10 years after Four Eyed Monsters where are we now?

10 years ago, Susan and I took our film Four Eyed Monsters to its world premiere in Park City, Utah. So much has changed in the world since then. So much has changed in our lives since then. Recently, indieWIRE published a piece reflecting on our careers over the past 10 years since the film’s 2005 Park City premiere. The premiere of the film led to invitations to travel around the world for presentations, dozens of theatrical screenings, national television appearances, and millions of views of the film on the internet and corresponding video podcasts. But we couldn’t have achieved all of this without our fans.

At every turn of success, there was a sleeper fan waiting to awaken and contribute to the phenomenon that was this film. Someone selecting speakers for a conference came across our video podcast and thought of us. Someone curating films for a festival fought for its inclusion. Even in casual conversations, people would happen to mention our project at the perfect moment, leading their friends to check it out and pass it on. Each of these small acts added up to the success of the project, and so we extend our sincere gratitude to everyone who became a sleeper agent for our film. Thank you!

Our new film, Matter Out Of Place, would also never have been possible without all the connections and opportunities created by Four Eyed Monsters. So, a double thank you!

We are celebrating 10 years of Four Eyed Monsters with a screening this Thursday at a monthly venue I have been working with a volunteer team to create since June. The space is called 3B and represents the first step in a vision for a network of venues that can showcase films using open-source, low-cost computers and custom software to securely deliver uninterrupted, rock-solid playback to the projector and sound system. The goal of all this is to bring independently produced films to audiences who would otherwise not have discovered them.

We are screening Four Eyed Monsters not to dwell on the past, but to look forward. Who we have been only provides context for who we are going to be. What films are in store for the future? What other distribution innovations are possible? You’ll have to stay tuned to this blog to find out. Alternatively, you can come and ask questions at the Q&A session after this Thursday’s screening. If you’re planning to attend, please RSVP on Facebook since the space can accommodate a maximum of around 40 people. The event is free and will be followed by a Q&A session. I hope to see you there!

Advertisement

Is it time to withdraw from Banks and switch to the blockchain?

Why should people use bitcoin?

Because when email was invented we stopped needing to waste time with fax machines.  Because when the computer was invited we stopped needing to use typewriters and futz with white out.  Because when car was invented we stopped using horses and engaging in mass animal slavery.  Because when we discovered fire we stopped being monkeys hiding in the trees at night and started our path of evolving to who we are today.

We have a history of embracing better ways of doing things so I’m completely confident that in time we will see bitcoin technology replace our use of traditional banks to store and send money.

Horses and fax machines still exist so I’m not saying banks will go away completely but we will achieve a more peaceful and productive society when the control of the money system is removed from those who have proven to abuse that control.  So this isn’t about clever technology, it’s about ideals.  If you’ve ever been to an Occupy Wall st event and wish there was something we could actually proactively do beyond shout at the top of our lungs then you’ve found it.  If you’ve ever been moved by a film to care about people in far away countries but wish you could do something more then simply share the link online then you’ve found it.  If you’ve ever wanted to see art and culture be better financed and wish you could do more then just donate to individual projects then you’ve found it.  Bitcoin has the power to break up the financial systems strong hold that’s keeping the world the way it is today.  You think we don’t know how to end poverty?  How to innovate politics?  How to finance the creation of new culture?  Designs and innovations for all of the above and much more will be empowered by bitcoin and it’s associated technologies.

So let’s withdraw our support for a system we no longer believe is serving us.  Remember this idea every time your at the ATM asking them for your money.  “Withdraw.”  Because if we don’t withdraw our support then we are in effect endorsing their actions.

The first step in a world built on top of bitcoin is all of us using it for anything that we can.  So I’m here to show you how.  You probably also have other friends who can show and after this blog post you’ll be up and running and able to teach people you know and together we can all learn this.

BITCOIN 101

What is a bitcoin?  It’s a monetary unit.  At the time of writing it’s worth around $625 US dollars.  You spend bitcoin like you spend any other currency.

