How it all began …
Imagination Development Group grew out of the shared
concern of two good friends, Mark Cooper and Carl Johnson,
regarding the current status of children’s entertainment. Both
men worried about the effects that existing children’s
entertainment could have on their own young children,
and both were aware of the challenges faced by companies
producing children’s entertainment programming – namely,
addressing the short attention spans of children and
the lack of emphasis on visualization skills.
The partnering of a child psychologist and a film and
television composer seemed to be the perfect blend to
address these issues, and Imagination Development Group
(IDG) was born. The diverse professional backgrounds
of Cooper and Johnson allowed them to accomplish the
mission of creating, producing and publishing high quality,
non-violent, age-appropriate products for children.
The first goal of IDG was to design a product that would
help children develop visualization, imagination and
listening skills, and what better way than through an
audio series? “Movies without pictures” became
the Movies in my Mind series, a series of detail-rich
audio experiences for children.
By using state-of-the-art technology from the film and
television industries, each Movies in my Mind adventure
was created as a feature film. However, one major detail
was intentionally left out… the picture. By not
providing the visual, children are enticed to visualize
on their own. That means no pictures and no video. Rather,
the Movies in my Mind series is a listening-based
form of entertainment that gives children the opportunity
to create their own visual images.
Listening to a Movies in my Mind adventure
is like watching a movie with your eyes closed. With
original orchestral music, vivid sound effects and educational
stories, each Movies in my Mind story weaves
a rich audio tapestry and paints vivid pictures for children.
The music is a key element for Movies in My Mind. Johnson
and Cooper composed over 2 hours of music and recorded
the scores with 86-member symphony orchestras in Bulgaria
and Prague. The musical score is similar to what
would accompany a large-scale feature film, and plays
a vital role in capturing and holding the listeners attention.
The Movies in my Mind series is similar to
the entertaining radio shows that preceded television
and the computer screen. The “movie without pictures” format
was specifically chosen because it encourages the development
of listening and attention skills, as well as imagination
and visualization abilities.
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The purpose of each adventure is threefold:
- To encourage the main characters (surrogates for
the listeners) to actively imagine and create mental
pictures.
- To have the characters witness historically accurate
human achievements, adventures or discoveries.
- To have the characters learn a lesson from what they
have experienced, and apply the lesson to solve the
real-world conflict introduced in the prologue.
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Each script in the Movies in my Mind series
incorporates the following values:
- Education is fundamental. The Movies in my Mind series
aims to empower its audience by stressing the value
and benefits of learning.
- An egalitarian program. The Movies in my Mind series
strives to emphasize pro-social behavior.
- Fundamental respect. Positive relationships
are at the core of every Movies in my Mind story.
- Character counts. The Movies in my Mind stories
develop good character in the leads, who are role models
for our audience.
- Triumph over adversity. The central characters learn
to persevere through difficulty and hardship.
- Nonviolent conflict resolution. The Movies in
my Mind series does not depict the use of weapons
in any of the adventures.
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