Hi {{first_name}},
Is now a bad time to read an email from an old friend? It's been a while — since 2020, in fact — and you might have been curious if I disappeared or if Conscious Media Visionaries was on the back burner forever.
The last six years I have been on a fantastic walkabout. And now I’m back with inspiration, ideas, bulletpoints and… spreadsheets.
Wait until you see what I have in store for you…
First order of business, 🥁 I’m thrilled to announce I’m starting a podcast. A podcast about conscious media! 🎉
Right about now, you might be wondering whether you really need another podcast in your inbox. I get that. So here's what's different about this one — and why I wanted you on the list specifically.
What if the films, shows, and stories that actually reflected our values, our questions, our inner lives, our future — were easier for filmmakers to make and audiences to find? And the community around those films was easier to understand and connect with?
That's the big question. It's the one I've been carrying for decades inside this industry, and it's the reason I'm finally building what I'm building.
I've spent my career on sets, in telecine bays, at film festivals talking to a growing community of people who are trying to make a different kind of media — the kind that informs, uplifts, and aligns with what viewers actually care about, and the worlds they want to embody.
We don't all use the same word for it. "Conscious Media" is the one definition I keep coming back to. And that is what Episode 1 is all about. I do hope you’ll check it out.
About the show.
Convos About Conscious Media With Kia is a guided expedition into this landscape — solo episodes on research, ideas, and what I'm learning, plus conversations with filmmakers, festival programmers, distributors, audience members, and the experts shaping this category from the inside. As the episode count grows, we will collectively discover what conscious media is. All of its facets and nuances. Not because anyone handed you a definition. Because we built it together.
Episode 1 — "What Is Conscious Media? You Know It When You See It" — is the foundation conversation. Nobody fully agrees on what this thing is. I tell the story of the moment I started asking the question (Stage 24, Warner Bros., crouched behind a piece of furniture during a Cold Case murder scene), walk the food spectrum, lay out the regions of the map, and tell you the human reason this show exists. Not the platform play. The real one.
To WATCH or LISTEN to Episode 1 now:
📰 Read + listen on Substack: https://consciousmediaconvos.substack.com/p/what-is-conscious-media-you-know
▶ Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/X1limOeIbC8
🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1895996762
Also on iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music — see all platforms at consciousmediaconvos.com
To Join the Community:
Follow on Instagram, Facebook & TikTok → @consciousmediaconvos
Follow on X → @cmediaconvos
Follow on LinkedIn → @consciousmedia-convos
About the company.
Many of you signed up for the Conscious Media Visionaries email list years ago — back in the late 2010s, when CMV was running events and panels and gathering the early version of this community. Then, around 2020, I went quiet. The world cracked open, and so did I. I took time to listen for what this company actually wanted to become, instead of forcing the version I'd been pushing.
Six years later — different vision, clearer purpose, much bigger plans. CMV is back, and it's evolving into something I think you're going to want to see. The full unveiling will come over the next few months. Convos is the first public step.
And one more thing — if you have a few minutes, there's a short founding audience survey waiting for you. It sounds like you might already be one of the people I'm building this for. I read every response personally. Come tell me who you are and what you care about. There is a little breadcrumb there you might enjoy… it is a wonderful life, isn't it?
→ Take the Founders Survey consciousmediaconvos.com
I'm so glad you're here for this!
— Kia Kiso-Brennan
P.S. You may have known me as Kia Kiso — same person, updated name (now Kia Kiso-Brennan). Thirty years of credits live under both.