Talmage Cooley - Creative Projects

I am a social impact strategist and founder with a record of launching transformational projects from inception to national scale.

My creative work as a writer/director is a mix of professional and personal projects often inspired by social justice themes.

Reach me at:
talmage@talmagecooley.com

The Gun Violence Project website:
www.AskAboutGuns.org

My bio/resume:

1. FILM

Short Documentary: Dimmer

A documentary look into the lives of a semi-tough gang of blind teenage boys as they roam the worst neighborhoods of Buffalo, New York, looking for trouble and girlfriends. Music by Interpol. Academy Awards Shortlist.

Directed by: Talmage Cooley
Produced by: Andy Spade, Anthony Sperduti & Talmage Cooley
Cinematography by: Jim Wall
Edited by: Crandall Miller
Music by: Interpol

Sundance Film Festival - Premiere
Academy Awards - Short Documentary Shortlist
Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences - Special Exhibition
Worldwide Short Film Festival (Toronto) - Best Film
RiverRun Festival - Best Documentary Short
NY Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) - Special Exhibition
NY Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) - Sundance Collection
Vila Do Cordo (Portugal) - Best Film
Hammer Museum LA - Special Exhibition
Aspen Film Festival - Silver Prize
Nashville Film Festival - Special Mention
Seattle One Reel Festival - Best Film
ResFest - Best Film
ResFest - Special Jury Prize

Short Narrative: Pol Pot’s Birthday

A comedic examination of the humbling of a ruthless tyrant, as the office staff of the Cambodian dictator Pol Pot attempts to throw a surprise birthday party for their boss. Over 500,000 views on YouTube.

Directed by: Talmage Cooley
Written by: Talmage Cooley & Anthony Sperduti
Produced by: Talmage Cooley
Production Design by: Shane Valentino
Cinematography by: Todd Somodevilla
Edited by: Kirk Baxter & Akiko Iwakawa-Grieve

Sundance Film Festival - Premiere
Newport Beach Film Festival - Best Screenplay
NY Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) - Sundance Collection
Dubrovnik Film Festival (Croatia) - Best Film
Filmstock Festival (UK) - Best Concept
Filmstock Festival (UK) - Best Film
Grenada Film Festival (Spain) - Best Cinematography
Silverlake Film Festival - Festival Director’s Prize
St Louis Film Festival - Best Film
Asian American Film Festival - Best Film
ResFest - Special Jury Prize

1. Social Impact Projects

Asking Saves Kids Campaign & The Gun Violence Project

The organization I co-founded in 1998, PAX/The Center to Prevent Gun Violence, launched The Asking Saves Kids Campaign in 2000 as the call-to-action of the Million Mom March on the National Mall in Washington DC. I served on the organizing committee of the Million Mom March, which was founded and led by Donna Dees Thomases. Over 750,000 people attended the Million Mom March in Washington DC and another 400,000 people attended satellite marches across all fifty states. At the time, the Million Mom March was the largest gathering to date on the National Mall.

Asking Saves Kids was inspired by the fact that half of homes with children in the US have a gun, and half those guns are left unlocked or loaded. The message to parents is simple: Walk outside your front door. Look right. Look left. One of those homes probably has a gun and it’s very like to be unlocked or loaded. Therefore, as a good parent, you need to ASK about guns in the home before sending your child to play at someone’s house. Asking Saves Kids is not about politics. It’s about being a good parent. The Asking Saves Kids Campaign reframes gun violence prevention as a common sense matter of family safety that all parents can agree on.

After the Million Mom March, Asking Saves Kids was immediately launched in all 50 states. We launched Asking Saves Kids as an open-source message available to anyone to use without permission. As a result of that open-source policy, today over 19 million parents now say they ASK about guns in the homes where their kids go to play. Twenty-five years after launch, the Asking Saves Kids remains the only national gun violence prevention message campaign ever proven to be effective per multi-year studies by Harvard (2012) and the US General Accounting Office (2017).

Due to mergers among gun violence prevention organizations, Asking Saves Kids lost full support at the national level in 2017, though still promoted widely at the local level. At the urging of numerous leaders in the gun violence prevention movement, we created The Gun Violence Project (www.AskAboutGuns.org) to prepare a national relaunch of Asking Saves Kids in 2025.

Given the media intensive nature of spreading a national call-to-action like Asking Saves Kids, our Board of Advisors includes a number of prominent members of the entertainment and communication communities who are passionate about common sense solutions to the gun violence crisis in America.

Kevin Bacon, Actor & Musician
Lara Bergthold, Strategic Consultant
Stephanie Bruni, EP, The Directors Bureau
Rosanne Cash, Singer, Songwriter, Activist
Talmage Cooley, Dir., Gun Violence Project
Griffin Dunne, Writer, Director, Actor
Erin Erenberg, Founder, Chamber of Mothers
Dan Fogelman, Writer, Producer
Tom Freston, Founder & CEO, MTV
Heath Friedman, Wellness Activist
Tyler Goldsmith, Singer, Songwriter
Ethan Hawke, Writer, Actor, Director
Cheryl Healton, Founding Dean, NYU-SGPH
David Hemenway, Director, Harvard SGPH
Alissa Lee, Writer
Matt Lenski, Director, Arts & Sciences
Michelle Kydd Lee, Chief Innovation Officer, CAA
Carey Lowell, Actor
Melodie McDaniel, The Directors Bureau
Felice McDaniel, Activist, NAMI
Mandy Moore, Singer, Songwriter, Actor
Jennifer Pomeranz, Professor, NYU-SGPH
Priya Parmar, Writer
Sharon Rapoport, Creative Director, Kripalu
Kyra Sedgwick, Actor, Director, Producer
Oberon Sinclair, CEO, My Young Auntie PR
Anthony Sperduti, Founder & CEO, Mythology
Donna Thomases, Founder, Million Mom March
Caitlin Thompson, Actor, Writer
Frances Tulk-Hart, Photographer, Visual Artist
Emily Vacher, Director, Safety & Trust, Meta

