American Petroleum Institute Thanks Sen. Begich for Keystone Vote

I got this postcard in the mail the other day.

Was I supposed to be happy about this?  I understand having a Democratic Senator in a state where red voters tend to turn out better than blue voters means we have a hybrid Senator who thinks (and probably is right) that he has to support big oil to get reelected.

But who sent it?  The other side gave that info on the bottom.

 

The American Petroleum Institute uses pictures of  pristine snowy mountains on both sides of the postcard.  No pipeline pictures.  No Kulluk oil rigs.  No oil company profit statements.  Just the beautiful Alaskan landscapes.  (Or something that looks like an Alaskan landscape.)  You'd think though they could have found a second Begich picture.   

I'd love to have been an invisible observer at the meeting where they decided to send this out.  What were there motives?  To piss off Begich's Democratic supporters?  To let Mark know this is what he gets when he votes right, but if he votes wrong . . .  

What's the message to his Republican opponents?  

On the simplest level, it's just asking Alaskans to call an thank Mark for his vote.  

Of course, the large coporations give money to everyone who might get elected.  They've got plenty and want that door to open when they come knocking. 

The American Petroleum Institute gave more money to the Democratic Governor's Association, according to Open Secrets, than to anyone else.  Given current disclosure laws post Citizens United, I'm not sure how much money is given, but not identified.  They list political contributions which I'm guessing are for 2012:

"CONTRIBUTIONS: $931,706

Contributions to candidates: $235,970
Contributions to Leadership PACs: $9,500
Contributions to parties: $128,226
Contributions to 527 committees: $558,010
Contributions to outside spending groups: $0"

But you'll notice they gave almost four times as much to 527 committees (that can fund campaigns without disclosing donors, if I understand it right)  than they gave to parties.


And the contributions pale compared to the $6 +  million they spend annually on lobbyists.

AIFF 2013: Super Shorts In Competition - "Doesn't the apple get to tell its side of the story?"

These are Super Shorts.  Under 10 minutes.  Just go see them.  If you don't like one, it will be over in a few minutes and you can start the next one.  The real trick is finding when and where they are playing.  I'll give you a little info that's somehow relevant to the picture and where to find them.  They aren't in their own program, but are mixed with longer shorts.


Group 1:  Reel/Real Life Shorts 
Sunday, Dec 8 at 3 pm  Alaska Exp Large
Saturday, Dec. 14 at 11:30 am Alaska Exp Small
(In addition to the two Super Shorts below, this program includes two Shorts that are in competition as well - Reel Life and Fucking Tøs (Damn Girl).  So there are two Danish films in this program.)

Anatomy of Injury 
Danielle Lessovitz
USA
5m    ✓   

From her website:

Danielle Lessovitz is a filmmaker from Kansas City, Kansas currently working in New York City. She is a graduate of Northwestern University where she studied documentary film and sound design for installations. She is currently an MFA candidate within NYU's Graduate Film Program. Her work has been screened at film festivals including Torino International Film Festival, Philadelphia International Film Festival, Rooftop Films Summer Series, and San Francisco Short Film Festival. In 2013 she received a New Filmmaker award from the Philadelphia Jewish Film Society and Best Heartland short at The Kansas City Film Festival for her film, The Earthquake. She is the recipient of a Ben Lazaroff award for screenwriting and received a Ben Wasserman Scholarship for her studies at NYU. Her video installations have been included in a number of public art exhibitions around the country. She is fluent in Italian and looks forward to feature filmmaking.

Sunday, Dec 8 at 3 pm  Alaska Exp Large
Saturday, Dec. 14 at 11:30 am Alaska Exp Small
*********************************************


Life* *

Lasse Lorenzen    

Denmark
2m    ✓   

Image and Director Statement from the MKE Shortfest Blog:

Director Statement
Even in the bleakest and darkest of times life will find a way to add color and cheer.

LIFE is in short, a short film about the meaning of life.

The story had been flying around in my mind for quite a while. I always had the urge to show how I experience life in its essence. I remember being a kid and seeing all these extremely serious adult humanbeings who never seemed to have any FUN - and vowing to never end up like that. Now, being an adult myself I do feel that life is very serious and at its core not very fun at all. But the kid in me still pops up and tries to force me to puncture that bubble of adulthood. And often at the most inopportune moments in life. . .

