Sarah Silverman aims to have Jewish grandchildren visit their grandparents in Florida, educate them about Obama. OY!

Watch out for some strong language here and there.

Here is another take on this theme from Bob Herbert of the New York Times.

Once again, I am reminded that STORY is king in my business. If you want to see what I mean, go watch OCTOCAT ADVENTURE, a funny, sick, loud, but ultimately deeply moving animation. It was mostly made in  MS Paint, which is a very basic image editor.

I’ve made a few comments below the video, (with spoilers, so don’t read it yet - watch first).

So…

When I first saw, Octocat Adventure, I already knew that it was created under a the guise that the creator was a 14 year old in Chicago named, Randy Peters. Visually and thematically, it does look like a 14 year old could have made it. It certainly resonates with my 8th grade sense of humor which, much to my wife’s chagrin, has stuck with me.

So why do I think this is a big deal? Because, I think we all need to be reminded that high production values don’t matter as much as story, in the end. In my business, I put a lot of emphasis on making good visuals, and good sound. Don’t get me wrong - these matter. A lot. But story and the characters that create them matter more.

In the case of Octocat Adventure, a very talented person (David OReilly) made something that LOOKS pretty bad but IS very good. Why do I think it’s so good? Well, like I said, it’s funny, sad, annoying, cute, gross and touching - all at the same time. I also like it because of the extremes between the bad visuals and the good story. But OReilly has a real talent that shines though the rough of this piece.

The synopsis of the work is that a weird looking cat has lost his parents. He looks in doors and boxes which make odd things happen. He jumps fences and bludgeons a giant worm. When he sees his parents, they get carried away by a big, black monster.

So far it sounds like the imaginings of a 14 year old mind, but it still hits me in a deep place: a kid loses his parents. We have all been there, and on many levels we will be there again and again.

In the end, the creator of Octocat Adventure reminds me that a good story uses deep psychology and myth to make a mark on us. And that’s something I wish I could do in every project.

Go see more of David OReilly’s work, as most of it is equally mythic AND very cool looking to boot.

This time it’s in Boston, MA. It’s the Lumen Eclipse 60. Cool looking jury.

LE 60 Poster Image

Wild and Free: a Screech Owl Named Pinkey is a film I shot, edited and coordinated all post-production. It was produced and directed by Little Pearls.

You can also see it at Green.tv

If you are like me, you have little idea how this financial crisis started and you have even less of an idea of how we can get out of it.

Well, here is a good start. Bill Moyers interviews Kevin Philips, who pretty well predicted this would happen. You can watch the video or listen to the audio file.

From the PBS site.

Bill Moyers sits down with former Nixon White House strategist and political and economic critic Kevin Phillips, whose latest book BAD MONEY: RECKLESS FINANCE, FAILED POLITICS, AND THE GLOBAL CRISIS OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM explores the role that the crumbling financial sector played in the now-fragile American economy.

A link to his book on Amazon.

I spent about 40 minutes at Beaver lake earlier this week.

I have a new 1.4 50mm. Mucho blurry bokeh! There is some 200mm zoom with a 1.4 converter in there too.

I once met a woman from Alaska who hunted bears…with a bow and arrow…and she’s deaf. This a a Alaskan hunter who deserves my respect.

Sarah Palin, on the other hand, has dedicated hundreds of thousands of Alaskan dollars to promote hunting from planes.

Unless these wolves (and bears) are eating kindergartners, this shooting from planes seems pretty sick.

FactCheck.org does a decent job exploring some details on this issue. After that was published, Defenders of Wildlife wrote them a letter which does an excellent job of further explaining the issue. You can find that letter on the FactCheck page or get it directly at this link.