The Power of Play: Using Improv to Strengthen Animal Advocacy with Zoe Novic and Austin Meyer

Austin Meyer: Yeah. Thank you. It's an honor to be here.

Jasmin Singer: Yes, we're so excited to chat with you and to chat with you again about one of my favorite subjects. I know that you have briefly talked to us, in email, about the sessions you've conducted at the Animal and Vegan Advocacy Summit, but to be honest, we have as much to learn about them as anyone else listening.

So can you give us a picture of what we would experience if we were to go?

Austin Meyer: Absolutely. So for the past couple of years, and hopefully a third year, incoming, Zoe and I have led a session at the Ava Summit. Which is called advocacy playground. And essentially what these workshops are, are what we call applied improv workshops. We take the activities that we learn in the context of theater and then we've adapted them for the context of a workplace, or in the context of the AVA summit, a conference setting and adapted the exercises, so that people can learn what we refer to as the core principle of improv, which is not being funny or being clever or being smart. It's really making the most out of what you have available to you.

How do we leverage all the resources that we have around us to be our most creative selves? And so in our sessions, what we do is we have a bunch of little activities, in groups, in partners and big group circles where we do these little playful activities. There's tons of laughter in the room.

People are partnering up with so many different people, getting to know them and practicing skills, like, how do you make mistakes and bounce back from them really quickly? How do you tell personal stories in a way that's going to get you to connect with other people? Whether it's around veganism or your connection to animals, how do you tell like a well rounded narrative about a moment you experienced change as a way to captivate someone you're speaking to?

We do these all in a very playful setting so that people can practice these skills outside of a context where your paycheck is dependent on it or where the stakes are so important and so heavy. A lot of times we know the skill sets and the mindsets that fuel effective improv and theater are important, things like building on the ideas of others or being a good listener, but we don't always have the opportunity in our advocacy work or in our jobs to practice those. And so improv is a great low stakes way to practice that.

Mariann Sullivan: So who comes? I haven't been to AVA. I have kind of a perception of who comes, but can you just kind of give us the range? I know it's a lot of people who work in the movement. Are there also a lot of grassroots activists? Do you think you get a particular selection of people? Are they all theater students?

Zoe Novic: That's a really great question. The people who come to the Ava summit and our workshop in particular, they're from all over the movement, all kinds of different backgrounds, people who've been working in the movement professionally for 20 plus years to people who this is the first kind of animal rights event that they're attending ever.

One of the things that I think is really awesome about the AVA Summit is that number one, it's so inclusive and that you can be from any kind of background and still come to this event and learn something new. But also I think the principles and the type of workshop that Austin and I have created together is something that's really valuable, not only for teams like organizations, Austin has a lot of experience leading these types of workshops for not only animal rights organizations, but also like fortune 500 companies, but also the unique thing of bringing these workshops to a conference is the kind of spirit, that connection that it creates among attendees.

Austin and I were talking about this the other day. I think it's a really unique experience for animal advocates to bond in a way that is sort of carefree and creative and has a more sort of light energy. I think a lot of us come to this movement because of heavier things, you know, animal rights, animal advocacy is dealing with a lot of heavier and sadder subjects. And I don't need to tell this group of people here today, or listening on the podcast, but... to be able to come together with this energy of creativity and storytelling and building trust and building connection through the activities that we've created is a really unique thing to do, particularly at the Ava Summit.

Jasmin Singer: Alright, well, I'm sorry to bring this up so early into your interview because I don't want to intimidate you, Zoe and Austin, but for our visual audience here, this is my 1996 Governor's Award for the Arts in improvisation. I'm

Austin Meyer: All right.

Jasmin Singer: saying, I'm just saying. I could just, I could hold it up if

Mariann Sullivan: convenient that you have that

Jasmin Singer: No, I got up and I got it from the other room.

I have been improvising for as long as I can remember. And it did it, I mean, I was 17 in 1996, especially when I was like kind of troubled, bullied kid, it was such an important escape for me. You know, I definitely see a straight line, or a gay line, between having to overcome different types of adversity and going into activism.

I mean, I don't think it takes Freud to figure that out. And I love that you use this skill as something that can help you be more effective in advocating for animals. So I want to talk a little bit about that. In what ways you think that this particular artistic practice can unlock that ability to be more effective when advocating for animals?

