COMPONENTGEEK | Archive

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With Facebook as being as ubiquitous as Google I wanted to create a COMPONENTGEEK LIKE section on the site that would highlight other filmmakers who are doing inspiring work that brings voice to our communities.

I was recently struck by the work of a young filmmaker in Wisconsin by the name of Matt Wisniewski who spend a few days capturing the Wisconsin Budget Protest. With just his Canon 5D in hand and from the look of it no fancy stabilizer, Matt did a beautiful job putting together images from the protest that were quite moving. It inspires the best spirit of our struggle and humanity as Americans. The strength of his work is that he kept it simple letting the power of his images tell the story. His choice of using the song by Arcade Fire – Rebellion (Lies) was perfectly suited giving us both a sense of power of possibility and the underlying fire storm brewing underneath with the driving rhythmic anthem of the song.

This piece is also an example of how you can overcome DSLR shooting challenges and still capture beautiful images and weave them to make a simple and powerful message. We can talk until the cows come home about all the toys and accessories for your DSLR camera to make your shot just perfect or even the aliasing artifacts, moire, and hand held jittery footage that plagues all DSLR cameras but at the end of the day it's what you do with it that counts. When edited well and in the correct context the power of the message and images overcome all and this is a great example of overcoming those odds.

Kudos to Matt Wisniewski for putting together a piece to inspire Wisconsin solidarity. I hope you can feel inspired to pass this film along.

As we enter the beginning of this New Year, I wanted to do something a little different with COMPONENTGEEK a sort of community experiment. COMPONENTGEEK is unique in the blogosphere because it is this mix of film gear/tech tips and reviews and its intersection with our personal lives and local community. This year I wanted to deepen the work we do by providing a fresh new look with better access to site content as well as expand the perspective by finding contributors from different parts of the country that can share their own work and tech discoveries in DSLR filmmaking and their personal process and ways that they connect to their own communities.

This year I hope to highlight work that is going on right now that does what I like to call that COMPONENTGEEK thing. Or simply work that inspires and shows the power of using technology to connect and build community. To start us off right this year is an inspiring music video collaboration spearheaded by Los Angeles based music artist Dawen.

My sister Jenny San Angel who is a super talented musician (I'm biased being her brother of course!) has collaborated a few times with Dawen at Tuesday Night Project and I've admired his work from afar for his amazing soulful baritone voice with sweet falsetto range and his ability to create tunes that hark back to old school soul R&B with the complexity and fine counterpoint of jazz. His lyrics are thoughtful at times humours and always inspiring bringing his personal journey that honors and pushes forward the experience of being Asian in America.

I was flat out knocked out by the simplicity and power of this music video collaboration of Macy Gray's "Beauty in the World" involving 16 artists from Los Angeles to New York that was created just over a six month period. What makes Dawen an inspiration is his gift of collaboration always connecting with artists and using music to uplift and inspire.The MV begins at the Goldstar Rehabilitation Center in Santa Monica, CA where a group of artists have spent the day giving back and bringing music and a smile to the seniors at the center. We are slowly introduced to artists from all over the country as they add their own part to the song via flipcams and ending with a special surprise. What I love about this piece is that using inexpensive flipcams, a Canon 5D, and some simple professional recording gear they were able to use technology to create art that transcends borders.

Congratulations to Dawen and his creative team of collaborators for truly bringing beauty in the world. I know you made Macy Gray proud!

I hope that folks can be inspired by this piece and find more possibilities to use technology to create inspiring art.

Beauty in the World — Macy Gray

Inspired by Macy's song, a bunch of us joined together for a day of community service and music!

Produced by George Wang
Edited by Dawen

Featuring:
Dawen
Connie Lim
Mista Cookie Jar
Ava Flava
Michelle Martinez
Tommy C
Jane Lui
Sam Geunjin Kang
DanakaDan (afterschoolspecial)
Chris Pham (Seriously)
Nathan Park (Seriously)
Megan Lee
Alfa
Clara C
Paul Dateh

and Macy Gray!

Crew:
Avery Ota
Don Le
Henry Chan
Juan Vazquez
Kane Diep
Nate Fu
Paolo Ongkeko

Special Thanks:

The Goldstar Rehabilitation & Nursing Center
CJ Pizarro
FUSION3FILMS
Daniel Cho, Chris Shon, & ECHOforward
Grace Su
Mark Arbitrario
George Shaw
Ryan Suda
Macy Gray

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Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill Protest