RESEARCH

The CRI started as a think tank, driven by students and supported by faculty in the Graduate Film program at Tisch. Since our establishment in 2011, our Fellows have researched, reported on, and become experts in film funds, crowd funding, games and cinema, and adapting grassroots organizing to innovative production practices. Our current Fellows' research is just as forward-thinking and can be found on the CRI Blog.

TEAM BUILDING 

CRI Fellows are selected based on their individual research topics and abilities to fully investigate their subjects as well as their abilities to build strong networks and teams of mentors, collaborators, teams, and audiences. 

This year's Fellows have fully engaged in the team mentality. They've found, through personal and professional connections as well as interest in their research posted on the CRI Blog, dedicated team members who are helping the Fellows to further their research and reach broad audiences. 

MENTORSHIP

Mentorship is key to the Fellows' research throughout their Fellowship year, and former Fellows who have become experts in their research topic quickly evolve into mentors for current and future Fellows. Mentors guide Fellows in their initial research questions, challenge the Fellows' conceptions of their topic and what's possible in the field, and further the Fellows' progress through their own areas of expertise and passion, and professional connections. 

TOOL DEVELOPMENT

While the CRI was established as a think tank and is still rooted in strong research principles, Fellows have pushed themselves to realize solutions for the problems they've explored through their research.

Many of the Fellows are independent filmmakers themselves, and build tools that will aide the independent filmmaking community from many angles: production, marketing, distribution, and finance. Fellows blog about their development process on the CRI Blog and the research and tools they develop, or propose to develop, are on the Projects page. 

GLOBAL CONNECTIONS

Being based in New York City at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts doesn't stop our Fellows from wanting to explore international film, forging connections with researchers around the world, and making a splash in cities across the country. 

CRI Fellows' work is geared toward independent filmmaking communities, wherever they may be, and is supported by teams from around the world. Recently, Fellows' research has been enriched by different levels of industry access made avilable due to different film industry standards outside the U.S. The global connections yield more robust research and a broader independent film audience that we support and encourage. 

ADVOCACY

Ultimately, the CRI was founded by filmmakers who recognized persistent but solvable problems in the independent film landscape - from the way that filmmakers collaborate, to the way that media is distributed and shared by audiences. 

The CRI has evolved into an institute that not only responds to existing challenges in the industry, but now supports Fellows who wish to reimagine media production, distribution, and consumption. Fellows work to create a sustainable, creative, and improved future for themselves and the diverse  community of which they are a part. The Fellows' research and the tools derived from it is intended to make media and media industries more accessible to more people, thereby strengthening the media-making community at large.