Austin Meyer: So beyond the work that I do leading these types of workshops for companies, I also work as a documentary filmmaker. So I'm an independent documentary filmmaker and video journalist. I think in any creative work you're doing, whether it's in the arts or creating stories or you're working as a lawyer, any type of work that we're doing in the animal rights movement, it's going to demand a level of creativity and resourcefulness to contend with the powers and the resources on the other side. And so we need to bring our most creative selves. For me, what that means as a documentary filmmaker, I'm trying to go out and I'm trying to tell the most impactful stories that I can that are about our relationship to the animals that we exploit. And, I became vegan about seven years ago. And until I met Zoe in 2021, I never even knew there was a movement. I'm pretty new to this. And when you're new to something like I've felt over the past few years, trying to create documentaries, there's a lot of imposter syndrome.

There's a lot of wait, what right do I have to come in here and try to make a story or make a point or tell someone they're doing something wrong? I'm just learning myself. There's so much fear that we have about not only needing to be perfect with what we create on behalf of animals, but we put a lot of pressure on ourselves also, and I'm speaking for myself, I do, to not make mistakes.

We cannot make a mistake because we feel the repercussions for a mistake. Are the lives of animals. I've felt that myself in a lot of ways. And that's when I need to keep coming back to my practice of improv, and just practice continually making mistakes and going through the process of having people around me who have my back who can turn a mistake into a new opportunity.

That allows me to realize that, you know what? Making a mistake is part of the operating system when you're doing something creative, mistakes are not something that we can avoid. If we're so afraid of making mistakes as animal advocates, we're never going to step up to the plate and actually take the risks and chances needed to hone our message, needed to hone our voice and needed to actually make progress in this movement.

So whether it's me making a documentary film and going on a limb to try a story that I'm not sure I can do, or it's someone stepping out in chatting to a family member in a new way, who they've been frightened to talk to about these issues before, not sure if they're going to be successful.

I think improv has really allowed me to practice time and time and time again, because improv is an art form that is based on making mistakes. You are making mistakes constantly. And one of the reasons improv is funny is you're cause you're watching people make mistakes constantly and pretend they meant to make those mistakes and turning them into gifts.

And so practicing that time and time again for me has, I think, made me a lot braver to take chances when it comes to my work as a documentary filmmaker on behalf of animals. And when it makes me feel braver, it makes me take more reps, do more of it. And that's the only way we're going to get better.

So that's for me, how it's made my animal advocacy, I hope, more impactful.

Zoe Novic: And, where our stories kind of converge, I grew up doing a lot of theater, doing a lot of improv, I also grew up in the animal rights movement. I was really lucky enough to have parents who were both very involved in animal advocacy from my beginning.

So I grew up in the movement and I've had a number of different roles in various sectors within the animal advocacy movement. And so I've seen a lot of sides to it. And, when Austin and I met and we started talking about our passion for animals and animal rights. And also our passion for theater and improv, I hadn't really connected the improv skills, or at least not in the way that Austin has been teaching it for years, and how that might benefit our movement.

It's been really incredible to lead these workshops and to talk to people afterwards who are echoing a lot of the things that Austin just said about, like, the pressure that we feel to say the exact right, perfect thing. And the freedom to practice making mistakes to take that pressure away.

Or when we've taught workshops for specific groups and organizations and how they've kind of been leaning into literally just practicing like different creativity things, or trying to sort of shift the work culture of like, you know, I got your back no matter what the situation is, whether you're going into a meeting with a CEO, trying to get them to add more plant based meals or whatever it is.

So yeah, it's been really, really powerful.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, just adding to that for just a second. I don't think you need to be an actor or have experience with improv to have heard of Yes, and which is obviously the number one rule of improv that you're not saying no, you're not shutting down a conversation.

Like if you're in an improv, for example, and like you start and one person says, like, Mom, why did you crash my car? And the other one says, I'm not your mother and you don't have a car. The improv's over. So yes, and is something that I would love to hear your take on as it relates to animal advocacy.

Austin Meyer: Yeah. I would say we teach yes and, that's a big part of the workshops that we teach. And just to make these a little bit more concrete to what I'm talking about, an activity that we might teach for a section on Yes, and might look like this. We might lead an activity which is everyone's gonna partner up with someone and what you're gonna do is you're gonna create a shared memory.

Now you are not yourself. You are playing a character. And so Zoe and I are kind of playing characters and we're gonna create a shared memory together. And the way it's gonna happen is I'm gonna start by saying, Hey Zoe, do you remember that time we And then I'm just gonna make up something. And then Zoe is gonna say, Yes, and, and then she's gonna build the next unit on top of what that memory is. And then we'll go back and forth. So we're going to demonstrate that just real quick. So you can get a sense of what that feels like in a workshop. Zoe, do you, remember that one time that we went to the beach?

