Entertainment Technology Center
Director: Ken Williams
The Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California (ETC@USC) is a think tank and research center that brings together senior executives, innovators, thought leaders, and catalysts from the entertainment, consumer electronics, technology, and services industries along with the academic resources of the University of Southern California to explore and to act upon topics and issues related to the creation, distribution, and consumption of entertainment content. As an organization within the USC School of Cinematic Arts, ETC helps drive collaborative projects among its member companies and engages with next generation consumers to understand the impact of emerging technology on all aspects of the entertainment industry, especially technology development and implementation, the creative process, business.
Institute for Multimedia Literacy
Director: Holly Willis
Founded in 1998 by the University of Southern California’s Dean of the School of Cinematic Arts Elizabeth Daley in conversation with filmmaker George Lucas, the Institute for Multimedia Literacy is dedicated to developing educational programs and conducting research on the changing nature of literacy in a networked culture.
Creative Media & Behavioral Health Center
Director: Marientina Gotsis
The CM&BHC builds on USC’s existing academic strengths and unique reputation within the creative and technology industries to develop an incubator for innovation in the use of entertainment applications at the intersection of behavioral science, medicine and public health. It is the mission of CM&BHC to increase public awareness of critical issues in mental health and behavioral science and to provide hands-on creativity-based educational opportunities for health researchers and practitioners.
Worldbuilding Institute
Director: Alex McDowell
The World Building Institute is a cutting edge USC non-profit Organized Research Unit dedicated to the dissemination, education, and appreciation of the future of narrative media through World Building. World Building designates a narrative practice in which the design of a world precedes the telling of a story; the richly detailed world becomes a container for narrative, producing stories that emerge logically and organically from its well-designed core.
World Building is founded on three beliefs, namely that storytelling is the most powerful system for the advancement of human capability due to its ability to allow the human imagination to precede the realization of thought; that all stories emerge logically and intuitively from the worlds that create them; and that new technologies powerfully enable us to sculpt the imagination into existence.
The World Building Institute is the world's leading World Building collective. Our network of preeminent World Builders transcends borders and boundaries in film, animation, fashion, gaming, theatre, television, music, architecture, science, interactive media and more. Through the newly cemented partnership with USC School of Cinematic Arts, the World Building Institute is evolving into an unmatched connector between the next generation of young and undiscovered creators traversing the bleeding edge of innovation and companies who want to be at the frontlines of the new media landscape.