s that you want to help them organize their shoes and find shoes that can get repaired or you can take like find a way it will come to you. It’s just showing up with that intention, and, and being there, um, mostly what people need is eye contact because there’s a chemical release on the brain that makes you feel good and boosts your immune system. People need to be talked to, not like this, uh huh, yeah, okay, no, we, we, we need to be looking at each other. We need to be listening without creating our next thought. We need to just pause and spend one minute with someone, you know, so they’re seen and heard and they’re not invisible.

MARK WRIGHT 57:03

Well, Scilla, this has been so much fun talking with you. I’m always inspired, I’ve been inspired for many years, uh, at how you show up in the world, and so this has been a real treat to get to know this. And I’ll, we’ll put all of the links in the show notes so that people can find the resources that you talked about. Um, so thank you so much for the work that you do, and keep it up, my friend. Thank this has been fun.

SCILLA ANDREEN 57:24

Thank you, Mark. This, I appreciate you spending, giving me the time to share our story. I really appreciate it.

MARK WRIGHT 57:30

I’m Mark Wright. Thanks for listening to BEATS WORKING, part of the WORKP2P Family. New episodes drop every Monday, and if you’ve enjoyed the conversation, subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. Special thanks to show producer and web editor Tamar Medford. In the coming weeks, you’ll hear from our Contributors Corner and Sidekick Sessions. Join us next week for another episode of BEATS WORKING, where we are winning the game of work.