Our Spotlight Series showcases some remarkable people we’ve connected with through our mission to deliver high-quality education and dialogue about genetics and related topics.
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Introducing: Tobias Deml
Today we’ll get to know Tobias Deml, a Social Impact Entertainment (SIE) filmmaker and co-founder of the SIE Society. He makes movies, TV shows, documentaries, and other content designed to have a positive social impact through his company Prodigium Pictures.
PGED is inspired by the SIE Society’s mission to educate, connect, and empower professionals to harness storytelling for greater social good and measurable impact. We are grateful for our ongoing collaboration, through which we have worked with Toby to produce a webinar on de-extinction and climate change and two published storytelling guides for storytellers to integrate concepts about genetics, ethics, and society into their work.
Interview
We sat down with Toby to learn more about his work and passion for making a positive social impact on viewers and the entertainment industry.
Meredith: How did you first get connected with PGED?
Toby: PGED reached out through the SIE Society, which I co-founded in 2020, to ask about a partnership in storytelling. We thought about what we could bring to the table. In the past, we tried to use scientific research about how storytelling affects the human brain to deliver more interesting and informative entertainment. People usually want to tell great stories without thinking about the science behind these stories, but featuring science in your storylines can actually both be entertaining and profitable. Look at Jurassic Park! Now, we’re working together with PGED to explore that deep connection between the science of storytelling and the science of genetics. There are so many fascinating topics to get into.
Meredith: Which shows and films have done a good job getting people interested in genetics?
Toby: Jurassic Park is definitely one of the most interesting. It really goes into granular detail of how the science informs the storyline. Another is GATTACA, about the determinism of genetics and its outcome in eugenics and a totalitarian society. It taps into very natural concerns a lot of us have.
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Meredith: Tell us a bit about your career. What do you do?
Toby: Next to co-founding SIE Society and acting as its Head of Content, I run a production company called Prodigium Pictures, based right off Times Square in New York. We produce movies, TV shows, documentaries, and commercials — and what they all have in common is that they’re made with social impact in mind.
To give you an idea of what that looks like in practice: we produced a commercial for an app that connects the Deaf with the hearing world. We spent an enormous amount of time researching this market and understanding the deep culture and community around being Deaf. When the commercial launched there were tens of thousands of shares on Facebook and practically no negative feedback. That was a big deal because it’s a very fragmented audience to engage with, and the Deaf and hard-of-hearing communities have been burned in the past by people who didn’t appreciate their diversity and culture.
Meredith: What do you think is the biggest challenge in your field today?
Toby: Social Impact Entertainment is a very fragmented industry, and progress has been slow because everyone’s just doing their own thing. Recently, a philanthropically funded studio called Participant Media closed shop. They were the North Star of this industry, funding a lot of social impact projects. It has left a huge gap in this ecosystem. It was an important reminder that even though philanthropic money is great, at some point the long-term financial sustainability of social impact entertainment has to matter. We think bringing people together and focusing on profitability first, and impact second, is going to be really important for the progression of this industry.
Meredith: What about the greatest opportunity in your field?
Toby: If you look at the entertainment industry like a cake, the slice that is social impact is very tiny, maybe 2%. The other 98% of the cake isn’t focused on how powerfully communicated information can affect the human brain. The moment you accept that the information you give people has an effect on them is the moment that you suddenly have a lot of responsibility. So the big opportunity here is to turn that 98% of the industry into social impact entertainment and to show that having a social impact actually helps spread the word and get people interested in watching your content.
Meredith: What is something about genetics that you want more people to know?
Toby: I did a 23andMe test for myself and found out that there’s a prevalence in my family for high blood pressure. I already had a health-conscious approach to life, but if I hadn’t, this might have helped me to extend my life or my productive contribution to society. There’s a really big benefit to people being aware of their own genetic code and I wish more people had access to that kind of data.
Meredith: If you could help PGED accomplish one thing, what would it be?
Toby: Outside of entertainment, there’s a really important role for politicians in the adoption of policies around genetics. I’d be interested in helping to educate politicians on these topics so they can take an informed approach.
Meredith: What’s your favorite thing to do outside of work?
Toby: I am definitely a workaholic! When I’m not working I love finding random new stuff that’s really interesting, like kite surfing or parkour. I just picked up tennis. I also really enjoy traveling, and I look for life-changing experiences that are off the beaten path.
Meredith: When you were a kid, what was the first thing you wanted to be when you grew up?
Toby: I wanted to be a butcher. I remember sitting in the shopping cart while my mom shopped. I watched the butcher and thought, ‘I want to be this guy one day.’ In retrospect, glad I went down the filmmaker route though!
Meredith: What is one thing you have yet to check off your bucket list?
Toby: Skydiving. My biggest fascination as a kid was flying.
Meredith Salisbury is a veteran biotech journalist who covered the launches of the Personal Genomes Project and PGED. She has closely followed PGED’s work and champions its focus on genome-related ethics and education for people in all communities.
Our team is deeply grateful to Meredith for supporting our Spotlights launch by delivering the first two interviews in the series, providing training tips and expert feedback, and behind-the-scenes editing support.