Zoe Novic: Yes. And do you remember that giant umbrella that was blowing in the wind?

Austin Meyer: Yes, yes. And it fell down. It was going to fall on somebody, but then you jumped and you caught it.

Zoe Novic: Yes. And I caught it right in time before it hit them in the face and they would have been really injured.

Austin Meyer: Oh my God. Yeah. Okay. So pause there. So that's a little bit of how we kind of practice the skill of saying yes, and.

Now, yes, and is going to be the way that you and your teammates are going to create any sort of idea that's beyond what you yourself could create alone. And that is the magic of teamwork, of getting brains and different experiences in the room together brainstorming. So from yes, and perspective, when we are working with our teams in the animal rights movement, using a yes, and kind of protocol when we're brainstorming is the way that we get to more creative ideas.

It's also the way that we create a higher volume of ideas. One thing that I love to say when I work with teams is at some point, if we're trying to create great ideas, it becomes a function of the volume of total ideas we can create. Now what we'll often see when we're working with teams is you get a team together and they're like, Hey, we need to create a campaign around this.

We need to create a marketing strategy around this. You get them in a room, let's bounce some ideas back and forth together. And you'll have two people in that room who are like, let's just, yes, and let's just throw out ideas. No ideas are bad ideas. Let's go. And then you'll have two other people at that table who are coming from the evaluation, efficacy standpoint of like why something won't work, right?

They're the people at the table who are always like, yeah, that might work, but maybe not. They're going to be the people that are more prone to reject an idea because they're thinking of whether it's viable or not, whether we can afford it or not.

Well, we often encourage teams to do with this yes, and in mind is get with your team and be very clear about what mode you are in. Are you in generation mode, where the energy is just what Zoe and I displayed, where it's like, no ideas are bad. We're building on each other's ideas one step at a time, and then we'll choose another idea to build on in that way, creating a lot of momentum and a lot of volume.

Or are we in evaluation mode? Because if you have two people on each side of that, the energy goes completely down the drain and no ideas are created. So that's one strategy that I would offer to people who are getting with your team. Be very clear about the mode you're in. Are you in yes, and, or are you in evaluation or, you know, why something can't work?

So that's one way that I see it being really applicable. Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: Can you give us some example? I don't know what you do in the workshop, but can you give us some examples of how this has made a difference for some people in their actual animal activism? Not just talking about beach umbrellas, but actually, like, is this a tool you use in brainstorming a campaign?

Is it a tool you use in having conversations with people who aren't on board? Is it a tool for both of those things? I'm just curious,

Jasmin Singer: And it could be a beach umbrella. You don't know. Maybe the beach umbrella is made out of silk and we have to, you know, start advocating for the worms.

Austin Meyer: I would think about these workshops, Mariann, as like, it is a testing ground to build skills that you then transfer over to the particular use case of where you work and where you live. So, for example, when I was becoming more vocal in my animal advocacy, thanks to Zoe encouraging me to do so, I would say I was a very bad listener. I would say that I came in with a point of view, and when I would talk to people who are not vegan, I would be like stonewalling, I'd be like, I'm going to shove my point of view down your throat and I'm coming in hot. Now I know that that is not the best advocacy strategy, but that was kind of like my emotional state.

That was kind of my early days of animal advocacy. And so where these workshops come into play is they give you an opportunity outside of the heightened emotion of talking to someone about animal advocacy to practice a skill like listening. So an activity that we would lead, for example, is we would get, you know, Mariann and Jasmin together and we'd say, okay, Jasmin, you're going to tell a one minute story to Mariann. It needs to be a true story.

It doesn't need to be interesting or significant or funny in any way, just whatever comes to mind. So then Jasmin would tell a one minute story to you. And I would just tell you, Mariann, just listen, you know, you don't have to respond or add your kind of take on it. Just listen for one minute. Jasmin would tell her one minute story and I'd say, okay, now, Mariann, you're going to tell that story back to Jasmin, in first person as if it's your own and try to get as close as you can word for word.

So then we do that. And then later in the workshop, we might do another activity that says, okay, Jasmin, you're going to tell your life story in one minute to Mariann. Now, Mariann, you previously had the experience of being tested on how well you memorized Jasmin's story, how well you were listening to her story.

So the next time we tell you, listen to Jasmin's story, your attention and focus and listening skills are going to be tuned so finely, and then after we do that activity. We get together as a circle and we debrief, how could we take something from that playful activity and transfer that knowledge over how it relates to our work.