Sunday, Dec 8 at 3 pm  Alaska Exp Large
Saturday, Dec. 14 at 11:30 am Alaska Exp Small
**Life also plays in Global Village Shorts:
Saturday, December 7  2:30 pm Alaska Experience Large
Saturday, December 14 1:30 pm Alaska Experience Small

*****************************************************

Group 2:  Global Village Shorts

Saturday, December 7  2:30 pm Alaska Experience Large
Saturday, December 14 1:30 pm Alaska Experience Small

This program also includes one longer short in competition - Jonah. 
 
Separation Sonnet 
Andressa Furletti
USA
8m    ✓

Image from Andressa Furletti's website - Click to enalrge

Saturday, December 7  2:30 pm Alaska Experience Large
Saturday, December 14 1:30 pm Alaska Experience Small
*****************************************************



Life* *

Lasse Lorenzen    
Denmark
2m    ✓ 

Saturday, December 7  2:30 pm Alaska Experience Large
Saturday, December 14 1:30 pm Alaska Experience Small

Also playing in Reel/Real Life Program - see above for more info.
Sunday, Dec 8 at 3 pm  Alaska Exp Large
Saturday, Dec. 14 at 11:30 am Alaska Exp Small *****************************************************



Group 3:  Family Film Festival, 
Saturday, Dec. 14 at Loussac Wilda Marston Auditorium
(There's a program that starts at 11am and it repeats at 1pm.  This is a free program.)

Tooth Fairy image from Eugene Film Festival site

The Toothfairy
Rachel Sonnenberg
USA
4m    ✓   


Sunday, Dec 8 at 3 pm  Alaska Exp Large
Saturday, Dec. 14 at 11:30 am Alaska Exp Small
*****************************************************



Paradigm
Stephen Boyer
USA
5m    ✓   


This one I found online.  Things have evolved since I started blogging these festivals.  In the beginning, if a film were online, it was disqualified, but things have loosened up.  I once was conflicted about putting a whole film up here, but I've gotten over that.  I shouldn't baby my readers.  If it's out there, they should decide if they want to see it here or at the festival or both.   I understand the word Paradigm, but didn't catch why it's the title of this film. 



Sunday, Dec 8 at 3 pm  Alaska Exp Large
Saturday, Dec. 14 at 11:30 am Alaska Exp Small
*****************************************************

Poison Apple
Dane Neves
USA
9m    ✓   

"Doesn't the apple get to tell its side of the story?"  Dane Neves

Here's a video I found about the making of Poison Apple.  It's longer than the film.


Sunday, Dec 8 at 3 pm  Alaska Exp Large
Saturday, Dec. 14 at 11:30 am Alaska Exp Small

 *****************************************************

"I can't believe this guy didn't understand the expectations" - Anchorage Police Chief

Last Wednesday's Anchorage Daily News had an article about a police officer who used the APD's computer system to look up information about people for non-work related reasons.

Reporter Casey Grove writes,

Police Chief Mark Mew said Tuesday that he had warned the recruits on the academy's first day about inappropriate behavior while on duty.
"I can't believe this guy didn't understand the expectations," Mew said.

I've seen Chief Mew in action over the years and I think he's grown a lot and is dedicated  to making Anchorage as safe a place as possible.

But as a teacher, I'd point out that people often don't hear what they are told, especially on the first day.  I know that my students, on the first day, basically wanted to know how much work they would have to do, how many papers, how much reading, so they could figure out if they could do ok in class.

Even if they did hear anything else, there was no guarantee that what they understood was what I had intended.  And if the class wasn't interactive, where the students were forced to think and respond, the odds of them getting other stuff, especially information that was not part of what they already knew, was low.  Even when I told students exactly what they needed to do to prepare for the next week's class, they didn't believe me.  Until they had a quiz the next week and they realized that if they had done what I said, they would have passed the quiz.

So warning recruits on the academy's first day about inappropriate behavior isn't going to impact performance unless they actually listen and understand the details. And while some may get it, the others won't unless they are engaged in the discussion and given opportunities to role play, respond to case studies,  or otherwise actively participate in ways that force them to put their understanding into action. Which allows the instructor and the student to see if the student understood.  Just because you say it, doesn't mean they learned it. 

I imagine though, that the recruits got the information more than that one time from the Chief on the first day.  But understanding how humans learn new ideas (not easily) and new behaviors (by practicing them rather than hearing about them)  will make changing recruits' understanding and behavior more likely.

