Storytelling
Everyone has a story. We hand them the microphone.
Storytelling is the heart of the studio. Not film made about people — stories made with them, in every form a story can take. We work with young people finding their voices, neighbors finding each other, and communities falling back in love with where they live. Stories, series, talk shows, documentary, fiction, audio, animation — and so much more. The form follows the story; the story follows the people.
Youth finding their voices
Every young person has a story worth telling — most have just never been handed a microphone. Our studio teaches them to find it: on camera, behind it, and on the page. A teenager's first interview becomes a segment, a short film, a byline. The voice they find here stays with them for life.
Community finding each other
The barber and the teacher. The church and the rec league. The newcomer and the family that's been on the block for forty years. Storytelling is how a neighborhood learns who its own people are — and once people see each other's stories, they start showing up for each other.
A love of community
However that community looks. A block, a congregation, a team, a culture, a chosen family spread across three cities. We don't define anyone's community for them — we help them tell the story of the one they already love, so others can love it too.
The forms a story can take
One studio, every medium. Youth productions and seasoned crews work side by side on all of it.
Stories
Short, true pieces about real people — written, filmed, and published where the neighborhood actually reads.
Series
Multi-episode arcs that follow a person, a place, or a project over time — the stories that need room to breathe.
Talk shows
Community conversation, on air: neighbors, young people, and local leaders in the chairs, asking real questions.
Documentary
Long-form and short-form nonfiction, made with the people whose lives the story is — never just about them.
Fiction
Original drama and comedy rooted in real places — because sometimes the truest story needs a made-up name.
Audio & radio
Voices for the airwaves — pieces made for BP Radio, podcasts, and the moments people listen on the go.
Written word
Essays, columns, poetry, and letters to the neighborhood in The Park and beyond.
And so much more
Animation, music video, live events, game shows, youth-produced everything. If a story needs it, we'll build it.
At The Park & Buena Park TV
Our flagship storytelling stages. At The Park puts changemakers and neighbors in the host's chair; Buena Park TV carries the channel — news, features, and series made by the community it broadcasts to. Youth crews and first-time hosts are welcome on set.
Tell us a story
Know a person, a place, or an idea that deserves the screen — or want to be the one telling it? Pitch it here. Young storytellers especially: if you've never made anything before, that's exactly who we built this for. Our studio develops the strongest pitches into real productions.
Pitch a storyConversations
A true place of creation
Conversations are how the world gets made better — not by talking at people, but by sitting with them. Our studio builds conversations to make the world a better place: to have people be heard, to bring forward new ideas, to grow understanding and community. Not content. Not debate for its own sake. A true place of creation, where something new exists in the room because the room finally heard everybody in it.
To be heard
Everyone carries a story the world hasn't stopped to listen to. Our conversations start with the person, not the topic — the teen with a plan, the elder with a memory, the neighbor with an idea nobody's asked about yet. When people are truly heard, they stop waiting for permission to matter.
To bring forward new ideas
Good ideas don't come from stages — they come from kitchens, shops, classrooms, and waiting rooms. We sit down with the people closest to the problem, because that's where the answers actually live. Every conversation is a search for the idea that hasn't been said out loud yet.
To build understanding and community
People who talk together stop arguing past each other. A conversation across generations, cultures, or city lines is how a neighborhood becomes a community — how 'those people' become 'us.' We make space for the hard, honest, hopeful talks, and let understanding do the rest.
The ways we gather
One studio, many chairs. Pull one up — every conversation starts as an invitation.
Long-form interviews
Real time with real people — unedited thinking, honest questions, answers you can't fit in a sound bite.
On-air talk
Guests and neighbors in the chairs on At The Park, live conversation carried by Buena Park TV.
Roundtables
Small circles of doers, neighbors and skeptics hashing a problem out around one table.
Youth town halls
Young people ask the questions and grown-ups have to answer — the studio's most electric hours.
Cross-cultural exchanges
A city that speaks many languages deserves conversations that cross them — with translation, not assumption.
Audio editions
Every conversation captured for the ear — carried by BP Radio and the podcast feed, on the go or at the kitchen table.
Listening sessions
Before we report on an issue, we hold the mic out. What's the community actually saying about it?
And so much more
Debates, panels, story swaps, walking interviews, dinner-table episodes. If people can talk it, we'll make space for it.
Where the conversations live
At The Park is our flagship conversation stage — changemakers, neighbors and first-time guests in the host's chairs, asking real questions on camera. Buena Park TV carries the conversations to the whole channel, and BP Radio carries the audio to everywhere else. The best of every sitting is archived as a written edition in The Park.
Pull up a chair
Have a conversation the community needs to hear — a voice, an idea, a question nobody's asking? Tell us. Whether you want to sit in the guest chair yourself or you know someone who should, our studio builds every season of conversations from invitations like yours. First-timers are exactly who we're here for.