And one of the things that we see in that activity about listening, that I felt when I do improv, I usually move through the world, and especially when I was an early advocate for animals, with like 20 percent listening capacity. Like 20%, I'm really not present, but when you are forced in a moment, like one of these workshops or even right now on a podcast, we can't tune out real quick and get caught off guard in something that's being broadcast to tons of people.

We can cue into this intense listening, but listening is a practiced skill and that is where these improv workshops, we believe, have value is again, practicing a skill that we know is valuable, but we don't often get the chance to practice.

Jasmin Singer: I'm gonna add something to that because, Mariann, I wonder if this might also sort of bring home the point that Austin was just making. the, Back in the day when I did a lot of grassroots work, tabling, running protests, leafleting, things like that, there are always people who are going to screw with you, right, especially like I was doing it in New York City, and there's some real characters there, and certainly we all know the numbers game, if you're going to hand out a hundred leaflets, there's gonna be one person that's gonna change.

I just made that up, but chances are I'm not too far off. There's also going to be someone who's going to be like, I love my bacon! Probably more than one person. And I think that improv, at least in my grassroots days can really come in handy because you always have a tool to be able to say something back like to the bacon person.

Maybe it's like, yes, and you should try the vegan bacon they have right there at Whole Foods or whatever. So it's a mix to me. It's a mixture of what Austin is saying about listening intently and if I tell you my life story, you better listen Mariann, and also being able to kind of think on your feet and go with what the person is saying to you.

Does that resonate Zoe and Austin?

Zoe Novic: It's definitely a practice that many of us probably get every day without even realizing it. You know, we're in conversation with people. We're practicing listening. We're practicing responding. But the goal of some of the games and activities that we play in our workshops are to get us in the mindset of practicing yes and and accepting and building off of each other's ideas, building something together, practicing storytelling. Practicing, you know, what does it look like to build trust with your partner? Practicing saying no. What does that look like? Practicing building something with set limitations.

Sometimes we give time limitations. Sometimes we give very specific instructions, like, okay, you've just done this. You've told this story. Now you have to tell the same story, but you can't use these details. Now, how are you going to do that? And we all know that the animal advocacy movement, any, you know, social justice movement has extreme limitations, whether that's funding limitations, or people power limitations, and so we are so accustomed to working around these tight constraints in our movement. And so the point of these workshops is to not only get us thinking outside the box, or to, you know, get us practicing in those motions, but to help us do it in a relaxed environment where we're not thinking with so much pressure on ourselves.

And yeah, we, we've seen really, really fun stuff and great results come out of it.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah. I used to do these workshops at the same time, those grassroots days. I don't know if anyone here goes back with me besides Mariann to those New York City days. But Marissa Miller Wolfson and I used to do workshops around the city and beyond. And we had this joke for ourselves before we would start.

We would always look at each other and say, Great, great, validate. And it was basically like, you're going to have someone ask the GMO question, like, but what about GMOs? And you're going to have someone, you know, ask something about gluten or whatever. And you know, it's like, oh, yeah, that's a really great question that comes up a lot.

But you know, what's so interesting is that this has nothing to do with gluten. I wouldn't say it like that. Um, but I guess, to add to that, I'm wondering if it...

Mariann Sullivan: So do you think like the Great Great Validate was a version of Yes And?

Jasmin Singer: I think so. And so that's what I was going to ask our guests today. Is that like, you've done this, Austin, for giant t companies also. So this can actually really help with managerial skills and with presentations because you can't, like, be that person who's the brick wall if you're going to be a dynamic manager or speaker.

Mariann, you look like you're about to jump in.

Mariann Sullivan: No, I just wanted to add, I think this is such an important point for animal advocates because the thing that people mostly, I mean, for people who aren't on board, if you're doing grassroots activism, they always want to change the subject. I mean, I don't think it's even conscious.

It's like an unconscious thing that they want to get off this topic because, you know, it's painful and they don't want to think about it. So any of these methods that can not let you say, this has nothing to do with gluten, and actually be nice to them, but bring the topic back are incredibly valuable in having these conversations, not just in like being out on the street or doing a workshop.

It's conversations with anybody. I mean, I'm thinking particularly about my students. You know, in class, like, some of them are on board, most of them, you know, really don't know a lot. And it's just constant, the topic shifts to something else.