MILLIBIT

There are 1,000 millibits in 1 bitcoin.  It’s often easier to describe prices in millibit.  Right now 500 millibit is worth around $300.  However you don’t type “500” you type “.500” because that’s how the number is accurately sent with a bitcoin application.  To deal in bitcoin you have to wrap your head around the exchange rate just like dealing in Thai baht or any other currency of a different value then your local currency.  Right now $500 dollars is worth .3 bitcoin.  So I’d say “300 milibits” when reading that number.  The exchange rate is easy to do in your head.  Try it.  What is 5 dollars in milibits at the current exchange rate?  Answer = 3 milibits.  How would you type that into the computer to send it to someone?  Answer= .003

BLOCKCHAIN

What the heck is the blockchain?  Well it’s exactly what what the name implies.  A chain of blocks.  What’s in the blocks?  Data.  About what?  Transactions.

The blockchain is the key invention that is bitcoin.  It’s a giant database of transactions people have made and it’s stored on tons of computers that all check each others copies to insure they are the same and every 10 minutes they all update each other with any new additional transactions that have just occurred.  Each transaction takes up very little space and older transactions get shrunk down to just the essential data that validates all previously spent bitcoin so that everyone’s balances can be calculated.  It’s like the spread sheet you try to keep your checkbook info in except it’s actually accurate and real time and it’s got everyones sent and received transactions ever.

WALLET

How do you send money or see what your balance is?  A wallet.  It’s the other main invention that is bitcoin.  It’s a piece of software that looks at the blockchain to calculate how much money you currently have control of.  I say it that way because whoever has your wallet has control of your money.  Since the money is on the block chain you kind of never really have anything.  You just have access to update the block chain and spend the money that’s yours.   Because the blockchain has every transaction ever there is a trail that can be totaled up to produce your current balance.  Your wallet see’s the blockchain and displays your balance which dictates how much money you can spend.  Your wallet is also your tool to spend your bitcoin.  A wallet can be a piece of hardware but is most likely just an app on your phone, an app on your computer or a website set up to function as a wallet.

SEND PAYMENTS

To pay someone you need their address.  It’s like a phone number or email address.  You can get it emailed to you, text messaged or even us a QR code.  Because unlike a phone number or email address it’s a pain to manually type because it’s got a lot of characters.  A QR code is a bunch of blocks on a screen or piece of paper that contain digits and characters and a QR code is the best way to quickly read a bitcoin address with your phones camera.  So checking out at a grocery store a QR code might appear on the register screen and with your phones wallet app you scan that code and then hit “pay”.  Your wallet in that moment sends the payment to get included in the blockchain and what happens next is magical.

CONFIRMATIONS

Your balance is instantly reflected on your wallet but it takes up to 10 minutes to get a confirmation on your payment.  A confirmation means your payment has been added to the blockchain so it’s now officially part of the network and irreversible even by hackers.  This means you spent your money and now only the receiver can spend it.   How?  Fancy math.  I won’t get into that, but trust me, it’s irreversible and becomes more irreversible with each confirmation.  Every 10 minutes another confirmation occurs as your transaction has also made it into the next block in the chain.  Once you’ve made it into 6 blocks on the blockchain and have 6 confirmations you’re transaction is now essentially carved in stone.  So what is happening exactly?  Well the that’s another piece of magic.

MINING

It’s very expensive to be a bitcoin miner and I don’t recommend it.  I’ve done a tiny bit to get a sense of what’s going on and that was enough.  If you’ve got a couple thousand dollars and some time on your hands and are fascinated then please go learn everything there is to know about bitcoin mining.  Otherwise I’d encourage you to ignore this aspect of bitcoin because it’s highly technical and knowledge of it’s inner working offers no practical application to normal bitcoin usage except two pieces of information that are good to know.  Fees.  It really helps your transaction to process quickly to attach a small fee.  Most wallet apps do this automatically for you.  The advantage of paying a fee is that it insures miners are motivated to process your little transaction in the next block because they’ll get that fee.  So without a fee you could be waiting around a long time with no confirmation.  The second thing to know is about the 25 coins given to miners every 10 minutes.  As of this writing there are 12,411,575 bitcoins that the block chain has released per a pre-programmed code that can note be changed because it exists in the block chain.  What this means is that when you have 1 bitcoin it’s a fraction of that number.  I find this very cool because it’s a feature we don’t have with the US dollar. We don’t know what fraction of the whole our money represents because the dollar is an endless infinite sea as far as anyone can tell.  But with bitcoin we know.  We know the exact rate at which the total number of bitcoins will increase and we even know the maximum number of bitcoins that will ever be produced.  It’s 21,000,000.  So we are more then half way there.  This is important to understand because it shows how every bitcoin counts and makes up the whole.  No government can come along and just issue more bitcoins thereby making your bitcoins worth less then before.  Also no bank can come along and loan bitcoin that they don’t really have to all kinds of people thereby increasing money supply and devaluing your money.  So if the world uses bitcoin then banks and governments loose their ability to constantly debase your money.  All of this thanks to the process of mining.