Suggest a conversationStudio staff
The people behind the work
Charles Thi
Video Editor & Creative Storyteller
Full profileCharles Thi is a video editor and creative storyteller with a career spanning media, professional development, leadership, and the arts. As Media Director for an independent arts organization, Charles worked at the intersection of creative media and a global community of independent artists. The experience placed him in the center of a fast-moving creative organization dedicated to giving emerging talent visibility and opportunities across disciplines including film, visual art, fashion, music, and performance. His work helped strengthen his understanding of visual storytelling, creative promotion, and the role media can play in building communities around artists and ideas.
Charles’ experience also extends to the field of professional and transformational education, developing experience in communication, leadership, and facilitating conversations that encouraged people to examine their perspectives and take greater ownership of their personal and professional goals.
Today, Charles brings these experiences together through working with content creators and bringing his unique blend of editing, creative storytelling, and a focus on local communities. His work reflects both a strong visual sensibility and a continuing interest in the people, ideas, and experiences behind the stories he helps bring to life.
Christopher Cagle
Television Producer & Director
Full profileChristopher Cagle is a television producer and director based in Los Angeles who describes himself as an interpreter of the visual arts. He is currently a producer at Warner Bros. Discovery, where he has worked since December 2023, and brings more than a decade of experience leading unscripted productions from concept through delivery. His background across development, field production and post gives Impact Studio guidance on story structure, production standards and how to build broadcast-quality programming with community partners.
Rene Roberts-Nijinsky
Author, Speaker & Advocate
Full profileRene Roberts-Nijinsky is an author, motivational speaker and athlete from Lakewood, California who was born with cerebral palsy. Her book, My Voice is Not Disabled, and her speaking work have inspired thousands of people with a story of triumph over long odds. She is a 16-time sprint-distance triathlete and a four-time national para dragon boat competitor, and helped build an all-abilities dragon boat racing team in Long Beach. Earlier in her career she worked in human resources at McDonnell Douglas. Rene brings a disability-inclusion and storytelling perspective to Impact Studio and our media channels.
David Du
Social Media Advisor
Full profileDavid Du advises Impact Studio on social media strategy, content distribution and audience growth across the channels that carry our stories. He helps the team turn reporting, film and conversation into posts, clips and campaigns that reach the communities and partners each story serves.
Community reporting
The newsroom is the neighborhood
The most important stories never reach a newsroom — they happen on porches, in church basements, at the park, in the group chat. Our reporting starts there. We cover the things that work, the things people create, and the things that move life forward — because that's the reporting a community can actually build on.
This is how the world gets made to work: by working together. You see what's happening on your street. We bring the notebook, the camera, and the audience. Together that becomes a record of what ordinary people are doing to make life better — and a playbook anyone else can pick up.
What works
The program that actually reduced evictions on your block. The teacher who cracked attendance. The corner store that hires returning citizens. If it works, we want to know why — and who else could use it.
What creates
The mural that turned a wall into a landmark. The garden in the empty lot. The pop-up that became a business. Creation is news — tell us what got built, planted, painted, or launched near you.
What moves life forward
The neighbor who organized the rideshare to chemo. The kid who taught the seniors' smartphone class. Small forward motion, reported with the same care as a headline.
Neighboring — the neighborhood app
Neighboring turns being a good neighbor into something you can see and share. Join local challenges, report what's working on your block, lend a hand, and earn recognition for it. What you post there becomes the raw material of our reporting — the wins, the fixes, and the people behind them.
Open NeighboringThe Park — our virtual paper
The Park is the community's paper: stories, want ads, coupons, and the bulletin board for Buena Park and beyond. Anyone can submit an article — the best community reporting gets edited by our studio and published for the whole neighborhood to read.
Read every story in The ParkReport something from your neighborhood
Saw something that works? Someone who creates? A moment that moved life forward? Send it in — a few sentences is plenty. Our studio reads every submission, and the strongest ones become stories in The Park, segments on Buena Park TV, and conversations on At The Park.
Ways to make this world work — by working together. That's the whole assignment.
Partners
Creative partners of the Studio
Impact Studio produces alongside organizations that share our belief that creativity is a civic skill — not a luxury.
- Orange County, California
Chuck Jones Center for Creativity
Founded on the philosophies of legendary Oscar-winning animation director Chuck Jones, the Center is a 501(c)(3) charity dedicated to stimulating innovative thinking, individual expression, and interpersonal collaboration — while nurturing creative solutions to society's most urgent and unmet needs.
“The only thing an adult can give a child is time.”
What they do
- Creativity programs for youth, including students on the autism spectrum
- Workshops for schools, businesses, and organizational teams
- Adult and community creative-development sessions
- The Red Dot Auction, their annual charity art event with artists worldwide
- Oakland, California
Gameheads
Gameheads is a tech training program that uses video game design, development, and multimedia to develop diverse talent and bold new voices — training young people ages 15–25 for the 21st century workforce and preparing them for college, career, and civic life. It is a fiscally sponsored project of Community Initiatives.
“I didn’t think four years later I would be kind of where I am. I’m in college! And there’s opportunity popping up left and right for me and my friends around me.”
What they do
- Year-long program combining game design, coding, and hands-on production
- Education and career counseling paired with direct industry exposure
- Gameheads: Kids, an introductory track for younger creators
- Student-made games that challenge traditional game-industry curriculum