The Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment (GATE) held its annual daytime Transformational Story Conference and evening GATE 3 event at the stunning Saban Theater in Beverly Hills on February 2. GATE’s core belief is to better the future of the world by transforming entertainment and media and “celebrating meaningful messages for an awakening humanity.” Both programs celebrated transformational entertainment, media and arts while exploring this emerging genre and inspiring attendees to become more involved in sharing their personal transformations with the world through their work.

The Story Conference and GATE 3 events are perfect for authors, screenwriters, producers, educators and anyone who sees storytelling as an essential component of their profession. Both programs offered numerous speakers, videos, arts performances, film clips and other multimedia presentations, all of which left attendees intellectually stimulated, emotionally moved and inspired to pursue their work with greater clarity, substance and commitment. The morning and evening sessions also provided inspiring live music by worldly artists, including Pianist Jahan Raymond, Musician/Artist Rafael Bejarano and Grammy Award-winning Guitarist Ed Gerhard.

Comedian Louie Anderson hosted GATE 3’s evening program while Founders John Raatz and Jim Carrey greeted the audience. “Honest to God, is there a hero out there?” asked Carrey. “What is it about us that wants to be recognized so badly that we will live our entire lives in a lie? It’s that and the idea that there are millions of people out there who are hanging onto jobs and ways of life. And I’m one to talk. I have money, okay, but I would give everything up and stand on a breadline before I would live a lie…. It’s a really hard time right now, and all we have is ourselves. The only thing we have is our own truth. That’s it. If it’s between the fool’s gold or the breadline, get in line. And trust the universe [because] it will give you something good. If you do it right. It will give you something good.”

For the day session, Comedian Kyle Cease entertained the audience as influential speakers took to the podium with new messages and new perceptions of ourselves, the world and life. The goal is to inspire all to learn the new behaviors needed to lead humanity toward creating a sustainable existence here on Earth. Speakers included Producer Heather Rae (Frozen River), Script Consultant Dara Marks, Author Roger Housden and Economist/Author David Korten, just to name a few. “What we are doing when we are contributing to creating a story or telling a story is we are actually becoming something larger then ourselves,” said Rae. “We are actually part of a larger conversation that is opening up and recognizing [that] we are all connected to one another.”

“Life is so chaotic, [and] we have stories for it to make sense,” said Film and TV Director/Screenwriter Jeremy Kagan. “We as individuals are a collection of stories. Our history, our very being right now is a set of stories. Now sometimes those stories can negatively influence the present and sometimes it can inspire, but everything you do is essentially a story. Everything you are is a collection of stories and everything that’s said to you gets indexed into your collection of stories. The question now is: can we change the story?” Author and AgeNation Radio Host George Cappannelli added, “No matter what the genre, drama or comedy, science fiction or physiological thriller, documentary or news, we can tell some really powerful stories that contribute enormously to the progressing of our culture and to raise our consciousness.”