PSEUDONYMITY

That word refers to the idea that an address is like a fake name nobody knows is you.  It’s not anonymous because that would mean a bunch of random strangers are making transactions with random strangers.  That wouldn’t work because the counting of all past spent coins make up the present balances of everyone so there must be a trail of all coins and all addresses at all times.  So the answer they invented was pseudonymity.  As long as you don’t affiliate your name with your wallet then people analyzing the blockchain will have no idea what your spending habits are.  Or if you are a nonprofit or a publicly traded company you can be transparent with some or all of your transactions allowing everyone to see exactly what’s going on in your business and increasing accountability.

TUMBLING

This is a method of making a payment without drawing a connection between you and another person.  It’s like doing a transaction off the record or a back ally cash deal.  Because let’s be honest, there isn’t really a problem with the blockchain knowing you bought some groceries but certain things you just don’t want to broadcast to the world.  Like if you bought life insurance policy with bitcoin than that could freak some people out and you might want that purchase to be a tumbled purchase.  You’d do this by just choosing that option when you make the payment.  BlockChain.Info offers a service to do this that you can see below.

EXCHANGE VS EVANGELIZE

An exchange is something to avoid in my experience.  They are services to convert local currency into bitcoin and back the other way.  In my opinion it’s more productive to evangelize.  Make a list of where you get money and where spend money.  Freelance jobs?  Full time job?  Parents? Savings?  Grocery store?  Landlord?  Bar?  Art supplies?  Plane tickets?  Computer gear?  YouTube ads?  Government?

If you google around you’ll see many of the above listed income and expenses can already be done in bitcoin but for those that can’t you can simply explain to them the benefits and do so constantly and eventually you’ll win them over.

SPECULATION

People have bought bitcoin for as little as 1 dollar a piece and sold bitcoin for as much as 1200 dollars a piece.  So money has been made and that has attracted a lot of speculators who have money they want to grow.  These people often loose faith in bitcoin if it takes a slight dip in value and sell off what they own.  What I do is different.  I use bitcoin for my savings.  Since it takes me a very long time to build up savings i’ve found that so far the little bitcoin I own has gone up in value over all even though it generally goes up and down from day to day.  Now normally when I have a savings account it doesn’t last long and I end up spending it the first chance I’ve got.  I made this mistake already with bitcoin and would have made thousands of dollars had I simply held onto what i’d been saving.  So I’ve learned my lesson and my current bitcoin savings are not being touched at all.  For someone who has never been good at keeping a savings account this is a miracle and I owe it to bitcoins deflationary nature.  I don’t want to spend my savings because i know it’s going to be able to buy me much more later then it can now.

MICRO PAYMENTS

This is talked a lot about in bitcoin circles.  The issue is that credit cards charge a transaction fee which makes selling anything less than a dollar not make economic sense.  Credit cards prevent you from spending a quarter for a newspaper or leaving a small tip on a blog or video online.  So micro payments are a way to throw money around like buckets of rose pedals on all of the things you love and are potentially capable of changing the game for media creators.

REMITTANCE

Let’s say you had a job in a foreign country for a while.  You’d need to get that money you made back into the country.  You might also need to do it fast to keep cover your home country financial obligations.   Bitcoin will disrupt the existing industry that takes advantage of people who have this need.  Immigrants having expenses back home can now use bitcoin instead of the costly alternatives.  If they can’t spend bitcoin back home yet then they can either evangelize to win over new users or use an exchange.  Most countries have an exchange that can be linked to bank accounts to move money from bitcoin into local currency and some places like singapore, berlin and Vancouver are even starting to have BTM machines that can do the same.

