Category: Learn Something New

An evening with Kartemquin Films

hoop-dreams-15-cardTonight, with the wonderful company of Karl and Mario, I attended the 15th anniversary celebration of the iconic documentary – Hoop Dreams.

The crowd was a great mix of people – some who’ve been long-time supporters of Kartemquin Films since it was founded over 40 years ago, and some new friends coming out to support one of our national treasures. All that, coupled with the opportunity to mix and mingle with Kartemquin filmmakers in the beautiful Gene Siskel Film Center in the heart of Chicago, made the night one to remember.

I’ve personally been a great admirer of KTQ Films for a couple of years. JJ Hanley spoke to us about the documentary she produced, Refrigerator Mothers, in my ‘Community Integration of Labeled People’ class about a year ago. I was tremendously moved by the message it was trying to put across and decided to look up Kartemquin on the internet (thanks to the hint i got when she wore the KTQ t-shirt that day). To my excitement, i discovered that my TA for the RTVF 280 class i took the year before, Maria Finitzo, was also a Kartemquin Filmmaker. I remember how much I loved the clip of Terra Incognita she screened in class! And that beautiful moment of realization sparked a purchase of several KTQ DVDs. Hoop Dreams included.

Having followed the incredible journey of the two 14-year old boys featured in Hoop Dreams, it was so surreal watching them return as almost 40-year olds to speak at the event. KTQ1I think that’s one of the most beautiful parts of documentary though. The stories are so real and engaging that it makes you care about the futures of the characters featured. I loved learning about where William Gates and Arthur Agee are today and how being in the movie had affected their lives. It’s great that William, who’s now a pastor at Living Faith Church in Cabrini Green, and Arthur, who’s teaching youths about following their dreams through the ‘Hoop Dreams’ Curriculum, are out there being positive role models for people. When we had the opportunity to chat with Arthur after the event, it was really nice to see some of that boyish charm we’ve all seen in the movie, still in him. :)

After the keynote address by Peabody Award-winning author Alex Kotlowitz, we got to hear from Joanna Rudnick and the impact that In The Family has made. Now this showed us another one of the great beauties of documentary – exposing what’s unjust and pushing for change! The short clip she showed taught us about how some private company has patented a gene, and hence denied its access to women with a life-threatening genetic mutation, unless they’re able to fork out $3000 for it. That ruffled many feathers in the room instantly. As Joanna put it, how can you patent something we all grow? It’s like patenting the human thumb!

The night drew to a close as KTQ Films Founder, Gordon Quinn, made his way to the rostrum with a rousing standing ovation from the crowd, and introduced the board chairman, Steve Whisnant to give his closing remarks.

There was no better way to end the celebration, than by getting us all looking forward to Kartemquin’s next films! Watching snippets from The Interrupters and Invisible Seasons kept us glued to our seats and left us wanting more.

Oh boy. Over 40 years and counting. Kartemquin Films is truly a gem and will continue to be my source of inspiration for a long time. They’re doing exactly what i want to do in life – using the art of storytelling to bring together communities and to foster positive social change. I love it!

Thank you, Viva Doc of Columbia College Chicago for giving me the opportunity to be a part of this.

by Categories: Film Events, Learn Something NewTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Filming at the Social Venture Network Conference

My trip to La Jolla, CA last week to film at the Social Venture Network Conference was both tiring svnlogoand inspiring. Thanks to Conscious Planet Media, who were visionary sponsors of the event, my fellow filmmaker Karl and I had the chance to fly there to cover the event. I knew, from editing footage of their last conference back in Spring, that it was going to be an extraordinary experience brimming with opportunities to talk to and learn from some of the accomplished people in the world of socially responsible business. I was simply bursting with excitement!

We hopped onto the 5.30am flight from O’Hare and hit the ground running bright and early as soon as we touched down in San Diego. I was blown away by the beauty of the Estancia, La Jolla as our cab pulled up in front of the lobby and we were greeted by their friendly staff. And yes, hello 70-degree weather! ;) But as much as I’d have loved to enjoy the resort, we had a lot of setting up to do. We whipped out our lights, set up both cameras – one on a riser, the other on a spiderpod – and ran a sound check. All set and ready to go!

evan shapiroSpeaking at the opening address that night was Evan Shapiro, president of IFC tv and the Sundance Channel, who spoke of why diversity in the workplace is essential for sustainability. I like how he takes this challenge on by working with students. “When you are hungry you can’t go plant a seed,” said Evan, indicating that we can’t wait till we post job openings to start looking. The key is to start instilling an interest in your future workforce when they’re still young. When we had the opportunity to tell him about how we wanna create positive social change with our media and asked how we might extend our reach, his advice was that we needed to make our stuff entertaining. Entertain your audience first, then feed them the socially conscious message second. Hmm. Shall keep that in mind for future projects.

