The storyteller’s art reaches its highest good when entertainment also becomes a medium of affirmation – the illustration of an idea or value that lifts and ennobles. This was the essence of Aesop’s Fables and many other ancient story traditions. It was certainly the essence of the parables. And it is the true power of great art, theater, poetry and prose. It is what made movies great in the first place.

Such mediums obviously can be used in other ways that demean and degrade. Bawdiness, irreverence, gratuitous violence, promiscuity and diminished ideals can be found if sought, but they are not the stuff of Audience Alliance movies.

We have the clear and unalterable view that movies should both entertain and uplift. They should communicate values for life. Unfortunately this is not a core premise in the majority of films coming from either ‘Hollywood’ or the independent film world. More than seventy percent of filmgoers believe that ‘Hollywood’ is out of touch with their values.

Values tends to be an overworked word. Values entertainment is most often thought of as family films, films for children, or cheesy ‘message’ films that lack conflict, character and drama, or which oversell various concepts of faith. Though not destructive in the way ‘R’ and ‘X’ movies are – cheesy, lightweight films can devalue the power and entertainment value of storytelling in movies by producing a level of cynicism about the medium.

To make a great movie there are three things that matter: Story! Story! Story! The Audience Alliance paradigm therefore is entertainment first.

Values are intrinsic to the story and the character arc or journey of the lead characters, but they are not overstated. Great movies offer entertainment with virtues and values embedded. We see ‘value’ and ‘virtue’ as being interchangeable.

What values will govern the content of Audience Alliance movies? How will we judge what is good and what is best?

We are committed to doing it with open dialog and engagement with you, the audience. Our underlying mantra is: Trust the audience. Serve the audience. Reach the audience.

The Audience Alliance values and virtues matrix is simply an internal management system of identifying and applying appropriate values and virtues to a story. This is abbreviated as VVM; and VVQ is the values and virtues quotient, another proprietary measure derived as a product of the matrix.

Now you be the judge. Here are our values as stated below. Here is our stand. Does this align with what you want to see, or don’t want to see, in the movies? Some reject such values and standards. A few will say, ‘not for me’. That’s fine! What about you?

Ratings Standards

Audience Alliance supports the MPAA in its efforts to inform parents about the content of motion pictures. That said, we do not agree in many cases with the criteria used by those nameless, faceless few, who are entrusted to rate movies for the American viewing public. The veiled selection process of the MPAA rating system would surprise and dismay many.

Audience Alliance has tethered itself to a more traditional values standard than the MPAA and most of the international ratings practices, particularly in the avoidance of sexual themes, vain language, defiant behavior and promiscuity. Audience Alliance will not make films that could earn an R rating from the MPAA. They will mostly be G or PG. Where PG-13 ratings are required it will only result from mature themes or intense action, never from language, sexual promiscuity or nudity.

While Audience Alliance films may carry an MPAA rating they will have been graded internally to a higher standard defined around our Values and Virtues Matrix and with the public scrutiny of our audience. Similar standards will be applied in each country where Audience Alliance films are produced or made available regardless of the practices of local ratings agencies.

Language

Scripts will endeavor to use language to its full and proper potential. Creative writing will take the place of vulgarity and profanity. The name of God in any language or from any faith tradition will not be used in a vulgar or profane manner. If used at all such names will be in their proper and reverent context.

Violence

The pattern of life is, ‘opposition in all things’. Conflict is the essence of drama. It is not the presence or the absence of violence that will govern films from Audience Alliance but the treatment of violence. Where essential to the story, acts of violence may occur or be indicated, but the treatment of such will be handled in a way that minimizes or eliminates any on-screen depictions of violence or graphic images that are offensive to the broadest possible audience.

Sensuality

Audience Alliance films will not include nudity or sexually suggestive scenes. When love and romance are essential to the story, as they often are, these relationships will be handled with integrity, modesty and chastity.

Standards of Behavior

The use of drugs, alcohol and tobacco if essential to the story will never be shown in a positive or attractive way.

Consequences

Breaking the laws of the land or the laws of God will never be rewarded and the consequences of bad choices will always be associated with failure, disappointment and unhappiness. Stories will resolve in a way that demonstrates that good choices are rewarded and bad choices ultimately bring sorrow, heartache and disappointment.

Respect for Faith, Heritage, Religion and Culture

We live in a pluralistic world where many valid and competing views vie for attention. Audience Alliance films will not be a platform or soapbox for the political, religious or social agenda of any group. Nor will our films be constrained to require ‘political correctness’. Characters and themes may approach their subject without fear or favor. Audience Alliance stories will be respectful of heritage, tradition, religious, ethnic and cultural sensitivities, reflecting a basic belief in the equality and brotherhood of mankind.

We respect the individual’s rights to faith and worship (or the absence of) on their own terms. Where matters of faith and religion are integral to a story, by and large, clergy and religious leaders of every persuasion will be depicted in a positive and affirming light. Virtue, praiseworthiness and reason are to be celebrated whatever the persuasion.

The Family

To the extent that Audience Alliance may be considered to have an agenda it is an affinity with the merits of family as it has been known and defined for thousands of years. Considerately and firmly, Audience Alliance stands with responsible citizens everywhere in promoting and sustaining the family as the fundamental unit of society. Across our diverse and multifaceted society there are many challenging themes and conflicting positions surrounding the idea of family.

Audience Alliance is not so much against anything as it is for the merits of the traditional family in the nurturing and raising of children, and as the means of passing from generation to generation those values which are the essence of a sustainable society. We recognize that families are constituted in many ways. Conflict, death, divorce, illness, loss of work and income, and other circumstances force individuals and families to deal with a variety of challenges. Some of the bravest and most compelling stories arise from the way in which families meet such circumstances.

As far as portrayal in film is concerned, Audience Alliance films will realistically recognize the diversity of circumstance and opposition that life brings, yet will also tend to resolve toward optimism, hope, and the ideal of the traditional family.

A Higher Standard

These standards identify mostly what Audience Alliance films will not contain – the won’t list. That is a beginning, but we can go much higher. The purpose of the Values and Virtues Matrix is to provide a refining measure so that stories can be evaluated, lifted and rated according to our own internal rating system.

Stories will come to us in many ways, truckloads of them. We can measure every story concept, book, treatment and screenplay, and raise it to the standard defined by the VVM.

A VVM rewrite does one or more of the following as needed:  (a) Endows the lead characters with values  (b) Imposes or more clearly defines a value theme  (c) Redefines the central dramatic question so it has a redemptive virtue or value  For example: Finding a treasure before the bad guys so the hero can get really rich and buy a fleet of luxury vehicles could be scripted into an entertaining story. Finding the treasure before the bad guys, wrestling with the temptation of wealth, choosing instead of greed to save the Indian village on whose land the treasure has been buried and to which their ancient religion has deep ties would allow us to tell the same story but with a heart-rending climax and a redemptive virtue/value embedded.

It will not always be so simple but it is actually much easier than one may imagine. Finding the potential virtue and value in the way film characters respond to circumstances not only changes the virtue/value rating or quotient; it makes the characters more complex and usually a lot more interesting.  Rather than searching for stories with values and virtues which confines the search to a limited number of sources, Audience Alliance will look for stories – for the sake of telling a great story – that have all the classic elements that make great motion pictures great. Strong and interesting character…passionate objects of desire (goals)…impossible obstacles and odds…romantic interest…ticking clock…strong antagonist…high stakes.

We will then lift the standards with VVM!  One of the very practical applications of this approach is that there is virtually no boundary for the range and source of great stories available!