The best use of autotune. Ever.

the kids of skateistan

This beautiful little film looks at how a project set up in Kabul called ‘Skateistan’ has helped some of the poorer kids get away from the war and violence that they see on a day to day basis in their city. What really struck me about this film was how empowering the project has been for young girls. I think it’s great how the girls don’t care about the annoying comments they get from people in the street when they go skateboarding outside.

Find out more about the the Skateistan project by clicking here.

the joy of stats

Hans Rosling does 200 countries over 200 years in 4 minutes using some nifty infographics. He’s the kind of person you wish was your teacher at school…

my dangerous love/clothes/body/face

I came across this interesting cross-platform project called ‘my dangerous loverboy’ by the director Virginia Heath at the last Feminism in London conference. It aims to raise awareness about the sex trafficking of young girls. I’ve posted the main flagship video below, which was shown at the conference and elicited a pretty strong emotional response from me. It upset me in a number of ways, but what struck me the most was the inherently problematic narrative behind the video.

Sex trafficking is obviously a very sensitive and complex subject to tackle in a four minute film but I think that makes it all the more important to be careful about the kinds of messages that you are sending out. I think the effort made here by Heath is admirable and is one of the few initiatives that is trying to go some way in helping raise awareness around sex-trafficking. This is however at the cost of putting some important issues at stake, which can sometimes inevitably be the case when being the first few to deal with such sensitive subject-matter.

First of all, the way that the young girl is shown to be sort of flaunting herself and wearing sexyish clothing and make-up, dancing and drinking at a party, and as a result is taken in by nasty sex trafficking guy. The danger here is that it enforces other sexist double-standards about women having to restrict their behaviour just in case they get raped / trafficked / attacked / looked down upon. It then runs the risk of seeing the girl’s ultimation as a sex slave as coming about because of her careless behaviour, rather than the result of the illegal and downright sick activities of the sex traffickers she becomes ensnared by.

I understand the way in which the film, in it’s music video format, tries to appeal to the everyday girl who wants to be a pop-star and ‘just be loved’ and thereby demonstrate that ‘it could even happen to you’. However it is appealing to this very stereotype that partly results in the problematic nature of this video.

A friend of mine recently sent me this fantastic nub that tries to do the same thing as Heath’s one below but looks at the issue from a much more positive, solution-focussed stance, ‘we can save the world’ sort of stance. Have a look and see what you think. Some of the other stories on Heath’s cross-platform project provide a very real backdrop to this nub, look here if you are interested in watching one of those too.

There’s a growing sense across the nation

There’s nothing inherently good or bad about the big society but when you hear ‘it’s not just the young who are full of community spirit’ and ‘there’s a growing sense across the nation that more citizens want to get involved in strengthening their neighbourhoods and building a Big Society’ you just think ‘damn I haven’t heard that stuff since I lived in Singapore!’

“Legalize it, and I will advertise it”

 

So Cali takes to the polls next week, not just for the US mid-terms but also to vote on Prop 19 – the legalisation of marijuana. California already has provisions for medical marijuana, which has worked out as a de-facto legalisation at street level. The Yes campaign is looking pretty strong, with even Republicans/ tea Party peeps, such as Glenn Back, Ron Paul, Sarah Palin, expressing that they are in favour. A yes vote will have some pretty big implications cross the rest of the country and will probably mark the beginnings of a shift in drug policy across the western world.

This nub from the Open Society institute spells out the inadequacies of the current global drug strategy.

Baha’i Human Rights in Iran

Not much to comment on. The title is self explanatory and sunny mornings deserve brevity.

“Small nothings”

After all the furore over paying drug users to sterilise themselves, this is a photo essay by  Zach Wise, about drug rehab in Russia.

This time for the Soros’ Open Society Foundation.

Better to watch it on their website, the quality is better, and the photos deserve it.

 

 

Money Balls.

When a child has a football, it immediately makes a game of football. And everyone wants to be playing.

Which is pretty much just like finance. Once you have money, it makes more of itself. And everyone else wants some. And just like playground football, you set the rules and decide the teams. And if people don’t like it you can take football and go home.

As this short video from the NY Times demonstrates, if you’re a financier it’s a win-win. (Sorry about the link, can’t embed this vid unfortunately.)

The film is by Zach Wise, multi-media journalist at the NY Times. Though not really a nub, I’d also recommend this great video summarising the ’08 Presidential election, and this nice doc about a pro-boxer in Vegas (especially for the way he shoots the fight using stills).

In a sentence…

The best nub I’ve seen in a long, long while.

It’s a short promo for Dan Pink’s Drive, the latest addition to the line of counter-factual ideas books, no doubt shooting onto the Kindles of people in thick rimmed glasses flying out to creativity conferences as we speak.

But ignore my smart-assery, this video is a cracker; it’s got something interesting to say, says it clearly and is really, really goood-looking. Compared to most info-nubs, this has bags of charm and personality, something that gets lost in the usual After Effects jobbys.

The video was made by Lindsey Testolin, an animator/author brander from NY. Check out her website, top draw work.