connecting*the*dots

Who Wants To Be An Amerikan
by Aaron Beckum
Vancouver Film School

For my best friend…

Next Monday: The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Opens tomorrow, May 11th.

‘Hip Hop Project’ is a Long Time Coming
Davey D

[…] “It focuses on Chris Rolle, a.k.a. Kazi, a former homeless youth from the Bahamas who bears the emotional scars of abandonment by his mother. As a teenager, he lived a rugged life on the streets of Brooklyn, but he eventually “found his way,” thanks to hip-hop and a dream of becoming a rapper.

As a young adult, however, Kazi set aside that dream to dedicate his life to helping wayward teens. He launched a mentoring program named the Hip Hop Project, with the goal of getting youngsters to write, record and release a compilation album. Another goal was to get the young musicians to move beyond the all-too-familiar themes of sex, violence and misogyny. Kazi challenged them to dig deep and find their inner voices.

The process became a four- or five-year journey, as Kazi explored the deep-seated issues these teens faced, which went way beyond lyrics. In a recent interview, he explained that most young people lack the confidence to open up and express themselves, instead displaying only anger and a facade of callousness. He soon realized that they had developed callouses to protect the tender parts – their hearts and spirits.

Kazi understood that their lyrics initially reflected the pain resulting from a fatalistic view of life. The album became a secondary concern, as he realized that the kids needed healing to get on with their mental and spiritual development. And while dedicating every waking hour to assisting them, Kazi confronted his own issues over abandonment.” […]

(shot by taoruspoli)

Founded in 2000, The Los Angeles Filmmakers’ Cooperative is a mobile production company based out of a fully equipped school bus. Loaded with digital HD video cameras, 3 editing stations, a portable library, a screening room, and room to sleep 5, the LAFCO bus has seen countless adventures in the United States and beyond, producing dozens of music videos, documentaries, and narrative films.

Click To Play

LAFCO’s clients include Sony Music, Big Imagination Group, JVC, dead prez, The Outlawz, Talib Kweli, Yellowcard, and several others. LAFCO was awarded the Best Editing prize at the prestigious Ann Arbor Film Festival for work on their first feature film, Camjackers.

Can you say dream gig?

Andy, Micah, Blake and Will are all local independent filmmakers and forward-thinking netizens. Something really interesting is going to come out of this collaboration.

They’re open to ideas for a production company name. Any thoughts?

(view the movie)

Synopsis:
In this symbolism-filled short, the reasons for war are told through a young boy and old man. Beware your benefactors. And benefactors beware.

If the introductory small text is any indicator, this film was based on discussions around Tavis Smiley’s “Covenant with Black America.”

As it turns out, I stumbled into sitting in on a similar discussion a few months back at A&T, though the conversation was a bit more inclusive.

The film looks interesting.

With ConvergeSouth coming around the bend (next Friday and Saturday, registration is still free and open), I had a few questions about the second annual festival / conference / unconference popping around in my noggin’.

Enter Ben Hwang, technology and community advocate extraordinaire. Ben is the co-founder of ConvergeSouth, the lead for Media|ConvergeSouth and the idea guy behind Firelace LLC and numerous other non-profit projects. (Disclosure: Ben is also on the Board of Directors of my non-profit: The People, Yes)

In-between work and blogging, we both somehow found the time to connect over IM. The following is our conversation:

spcoon 1:57
So, Ben, what gave you the idea for ConvergeSouth?

ben (phxnetwrxlab) 2:00
SXSW.

Ever since I began tracking BoingBoing and the rest of the Internet, I’ve paid more attention to it. When I saw what that conference did for the city of Austin, I thought: why couldn’t we do a similar type of event with a spin? I did some searches and there were only NXNW and NXNE but no SXSE.

spcoon 2:01
So, why didn’t you call it SXSE?

ben (phxnetwrxlab) 2:04
When I brought the idea to Sue, SXSE was a choice, but Sue and Ed brainstormed a whole bunch of names and came up with ConvergeSouth. It gave us the ability to key in the Gate City as part of the theme — at least from my perspective.

spcoon 2:07
Good choice ;-)

Okay, call me a transplant Yankee, but I don’t get the Gate City reference. I’m guessing that refers to Greensboro?

ben (phxnetwrxlab) 2:09
Yeah, Gate City is another name for Greensboro. It’s the name that was used back when all the railroad tracks all ended up here. It’s still the Gate City due to many of the shipping lines still using Greensboro as a center point (I believe).

spcoon 2:10
Nice… ConvergeSouth is definitely strong enough to carry over that subtlety.