Austin Meyer: And, and I mean, you all Jasmin, Mariann, you are very practiced in the skills of improv just through what you do here on this podcast. I mean, any conversation any of us are in just with friends at all times we are improvising. It's a skill that we all have. Improv has a lot of like baggage with that word.

When people hear the word improv, they think of Whose Line is it Anyway, or people trying to get on SNL or something like that. And we don't want it to feel intimidating. We want it to just feel like, yeah, we're all improvising all the time. It's just adding a little bit more intention and structure around how we do that. And the other thing that I would say, that we've seen a lot of value with these workshops. So we've done them at the Ava summit. We've also done it for a couple of different animal rights organizations. Like, we did a workshop with The Humane League. They had a communications offsite earlier this year that we did one at.

One of the reasons why I think that a lot of people bring us in is just to get people to connect and laugh and have fun together. And I think that is something that often gets thought of in organizations as like it's the first thing to go when there are budget cuts, anything related to fun. And fun becomes relegated to the little icebreaker at the beginning of the meeting that's done half assed.

That is like, Oh, I found this online five minutes before the meeting. Let's throw in an icebreaker to get people like playing together. Our perspective is that play and connection through laughter is really essential for like business bottom line. Not only because it increases trust within the organization, which then cascades to like retention of talent, but also as a way to get people working more collaboratively and creating better solutions for whatever sector you're in.

And so, having the opportunity at a place like the Ava Summit, where a lot of the sessions are very heavy. You're not seeing a lot of laughter at the Animal and Vegan Advocacy Summit, I gotta say. And I think there is more space in the movement to find the right opportunities, cause obviously it's not the right opportunity all the time, but can we, as a movement, whether it's through improv, whether it's through story, just find moments where we can connect with each other through play, through laughter, and just have some fun.

Mariann Sullivan: I totally agree. I, It's incredibly important. It's incredibly hard when you do what we all do, and you face what we all face, but it is crucial.

Jasmin Singer: These are big topics. We're trying to figure out how to end exploitation for animals.

Zoe Novic: But I did want to throw, and I agree with everything Austin said about just the power and importance of play itself. But I did want to offer just a very specific concrete example, about one of our workshops that led to, hopefully, change. So this was not an animal rights organization. We led a workshop for a health care company. It was a very large, large group. And we, did an activity that involved a small group, people standing in a circle and a very simple, but sometimes difficult game of each person stepping into the center of the circle and making eye contact with each person in the circle and just saying, I am here. I am here. I am here.

And it sounds simple, but it can sometimes be a little difficult and intimidating. And we did a debrief after that game and one of the people from this group raised his hand and immediately said, I had a really hard time with this. I noticed that the first time I did it, I was laughing, I was trying to make jokes, I was actually getting really close to people, like physically close to people to try to make them laugh, because I was really uncomfortable with this kind of quiet, intimate eye contact moment. And, we debriefed a little more. And he was one of the physicians at this healthcare company. And he said, I realized that I sometimes do that. I try to lighten things up in moments with patients when there's heavy emotion, and I don't want to do that anymore.

Like, I want to be more aware of that, and I want to take in these moments and be more respectful and not just kind of shove things off. And, that was a really powerful thing for him to say in front of the, like, 400 his colleagues. so that's just a concrete example.

Mariann Sullivan: I'm sure. Um, yeah, I mean, it's certainly not just fun that this can bring to the work but really different ways of connecting. I mean, we wanted to talk about the improv and we're going to do a little bit more talk about that in the bonus, but I also want to talk about, you mentioned before that you're a documentary filmmaker by trade, and can you just tell us a little bit about the kind of work you do, and of course specifically how you've been able in some instances to connect it to animal advocacy?

Austin Meyer: My background is in journalism. I went to Stanford university where I studied creative writing and then journalism. And, after working in kind of some traditional newsrooms, I went freelance in 2018 and had been a freelance documentary filmmaker since then. Primarily I work as a cinematographer, where I'm hired by directors and different media outlets on stories of all types, not just animals.

It's, you know, it's climate change, it's natural disasters, it's sports, it's breaking news, everything like that. But when I have the opportunity, when I have the space in my schedule, I try to go out and find stories related to animal rights that I can pitch and get some support on.

So, slowly over time, I'm starting to build my portfolio of work in that space. And what that's looked like is doing some visual investigations for We Animals. So I've been able to through them work with Compassion In World Farming to document the live animal export trade. For example, this past year, I filmed out on a boat beyond the Golden Gate Bridge, with Compassion In World Farming, where we are documenting how cows that are born in Hawaii then get put on barges and shipped to ports along the West Coast, one of those being Oakland, where they are then unloaded onto trucks and then trucked to feed lots out in the West Coast.

