Alabama

More news clippin'

"U.S. high court OKs in-state tuition for illegals"...

Under-reported

India's wall against Bangladesh. And its shoot-to-kill policy against unarmed refugees.

From the BBC: "Mexico discovers 500 truck migrants"

To me, the mystery in this story is:

While most of those on board were thought to be from Guatemala, there were others from Ecuador and El Salvador as well as smaller numbers from as far afield as China, Nepal and India.

The trek that a Migrant from South or East Asia must have gone through to end up in Chiapas en route to the U.S. is simply unimaginable.

Second interview rough cut!

Here's another strand from Edgars narratives. We think this looks a lot better than our first attempt, with smoother integration of music and some still images worked in to put some "breathing" into Edgar's story. Hope you enjoy...we are learning tons in the process!

Music: unexpected = better?

I was playing with more of the footage of Edgar this weekend and trying to challenge myself to get the music sounding right, feeling right. I think it's going to be an interesting stretch for me creatively to try to write music for soundtracks...I'm used to writing music by itself, to stand alone. This presents new cool questions. But my first attempt totally sucked.

My second attempt was a bit luckier, but only because it was lucky...Then I played it for Andrea and she made an interesting point: Lots of times when you see movies/documentaries about Latinos, all the music is some Mariachi south-of-the-border stuff, or Salsa, or mistakenly Flamenco. (European music? Cough, cough.) So to have music that's utterly different from those styles (and mine's utterly different) is unexpected and can catch viewers' attention.

I was happy to hear this, as I'd been wondering, "Should I be hunting up some public domain Mariachi music?"

The music I know how to make on a computer—which, so far, is the only tool we can use to get notes onto film—is heavily influenced by J Dilla. Deep jazz hip-hop/techno? Is my shit going to fit? If so...Cool.

Wall movies...part 1?

Starting to look for up-to-date footage of the US/Mexico wall. So far I'm finding stuff from a few years back, though maybe it's still fully relevant. Cheers to Al Jazeera; here's a sample of the stuff I'm digging around in:

California Dream Network

More Dream Act advocacy going on state-wide...

First interview rough cut!

Thanks to Edgar for coming and spending some time with us yesterday...Here's the first slice of material we pulled out. Note that there's still plenty of work to do and some technical issues yet to overcome. Nevertheless, we're happy to have taken such a concrete first step, and plus...Edgar rocks!

We would welcome any comments, questions, observations, or input folks might have about where we can take this material! Please leave comments below.

Some music we can use...

Anything on this site is fair game (although none of it may end up being appropriate). I still have all the files for these tunes too, so if we want to remix or slice up bits and change 'em around, no problem. Think of it as raw material.

Legal precedents to look at...

Is Plyler v. Doe the one you were talking about, Andrea?

And, a summary of the DREAM Act and a brief history of it's previous paths through house and senate.

Meanwhile, in Arizona

I'm just surfin', droppin' links where I find 'em...What I like about this page is that you get videos from both sides of the debate...

Open-source filmmaking

RIP: A Remix Manifesto

Excellent documentary. Also with parallels between "culture walls" and "national walls" perhaps? A good question...

One to watch?

Related: "2 girls undermine entire US border strategy in under 18 seconds"

Borders matter...and also do not matter

Dreaming in the U.S.A.

From Mother Jones, "Dreaming in the U.S.A.":

By most logical and statistical measures, Mission High School senior Jakob Lee* shouldn't be a success story. Jakob is an undocumented student who lives with the daily threat of deportation. He is not allowed to legally work or drive in this country. His parents rejected him after he came out as gay. When he first landed at Mission High school in 2007, he didn't speak any English or know anyone at the school. So how did this kid wind up with acceptance letters from 13 colleges and gold medals from several citywide wrestling tournaments? (full article)

Dear undocumented students: What questions need asking?

Dear undocumented students in California or anywhere else,

If you had the chance to interview yourself about what life as an undocumented student is like—what are the most important questions you'd ask?

Please leave your questions in the comments, and thanks for your time and ideas. All for the cause!

—Andrea and Charlie, who want to spread the word about what's really up.