SECOND AUTHENTICATION

This is a password that you type in every time you go to make a payment.  This way someone needs your password to open your wallet but another password to spend any funds.  I highly recommend this if you have more then 20 dollars you protect your coins and use a second authentication password that’s different then anything else on any other site.  Also beware of security cameras that could potentially follow your fingers as you type your passwords.

BACK UP

Because it’s digital you can back up your money.  You do this by saving the wallet.dat file in a secure location.  Dropbox & Gmail might not seem secure enough but here is what makes it acceptable.  The second authentication.  As long as you have that turned on the chances of a hacker getting into your gmail, getting your wallet.dat file and knowing both of your passwords is very low.  The chances of loosing your phone or your laptop are actually much higher.  So keeping this wallet.dat file is an important step.

COLD STORAGE

When storing something like your life savings or future college tuition you or a big investment in your company you want to use cold storage.  If extremely motivated a hacker can probably break down any wall you put up including capturing your password as you enter it.  The wall that’s hardest to break down is storing your bitcoin off the internet.  This is called cold storage.  There are ways to print out the information that makes up your bitcoin or to even create it on a computer that has never even been put on the internet and then put the data on a USB stick.  Then you can keep on hand the address to that cold storage wallet and send money to it that nobody else can ever spend.  This is a good way to maintain a savings account.

PAPER WALLET

If you want to store a large amount of money securely you can do so on paper by printing out a couple QR code that contains the entire wallet information.  Put these in a safe deposit box with a service and you’ve now got bank level security to your bitcoins.

GETTING STARTED

So my favorite wallet is blockchain.info.  Go to that site and click “create wallet.”  Then make a new password, not the same one that you use for everything.  Make sure you write it down and the special pass phrase but guard that info like you guard cash.  Then take a screen grab the QR code once you’re logged in.  Add an email address so that a back up of your wallet can be sent there.  Add a double confirmation code.  It’s important to know that blockchain doesn’t store your bitcoin.  It’s stored by you inside the combination of your identification number they provide you and your password.  Within that information is the data that makes up your wallet.  Some of your wallet is stored in their servers but they have no way to spend your bitcoin and if they ever get shut down the wallet.dat file will work in other bitcoin wallets.  So as long as you keep a back up of that wallet in your gmail or dropbox you are safe.

So that’s it, go to blockchain.info/wallet and get yourself up and running.  You’ll have an address and a QR code and will be able to get some bitcoin from people you know.

Next is to go out to dinner with a friend who has some bitcoin and pay the bill and have them pay their half of the bill to you in bitcoin.  The fact that you are now into bitcoin is worth getting together over dinner to talk about anyway.

Then go to your employer and ask to be paid in bitcoin.  They might like the fact that instead of mailing checks or expensive payroll services they can just type in an amount and click one button and it goes straight to you immediately.  Also this can be attractive to new recruits.  They might say no but at least it starts a conversation.  CoinBase.com and BitPay.com both are potential resources for a company looking to build payroll bitcoin functionality.

Then talk to your landlord.  They’ll like not having to wait for checks to clear and since they invested in real estate they are also likely into investing in bitcoin by just holding onto the bitcoin you send them.  Especially if the mortgage is already paid off.  A major realtor in NYC called Bond has begun to accept bitcoin.  Others are sure to follow.

Then talk to you bodega.  Maybe they like the remittance angle or getting away from credit card transaction fees and charge backs.  Just keep bringing it up every time your reach into your wallet for cash or credit.  Just ask.  Do you accept bitcoin?  Now that you have an operational understanding of bitcoin you can now be part of the team spreading the word.

Once it’s all working for you then you can also send me some bitcoin!

13emmehoStGuwJ8hY1Bk2BZjFtThTaokjE

What’s this about?

