There are many people I want to thank for their support and contributions to this project over the years of its development and execution. First and foremost I want to thank my committee, chaired by Tara McPherson and comprised of Steve Anderson, Scott Fisher, Mimi Ito and Holly Willis. I am supremely honored to have had such brilliant minds and generous souls offering their guidance, feedback, ideas and support throughout this process. They have each made unique contributions to my own growth, perspective and professional course and I am extremely grateful for the time and energy they shared.

Two of my best friends, Maya Grobel and Noah Moskin, were there making videos with me back when I very first picked up a camera and I am glad that we are still making projects together today. Their inclusion of me on the documentary journey of their quest to start a family, resulting in the film One More Shot, was a hugely important learning experience for me and a key pillar informing my dissertation work.

The Institute for Multimedia Literacy (IML) was my first home at USC and much of my early work with the Junior AV Club and as an instructor for IML 500 was made possible by the efforts of the amazing community there. Holly Willis set the Junior AV Club in motion and the efforts of Sonia Seetharaman and Willy Paredes especially led to early success. The endeavor was supported by the whole community at the IML including Steve Anderson, Dave Lopez, Stacy Patterson, Matt Williams, our student workers and of course the teachers, parents and children with whom we collaborated. Around the same time I was working with Jenny Cool and members of the Anthropology Department at USC to create an IML course sequence that would complement their Masters of Visual Anthropology program. I want to thank them for that opportunity, supported by the IML, and given life, depth and great value by the students who participated in the program, some of whom - the Monstrous Hybrids cohort, as they called themselves - graciously appear in my dissertation film project.

My teaching and research efforts have always benefited from the strong community in the IML and later the Media Arts + Practice division at USC and I am very grateful to all of my colleagues on the faculty: Michael Bodie, Andreas Kratky, Virginia Kuhn, DJ Johnson, Ashley York, Vicki Callahan and Evan Hughes have all been inspiring, supportive collaborators and friends. Elizabeth Ramsey was especially crucial as a guide and advocate through the entire process of the Ph.D. and in the course I have navigated to my current professional path.

Henry Jenkins and Sangita Shresthova have become two of my closest collaborators and I want to thank them for bringing me into their work with such openness and trust. My work with them and the rest of the team on the Media Activism and Participatory Politics Project, Civic Paths, and the By Any Media online resource project was pivotal to the growth and completion of my dissertation work. I want to thank all the teammates who worked on those projects. Karl Baumann and Liana Gamber Thompson helped to shape and run our early worldbuilding workshops and Karl contributed great photography and videography, some of which is seen in this project. Alex McDowell’s work on worldbuilding was also a very important source of inspiration for those workshops and I want to thank him for giving me the chance to participate in the Science of Fiction events early on where I collaborated with Paisley and Graham Smith on worldbuilding experiences for young people. As MAPP developed its own worldbuilding workshops for youth and activism, Susu Attar and Ilse Escobar were also invaluable contributors to the shape of what we made.

I want to acknowledge the inspiring work and amazing individuals who make up the iMAP student community; it has been a joy and privilege to be a part of that. I especially want to acknowledge the members of my cohort and thank them for their camaraderie and compassion; Jeanne Jo, Rosemary Comella and Laila Shereen Sakr. I also want to give a great thanks to Matt Scott for being such a great guide to the world of giant screen cinema and for helping me to realize my vision for an IMAX dissertation. And without the friendship and help of Mariko Oda I’m not sure if I would have found my way to the IML at all. Thank you.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the love and support of my family and how much that has meant in my life and in pursuit of this work. My mom is always proud and excited, my siblings always push me and my dad is always asking me to explain it all one more time, which never hurts. And then the great surprise and gift that coincided with this phase of my life; meeting and marrying my wife Robyn. The fact that our courtship and early relationship developed in the midst of preparations for my qualifying exams, and that the subsequent milestones of our life together (wedding, house, dogs and cats…) have all arisen alongside such intense periods of work and labor in my life has truly been a testament to the love and support we share with each other. Not only has she helped and supported me as I’ve struggled and soared with the work, she’s been a great thinker and confidante and helped me through many ideas and sticking points, always seeing straight to the heart of the matter and helping me to do the same.