CHANGE.

Senator Barack Obama’s Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Democratic National Convention
Denver, Colorado
TRT 43′39

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UPDATE: Monday, September 1, 2008

Viewer’s Choice voting has ended. I’ll keep you posted as I find out if we won for any of the qualifying awards: Viewer’s Choice, Regional and Grand Prize. THANK YOU for all of your votes!

The short film I produced and edited is a finalist in the “I LOVE NY” short film competition.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1563681/i_dont_like_new_york

Vote for 14 — “I Don’t Like NY”
[trust me — we really DO LOVE NY!]

The short was produced, cast, and edited by me.  It was written, directed and shot by Dana Verde.

Originally, she wrote and I edited the short to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. It was definitely hilarious, but we of course had to yank and replace it with royalty-free tracks. At the time of submission, I happened to be working on a commercial directed by the legendary Tom Schiller. I didn’t realize who he was when I asked if I could show him my short and get his feedback. He laughed, told me it was funny, and even gave me some music off his computer to consider for the re-edit. Then I went home and googled him. He is one of the original Emmy award-winning writers and filmmakers for Saturday Night Live. Whoa… Love the journey, y’all…

Our stars of the film were also the SWEETEST and SPUNKIEST little old ladies we could find! Both were not only pros and game for the concept, they also contributed many ideas that ended up in the edit.

Funny what you come up with when you go through scraps in ‘the can.’

FERRET PORN
TRT 0′47

I spent a few weeks in June prepping for and teaching at Harambee Music Video Production Academy in East Orange, NJ, a program of Elmwood Presbyterian Church.  I also consulted on the edit for their entry in Verizon’s How Sweet the Sound gospel choir contest.  In this video, the youth choir, G Fy G, is opening for Cee Cee Winans at New Jersey Performing Arts Center.

It was a pleasure to do, and called on the memories of my Southern Baptist roots.  We found creative ways to present the single camera footage of their live performance and incorporate the rehearsal cutaways and make an energetic and engaging piece.  Enjoy the music and video, and let’s wish them great success in the competition!

Wow! I had an incredible experience as an instructor for the first Keio Academy Summer Japanese-English Digital Media Creation Camp in Purchase, NY. It was co-sponsored by DCTV’s youth media program, Pro-TV. For two weeks, with the help of translators, I had a group of five Japanese students and taught them to envision, shoot, and edit a short video. There was a team of 10 instructors total, each with their own group of 5-7 students. The assortment of videos at the end, were pretty phenomenal, especially considering the time, language and cultural barriers that we all faced to various degrees.

It was quite humbling for me to realize the extent of how different our cultures really are. Yes, I love sushi and Japanese animation and even practice a Buddhist discipline born in Japanese. That does not make me a Japanophile, even by dilettantish standards. So my enthusiasm and passion for the students, their ideas and the craft of making media was often received as very aggressive, intimidating, and even rude. I realize that even with the best of intentions, and as we try in earnest to build cultural bridges and meet halfway, it actually only reaches a quarter of the way on both sides. There is still a huge chasm to fill. And the only way to fill it is to openly acknowledge what you do not know and try to understand, listen, and learn.  You have to give it time, patience and compassion.  And ou have to give it to yourself as much as to the other and try not to take things too seriously. It’s Basic Diplomacy and Being a Human Being 101, a lesson reinforced from my experience with my students. In the end, we turned the camera onto ourselves to examine and discuss our misunderstandings and perceptions, and made a beautiful short video of their thoughts and experience of being Japanese and being American.

http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080803/NEWS02/808030334/1220/NEWS020
http://business.rutgers.edu/default.aspx?id=1523