I posted about a bitcoin meet up in NYC on Facebook and a friend replies with the following:

After being uninterested for the first two years of hearing about Bitcoin, I finally took the time to do the research and learn what it actually is. To my surprise, I had misunderstood it, and the realities of this new technology are absolutely mind-blowing. It’s more than just innovation for the sake of it; it’s about sowing new ideology into the backbone that controls everything in this world—the financial infrastructure.

In the heart of it all, a space has been created on Wall Street, and what started as a group of essentially hackers are finding their way into the system itself by designing a better way for economic assets to be exchanged. Here’s how it works: we can digitally send real-world items such as money or any kind of value or asset from our phones and computers over a peer-to-peer network, without the need for a traditional financial infrastructure. This means no fees and no controlling powers dictating what we can and can’t do with the currency we earn.

What’s even more fascinating is that Bitcoin is programmable money. Imagine automatically splitting revenue from a film among collaborators or using crowd funding for a film project to unlock additional features and experiences. It’s all incredibly cool stuff! The value of Bitcoin increased by a staggering 5000% in 2013, thanks to its cryptographically limited supply and high demand. Many predict that 2014 will be an even bigger year since we’re just scratching the surface.

While most of my life savings are tied up in the film I’m finishing, I’ve decided to store the little money I have in Bitcoin, where its value has significantly appreciated. Why let your money sit idly in a traditional bank account when you can ride the edge of this new technology and invest in Bitcoin? However, it’s important to educate yourself before diving in. Mistakes can be costly since this involves real money. So, I encourage you to attend the NYC meet-up linked above or read up on coindesk.com to become a Bitcoin expert.

Furthermore, Bitcoin is an expanding field that requires consultants, developers, marketers, inventors, and artists. There are numerous directions you can take with it. It belongs to no company—it’s free for the world to build upon and expand. Embrace this gift!

I’ll see you with a successful Kickstarter

I want to talk directly to other filmmakers in this post.

Here is the “chicken and egg dilemma” of crowd funding. You know the power of the moving picture, you’re a filmmaker, so the idea of sitting around talking about your film just seems lame.  You really want to just show them.  But you can’t.  Because you haven’t made it yet.  Because you don’t have the money.  Which is why you’re crowd funding.  What the hell are you supposed to do?

You could make a short film first. You could shoot a trailer by getting key scenes captured on tape. You could just get on camera with the cast and crew and shoot the shit.

Here is why all those ideas suck:

• Talking about it will just put an analytical spin and remove people from the tonal effect you’re aiming to create.
• Shooting a trailer is very likely to end up being a shittier version of what you plan to actually do and cause more harm then good.
• The short film will either suffer from the same problem or it will end up costing so much you need to do a crowd funding campaign just for that and be back at square one.

So here is an amazing solution these guys have employed. Make something that stirs people in the same way your film will but in much less time and very affordable production means. Don’t try to be the thing. Just have the same effect as the thing.

It’s a counter intuitive solution and maybe not adaptable to your own projects but worth stopping to look at because it’s undeniably effective.  They interview old people about being old.  A simple idea but the effect is we experience a micro version of the movie they want to make.  And they pull it off without having to give away the movies storyline or talk about everyone’s resume and do a bunch of other boring things we feel like we’ve seen a million times now that crowd funding has been around for a while.

While they interview these old people we get to see the guy who will be the lead actor of the movie interact and ask the questions.  I’ve never seen anything the actor has been in but by the time the video was done I pretty much had faith in him to do a good job acting in the film they want to make.  Just from a couple funny moments and from a demonstration of his presence.  That’s a lot better than actors sitting around talking about how they loved the script after they read it. Because here we see this guy in real conversations with real people. Talking to old people about their love lives.  That’s amazing!

I also gained faith in the director.  You might not have seen anything he’s ever created but you’re watching something he’s created now and you’re seeing his sense of timing, framing, lighting, cinematography, the sentiment, concepts and whether you understand filmmaking or not you can buy into what it is he’s doing.

The final point is that the result is spreadable content.  You can easily post this to twitter or Facebook and probably rack up a few likes and retweets because it’s got value as content in it of itself.  Yes it’s a crowd funding campaign but it’s also stand alone entertainment worth sharing with people.  Their movie is likely about many more things then just growing old but they took one of the most universal aspects of what they are doing, turned that into the doorway and built an inviting entry way.  Pro.

Check out the I’ll See You In My Dreams KickStarter page for more details on their project and to follow what they’re doing.

Inter-generational tension over monetary ideology

This reddit user is onto the story of the next decade or two.

Here is the current generational breakdown in the US compiled from wikipedia research.

• Greatest generation.  Worked.  Saved.  Bought houses.  Have the majority of US wealth packed away in savings which they very much believe in.
• Baby Boomers.  Didn’t save as well so all their money is in housing which they very much believe in.  Work good jobs that are essential in order to pay mortgage.  Many plan to sell home to pay for retirement in lower cost living.
• Gen X.  Haven’t saved and haven’t bought housing.  They have the majority of the highest paying jobs which they rely on month to month for survival do to debt they created prior to landing these sought after jobs.  Sometimes end up jobless and living back home or leaning on significant other which takes them out of the job market making them less traditionally employable with every passing day.
• Millennials.  They have no savings, no jobs, and don’t own houses but they are extremely well educated.  They have a relationship to the internet that constantly furthers their knowledge and skill set making them very attractive as transient workers.  This temporary work allows constant breaks to learn more, be creative, think and innovate.  Their digital native tendencies are slowly bringing them into the bitcoin space and once the vision of where this is headed clicks they strategize to get their hands on as much crypto currency as they can.  They embrace innovations that support their world views and have many redesigns of various industries they are dying to have the resources to create.

F A S T  F O R W A R D  1 0  Y E A R S

• Greatest Generation.  The money the greatest generation saved is now worthless.  They had the chance to get out but didn’t completely know what was going on and felt too invested in their native currency to get out.
• Baby Boomers.  The housing they held so dear has lost it’s native currency value but now has crypto currency value that’s real except the sprawling nature of suburbs is not appealing to new buyers so you have a Detroit effect almost everywhere and mostly metropolitan central locations have held their value which is not what the boomers had typically owned.
• Gen X.  Many of the industries that kept Gen X employed have been disrupted or made obsolete.  Even though the world shifted towards highly competitive transient work forces they held onto what they knew which was traditional employment up until the bitter end when their companies disrupted industries were forced to close shop.   Fortunately they saw the value of crypto and invested while they still had their jobs and captured the lions share of scarce crypto currency because they were bigger believers then Baby Boomers and had more cash then the millennials.  They’re money and wisdom make them the investing body of new industries as they survive off crypto savings which they also use in a land grab for the desirable real estate.
• Millennials.  What was happening had become obvious to them much earlier than anyone else.  They put every dollar they earned into crypto for the past 10 years and that has paid off big time.  They have created the disruptive businesses that have dealt with the many problems the fiat currency collapse caused while also making the world a more sustainable and compassionate place.  Much less poverty.  Much less quality of life disparity.  They rapidly transformed the world based on their shared values of decentralized systems, freedom of connectivity, freedom of expression and a unified in-it-together spirit that looks beyond borders.  A global economy has turned into a global community.  This support base cares for all the the elders who lost their ass because they held on too tight to what they knew.
• New Gen.  A new generation is coming of age completely native to this crypto decentralized landscape and what they will end up doing is far to early to tell.

A Shared Future

I went to conference today called A Shared Future. The reason I went was to document the building and launching of a gift economy app that model and actress Lily Cole is creating.

This is the event:

http://www.kweekweek.com/conferences/thesharedfuture#programme

I felt from this conference there is a fork where gift economy is splitting off from being grouped into the sharing economy discussion. It’s very different then sharing economy because renting out your spare room is not the same as blowing a strangers mind by baking them an apple pie just for the thrill of getting to show up on their door step with it. These things hardly belong in the same conference. One is utilitarian and the other is about art, expression, joy and love.

Sharing economy seems to be trying to monetize every square inch of the world and turn every aspect of life into a business. Everyone is an entraprenuer. Everyone is selling either their car, their home, their time or even selling the use of their money. Whats next… selling their body? What about an airbnb.com type site but for prostitution. Get rid of the middle men of the pimps? Empower people to monetize their assets? The effect is that money becomes more and more a part of peoples lives.