The breakout session with Amy Goodman, news journalist and host of the award winning news amy goodmanoutlet Democracy Now!, was also very relevant to what we do. She spoke about the importance of having independent media because we are too often denied the truth when we watch media funded by oil companies or other big corporations that play gatekeepers for what gets reported. True that, Amy! Independent media companies like CPM, who’s extremely careful about the message we put out and what kind of companies sponsor our events to make sure we stick to the mission. All in all a great session! Glad her new book, Breaking the Sound Barrier, came free in our goodie bags. Shall look forward to learning from it. Even though i was able to get in close proximity to her because i hadta put a lavalier mic on her, she couldn’t stop to chat as she was whisked away quickly outside to avoid the big crowd jostling to meet her.

arianna huffingtonThe keynote speaker for the event was Arianna Huffington, the co-founder of The Huffington Post, who’s also written 12 books. She was a lady of intelligence and grace, and spoke with a fiery passion against what bothered her most about things going on in the mainstream media. She ridiculed the amount of coverage that was given to balloon boy, saying “create a giant balloon & put all the homeless children in there. Then, the media will care.” She stayed on briefly after the speech to talk to people, but politely turned down my interview request, saying that she had to leave soon because her daughter was sick. I respect that though… with a schedule like hers where she’s speaking in a different state at different events almost everyday, it’s no wonder she had to rush off. When i asked an SVN organizer how early they had to book Arianna to come speak, she said it was more than a year in advance. Woah.

Also pretty awesome was the SVN Innovation Award Ceremony where 5 winners were selected from a pool of emerging enterprise leaders for their great work. Read more about the winners here.

All in all, it was a tremendous learning experience for me. It’s incredibly humbling just being in the same room as 300 of the world’s movers and shakers. I cannot wait to edit a great video from the footage we’ve gathered. And I definitely hope for the opportunity to return to the next SVN Conference! :)

by Categories: Conscious Planet Media, Learn Something New, Social Change, Social EntrepreneurshipTags: , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

It’s time to take action.

blog axn day-160-600Climate change is more than just about the environment. It affects our friends and families, it affects our communities and countries, and it affects all our futures.

While I’m excited that politicians will be meeting in Copenhagen in two months to devise a better way to deal with climate change, I am a firm believer in the power of the people. In a world like today, where people can start the biggest trends instantly through the click of a camera phone or a simple tweet, I’ve seen how it’s shifted from the hands of mainstream media into the hands of the ordinary citizen.

There’s no better time than today to use that power you hold in your hands. Join thousands from around the world in raising the issue of Climate Change for Blog Action Day 2009.

There’s plenty you can do to play your part. I’m making conscious choices when i buy my light bulbs. CFLs, not fluorescent.

I vote with my spending dollar when i choose locally-sourced and sustainable food. Organic, because no harmful pesticides contaminate the soil and water my food grows in. Fair Trade, because it helps the people who work to grow my food become self-sufficient and sustainable through fair wages and better practices.

Join the conversation. Share with me what you’ll be doing to build a better future for our children.

by Categories: Go Green, Learn Something New, Social ChangeTags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Breakthrough in graphic design

I love twitter and how it brings me brilliant discoveries like this one. You see, I like to consider Adobe Photoshop as my friend. I use it so much to create designs of all sorts, I’ve had the hardest time letting go of past habits to learn how to use Illustrator.

But even using Photoshop and Illustrator involve a fairly steep learning curve. A group of 4 students from Tsinghua University and the National University of Singapore recognized a growing need for even simpler graphic design solutions and developed Photosketch. What does it do? You basically sketch out what kinda picture you want and label the individual elements. Photosketch then searches the internet for images to match your text label, ‘cuts’ them out, and puts them together… like so:

500x_barf23

That’s pretty darn cool if you ask me. I can definitely do all that manually in photoshop… but that would involve some intricate magic wand and masking work just to separate the couple from the original background in the first place. I’m amazed that photosketch can do this in the click of a button. Many thanks to computer science and complicated algorithms i’ll never understand.

I’m excited to watch how they develop this further. It would be pretty nice if they could apply the same technology to video. Imagine being able to put different elements from different movies together easily in one track without the need for complicated compositing. :)

So there you go. No more worries for those of us who slightly lacking in design ability. Now all we’ll have to worry about are copyright issues of using content from the internet. mmph.

To read more about Photosketch and to watch a demo video, click here.

by Categories: Learn Something NewTags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment