Visible People's feature film, released 6 April 2011.
Finale!
Today we presented our final film to the class!
For some of us today was the last day of class before graduation. Although we acknowledge that the issue is ongoing even though our class is finished, today we shared a sense of accomplishment for synthesizing our learning and producing a tangible work as a media team. It was great to get some comments from our classmates during the discussion after the screening. Thank you to professor Baines for being supportive of our creativity to flow throughout the project.
We will upload our film on our blog very soon, so please look forward to it. We'd like to hear what you think, so type away your responses on our blog!
Life isn't too short to be critical. Question from every angle. Share it with people around you. Something can happen from collaboration - just take a look at our project.
We did it media team!
Do you whip YOUR hair?
I can't quite decide if this Invisible Children video from their Schools for Schools campaign says A LOT or nothing at all. See 1 minute 41 seconds for full insight :D
For a bit more info about hair whipping, check out this Invisible Children blog post by Jedidiah http://blog.invisiblechildren.com/2010/12/and-now%E2%80%A6-the-ic-%E2%80%9Cwhip-my-hair%E2%80%9D-music-video/
... haha I couldn't help it...
Thoughts on dancing and singing about pit latrines...
Here's a part from A's letter about Invisible Children video-making that I wanted to highlight. 
When it comes to movie and television, what's the trouble with distinguishing between "real people" and "real lives"? Is making this distinction a necessity? And where does one draw the line?
I think the danger of filming a musical production about pit latrines, HIV, and malaria in an IDP camp is that doing so displaces issues like poverty and disease from the realm of serious humanitarian concern, emphasizing humour and entertainment in its place.
But this begs the question, is there no place for humour and entertainment in humanitarianism?
As Invisible Children is evidence of, entertainment and humanitarianism together can't be all that bad.
I think most of the impact and consequences, positive and negative, come back to audience members and virtual activists themselves. Each of them ends up taking away from what they see and hear a collection of personally filtered knowledge, understanding, and goals. Dancing and singing about pit latrines, HIV, and malaria in an IDP camp may draw some viewers closer to the reality of a humanitarian crisis, making them feel entertained, interested, and ultimately inspired to do something to help change this situation. This humour, however, also runs the risk of misinforming viewers by de-contextualizing the problems.
Torgovnik argues that "generic representations [of Africa] make the suffering seem inevitable and natural, and moreover, even as they might imply some common humanity linking us all, they also establish a distinction between 'us' and 'them'."
Could the same be said of entertaining representations of "Africa," despite a focus on serious subject matter? Does a musical production about pit latrines, HIV, and malaria make the suffering of internally displaced peoples "seem inevitable and natural"?
I'm drawn back to one of my questions from earlier: where does one draw the line of appropriateness? the line between reality and fiction?
Where and when does the reality of an IDP camp stop being real?
Rough Cut
Tomorrow the five of us will be making our final Visible People presentation in-class, and concluding what has been a remarkable journey into the depths of Invisible Children's media.
As part of Visible People's "feature" film (***to be released tomorrow***), I've been working on putting together Take 3 of my Invisible Children movie-making analysis. In advance of this conclusion, please take a look at Invisible Children's first movie, "Invisible Children: Rough Cut," posted via Google Video by Laren, Bobby and Jason, Invisible Children's co-founders and this movie's creators.
The story that started it all, this movie has been the focal point of my analysis throughout our living project.
In all honesty, I've struggled with putting together this analysis as I began our project convinced that Invisible Children's movies had to be biased, and had to perpetuate the saviour mentality evident in other aspects of this organization's media.
What I came to grasp over the course of this analysis is that Invisible Children's movie-making does, in fact, place significant emphasis on the faces and voices of the people of northern Uganda. In letting the children and practitioners from the country speak for themselves, Invisible Children's movie-making makes visible important parts of these people's experiences, knowledge, and wishes.
"Invisible Children: Rough Cut" is a prime example of this visibility. The film begins with Laren, Bobby and Jason's story but quickly shifts to an exploration of the conflict, Joseph Kony, and the people of northern Uganda, told through first-hand accounts or by researchers or officials who are part of the northern Ugandan community. What's shown are representations of hope, not only suffering.
Limited to fifty minutes, Invisible Children simple CANNOT tell the whole story, whether that story is that of the decades-long conflict, Joseph Kony, the thousands of night-commuting children, the Global Night Commutes in America, or a single boy named Tony.
A movie is a select form of media - an art form - who's utility is bounded by its makers, technology, and the experiences, knowledge, and wishes that viewers themselves bring to the theater.
As a viewer yourself, who's voice do you hear?
What emotions do you feel?
And what does a movie like "Invisible Children: Rough Cut" make you want to do after shutting off the screen?
Digital Divide
Can the internet be a tool to connect Northern Ugandans with American high school students?
Digital divide is a term that is used to refer to the gap between those who have access to the information technology and those who do not. In the context of our project, I use the term to compare the internet usage in Uganda and the United States.
Please take a look at the following charts. The first one shows the distribution of the internet usage in Uganda and the second one shows the one for the United States. Since the Invisible Children’s headquarters is located in San Diego, I included the statistics for California as well.
Digital divide is a term that is used to refer to the gap between those who have access to the information technology and those who do not. In the context of our project, I use the term to compare the internet usage in Uganda and the United States.
Please take a look at the following charts. The first one shows the distribution of the internet usage in Uganda and the second one shows the one for the United States. Since the Invisible Children’s headquarters is located in San Diego, I included the statistics for California as well.
Response from Julie Okot Bitek
One of my friends used to live in Uganda and one day when we were having a lunch together she talked about a poet whom she met at the African Symposium on March 25th at UBC.
Thank you to my friend, our media team was able to connect with Julie, who is an award-winning writer who was raised in Uganda, graduated from UBC with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art and currently lives in Vancouver. It turns out that she has worked with professor Baines and they are friends on Facebook as well! Sometimes the network of people surprises me.
As in the following email, Julie got to know about our project through professor Baine’s Facebook post. The impact of the social media is evident. It is intriguing how SNS are working as the hub of information exchange for the professionals.
Thank you to my friend, our media team was able to connect with Julie, who is an award-winning writer who was raised in Uganda, graduated from UBC with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art and currently lives in Vancouver. It turns out that she has worked with professor Baines and they are friends on Facebook as well! Sometimes the network of people surprises me.
As in the following email, Julie got to know about our project through professor Baine’s Facebook post. The impact of the social media is evident. It is intriguing how SNS are working as the hub of information exchange for the professionals.
This picture is not worth a thousand words.
This is my shirt. It really doesn't mean much.
An outline of the continent of Africa doesn't say much does it? It doesn't tell you the culture of the each of the individual tribes, peoples, and nations that live on this continent, many of whom are separated by arbitrary borders because of the colonial legacy. It doesn't tell you about their religious differences, religious similarities, cultural practices, languages, experiences, politics, everyday life...
So why do we continually refer to the continent of Africa as if it were made up of one kind of people?
IC, an insider's perspective
Apparently our voice was heard by humanitarians! We are getting great feedback from people who work on the ground : comments that confirm our skepticism.
Thanks to everyone who follows us and take the time to enlighten us with their comments.
Here is an e-mail we received recently, you can click on the image to enlarge :
Thanks to everyone who follows us and take the time to enlighten us with their comments.
Here is an e-mail we received recently, you can click on the image to enlarge :
Feeling a little dejected...
As this is an academic exercise, I was very hesitant to bring personal feelings into this project. We were assigned a job to do: investigate Invisible Children and critique it using the ideas and theories we've learned in this course. Again, it isn't to question IC staff's personal integrity or character, it is to find out if their work is achieving their goal of helping Ugandans.
Culling the web for people's thoughts on IC, I'm struck by the amount of emotional 'feel-good' responses: "You've changed my life!" "I'm so excited to wear my T-shirt from IC." "I love you guys!!!!" from IC's Facebook page and Twitter feed.
But what disappointed me was the amount of intelligent criticism that is seemingly going unheard by IC and because of the way their flashy, entertaining, "take-it-in-but-don't-question-it" media is structured, by IC's audience as well.
Culling the web for people's thoughts on IC, I'm struck by the amount of emotional 'feel-good' responses: "You've changed my life!" "I'm so excited to wear my T-shirt from IC." "I love you guys!!!!" from IC's Facebook page and Twitter feed.
But what disappointed me was the amount of intelligent criticism that is seemingly going unheard by IC and because of the way their flashy, entertaining, "take-it-in-but-don't-question-it" media is structured, by IC's audience as well.
We decided to get a little more philosophical with this t-shirt. The slogan on my t-shirt reads "You can't speak out without understanding." This makes a subtle reference to Plato's Republic and the concept of fully reaching understanding before educating the rest of the population who is unable to fully understand but can still gain knowledge passed from those who understand.
This is not Africa it's a t-shirt
As Asuka and Caitlin explained earlier we met last friday to design t-shirts. We view these t-shirts as just another medium to publicize our critical voices. This is again part of our strategy to mimic IC. Meredith's pillar, People Media explores how IC's supporters are the face of the movement, how they are a vehicle for the IC's brand and IC's message by taking part in their campaigns and by wearing their t-shirts and bracelets.
My t-shirt features the slogan : This is not Africa, it's a t-shirt.
WWJD?
As Asuka posted just awhile ago, yesterday the five of us designed and decorated our Visible People t-shirts. We wanted to make a statement: the message you see on a t-shirt really isn't the whole picture.
The message on my t-shirt: WWJD. What would Joseph Kony do?
WWJD is a common saying with one original meaning: "What would Jesus do?"
IC's voice uncensored
Friday night, end of term (or rather early saturday morning).
I finally overcame my 1001 technical issues, and my computer seems to have responded to my verbal threats of getting rid of it as soon as the semester is done.
Given that it is pretty late, I will make it short and sweet.
I finally overcame my 1001 technical issues, and my computer seems to have responded to my verbal threats of getting rid of it as soon as the semester is done.
Given that it is pretty late, I will make it short and sweet.
visible people's T-shirts are ready
Today we got together at Meredith’s chapter room and made our own T-shirts. One by one, each white T-shirt was gracefully spray painted in gold by Myriam and we put our heads together to think of messages to write on our T-shirts. What kind of words would challenge the commodification of personal stories for the sake of advocacy? Each member in our group will be blogging about each T-shirt so please keep visiting our blog!
The message on my T-shirt is: “Am I a-wear-ivist?”
Creating culture
The more I go through IC's website content, the more I feel that it has nothing to do with Ugandans. Well, I should qualify that statement. Yes, it has information on their work (somewhat), although they are "following" Kony into Congo, they are helping rebuild schools, they are setting up radio towers.
But the problem is, they also have a music blog, links to their videos, photos, clothing... if I didn't know better, you'd think this is a hipster clothing company or something. It's just plain distracting!
But the problem is, they also have a music blog, links to their videos, photos, clothing... if I didn't know better, you'd think this is a hipster clothing company or something. It's just plain distracting!
What's the difference between seeing, and understanding?
Sitting on the bus, riding to UBC, thinking about Invisible Children and Visible People. It dawned on me that there's a significant difference between seeing something, and understanding something.
In the case of Invisible Children's movies, I argue that the people of northern Uganda are made more visible. This can be a good thing as the youth of America open theirs eyes to a different country, a thriving community, and a deadly conflict.
But just because Invisible Children's movies make the people of northern Uganda more visible, this doesn't mean that their movies tell the full story of this conflict, and that audiences, after viewing their movies, leave with an in-depth understanding of northern Uganda's collective and individual histories.
On the other hand, is it too much to ask of an NGO and humanitarian organization like Invisible Children to get the youth of America to really know and understand using movies (or the other four pillars of media) alone? I wonder.
"No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding." - Plato
Resources, what resources?
The following is a list of resources found on the Invisible Children Uganda (ICU) site:
