My Kid Could Film That

I just saw Amir Bar-Lev on CNN. He was talking about “My Kid Could Paint That,” his latest documentary that is playing in select cities.

He talked about the role of a documentary maker in light of that film, where the big question was whether 4-year-old Marla actually paints the amazing abstracts that are selling for big money. By the time those allegations arose, he was already 6 months into filming and quite close to the family.

The family is not happy with the end result, which Bar-Lev let open. He said something to the effect that he couldn’t say what the family wanted him to say, only what he saw from his experience. So his experience was that he had no idea what the truth was, so that’s how he reported it.

I agree with this approach- in Socially Aware Media, you are presenting the truth as best as you can figure it out, in other people’s words. Even if that doesn’t go with what people want you to say, it is your responsibility to say it.

Before the Music Dies

Last night, as part of the Community Sustainability Project Film Series, I got to see the documentary “Before the Music Dies.” It’s a star studded cast, with Dave Matthews, Les Paul, Eric Clapton, and many others.

It uses the tempting crutch of documentaries to make the process of making the documentary a significant part of the story-telling. The filmmakers traveled for a year, talking to bands and fans all over the place. Interesting, but maybe save it for the extras. It also started out with the filmmakers’ motivation: each had a musician sibling who died (and here’s a leap of logic for me) so they wanted to take a good look at the music industry.

The story telling is rather weak- although there is general layout, it jumps around, and seems to hit the climax several times throughout. Also a bug for me was rather sloppy use of images- the images often did not add to the story telling, which should be a must.

As for content, it was pretty good overall. I can’t pull one main theme from it (again pointing to the writing). My one beef was when it suddenly turned into a promo for the record label Dave Matthew’s Band is on.

I think this duo of Andrew Shapter (director) and Joel Rasmussen (editor/writer) have the potential to do some great work- they just seemed a bit green in Before the Music Dies.?

Mango Languages

I found this on Digg.com- Mango. It’s a language learning program- totally free. It looks very similar to Rosetta Stone (which by the way, is often available through your public library).
I haven’t had time to play around with it much yet, but it seems like a pretty solid learning tool. So if you want to learn Polish, Mandarin Chinese, or Brazilian Portugeuse, check it out.

They also just added a Pig Latin course. With 61 Sections. Crazy people exist in this world, that’s for sure.

Wow

Some quick links:

Wow. This flash thing is completely useless, but oh so fun!
information interactive

And somehow this ranks up there with the laughing baby on Youtube: An Awesome Gorilla

An interesting looking movie:?Great World of Sound

From the makers of South Park, something clean: Alan Watt’s Life

And here is what I bought yesterday,? 160gb Hard Drive from Lacie

The Shock Doctrine

I just found this video, “The Shock Doctrine” through BoingBoing. It’s really intriguing. Watch it.

Basically, it’s about how people are more easily manipulated after a shock, such as 9/11 or a natural disaster. The video argues that this is then used to push a neoliberal agenda when people are most vulnerable.

First of all, the video is a shock in itself, and almost seems to be what it is preaching against. It is flashy, with terrible and scary images pulsing across the screen. I am not eager to be manipulated, but this video leans towards that.

But beyond the method of communication, it seems like a very valid theory. People are indeed more likely to act childlike after a terrible event, when they are in shock. (Maybe that explains Senator Craig’s actions after being arrested?) And for me, it doesn’t seem like a far fetched idea that a neoliberal agenda would be pushed after an event like that.

It just annoys me when something with a good message totally screws up on the medium, and really loses out on being able to communicate well.

MTV VMAs

So I admit it. I’m a sucker for awards shows. They’re kinda boring, but every now and again, they throw in some awesome video stuff or something that absolutely rocks. So I was psyched for the MTV VMAs. Here are my notes I made on the show.

• Britney Spears opens show with absolutely no energy, barely even lip syncing.
• Sarah Silverman totally blew the opening. The crowd responded worse than they did for Colbert’s Presidential Toast, and what she said wasn’t even important.
• All the video stuff is awesome, but crazy ADD-esque. Remember when Pokemon gave kids seizures? It was like that.
• Chris Brown is an AMAZING dancer. I almost want to be him.
• Almost.
• Alicia Keys’ set was killer, and set her apart from many of the other performers as actually being talented.
• What’s with the sudden popularity of the Adam Sandberg look?
• Miss South Carolina couldn’t even match herself in the original.
• Content? Not important. Message? We got money. And lots of it.

A good site

Here’s a blog I’ve started reading recently. For me, it’s personal enough that it still is interesting, but not so personal that I have to know the people. It’s called Scribble Honey, and I find it interesting.

They’ve also launched a side blog called Verti, that should also be interesting.

This is the blog that introduced me to blogging for money as a real possibility. So check them out.