Ok, speaking of SXSW, Austin had a few things going for it before the launch of the event 15 years ago; a college town, thriving music scene, strong software development community, independent filmmakers, progressive politics (to name a few).

What similarities do you see with Greensboro and how does Greensboro differentiate itself — good, bad or indifferent?

ben (phxnetwrxlab) 2:14
#1: Greensboro is a lot smaller. In the past five years, the live music/bar/clubbing scene has gone from practically non-existent, to an outrageously fun place for young adults. It’s not a NYC or Austin by any means, but our population is also a wee bit less than those types of cities.

#2: Independent filmmaking. We’ve had Greensboro’s Child made here, participated in The 48 Hour Film Project and three (if I counted correctly since I’m not in that line of work) other movies filmed here in the last year. Maybe it was more, I don’t remember offhand.

I think on a scale, Austin is larger and more diverse, but Greensboro is like a teenager eager to leave the nest and go play in the bigger world of things. All we’re doing is giving it a few nudges here and there to guide it into the footsteps of those larger and more influential and in general more “fun” cities.

It’s going a good direction from my POV. There’s a lot of character in this city. A lot more than when I first moved here, which was about when all of the action started to seed from what I’m told.

spcoon 2:22
Sucking up to the interviewer by mentioning his brother’s film… nice.

ben (phxnetwrxlab) 2:23
Dang straight.

spcoon 2:24
You mention character… you know, I think you hit upon something there. Friends of mine back in Jersey ask me why I love it so much down here, and I always point to the character of the town — how there’s always an interesting conversation happening between the black and white of an issue, the left and right of a position… is that what you mean by character as well?

ben (phxnetwrxlab) 2:32
I’d have to say the economic growth and capitalizing on small businesses in the downtown area has been a major part of the character I’m speaking of. The left/right and black/white conversations definitely bring out a lot of good in people, but also vice-versa, be it here or anywhere else. I think that this city is a lot more progressive than some feel about it. Speaking from a transplant perspective of course.

So that is character as well, but I’m not speaking to that end of it. Most of what I’m involved in is with the former (economic growth, technology, downtown, etc).

spcoon 2:35
Yeah, I feel you on that end as well. I guess what’s really interesting for me is sensing a tangible intersection between all of these economic developments, conversations, events, etc. — like a crazy looking Venn diagram — as I go about my personal/business life here in town.

ben (phxnetwrxlab) 2:36
Venn diagram. Scary. I haven’t heard that term in… gosh, years.

spcoon 2:36
Heh… So do you think that the blogging community in this area has helped shape this meshed, overlap of community that we find here?

ben (phxnetwrxlab) 2:44
Definitely. The blogging community here is probably what defines a lot of Greensboro’s character actually, now that I think about it. It’s almost like we’re the Brady Bunch. Every so often Peter and Bobby would get in a tiff, but when it came to protecting your own — Greg would come out swinging (or something like that.)

We definitely caught onto the blogging breeze when it blew through here -– a lot more than anywhere else I’d imagine. People might snicker, but there’s got to be something behind the LA Times dubbing us as “Blogsboro” (even though I despise that name. lol)

spcoon 2:47
So with ~250,000 residents, Ben, how can a vocal blogosphere of 50 to 100 people help shape community?

ben (phxnetwrxlab) 2:48
Those 50-100 people are the ones that are willing to speak out in the name of the community. It’s like letters to the editor, except you get to present your voice to the whole world to take notice.

