Workshops

SCA Impact Weekend includes opportunities for hands on development of your creative and technical skillsets.

IXA Social Impact BuildFest

Friday, November 6 | 3-8:30 PM
Saturday, November 7 | 12-8 PM
Sunday, November 8 | 12-5:30 PM

Social Impact BuildFest is a weekend-long event where students team up to prototype immersive tech experiences that tackle real-world challenges. With guidance from technical mentors and Social Impact Experts, you will learn how to design experiences that are thoughtful, responsible, and genuinely useful.

BuildFest is a supportive environment. It is not about being the best coder in the room. It is about curiosity, collaboration, and building something meaningful.

2026-27 THEME: (UN)SEEN
What stories, systems, people, places, or possibilities are hiding in plain sight? (UN)SEEN invites students to reveal what is overlooked, hidden, misunderstood or difficult to perceive and use immersive media to help audiences encounter it in a new way. 

The theme is intentionally open: teams may explore climate, accessibility, cultural memory, invisible labor, algorithms, loneliness, public infrastructure, migration, privacy, future anxieties - or issues unique to their own communities.

MISC Story Lab

Saturday, November 7 | 1-3 PM

Story Lab is a periodic workshop series for students working on creative media projects that focus on social justice and positive social impact.

For SCA Impact Weekend, MISC will conduct a two hour session that provides student participants with the following:

  • Collaborative space: A place for student creators to connect with peers, find project collaborators, and test their creative ideas.
  • Social justice focus: Designed specifically for people developing stories, films, or media projects that tackle real-world social issues.
  • Resource sharing: Offers guidance, feedback, and resources to help shape the authenticity and impact of social-issue storytelling.
  • Hosted by MISC: Run through the Media Institute for Social Change at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, which promotes media as a tool for cultural and societal improvement.

Panels + Keynote

Join us in SCA 108 for three fantastic panel discussions with industry professionals as they discuss the unique ways to explore environmental and social justice issues through storytelling. 

Opening Keynote: Nina Yang Bongiovi in Conversation with... (tbc)

Friday, November 6 | 5:30-7 PM

A conversation with a professional filmmaker who consciously incorporates societies most pressing issues into their creative practice.

Panel: MISC Social Impact Panel

Saturday, November 7 | 6:30-8 PM

A conversation with filmmakers and alumni on distribution, fiscal sponsorship, and ethical filmmaking.

Panelists include:

  • Ian Mark - Creator of New Hollywood, which provides fiscal sponsorship for independent films that agree to prioritize crew and cast well-being.
  • Candace Williamson - USC alumnus and director of the documentary Boil That Cabbage Down, a film about reclaiming the Black roots of the banjo, which has been featured in 15+ festivals and is now distributed through PBS.
  • Jean Paulo Lasmar - a USC alumnus and socially conscious director working across documentary, narrative, and advertising, whose films have earned five Cannes Gold Lions and Grand Prix awards from Clio, The One Show, and LIA.

Panel: Sustainable Production Practices

Sunday, November 8 | 12-1:30 PM

A conversation about best practices in sustainability when making your art.