… the world’s got me!

This time in the lead up to the 2008 General Election has seen plenty of organisations getting out there and taking action on issues that matter.

Last week SAFE activists boarded busy inner city buses dressed in pig costumes and squeezed into tiny seats to highlight the little space a pig has when rasied in stalls. This is to coincide with TV spots currently airing on TV3 & C4 as part of SAFE’s LovePigs campaign.

Earlier this morning two teams of Greenpeace activists halted a major conversion of forest land to intensive dairy farming. The first team locked themselves to heavy machinery and the other have used rotary hoes to write CLIMATE CRIME in 5m-high letters into the fresh pasture. Click here for more info + photos.

What can we do to help? Aside from getting our orange overalls and taking action by locking ourselves to heavy machinery? I just came across this cool website called Ripple which uses the internet to generate money for charity. You could become a supporter of SAFE or Greenpeace who are two charitable organisations doing imperitve work to protect the welfare of our animals and our planet.

What other things can we be doing in an attempt to get proactive about issues we care about?

If you didn’t know today is Blog Action Day with this years focus being about Poverty.

People all around the world are going to be posting on this issue and are encouraged to talk about the issue within the context of their speciality. For example a design blog might talk about what works and what doesn’t about a set of charity posters etc…

I just want to speak briefly about my own feelings on the issue and what poverty actually means.

I think many people have different views of what poverty is - and many still think poverty is an issue that exists somewhere else and doesn’t happen right here in our own communities. Poverty is not just a global issue that only affects people in developing countries - it is also a very real problem for those struggling to keep up in developed countries with so called healthy and growing economies. With the cost of living increasing each day as fuel costs rocket upwards it is becoming harder and harder for low income earners to keep above the poverty threshold and provide for themselves and their families. Right here in Auckland New Zealand the Auckland City Mission as well as caring for the homeless provides 250 emergency food packets to families around Auckland who are in crisis. 

Stats taken from the website of the Children’s Commissioner tell us that in 2006/2007 22 percent of children were living in poverty! That’s 230,000 children. Right here in OUR COUNTRY! That’s more than the entire population of North Shore City.

There are many causes of poverty and I recommend you go and research it if this information shocks you - but there are many things we can be doing to help. Donating food to the mission helps them with the emergency food parcels (if they are not donated they have to buy the food), shop using this list from the website. Become a fan of The Mission on facebook.

Most importantly spread the word. This is not just a problem for ‘places far away from us’ this is an issue that we must acknowledge and help with right here on our doorstep. It is not ok that people don’t have access to the basic necessities of life, and it is NOT OK that young children have NO OPTION and NO CHOICE about the matter.

On wednesday I shot some video of a question for the YouTube / TVNZ Election Debate. Click through to the site and in the vote tab search “Arctic” and give it a thumbs up! We need more questions around climate change being asked!

That night Anna, Zoe, Jayce and I went down to Vector for the NZ Music Awards, was quite a cool night with great performances from Tiki, Kora, Anika Moa, Shihad, Cut of your Hands.. Afterward we head up to DOC for a drink and a toasted sammie before we head over to 4:20 to see Yeasayer play! Was heaps of fun!

Yesterday I noticed this interesting piece of grafitti in a great location!

And here is a pic of my gorgeous soon to be God Daughter Isadora!

Check out this wonderful little animation with music from Sigur Ros.

If you have time check out more of Carlos Lascano on Vimeo his stuff is amazing.

My old friend.

Just an update on whats been going on in my life:

Friday - went down to the Stagecoach Busyards and shot the last bit of footage for the Cows On Buses clip (which will be online soon). The graphics are up on the bus and they look really good! Theres one in Wellington and one in Auckland - keep your eyes peeled when riding your bike behind buses

Mum and I picked up Gabrielle and a Rocket Kitchen Chocolate Whiskey cake (which is unbelievably good by the way) and head out to Muriwai for a shabbat dinner as well as celebration of Jo’s return and hard work at the olympics.

Saturday - hung out with Max and Jack and shot a short clip to play at Eshay’s 21st party over in Sydney that only Max is able to make. It was a hilarious day of shooting in downtown Auckland with my cellphone blaring the song so we could try and lip sync (not that we neccesserily achieved this very well). - I’ll post this ASAP!

That same night after a few screenings of the clip we had just made at my flat (some very satisfied viewers!) and a few wines I head out with Ella and Max to Quay St Social Club where Phil did a DJ’ing stint.

Sunday - Early in the morning I missioned out to the Symonds St bus stop to get on a Howick / Eastern bus! An HOUR later and lots of Auckland Suburban scenery later I excited the bus at the Ridge Rd BP station - a 30 second walk away from Anna’s house

Anna and I hung out and chilled all day - it was wonderful - our day included a wonderful lunch (including eggs benedict and hashbrowns), a walk on windy Eastern Beach (along with all the boy racerzzz), Spirited Away and My Neighbour Totoro viewings, A little snooze, some Ukelele playing and a Thai dinner out in Howick town centre (with brother Josh and his girlfriend Gemma).

Monday - After another hour long bus ride into the city I spent the majority of the day with Zoe at Elam making the model for our upcoming music video shoot.

I’ve just realised I never posted the resulting clip of The Outlook for Someday promo shoot I blogged about here.

Client: Connected Media / The Outlook for Someday
Agency: The Church
Director: Luke Bell-Booth

Two Heads the superstar film & television production duo have just dropped their new website crafted by The Church and boy does it look mighty fine!

Have a squiz: www.twoheads.co.nz

Then have a peek at Palestinian Hip Hop group MAD - do a cover of Scribe’s “Not Many” from Nick D’s Making Tracks here.

Peace

So today is Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) and they say today the world is reborn and that we can use this time to think about how we think the world should look and be active in being the change we want to see in the world.

Several significant things have happened / potentially might happen today:

1.) A new baby girl was born into the world at 5.30 this morning (more on that later)

2.) The first annoucement for the Big Day Out was released. (Including Neil Young, TV on the radio and The Prodigy)

3.) Tonight at 6pm(ish) the winner of the Voice of the People gets a phone call LIVE on C4.

Last night was the evening service of Rosh Hashanah and although it wasnt very busy (it usually is the service most people go to) it was still very nice. Randomly Nick D from C4 was there! The Rabbi gave a really inspiring sermon at the end of the service all about rebirth and getting proactive on making change. Afterwards Mum, Anna and I joined David, Anthea, Claris and Izzy at their place for a shared meal and a glass of wine afterwards which was very lovely.

Phew - what else will happen today???

Full First Annoucement:
NEIL YOUNG, ARCTIC MONKEYS, THE LIVING END, THE PRODIGY, SNEAKY SOUND SYSTEM, MY MORNING JACKET, PENDULUM, BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE, TV ON THE RADIO, SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO, THE TING TINGS, TIKI TAANE, HEADLESS CHICKENS, THE BLACK SEEDS, THE DATSUNS, ELEMENO P, NESIAN MYSTIK, LUGER BOA, COBRA KHAN, LADI 6, THE NAKED AND FAMOUS

Two cool clips I came across on my morning walk through internet land..

This great little animation put together for WWF Brazil:

And this lovely short film about Canadian ‘Street Artist’ Roadsworth. He creates some amazing stencil art which he sprays down on the road in very interesting, thought provoking and inventive places.

Today Anna and I tooka drive away from work and busy stress and blah and went up to the cascades park in the Waitakere ranges. 

We took a bush walk and went up to the waterful for a bit of a peek.

Then on the way home we sat and watched the Tui’s singing in the brances of a magnificent Kauri!

A kereru also flew right past us whooping its wings - my favourite bird!

We were the only people there save a bus load of tourists who were leaving as we were arriving.. It was so nice and peaceful out in the bush on a work day! Took my mind awhile to disengage but once I did it was so amazing!

Lunch at PFC with my gf on the deck in the sun - yuss.

Early yesterday I head out to Waiuku to film some video of a photo shoot that was going on with a cow called Lynn!

The shoot is for a Greenpeace ad that will go on the back of a few buses in Auckland and Wellington. Rosie and Bex were the two ‘wranglers’ from “Animals on Q” and have worked with Lynn before on a few ads for here and the US.

Mat Baker was the photographer and is very fun to work with. Lynn for the most part was very well behaved and hopefull the right shot was captured. Most of the work gets done in post anyway these days - its amazing what they do (even I’m amazed :o!). The weather  was crap and the sky grey - the photo will be sunny and have crisp blue skys with fluffy white clouds!!

So had a really cool weekend all and all..

On Friday night went and ran a workshop for some volunteers to get them trained up with the Oceans Campaign so they can hit the streets with the big red sad fish and spread the knowledge. Was really awesome being around the new office and having a few beers with the crew.

On Saturday I had a car so I drove out to Howick to meet Anna’s parents and her cat Billy. It was beautiful weather and all went well - they have a beautiful garden to sit out in and chat! Afterwards we drove to Mum’s to visit and feed fergus and on the way showed Anna some sights of Henderson and significant places for me in West Auckland. Then we hit the Ponsonby Road Market Day and walked around perusing which was heaps of fun.

Back at my house we had a planning meeting with Andrea, Tim, Lucy, Kimily, Anna and I about the music video we’re gonna make for Handle The Jandal which is a music video competition where you make a clip for an unknown kiwi artist. Stay tuned for more on that.

Sunday after picking Mum up from the airport and having some food with her I spent the rest of the arvo in the garden drinking beers in the sun!! Good times and roll on summer!

Well its been an interesting last few days!

On Sunday night I checked into the Langham Hotel for the night - that along with a new nokia phone and vodafone credit is the prize package I received simply by becoming a finalist in the Vodafone’s Voice of the People competition. I had really nice dinner with Anna at Ken Yakitori - including trying deep fried Camembert for the first time - very delicious! I highly recommend trying it if you haven’t already!

The next morning I had a buffet breakfast among a whole swagger of suited business men all trying very hard to look important and getting fussy over the froth in their flatwhites!! I had scrambelled eggs on toast with avocado, pikelets, fruit and a glass of grapefruit juice yumm!

After returning to my room and reading the newspaper in my bathrobe and having a shower I went downstairs to meet the other finalists and the crew from SparkActivate who put this competition on. I accidentally bought a movie from the TV entertainment system -  Get Smart - and it cost me $18!! No jokes!!! It wasn’t even DVD quality - looked like a shoddy download. Blimmin hotels - lucky it was the only thing I paid for

The rest of the day we didn’t do a whole lot - we got our new phones and hung out at spark for a while then head over to RadioWorks where the two girl finalists did a short piece for the edge. Then we all taxied over to C4/TV3 in Newton. We all did a group appearance with Jermaine of Vodafone Select Live - then one by one we each did a link - where had the opportunity to briefly talk about our entry to the comp and then do a little pledge to the public for their vote.  It was heaps of fun and by the end I was knackered! Nerves!