Gift economy is very different. The opposite in a way. People move away from accounting for every single transaction that takes place. Less and less are we worried about what everything is going to cost us as more and more is simply given free of charge but within a community where that is the structure so everyone gives and recieves and not just randomly but based on your actual goals and desires. Money beomes less and less central to our daily lives and social interactions and we don’t make a profit we can brag about but we do lower our costs and in that respect we do save real money too. So it might be that a gift economy accomplishes many of the same things a the sharing economy but it just does it with a different style and approach.

An employee of Air Bnb was on a panel in the morning and told a moving story of a women who used the extra money from air bnb to fight cancer and try to extend her life as long as possible. In the end the family invited Air bnb to this womens funeral. The point made was that the money and the community experience are all very valuable and created a deep coonnection with the company that is incredibly rare.

This is really great but can we do better? It’s clear that a lot of businesses want to facilitate peer to peer transactions. This isn’t new. Ebay. Craigslist. In more reccent years kickstarter.

All of these businesses want of course get a cut of this peer to peer transaction which actually makes it a peer to business to peer transaction.

One individual asked the crowd funding panel if we are simply creating new middle men. Is this innovation mostly just changing the gaurds?

Next week I go to cambridge too keep documentation of Lily Cole’s project. I am havin fun! Also a randomm gift economy note. I am being hosted by a friend who has put me up in her music studio where i can stay as long as I want and also be able to work on the score of another project I am in th process of finishing.

I’m headed to Cannes

I’ve decided Cannes needs to be rebranded as a place that celebrates the art of cinema rather then their current reputation as the heart of the international movie industry.

To be more accurate I think they are actually understand as simply “Everything related to movies and celebrities.”

But who has time for “everything”. In this cacophony I think focus has tremendous power. Not tunnel vision or anything narrow minded but also not all the noise all the time every day.

So I don’t have a singular reason for going to Cannes but instead have a few. One is that it’s an amazing place to spend time thinking about and experiencing the craft of cinema. No where else on earth is going to see a movie treated this much like going to church.

I’m also looking to talk to people about a new model that finances creators even between their crowd funded projects as well as increases the integrity of crowd funding campaigns and honors the human intervention still needed in curating cinema. I call it a model that could work. See long term that film festivals will be nothing but a celebration of the art and craft but in today’s world I’m still tying my reality together with shoelaces and this just simply has to stop. For me and everyone else in my boat. We need a model can work.

So I’ll be talking to different companies and individuals about this new vision of a modern cinema eco system to have a dialogue and refine the vision before typing up and publishing after Cannes.

I will also be looking for films to add to OpenIndie.com which recently got a couple new developers volunteering to further evolve the site.

More soon… thanks for subscribing…

Arin

A Moment

This video sums up the majority of my experiences on OKC.

I also made a movie & online series that shows the minority of my experience with online dating.

One day I’d actually like to create my own dating app that utilizes augmented reality, gaming, geo caching, life streaming, meetups, social currency, sexual history logs, disease testing logs, cam sex, world travel, sexual voyeurism, open romance and sex-life optimizing algorithms. The whole thing would also be a fund raiser to end sex slavery and human trafficking around the world.

CREDITS:

ACTRESS:  youtube.com/rysicle

MEDIA (search youtube for link)
Sigur Ru00f3s – Untitled.mp4
Carly Rae Jepsen – Call Me Maybe Karaoke.mp4
Virus 3D Animation.mp4
PH – Personal Helicopter.mp4
Planet X Crashing Into Earth.mp4
UPDATE_ Predicted Path of Asteroid 2012 DA14 on Feb. 15, 2013 | Space u0026 Astronomy Video.mp4
How a Neuron Fires.mp4
Tom Tom Club  –  Wordy Rappinghood.mp4
Millionaires HOOCH Dating Service, Bachelorette #604.mp4
AWOLNATION – Sail (Official).mp4

New Years Resolution: Total Transparency

For the past 3 years Christie Strong and I have lived, collaborated and traveled the world together but on January 1st, we decided together that the most powerful thing that each of us could do is separate.  We made this decision together over a somewhat epic walk around Chiang Mai Thailand in the morning light walking down streets littered with exploded fireworks.