Hopefully more people would be willing to speak out later on, but someone needs to break the ice.

spcoon 2:50
How can blogging help enable different communities moving forward? Or are you going to tell me to wait for Elizabeth Edwards to lead her discussion at ConvergeSouth?

ben (phxnetwrxlab) 3:02
Blogging is a conversation between author and commenter — well, assuming the blogger writes back within the comments. How can it help different communities to move forward? Well, it’s more like water cooler talk really. Talking doesn’t make anything happen, except perhaps gives you more ideas. You have to take those ideas and act on them.

Just because I say “Bob was at Jim’s house this last weekend for a game of bridge.” doesn’t mean it happened; It’s just talk. But talk is the first step to getting something going, or at least enlightening yourself to other perspectives. More options usually mean more solutions to problems. And that’s always a good thing.

spcoon 3:47
So what should I expect to experience on October 13th & 14th?

ben (phxnetwrxlab) 3:53
The ability to explore different mediums to amplify your voice… or to simply listen to those who are doing so.

We (Media|ConvergeSouth) ask that artists contribute, because their talent is in the driver’s seat (we have contributors from as far as the UK).

The main event (ConvergeSouth) surrounds technology and the people that use them to build social circles. Hopefully those circles intersect some like your Venn diagrams and create and benefit the larger community.

But more than anything, we simply want people to have a good time, because as part of the all-volunteer staff, we’d like to see that our time was well spent in helping the community (both online and off) by creating this annual event.

spcoon 3:55
Thanks, Ben!

/end interview

(via listics)

(photo by Jesus’ General)

Reuters
ABC Scrambling to Change 9/11 Drama

[…]

Officials at the Walt Disney Co.-owned network said they were still tinkering with the five-hour production, titled “The Path to 9/11,” which is scheduled to air without commercial interruption in two parts on Sunday and Monday.

But ABC declined to say how the movie was being reshaped or whether any changes would address specific complaints lodged by Clinton, his former aides and congressional Democrats that the film contained numerous inaccuracies and distortions.

The Hollywood trade paper Daily Variety, citing sources close to the project, reported the network was considering canceling the miniseries altogether.

The docu-drama, which ABC says is based largely on the official 9/11 Commission Report, opens with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York and traces subsequent events leading up to the coordinated suicide hijackings five years ago that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Much of the controversy focuses on a scene depicting CIA agents and Afghan fighters coming close to capturing al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, only to have then-White House national security adviser Samuel Berger refuse to authorize completion of their mission.

An unfinished version of the film circulated by ABC to TV critics for review portrays Berger as abruptly hanging up the phone while the CIA is pressing him to approve the raid.

In letters of protest to Disney President Robert Iger, Berger and former White House aide Bruce Lindsey said no such episode ever occurred.

The executive producer of the film, Marc Platt, acknowledged to Reuters on Thursday the Berger scene was a “conflation of events.”

The film also drew denunciations from Clinton supporters for strongly suggesting his administration was too distracted by the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal to deal effectively with the gathering threat of Islamic militancy. Lindsey said the 9/11 Commission Report disputed that notion.

[…]

This is what you get when you try to cash in too early on a national tragedy.

Remember the films JFK and Pearl Harbor? Both films took tremendous license in their portrayals of actual events, but the difference is that they did so 28 and 60 years after the fact, respectively. And while each took accuracy jabs from critics, neither had to deal with this degree of criticism because the emotional scars of the American public had already healed and the people who were on watch during these tragedies were either retired or dead.

With the airing of The Path to 9/11 on the eve of the five year anniversary of the events of that day, we also happen to be stuck, knee-deep, in a war that has been proven to have no relationship to the events of that day. No matter what inaccuracies are found — from either side of the aisle — this production was bound to catch major flack for trying to feed a narrative to a still healing nation, ever so hungry for the truth, not some docu-drama version of the events leading to 9/11.

Who Made The Call To Produce This Film?

