… the world’s got me!

Time’s running out. For real. The UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen this december is very important. Sign on to encourage the NZ government to make the right decision at Copenhagen.

www.signon.org.nz

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?

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 !). The weather  was crap and the sky grey – the photo will be sunny and have crisp blue skys with fluffy white clouds!!

Hmm so things have been pretty flat out lately – The Film challenge is in full swing and we’re slowing down on our big promotional push and focusing on locking down the prizes. We’re also in fundraising mode over time at Connected Media where we are on the hunt for some core funding to keep us alive and doing this awesome work!

I was on Newstalk ZB yesterday talking about the project and we got into the green pages today! (Online here).

I’m also still trucking on with getting the Sad Fish appearing somewhere out and about every weekend! On Saturday I was out Botany ways with Rob and Shani! The east side got to see Red Fish – the response from the public is incredible! Kids of all ages and adults love to see it and feel it and are curious as to what we are doing! Ever since I had my rental van crash I haven’t liked driving with trailers but I got over my fear because I know I’d have to drive a bit for this campaign. Next weekend we’re heading down to Whitianga!

In other news today I filmed what is hopefully my last session with a focus group of young people all about V and the V Republic. It’s heaps of fun to run the session but a nightmare to organize around this busy time (especially with uni students).

At the same time I’m almost finished building a custom CMS to drive the back end of a upcoming online Holocaust Exhibition focused around survivors living in NZ – its called World Upside Down and will be online soon here. Also this work extends to developing and building the Jewish Foundations site. All my work should be showcased on my website – but considering its still in construction this isnt happening right now! Its on my to do list!

I’m almost finished reading Robert Rodriguez’s Rebel Without A Crew and man oh man I’m fired up to make some movies!! I’ve got to get my writing on and get some of my ideas down into plot, treatments and scripts! I’m not much of a writer but its a skill I want to develop especially so I can get some stories together to tell using film! I want to make a couple of no budget digital shorts with friends before I write a good script in which I’ll try and find some money to fund shooting it on film. It’s been so fun reading the book and then watching El Mariachi with the inside knowledge of how he cut corners to get it shot for $7,000! I highly recommend getting the disc out its a great movie with some awesome DVD extras! (including the short film which one numerous festivals before he did el mariachi plus 10 minute film school).

Phew! Just gotta find more hours in the day!

Peace.