And one of the reasons that happens is because it's less expensive for producers to do that practice rather than import grain to Hawaii to raise the cows in Hawaii and slaughter them there. So we were, you know, flying drones at sea, trying to track a boat that we knew had cows on it. But then I also spend a lot of time at animal sanctuaries here. The Center for Animal Protection and Education, which, my lovely girlfriend, Zoe, is the Executive Director of, also Rancho Compasión, and Animal Place, some of the animal sanctuaries out here. I did a story for National Geographic about a turkey, named Fred, that lives at the sanctuary Rancho Compasión, and that came out around Thanksgiving time.

Trying to just show how remarkable these individuals are. And I'm currently working on two projects. One is about end of life care for animals on sanctuaries. That was inspired by just seeing the, just love and care and tenderness that animal caretakers at sanctuaries offer to animals at the end of their lives.

And then another one that I'm working on right now is about people who dedicate their lives to protecting chickens. So one storyline is based at a sanctuary. One is at a plant based chicken company. One is with a lawyer who works specifically with chickens. And so, you know, I'm, like I said, I'm, I'm kind of early into this profession.

I'm taking a lot of guidelines and cues from Zoe as she kind of like, has always been encouraging me to take my skills, take my passion and find ways to channel it into different animal advocacy spaces. So whether that's the workshops that I had been doing, or the documentary work that I've been doing since before I met Zoe, she's been helping me channel those into a bunch of different directions.

So very grateful for her guidance on that.

Jasmin Singer: I love that. And what would you say? Because you're just starting this particular iteration of your creative career. What would you say are the special challenges in involved in telling stories about animals specifically?

Austin Meyer: I would say it's news hooks and timeliness. So for example, I've been working on some bird flu stories recently. So I recently did a story that featured Crystal Heath, and that was a story for The Washington Post about bird flu.

Now bird flu, because it's in the news, it's timely and news outlets are suddenly paying attention to storylines that I have been trying to pitch for years now. So whether it's about alternatives to the industrial animal agriculture system, like, you know, plant based companies or, alternatives, to the terrible practices of the current systems.

You know, if I pitch to an outlet like the Washington Post or Business Insider, who I work a lot with, Hey, let's go do a story on contract poultry farmers in the South. They're going to be like, Hmm, why, why now? Why do you want to do that now? So what I'm trying to do is kind of like get access to certain stories, and then wait for the news hook to happen.

So, what I've found right now is egg prices are up and that's what news outlets like as their news hook. They know people are going to be curious about why are egg prices up. So if I can use that as my news hook, that allows me an access point to talk about contract poultry farmers, to talk about Just Egg as a company and their process of using mung beans.

That gives me the opportunity to go reach out to the California Department of Food and Agriculture to go see them testing cows on dairy farms that are being impacted by bird flu. So I'd say what I'm trying to do as a journalist and the challenge that I'm working through is, is like honing my sense of what news outlets will care about when it comes to animals so that I can know to like jump at the right opportunities for a news hook.

Zoe Novic: Yeah. There seems to be like a lot going on in the news these days for some reason. Yeah.

Austin Meyer: Yeah,

Jasmin Singer: idea.

Mariann Sullivan: I think one of the biggest struggles here, or I guess this question is for both of you. One of the big struggles is that what is happening to animals, I face this issue in class all the time, what is happening to animals is so bad that people can't bear to know it or they won't bear to know it.

They turn away. I have this situation where I have my students just do an oral presentation on what's happening in various industries rather than it coming from me, who, you know, they all know is the lunatic vegan. They research it themselves and tell each other what's happening to chicken. And I say in the beginning, you know, video is the most useful way to convey this information.

If you need to give a trigger warning, you know, you can, and they still, like I just had two people do presentations the other day and not do video and said they couldn't find any video that, they thought it was okay to show. Like, what we're doing to animals is so bad that we can't look at it, is basically what they're saying, and so, I mean, the point I'm trying to make is in your work, where do you fall on that spectrum of telling people the full truth and having them just like, don't tell me, don't tell me, or trying to find a story that will kind of lead them in to the truth?

Zoe Novic: That's such a great question because it's horrific what animals go through. It's no question and people, I think, do want to shut down and want to shut it out when they hear about the horrors. I think my approach and our approach for the last few years has been to really tell the individual stories of the animals that we know, and, we're lucky enough to spend a lot of time with farm animals at Cape and other local sanctuaries.

