ideas

Woke up at 6am for some reason. That means the blood in the brain isn't sleeping. Started workin on the puter. emailing ideablob links and coding. Day passed. kept forgetting to eat, lost in pixel dust. Checked twitter, and saw a tweet from Mickipedia about DIY Days. I'd completely forgot! Grabbed some Ideablob flier strips, hopped on bike, and peddled to the cornfield gallery. Wandered into a large garage space full of steamy air and filmmakers dripping with ideas. This free event was put together by a bunch of really smart filmmakers who have explored the new nooks and crannies of self distribution, self- funding, and just getting things done. every story was unique, organic to their films personaliy, and their own. i missed most of the day, workin away in my cave. but really enjoyed what i saw. one of the organizers, Lance Weiller really was amazing. i had not heard of or seen his films, but his ideas (and execution of) for getting his work out there was absolutely brilliant. Head Trauma. I need to watch and explore it when i get time. Watch for video of his talk on DIY Days.

As I donated another small amount today, I had an interesting thought. What is the right amount to donate? I recently donated to the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research. Personally, I believe it is a better group to donate to; however, I fully support the 1 Second Film and other art projects. I also plan on donating more to the 1SF before the project is complete.

So, my question to anyone who may read this is how do YOU decide how much to donate and who to give it to? There are many "worthy" charities working to find cures for countless diseases. There are other causes, such as this, that I also feel are worthy. There are websites I frequent that run exclusively on donations. Unfortunately, I cannot give everything I have to each of them. What do you do? How do you do it? Most importantly, why do you do it?

For anyone in the LA area, come to the LA-IP (formerly TED>LA) this Sunday. The Los Angeles Idea Project is a single-day event designed to catalyze Angelenos' imaginations toward action. www.la-ip.com

I presented at this event last year, which was really cool. This year's event looks to be even better, with 17 world class speakers and doers presenting topics such as human trafficking, sustainable land use, and the sacred geography of Los Angeles.

Many of the speakers have presented at TED, like Joshua Klein who taught Crows to use a vending machine.

This is pretty awesome, one of our producers (Barry Watson from South Carolina) went around Charleston with a video camera and asked people to share a perfect moment to make into a one second film.

I think they are all really cool, but my absolute favorite moment is the begining of video number 3.

Moment 1 of 7:

Life is all about having he best time with your friends and family.

I work at a place that happens to sell cameras among other things. A wise man came in a shared a wealth of knowledge with me on day about a week ago. He told me that I should take all my film to be developed at a place called Colorworks. So I had no idea where to start out looking for this place. He said it was in Wilmington, Delaware, and it's near Market St. I google searched for it and didn't find anything. I wanted to know where it was before I went on vacation, but I couldn't find out. I went on vacation to New Orleans, visited the French Quarter, walked around, went to a few parties. I did not go to the NBA All Start game, but I did watch it on a really big TV.