There’s nothing like motherhood to make you think differently. Take Betsy Chasse, filmmaker for What the Bleep Do We Know!?.
Production manager and line producer for over 30 Hollywood feature films, and president of Rampant Feline Films, producer of features, cable specials, and music videos, Betsy would be the first to admit that not every film she’s worked on has taken the spiritual or moral high ground. In fact, quite a few have followed the typical popular formula of grubby human drama liberally laced with sex and violence. But now, post-BLEEP, with a two-year old daughter, Chasse admits having taken a long hard look at the world of children’s entertainment and what it does, and doesn’t, offer.
“I am very careful with what I let Elorathea watch,” says Chasse. “But, as a parent, whether you like it or not, you’re a consumer. I can't keep her in my house forever. Everywhere you go now it seems like everybody is cross-platforming. You can't even go to a grocery store without walking down an aisle and finding cereal boxes that your child’s attracted to. Try explaining to a two-year old, ‘Well, we’re not going to eat that cereal because we have moral concerns with the programming content it’s associated with.’”
What’s a mother to do?
In Chasse’s case the answer was to start a children’s media company. Dedicated to producing books, videos, music and games that build self-awareness, and provide children with “mental, emotional, and spiritual tools to enable them to handle life with confidence and grace, ” Elora Media is currently releasing three books. Where Does the Sun Go? written and illustrated by internationally renowned artist, Gary Craig, tells of the sun’s adventures as it journeys across the sky . You Can Be Anything and its companion activity coloring book, I Can Be Anything, also written and illustrated by Craig, are thematically designed to not only evoke the creative power of imagination, but to reinforce children’s capacity for personal effectiveness in the world.
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