And so to be able to get to know those animals, those individuals and get to know those stories and tell their stories and their experiences, is one of the most powerful things that we can do. Austin actually, I mean, he's worked with National Geographic a number of times. And so, we've also started to try to have that storytelling lens that Nat Geo does of like, wow, this beautiful, amazing, typically wild animal, as told through National Geographic's eyes.

And how do we bring that view and that lens to animals who are often underrepresented or, you know, tossed aside. And so, yeah, I think just telling their individual stories and talking about their personalities.

Mariann Sullivan: Was that your theory behind the Fred video?

Austin Meyer: That was part of it. I think that story, the one I'm working on right now about people who dedicate their lives to protecting chickens. I think both of those were inspired by once a year, there is something called the National Geographic Storyteller Summit, which is hosted by the National Geographic Society.

And as someone who's received a storytelling grant from the National Geographic Society, I get to go to this event. And time and time again, I'll go to this event each year and I will sit in the audience and watch my fellow colleagues and freelancers who are the best of the best in the world when it comes to photography and video, get up on stage and tell these incredible stories with incredible visuals about whales, and polar bears, and these wild animals, these incredible species. And then I'll watch everyone give a standing ovation, walk right out that door, and of course, you know, what's coming next, it's eating these other animals in the cafeteria.

And, I think being someone who saw that disconnect and felt the anger just rise within my stomach. It made me think I need to like, get really damn good at this and try to bring that level of storytelling and that level of like visual excellence and treat the animals that are so often overlooked with that same level of reverence.

And I'm not saying that I'm there at all yet, but I think that's kind of the journey for me is to continue to develop my skillset so that I can tell stories that are just undeniably great. And they just so happen to be about these issues that we here on this podcast care about.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I'm wondering whether, like you mentioned the chicken project you're working on, and that seems to bring in another way that I think can be effective, though I'm never sure, is that telling the stories of people who care a lot about animals, it, that once removed kind of thing of it, allows people to, empathize more.

They actually empathize with the fellow human being, but then you bring in the story of the animals kind of, as a subplot. Is that like part of your process in making that particular project?

Austin Meyer: Yeah, that's part of it. I think when you're telling a story about animals, but it also happens to feature humans, especially as a documentarian, it gives you a lot more opportunities to remove yourself as a narrator and the storyteller, because the people in front of camera can do a lot of the talking.

I don't need to like put text on screen or talk. And, you know, on this particular story, like there are scenes where, Maria Galler, who's a caretaker at Animal Place, this sanctuary outside of Sacramento, where she's caring for chickens who were rescued from the egg laying industry. And I have a particular scene I filmed where she is draining the stomachs of these egg laying hens who have cancer, reproductive cancer, from their time in the egg industry.

So just seeing that connection between her and the chickens, seeing these chickens at a stage of their life that people would never typically see them at, to see the repercussions of the egg industry manifest in a little bit different way than people might ever perceive. I think that it can be very powerful.

I also just happened to like, love, you know, working with humans. So I think, I will probably continue to feature that relationship between the two.

Jasmin Singer: I want to go back to something that you mentioned, Austin, but it's about Zoe. So Zoe, I want to talk about CAPE, which you've been on Our Hen House before, but tell our listeners about CAPE and your connection to it.

Zoe Novic: Oh, yeah. so C. A. P. E. stands for the Center for Animal Protection and Education. We are a non profit organization that's been around since 1992, and it was actually founded by my mother, and so we are a small family non profit, and we are a farm animal sanctuary up in Grass Valley, California.

We specialize in rescuing animals with special needs, disabilities, mostly senior animals. We also have a longstanding dog rescue program and the reason why I was on Our Hen House a number of years ago now, was because we hosted the Animal Film Festival for about five years. The Animal Film Festival was a film fest in Grass Valley, but then we traveled throughout California bringing films about animal issues and, yeah, we'll see, um, maybe we'll be back soon...

Jasmin Singer: Well, what does that mean? What does that mean?

Zoe Novic: Uh, we'll see. We'll keep you posted.

Jasmin Singer: I want the yes, and! Well that's exciting! And you both do such cool work and I love this power couple vibe too. Because there's just, there's like, you're oozing creativity and interesting ways of advocating for animals.

Mariann Sullivan: I just really appreciated you're pointing out that the word creativity is not just about the arts. I mean, that's just always been this huge pet peeve of mine. It started in college when the art department sent around a questionnaire that basically asked everybody, why do you think we're creative and you aren't?