Democracy.com

Democracy.com was the first online marketplace platform for civic and political engagement, connecting any citizen, candidate and civic organization. Recognizing that the civic and political space presented a classic innovation opportunity, the Democracy.com product vision was driven by the insight that 90% of all candidates and civic/political organizations in the US remain unserved by existing online organizing products because they were designed for the high end of the market and are too complicated and expensive for smaller state and local organizations.

I launched Democracy.com at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard Innovation Lab during graduate studies, Democracy.com operated from launch 2013 until its acquisition in 2019. The company raised $4 million and achieved 30% month-on-month user growth with more than one million users. Democracy.com’s rapid growth was supported by strategic partnerships with hundreds of civic/political organizations from the national to local level, representing over 30 political parties in all 50 states. Democracy.com was sold to Mark Cuban in 2019.

Democracy.com received prominent industry awards, including:

• American Association of Political Consultants Award for Best Technology Innovation
• Campaigns & Elections Award for Best Online Fundraising Platform
• Campaign Workshop Award for Best Organizing Tool.

4. SPOTS

SPEAK UP Campaign - Josh

Strategy and Creative Direction: Talmage Cooley
Directed by: Talmage Cooley
Cinematography by: Wyatt Troll

The Speak Up Campaign was created by the Center to Prevent Youth Violence/PAX and provided the first ever anonymous hotline for young people to report weapon threats in their schools and neighborhoods. Launched in 2002 and operated continuously until 2019, the Speak Up Hotline was promoted by over 400 national and local partners in all 50 states and received over 50,000 calls, many of which led to community and law enforcement intervention before tragedies could occur. The campaign’s documentary-style television/internet spots and school posters featured actual students who either experienced or prevented mass shootings at their schools.

SPEAK UP Campaign - Michelle

Strategy and Creative Direction: Talmage Cooley
Directed by: Talmage Cooley
Cinematography by: Wyatt Troll

The ASK Campaign - Neighbors

Strategy and Creative Direction: Talmage Cooley
Directed by: Joe Pytka
Cinematography by: Joe Pytka
Editorial & Voiceover Direction by: Talmage Cooley
Voiceover by: Julianne Moore

The ASK campaign (Asking Saves Kids), created by the Center to Prevent Youth Violence/PAX, is the only gun violence prevention program ever proven to be effective, according to a 2017 Harvard/GAO study. Launched in 2000 at the Million Mom March on the Washington Mall and still active in 2020, the ASK Campaign partners with the American Academy of Pediatrics and over 400 other national organizations focused on gun violence prevention. The campaign is based on the simple fact that 40% of homes with children have a gun, and almost half those guns are either unlocked or loaded. The message to parents is simple: ASK your neighbors about guns before you send your kids over to play. To date, over 20 million parents have signed the ASK Pledge and over 31 million parents now say they ask about guns in the homes where their children play (from baseline of 3 million when campaign launched).

The Creative Coalition - Schoolyard

Written & Directed by: Talmage Cooley
Cinematography by: Glenn Mordeci
Voiceover by: Alec Baldwin

Schoolyard was a collaboration between The Creative Coalition and The Gun Violence Project, focused on the insight that over 100,000 children take a gun to school every day in America.

Little Ceasars Spec Spot

Directed by: Talmage Cooley
Written by: Andy Spade and Talmage Cooley
Cinematography by: Tim Ives

4. PRINT

SPEAK UP - School Poster (Josh)

Strategy and Creative Direction: Talmage Cooley
Photography: Wyatt Troll
Designer: Ian Toombs/Pentagram Design

The Speak Up Campaign was created by the Center to Prevent Youth Violence/PAX and provided the first ever anonymous hotline for young people to report weapon threats in their schools and neighborhoods. Launched in 2002 and operated continuously until 2019, the Speak Up Hotline was promoted by over 400 national and local partners in all 50 states. The hotline received over 50,000 calls, many of which led to community and law enforcement intervention before tragedies could occur. The documentary-style television and internet spots for the Speak Up Campaign featured actual students who either experienced or prevented mass shootings at their school.

SPEAK UP - School Poster (Michelle)

Strategy and Creative Direction: Talmage Cooley
Photography: Wyatt Troll
Designer: Ian Toombs/Pentagram Design

5. PRESS

Screen International: Ten Short Filmmakers to Watch
American Cinematographer: An Uneasy Celebration
Variety: AMPAS Kisses Short Docs
Fader: Idea Man
Hotdog Magazine: Underground Shorts
RES Magazine: RES 10
IFC: Interview with Talmage Cooley
Create Magazine: RES Fest Announces Audience Choice and Jury Prize
Indiewire: Sundance Short Top Ten
BBC: RESFest at the Showroom
TechPresident: Democracy.com Shines Searchlight on Candidates and Elected Officials
CNN Politics: One Stop Shopping for Candidates Online
TechPresident: Democracy.com Hopes to Level Campaign Playing Field with Social Network for Politics
TechCrunch: Democracy.com Launches Plug-and-Play Website for Political Campaigns

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