FINAL PROJECT PRESENTATIONS!!!

Hello,

Next week you will present your final projects. Yes, really!

We will be meeting at NOON to have enough time. I will have pizza and drinks here for us so we can grab some slices and get started right away. We'll take a break in the middle for course evaluations. We should be done by 4pm, if everyone comes prepared and practiced.

Some things to keep in mind:
1) You'll need to keep your presentation to 20 minutes.
2) Present your work in an engaging way. All of us staring up at the projection screen for 4 hours could be boring. Handouts? Interaction?
3) For many of you, figuring out a way to conclude the project, or continue it, or pass it off to someone else, is a big concern which you should address.
4) Please be prepared and ready to go esp. in terms of any multimedia components (i.e. videos) -- come early to pre-load your web videos, test/cue up the tapes, etc.

Remember that my evaluation of your final project will balance both the planning/structural/conceptual/vision and the aesthetic/efficacy/functional qualities of your execution of this vision... that's why you had over a month to work on this.

Very much looking forward to it.

Contribute to my mix tape!

Hello,

I just wanted to post a link to the blog I made in conjunction with my participatory radio show, "my mix tape." I am posting different playlist ideas twice a week. Through Project Playlist, I can put the songs directly onto the blog so that visitors can listen (at times this comes at the expense of quality, but it's better than nothing). Feel free to add your own songs or suggest playlist themes! Also, if anyone would like to co-host a show, please contact me! My show's from 11-12 p.m. on Sundays.

Here's the link: my mix tape

Also, here's something cool that a friend showed me a few days ago. It's... A PUPPY CAM. Whenever, wherever, you can watch these Shiba Inu's in action! The reason I'm posting it is that I think it puts the question of ownership into a whole new perspective. The site includes a list of the puppies' names (you can identify who is who based on collar color). This feed boasts some pretty loyal followers, who comment on the puppies' personalities and how they have grown. Visitors can watch the puppies whenever they want. Of course, they don't own the puppies in any literal sense, but they can still become attached to them and feel as if the Shiba Inus are their own pets. So, I just thought I'd share. Plus, they're super cute! :)

Here's the link: puppy cam

Wrap up & next week

Hi all,

I am very happy with how much work you all got done in Final Cut today. You proved me wrong that 3 people is too many for a joint editing effort. Next week you'll have almost the whole class to finish up what you started & we'll all watch what you made.

Because (most if not all of) you are behind on your final projects (!!!), the videos and the reading for next week are now OPTIONAL. Oh, how I am cutting you a break. They are great videos and you should feel encouraged to watch one of them and blog anyway. Be ready to tell me about how much progress you have made in class next week.

There are 2 video options:
1) A LITTLE BIT OF SO MUCH TRUTH (UN POQUITO DE TANTA VERDAD) In the summer of 2006, a broad-based, non-violent, popular uprising exploded in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Some compared it to the Paris Commune, while others called it the first Latin American revolution of the 21st century. But it was the people’s use of the media that truly made history in Oaxaca. A Little Bit of So Much Truth captures the unprecedented media phenomenon that emerged when tens of thousands of school teachers, housewives, indigenous communities, health workers, farmers, and students took 14 radio stations and one TV station into their own hands, using them to organize, mobilize, and ultimately defend their grassroots struggle for social, cultural, and economic justice.

2) THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE! With more cameras on the street than any other media organization, the Independent Media Center (IMC) coordinated hundreds of media activists and collected more than 300 hours of video footage during the 1990 WTO protests in Seattle. This Is What Democracy Looks Like, a co-production of the IMC and Big Noise Films, weaves the footage of over 100 videographers into a gripping document of what really happened on Seattle’s streets.

Maquilapolis

Maquilapolis draws on many different sources in order to create the film’s final product. This amalgamation of footage from various women who were part of the “Maquilapolis” of Tijuana as well as the filmmakers creates an interesting aesthetic for the film in general.

The film is both polished and unpolished.

It is clear to see the difference between those scenes that were shot by professional filmmakers and the women who had just been trained in using cameras. It is not that the quality or effectiveness from the collaborators differs. The scenes that are shot by the women are powerful and the scenes that were most likely orchestrated by the professional filmmakers are equally as strong. There is no attempt by the film’s creators or editor(s) to mask the collaboration. The two styles of shooting (i.e. the more candid video diaries of the women of Factor X and the choreographed, time-lapse shots, and sweeping shots of Tijuana of the professional filmmakers) are seamlessly blended.

