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Making the Grade

An emotional look at how millions of children are struggling to find their way in the stratified, unyielding educational class system of today’s American classroom.

…but if they pass, the story is…

Riding the Curve

A unblinking examination of how America’s most gifted students are being made to ‘dumb down’ their performance so they fit better into the ‘standardized testing’ model of America’s educators.

If you have an accident on the way to work, its…

Under the Influence

The tell-all story of how your life is in danger, everyday, thanks to outdated traffic laws and the degradation of our highways and street system.

Or if your yelled at by your boss, its…

Amazing Grace

The story of how the loss of civility and respect is negatively impacting the American workplace – and how we are will all ultimately suffer as we fall behind other nations in the workplace civility race.

I love to look at the world through this filter – mainly because 1) it makes everything seem important, 2) there is a conspiracy behind everything that happens, and 3) none of it is my fault.

Try the documentary filter for yourself. It can’t hurt…

I love to look at the world through this filter.

It is the easiest thing in the world for me to go to Twitter and, within 140 characters, announce that I have just been abducted  by aliens and that they come in peace to save our world, (only if I’m installed as Supreme Being, by the way).  But since I posted this declaration in a social media space I don’t have to explain the alien’s plans; share how they got here or where they are from; show why I’m the only one who can see them – I don’t have to be responsible for anything pertaining to what I’ve said.  That’s the down-side of one way communication.  Now, I really don’t think many people would take my claim very seriously, (since I’m prone to delusions of grandeur, or so says my Psychologist), but if I was a Congressman, Senator, radio talk show host, religious leader, or TV pundit – you know, people we all used to respect and whose opinions we valued – and I used social media to talk about fear instead of solutions or ideologies instead of ideas, I could probably influence a lot of people in our nation to become afraid, angry, unfocused, and hopeless – without being responsible for explaining myself or looking at how these type of statements do more harm than good.

I guess my point is, when it comes to social media, go ahead and embrace it, use it, love it – just don’t believe everything you read. Not everyone is as reasonable, balanced and well intentioned as you or I.  And don’t forget – look to the sky, the time is nigh upon us, which is why I’m having my crown fitted tomorrow.  Why wait ‘til the last minute?

Wrong.  Upon doing about five minutes of research I found the official statement made by the transplant surgeon at the hospital where Jobs received his new liver.  Then I popped over to the UNOS website to read up on the rules and regulations surrounding one’s inclusion on a hospitals transplant list.

Just the facts: Jobs was the sickest man on the transplant list.  That means he’s the first to get a liver when one becomes available.  Second, a person can be registered at as many transplant centers one wants, as long as one has the means to get to the center promptly when an organ becomes available.  Jobs does – his private plane is always gassed up and ready to go.  (No, life isn’t fair.  We don’t all have that luxury.  But he does.  If you could, wouldn’t you use it to save your own life?)

The voices that can state the facts with authority exist; articles were published on their websites (click the links within the text).  But that’s not enough.  These authentic voices need to be relayed across the Internet, on multiple forums, but with one unified message – the truth.  With information being spread at the speed of light from all corners of the globe, it’s important that the authentic voices are the ones heard the loudest, not lost in the shuffle.  Without this presence, we’ll continue to have twitter users like “redhotdot” saying, “@addthisTHIS IS WHY I AM NOT AN ORGAN DONOR! CHANGES NEED TO BE MADE STAT ON ORGAN DONATIONS!”  Oh, redhotdot, how you completely miss the point of SAVING SOMEONE’S LIFE!!

To think that because of the false, negative and hateful tweets and blog posts, even one potential donor changed his or her mind, well…that’s multiple lives that could have otherwise been saved, now left in hospital beds.  Dying.

Cynically, we attribute the move to cost cutting, but let’s remember that MTV basically invented a generation (mine) and has since been smartly attentive to the zeitgeist. This is the network that gave us “The Real World” 10 years before reality TV hit the mainstream, that gave us “Unplugged” and “Yo! MTV Raps” long before Grunge and Hip-Hop became dominant musical and cultural influences, and that, sure, gave us “Laguna Beach” and “My Super Sweet 16″ at least a little before the moment of materialism swept through youth culture.  So, when MTV Head of Programming Tony DiSanto claims that this was purely a creative decision, a response to a downtick in ratings, I’m inclined to listen. What’s interesting to me, and pertinent to what we do, is the rational behind the change.  DiSanto claims

“the slippage can be attributed to the generational shift of MTV viewers, with the channel’s brass focusing on the new teens and twentysomethings, “the millennials.”

DiSanto called them “the transparent generation” and said MTV’s development is being altered to appeal to them. “They don’t want to see a reality show that feels produced or is film-like,” he said. “It’s got to be real, authentic.”

He points to the recently premiered “16 and Pregnant” as an example of the type of unscripted fare that MTV is now after and touts it as one series that could fuel a turnaround.

We’ve long held Authenticity and Transparency as key tenets of Social Media strategy. It’s interesting that those ideals are beginning to now effect the strategies of broadcast media when targeting a generation that’s been growing up in Facebook – a generation that has, through just the sheer quantity of information it has easy access to, become somewhat resistant to manipulation.  Fifteen years ago, when the internet was first influencing my generation, there was alot of conversation about our “Digital Lives,” about what happens, what we choose to become when afforded the anonymity of online communication. A generation later, that idea has become basically irrelevant. When we engage with electronic media, with social media, and, yes, apparently with mass media we expect that what we see is what we get.

Just pick a story – Clinton and Monica, Father Cutie (what a fitting name) rolling in the sand with a long-time girlfriend, John Edwards and whoever his alleged paramour is – even Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy and the teen ‘models’ he pays to attend parties.   What do they all have in common?  They live in the unblinking fishbowl of media attention.  They know they’re being watched all the time.  They know that the 24 hour cable news cycle is always hungry, and must be fed. But they still believe themselves to somehow be ‘invisible’ to the feeding frenzy of media scrutiny.  It’s like they think that they have a get out of jail free card, (sometimes literally, reference Larry Craig and his ‘wide stance’).  But, as recent events show, that’s not the case.

Goldfish can be excused for sometimes doing stupid stuff – accidentally flopping out of the bowl, eating their own waste – because they don’t know they’re being watched, but people who have sought a life in the glare of public media – be it politics, celebrity or even religion – cannot be so easily forgiven.

I really hope that Gov. Sanford proves to be telling the truth and he can explain away his weekend trip to Argentina  (the closet I’ve even been to Argentina on a weekend is a Gaucho Burger and a Corona – Mexico being at least in the same hemisphere).  But he should keep in mind that he’s always under the ‘bright lights’ –and that integrity is best defined as “doing the right thing even when nobody is watching.”

But the people who believe this are missing a key part of the equation:  the ability to tell a story.  How many people do you know who can tell a story, can captivate you with small details and engage you in a narrative structure that physically mesmerizes you?

Watch this.

Wait For Me (3 Minute Documentary) from Red Light Films on Vimeo.

It’s one camera, a short interview, and some b-roll from a previous shoot.  (This is the guy who made ‘Born into Brothels.’) But it grabs you and makes you want to know “what happens next.”

And from where I stand, “what happens next” trumps “automatic focus and backlight reduction” any day of the week.