I was feeling the beginning of a long road of solitude ahead and realized I really needed a new best friend.  So I turned to an old best friend.  The camera.  The new person I can do everything with.  We can converse endlessly about any topic.  We can each be a mirror showing the other their true self and be together no matter what happens.

I strapped the camera to my red tie, popped in a 32 gig card, plugged-in an all day battery pack and stepped out into the world.

iPad taken self portrait of my Tie Cam… since i”m in Thailand right now I sometimes call it my “Thai Cam”.

So far I’ve realized that a camera is actually not an effective substitute for Christie. However, the experiment has proved interesting anyway.

I have a dream to one day create an epic Sci-Fi film and in the story world the characters have archives of their entire lives that they are able to use in conversations with others as well as to review and even re-edit their history to tell the story they believe they are living.

In the first 9 days of filming I’ve already gotten several ideas for the Sci-Fi project and huge insights into who I am and what I typically do when left to my own devices.  I’m also finding a lot of draw backs to this process.  I have to be very careful at all times to not talk about people behind their backs and I wish I could say this was easy.  I also have to make sure to not do anything illegal or witness anyone doing anything illegal.  I also always have to disclose that I’m recording and will put the footage on the internet.  I also have to deal with incredibly compromised privacy for myself because in order for this experiment to work I’ve committed to recording when ever I’m talking to anyone or doing anything.  I’m not filming sleep, nudity, watching movies, reading or checking social media feeds or private messages but basically everything else is getting rolled on so there may be scrutiny from others who might scrub through the archives and I judge me in the future for something that happened in the past.  Part of the experiment is to allow others to join in the process following a tutorial I will post on how I’m doing this and also allowing people to take my videos and use them in in way they wish. Keepvid.com and other tools allow the easy downloading of any YouTube video and I’ve placed a creative commons license on all my footage so by default people have my permission to use what I’ve captured for what ever they like and yes I realize this is incredibly risky.

But all of that is easy.  The hard part is actually having to start to have integrity with myself.  When I say I’m going to do something the camera is rolling and therefor the moment carries more weight.  It’s no longer possible to just let all of my visions fall by the waist side and constantly betray myself.  I’m learning a lot about myself already and getting great insights for the Sci-Fi project as well.

So I’ve turned this project into a challenge and have been telling people I will upload raw footage every single day in 2013.  Since what I say is now what I have to do… here we are.  The playlist below will contain every single day in 2013.  I encourage people to not try watch a whole day but instead just pick a random spot in a random video and make a comment on what you saw.  It could be just info about what’s being talked about to help catalog or maybe you have something to say that you would have said if you had been there or maybe you have a question or some advice.  You can include the hour, minute and second you are referring to in your comment by typing in the counter number such as “1:30:22”.  YouTube will make the number in your comment actually be a click-able link to that when clicked will jump to that point in the video.  I’ll respond and it’ll be a fairly unique time shifted omni present 4th dimension experience.

If you find this experiment interesting your welcome to subscribe to my youtube channel.  My goal isn’t to get lots of people involved but just have a few good people participating from beginning to end.  I’m looking to simulate a world where everyone does this with out even questioning it and it just becomes baked into the culture and part of the natural experience of life.  This is a world I also believe we will likely live in one day so am very fascinated to explore what we should all be prepared for.

WHAT’S WORTHY OF YOUR PASSION?

Access to jobs, homes and resources are dwindling and our right to peacefully gather to discuss what to do about it is aggressively being fought by nationwide police coordination. It is a decisive moment on this planet. One option is to keep being occupied with our daily grind and individual struggles. Or we can take control of our collective destiny and design a future worth living. Worth waking up in the morning for. Worth defending. Worth birthing new life into. This movement is not centrally controlled which is what makes it yours. You create it. You bring your talents, your time and your resources. This is the platform for our big ideas. This is the place to find challenges worthy of your passion. Worthy of your life. What is our one demand? You. With strength in numbers there is no limit to what we can do. We need to continue to occupy Wall st. Occupy your street. Occupy this country. Occupy our world. Occupy our future. Occupy Now.