This combination of the collaborators work & filmmakers footage and the clear distinction between the two adds to the authenticity of the film. One cannot seem but feel as if the stories that are being told are those of the women. The camera isn’t being focused on what the filmmakers want. Footage was shot and turned over to the filmmakers or the women decided what they wanted focus on. An outsider isn’t tasked with accessing the situation in the factories. The women documented their lives and stories that are those that they deemed important.
With the filmmakers serving as facilitators to the women’s’ work Maquilapolis seems to demonstrate an effective way of collaborating, especially when dealing with issues of social change and human rights.

Maquilapolis

In thinking about how the process affected this film, one of the most obvious ways, in my mind at least, is in it's content and tone. The women in this film are empowered leaders, teachers, and activists. Throughout the film we saw time after time in which they demonstrated how this strong and new-found sense of empowerment inspired them to take action and assert their rights as laborers, women, and human beings. The women did this in each class they led, in each meeting they scheduled, and in every day they fought for their families and themselves.

This power and strength was imbued into the film itself and the presence of the women who asserted their rights and their self-worth in the honesty of the images they presented and the tone and force with which they discussed them. The women accepted the exploitation they were made to endure as real, but they actively fought against it. The film interestingly represented this simultaneous acknowledgment of exploitation by rebellion against it in its framing and structure. Specifically coming to mind is the scene in which the women are all spinning around individually as they list off the names of the various companies for which they have worked. Coupled with the images that precede and follow this shot we come to understand the cycle of exploitation these women endure, as they literally whirl in a circle as the names of their former and current employers cover their faces.

Overall the film was captivating and richly informative as we caught a glimpse into the actively hidden denigration and oppression on which we all invariably depend.

Maquilapolis

Unlike other projects we have seen in the past, this particular documentary stands apart, largely in part due to the fact that the ideas conveyed through the video footage were generated by the subjects of the film. I'm sure that the production company had a rough idea of the exploitation and pollution that takes place in Mexico (honestly who doesn't these days?) but what they set out to do was to have those it actually affects--the factory workers--put forth their own thoughts. The stories of these women were inspirational and touching, especially when they spoke of how against overwhelming odds they would stand up to the government, the corporations, and the committees all for their children's futures.

It's easy to say, because the actual women shooting the film did not edit it, that much of the objectivity was lost. In some cases this can be true. They were quite explicit though: this was the maquiladoras story, and it showed exactly what they wanted it to show. In this sense, the film loses its credibility as a documentary, but gains an element of human compassion and intimacy which most documentaries lack. I think it helped that many of these women seemed intelligent and well-spoken; the success of the film is due in large part to the willingness of the maquiladora camera holders to not only work tirelessly, but in a manner so as to show that they deserve better than their circumstance.

Maquilapolis

How do you think the process of how this film was made affected the product (film) in style, in content, or in other ways?

What I enjoy the most of this movie is its high subjectivity. Lots of different documentary films invites their subjects to be collaborators, but this film brings the collaboration aspect up a notch. The maquiladoras are the filmmaker and the actual filmmakers are facilitators. The personal aspect of the movie makes the environmental and labor rights issues easier for the viewers to relate. As I watch the film, I can't help but feel angry at the factories that neglects their workers. As the maquiladoras put themselves up close and personal to the camera, I can imagine myself as one of them. The only reason why I can take a breathe of relief is because I do not live in Tijuana, but I can see that if my status as the consumer wavers, these fancy companies can treat me the same way as they treated the maquiladoras.

Another extremely thoughtful aspect of the film is that the cameras aren't just given to the ladies solely as a method of expression, it is also empowerment and tools to help the them do what they do as promoters. "...We wanted them to use the filmmaking process to further their own self-organizing."—Vicky Funari. This film can be such a source of inspiration and encouragement for the viewers of the films. But the film is especially powerful in its process, as the passerbys who see the making of the film or the neighbors who are interviewed all are wrapped in this journey of bringing justice to the maquiladoras and the citizens of Tijuana.