It was worded a little better than that, but that was really the impulse. There is creativity in every single endeavor, and you specifically mentioned law, which I of course appreciate. Enormously important to come up with creative arguments, but in activism, creativity of any sort, whether it's creative thinking or creative visuals or just creative ways of communicating.

I just think that's such an important point to remind everybody that creativity is an important part of their activism.

Jasmin Singer: I want to add that when I was a nanny in my 20s, I worked with special needs kids, but I would work with the same kid for like a very, very long time. And there was this one kid, he had a really fascinating brain and he could get along with adults, but not kids.

And he, one day he's like staring kind of off into the distance. And he said, what's imagination? And I said, Oh, uh, okay. Uh, and you know, I like stumble through a ridiculous answer trying to explain it. And he listens and he takes it in and he goes. Like that lamp. And I was like, what do you mean? He said, that lamp is imagination.

And I was like, well, no, I mean, it's a tangible object. And he goes, but it took daddy's imagination to put it there. I will always remember that. Anyway, just to what you just said about creativity. I love that you worded it that way too. Really, truly. It's very satisfying. Creativity is very satisfying.

And it doesn't necessarily have to be, you know, painting happy little trees. But do you have any final takeaways for our listeners? I'd love to hear one from each of you, you know, regarding their activism and maybe something new or fresh they could bring into it. We're still at the beginning of the year somehow.

I don't know how, but as they're going about their 2025, is there anything that you would love to instill in their brains?

Zoe Novic: Going off of, what we were just saying about creativity, I would emphasize that creativity is so important for any advocate, partly for our own health and happiness and our own mental mindset. And I mean, okay, I've heard the argument that, oh, we should take time to be creative because it'll make us better advocates, which is true.

That alone is true. And, sometimes I wrestle with that because, are we all just doing things in our daily lives in order to be better advocates? Definitely, we're all trying to be better advocates every day because this is an important issue to us. I also think that the creativity and the play is an important thing on its own and we are allowed to do things that are fun and mentally challenging or fun or relaxing just because they feel good.

And, that was just on the top of my mind and going with one thing that we practice in our workshops is like whatever comes first to your mind, so.

Austin Meyer: And that was going to be kind of what I wanted to share with people is that one of my favorite hacks, if you will, for creativity, is something that we say in improv theater and in our workshops, which is to be obvious.

So a lot of people, they think to be creative I need to think way outside the box. I need to stretch for the creative. I need to stretch beyond what I'm thinking of right now. But for me and what I've seen with the teams I've worked with over the last decade, actually our most creative selves is usually right in here on the tip of our mind.

And we often judge our ideas so hard the moment they come into our head and push them aside as not good enough, not creative enough, not funny enough, not impactful enough. And so we don't say it. I would urge people to get out of the mode of preparing and self judging every single thing that comes into your head when you think it and try to lean into that space, even if it's a little fearful, of just saying what comes to your mind. Being obvious, because based on who you are and your life circumstances and your upbringing, Jasmin's obvious, is going to be completely different than Mariann's obvious, which is going to be completely different than Zoe's, which is going to be completely different than mine. What is obvious to that person who saw the lamp and said, is that creativity? That was obvious to that person. That's not obvious to you.

And I think when we can get out of that mode of judging ourselves so hard all the time, we can release that pressure, react in the moment with what our mind gives us and trust that it's just going to be okay enough. And if we have people as amazing as Zoe by our side, like I do, then we can be assured that no matter what happens, someone's going to be behind us, have our back to make whatever we did look amazing.

Jasmin Singer: Gosh, you guys are so cute. Vicki, when does this episode air, by the way?

Vicki Beechler: Next Friday.

Jasmin Singer: Valentine's Day! I'm so excited! That's so exciting. Alright, can you guys tell our listeners how they can find out more about you and follow your work?

Zoe Novic: You can find me on LinkedIn. My name is Zoe Novic. You can also follow CAPE, Center for Animal Protection and Education. We're getting our socials and our website, a little revamp, so stay tuned for future postings.

Austin Meyer: And I am at Austin Meyer Films, pretty much wherever on the internet you want to check.

Jasmin Singer: Austin, Zoe, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. I know you're going to hang out and play with our flock a little bit, but we really appreciate this. This was lovely, refreshing episode and I'll be at Ava this year. So I hope that you will be there too. And I hope to see you there.

Zoe Novic & Austin Meyer: For sure. Thanks for having us. Thank you. so much.