In my estimation, there are only two possible reasons why Disney/ABC would give the green light on this production at this time:

1. Karl Rove instructed his minions to write the narrative and convince Disney/ABC to produce the film
2. Disney/ABC is simply gambling on the old adage, “There is no such thing as bad PR”

As a firm believer in the power that human greed wields in shaping our world over back door conspiracies, I’m sitting pretty squarely in the second camp (though I couldn’t help using the above image of Mickey Rove; Gen. JC Christian, Patriot is a genius).

I’m betting that Disney/ABC figured that this would be business as usual, though blown up a bit due to the subject matter; you know the formula — create a controversy, sell the advertising, line the pockets and move on unscathed within a few weeks.

What they didn’t take into consideration is the age that we live in now — where blog reach is both gaining traction in the very same homes that their sugar-coated narrative is being presented, as well as influencing the presentation of popular shows on TV (The Daily Show and The Colbert Report to name a few).

When a passive audience starts to become more active in their digestion of information, these old axioms of capitalism begin to start biting mainstream marketing strategies in the ass.

To make my point, let me perform a few minutes worth of Google research… Okay, I’m back (and my own thesis has shifted somewhat after only 20 minutes). Take this bit of information from HuffPost as an example of how nutritional facts for digesting reality can change a perspective in a matter of minutes:

[…]

In fact, “The Path to 9/11″ is produced and promoted by a well-honed propaganda operation consisting of a network of little-known right-wingers working from within Hollywood to counter its supposedly liberal bias. This is the network within the ABC network. Its godfather is far right activist David Horowitz, who has worked for more than a decade to establish a right-wing presence in Hollywood and to discredit mainstream film and TV production. On this project, he is working with a secretive evangelical religious right group founded by The Path to 9/11’s director David Cunningham that proclaims its goal to “transform Hollywood” in line with its messianic vision.

Before The Path to 9/11 entered the production stage, Disney/ABC contracted David Cunningham as the film’s director. Cunningham is no ordinary Hollywood journeyman. He is in fact the son of Loren Cunningham, founder of the right-wing evangelical group Youth With A Mission (YWAM). The young Cunningham helped found an auxiliary of his father’s group called The Film Institute (TFI), which, according to its mission statement, is “dedicated to a Godly transformation and revolution TO and THROUGH the Film and Television industry.” As part of TFI’s long-term strategy, Cunningham helped place interns from Youth With A Mission’s in film industry jobs “so that they can begin to impact and transform Hollywood from the inside out,” according to a YWAM report.

Last June, Cunningham’s TFI announced it was producing its first film, mysteriously titled “Untitled History Project.” “TFI’s first project is a doozy,” a newsletter to YWAM members read. “Simply being referred to as: The Untitled History Project, it is already being called the television event of the decade and not one second has been put to film yet. Talk about great expectations!” (A web edition of the newsletter was mysteriously deleted yesterday but has been cached on Google at the link above).

The following month, on July 28, the New York Post reported that ABC was filming a mini-series “under a shroud of secrecy” about the 9/11 attacks. “At the moment, ABC officials are calling the miniseries ‘Untitled Commission Report’ and producers refer to it as the ‘Untitled History Project,’” the Post noted.

[…]

Hm… Maybe I was too quick to espouse my faith in greed over conspiracies? I highly doubt I’ll be going to Disneyland again. In any event, the chances of Disney/ABC walking away clean from this beaut of a mis-timed and shady production is slim to none.

The Future Of Market Accountability

As the ecosystem for delivering entertaining, informative and personalized information gains a new foothold of innovation each and every year, we’re becoming deeper and deeper immersed within the information age.

The people formally known as the audience are becoming more politically aware through osmosis these days. And the harder the mainstream, one-way channels are leveraged to message us with constructed narratives, the easier it becomes for us to unbundle the programming and filter fact from fiction — no matter our brand of politics.

An analogy: The addition of nutritional labels to food products years ago didn’t end up preventing obesity, but the presentation of nutritional meta-data sure as hell increased the potential for new forms of viable economic levers within the food industry.

As high-fat foods in the mid-nineties and high-carb foods over the past few years have taken a hit due to greater consumer awareness, low-fat and low-carb products have gained a place in the market at a higher selling point due to simple demand.

My point?

While a conglomerate like Disney/ABC can get away with producing a film with this level of empty calories here and there, as we move deeper into the online revolution, such blatant disregard for nutritious content could easily lead to the collapse of advertising arteries via brand corrosion, as an informed public is now armed with digital printing presses.

And man, is the web chock full of beating hearts willing to pump out blood or what?

Hey, I’d vote Jon Stewart into office over the boneheads we currently have prancing about, talking loud and saying nothing.

UPDATE: We just got back from the campiest film of all-time. A few memorable quotes (all Sam Jackson):

“Great, snakes on crack.”
“I’m sick and tired of mothafuckin’ snakes on mothafuckin’ planes!”
“After surviving that, how’d you like me to buy you dinner?”

A must see!

UPDATE II: David Weinberger has a great perspective on why the SoaP phenomenon is so cool. Here’s an outtake:

[…]

With Snakes on a Plane, we’re flexing our muscles in a new way. We’re not insisting that JarJar be killed in the sequel, although we did write the movie’s most quotable line. But that’s cool only because it means with SoaP we’re messing with the audience’s relationship to the movie, and not just - as with Rocky Horror - during the time when the movie unspools in the theater. Rather, with SoaP the audience has taken over the meaning of the movie. This is very different from being asked to design Indiana Jones’ new outfit or write witticisms for the next James Bond movie. We, without being asked, have insisted on what this movie means to us.

[…]

To attend the free preview screening tonight at 7pm Friday night, please reply to this RSVP e-mail. The theater address is:

Carmike Market Fair 15 (Google Maps)
1916 Skibo Road
Fayetteville, NC
910-868-9434

Enjoy!

Considering our current events, I think it’s high time to re-release Terry Gilliam’s masterpiece, Brazil (the directors cut, mind you).

Hard to believe that this beautiful, humorous and chilling narrative was originally released 20 years ago…

It’s strange how you’ll pause to investigate something as innocuous as a mention of your own name used elsewhere. I’m glad I did, otherwise I would’ve never come across the story of Sean Farrell (and in many ways, the story of all of us).

[…]

Sean’s casual commentary on everything from smoking pot to living with speed freaks was delivered in simple sincerity throughout the soon-to-be famous 15-minute film. This First Child of the notorious decade may have shaken the audience with his simple sentence — “Sure, I smoke pot” — but it was his barefoot impishness which would encapsulate the hope that lay in front of the nation: a promise of infinite possibility.

Thirty years, three generations, and a lifetime later, Arlyck has returned to San Francisco in search of who the adult Sean might have become. And what he finds, to his surprise, tells him as much about his own east-coast migration as it does about the Californian life he left behind-that the choices we’re handed and the choices we make are, very often, quite odd bedfellows.

Anyone know where I can get a copy of Ralph Arlyck’s 1969 student film, Sean?

As the curtain went down on Greensboro’s Child last night, it also marked the final performance at The Scene on South Elm. The space is now officially in the process of being converted into an artist’s studio / gallery.

Best of luck to Lowell and to Dale, who is moving on to teach high school math and science Carsboro, North Carolina.

I also want to thank everyone who showed up to support Andy, including local bloggers Ben Hwang, Chewie, David Hoggard, Bruce Burch and Ndesanjo Macha. Andy is now looking for distribution and to supply copies of the film to local schools. We’ll keep you in the loop with all the happenings.

I’m the filmmaker’s brother, so yes, I’m an obvious shill for his work. Andy started researching the documentary in 1997 — seven years before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission even began their process. It’s a project that touched him personally, while driving him professionally.

If a film about social injustice can be called a labor of love, well, this is that film.

This Friday and Saturday night mark the last two nights of in-town screenings of Greensboro’s Child. Dale and Lowell, owners of The Scene on South Elm, have been great hosts; thanks for everything guys.

Whether you plan to read the TRC report at some point in the future or have decided that the events of 27 years ago have nothing to do with you, come on down this weekend, sit back and enjoy 75 minutes of a highly relevant and well-researched documentary. It’s time well spent, I promise you.

And while we’d love to see you in person, we both realize that summer schedules can get crazy. So along those lines, the Greensboro Public Library now has copies of the DVD to borrow. And if you’ve lost your library card over the years, you can always purchase the documentary on the official website for a mere $10.

Hope to see you this weekend.

Very cool deconstruction, but man… dude has some serious time on his hands.

(via ishbadiddle)

The first paragraph of the Executive Summary:

The Commission finds that on the morning of Nov. 3, 1979, members of the Klan/Nazi caravan headed for Greensboro with malicious intent. At a minimum, they planned to disrupt the parade and assault the demonstrators (by throwing eggs), violating the marchers constitutional rights to free speech and assembly. Further, we believe there is sufficient evidence to conclude that they intended to provoke a violent confrontation and that this was broadly understood among those present in the multiple planning discussions. Those who left their cars to engage in violence did so willingly. More importantly, Klan and Nazi members have admitted since the event that they intentionally came prepared to use deadly force in order to be victorious in any violence that occurred.

[…]

Much more to come, as the final report is to be released next week in the morning.

I’m posting this from the screening of Greensboro’s Child. The Q&A after the 7pm screening was very intense. Not in a bad way either. Each person in the audience had a unique perspective and questions that furthered the conversation.

Come on down tomorrow night, 7pm, The Scene on South Elm, and check it out for yourself.

Q&A video to come soon…

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(inspired by C&L)

My brother’s documentary, Greensboro’s Child, will be screened at The Scene on South Elm, directly following the release of the TRC report on May 25th and again on May 26th. Free copies of the TRC final report will be made available to ticket-holders ($3).

This marks the first time the film will be shown in Greensboro since the film was released in 2002.

For more information and complete show times, please visit the official web site. Link love is appreciated.

12 hours after experiencing this film and I still can’t formulate a pointed opinion. My mind is playing a constant, rotating game of tennis with the traditional protagonist / antagonist roles. So many unanswered questions, thoughts…

If you enjoy a ride, well, Hard Candy is that type of film. Just don’t bring the kids.

Seriously.

Yesterday, Andy, Jonathan and I attended the film’s world premeire at the Tribeca Film Festival as a guest of Director, Deborah Scranton. The air of the theatre was chock-full of tangible anticipation, as the audience verbally spatted with itself before, during and after the screening. What else would you expect? We’re waist deep in a war that has spiraled out of (non)control into random acts of sectarian violence, kidnappings and assassinations.

But no matter your position on the war in Iraq, The War Tapes is a must see. It isn’t propaganda for empire building and it isn’t anti-war material. The film is 90-minutes of brilliantly edited (from 1200+ hours of raw footage), first person perspective of three National Guard soldiers who agreed to film their year-long tour of Iraq. The narrative twists and turns through adrenaline rushes, moments of self-reflection and gut-wrenching honest discourse.

It’s nothing but real, human storytelling of real, human beings.

The Q&A session following the film was interesting, both from the filmmaker and audience perspective. While we were being told about the thousands of hours of footage and IM conversations behind the making of the film, a few guys in the front of the audience began shouting randomly at the audience, defending the complexity of the war to a group of people who might have had a particular political perspective, but were incredibly apropos with their attention and questions directed squarely at the film itself.

Deborah and crew gracefully handled the protests and gave their mic’s to the soldiers (Stephen Pink, Mike Moriarty and Zack Bazzi), who casually stepped into the spotlight and delivered their $.02 on the whole experience. I guess a film premeire isn’t too much pressure after spending 365 days watching each other’s backs on the other side of the planet.

Following the Q&A, we stopped by the after party at The Bubble Lounge. While packed with friends, family and industry types, we eventually bumped into Deborah and her son (what’s up, Benjamin!?).

During our conversation, Deborah told me that due to the success of this project, a handful of soldiers have since contacted her, looking to become armed with the latest weapon of warfare: a video camera.

Citizen media has a new brother in arms, and soldier media has a five star director.