And there are some whom the academy simply won't reach.  And the academy has to have ways to detect who those people are and help them find more appropriate employment.

AIFF2013: On The Air - Tuesday Dec. 3 10 am and Wednesday Dec 4 at 2pm

TUESDAY


Steve Heimel's Talk of Alaska show will host:

• Tony Shepard, founder, Anchorage International Film Festival
• Jim Parker, volunteer program organizer
• Callers Statewide

on KSKA 90.1 FM in Anchorage and APRN stations statewide on Wednesday, Dec. 3 at 10 am.    Here's how you can participate:

• Post your comment before, during or after the live broadcast (comments may be read on air).
• Send e-mail to talk [at] alaskapublic [dot] org (comments may be read on air)
• Call 550-8422 in Anchorage or 1-800-478-8255 if you’re outside Anchorage during the live broadcast

For interested film makers who aren't in Alaska (yet) you can listen online. Just go to  Alaska Public Radio and click the red 'radio stream' on the left. 

Click image to get to Alaska Public Media, then hit the Radio Stream button

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 4 at 2pm. 

Kathleen McCoy, on Hometown Alaska, will discuss both the Anchorage International Film Festival and the Indigenous World Film Festival that will have its 10th Anniversary in Anchorage January 17-18. 

Kathleen's guests will be: 

• Jim Parker, Director of Film Programming, Anchorage International Film Festival
• Steven Alvarez, program director, Indigenous World Film Festival

Kathleen asked if she could add me to part of the program, so I'm scheduled to be on the Wednesday broadcast too.

Participate:

• Call 550-8433 (Anchorage) or 1-888-353-5752  (statewide) during the live broadcast (2:00 – 3:00pm Wednesday Alaska time)
• Send e-mail to hometown@alaskapublic.org before, during or after the live broadcast (e-mails may be read on air)

I would also note that you can buy all film passes ($100) for the Anchorage International Film Festival online or at the Bear Tooth (the website says starting Thursday at Bear Tooth, but we got one Monday night already.)   Regular tickets are $8 a film, the opening night includes a party afterward and costs $30 ($15 if you have an all films pass.)  So, if you go to the opening night and see ten more films/programs/workshops, the pass is a good deal.

And tomorrow you can start buying tickets for the Friday opening night showing of Icebound, a film about the serum run to Nome that is memorialized each year in the Iditarod.  I suspect this one will sell out, so getting tickets early is a good idea.  The word premiere shows up, but it's not clear if it's an Alaska premiere or what.  It appears to have been shown on BBC4 in October.

AIFF2013: Animated Films In Competition

These are the animated films chosen by the screening committee to be in competition for festival awards.  They are mostly pretty short and they all play in one program (Animation) twice during the festival.   So, it's best to just go see them and be surprised without too much hype beforehand.  This is just a peek to whet your appetite with no spoilers.  I haven't seen any of them yet - just a few trailers.

Films in the whole program (all 18 short animations, not just the ones in competition) are overwhelmingly from the US, but there are also films from Australia, Canada, Luxembourg/France, and Switzerland.  The films range from 2 minutes to one outlier at 23 minutes.  (And if you want to see all the animated films, there are at least three more animated films that aren't in the animated program:

• The Narrative of Victor Karloch in the Horror Program with another short films (not animated.  There was another that seems to have disappeared.)
• Enraizado and La Noria in the Mexican short film program at Sunday Dec. 8 at 7:45pm.)

 
ANIMATION PROGRAM  - Two Chances To See Them

Saturday, Dec. 7 at 12 noon at the Alaska Exp large theater

Friday, Dec. 13 at 7:30 pm at the Anchorage Community Works* 

*349 E Ship Creek Ave., Anchorage, AK 99501


So, either on Pearl Harbor Day or Friday the 13th.


Here's a preview of the animated films in competition:

*****************************************************


Blue                    
Katelyn Bianchini 
Canada
8m
✓

Blue was Katelyn's senior thesis at Chapman University according to her website.

*****************************************************


Icarus Falls
Jesse O’Brien
USA
3m
✓

Below is  2-D Animitic done in preparation of the eventual 3-D film that, I'm assuming, we'll see at the festival.  I don't see this as a spoiler, but a way to get a sense of how much work goes into one of these very short films and to help understand the process. Jesse's blog, where I got this, shows other steps in developing the visual characters.




*****************************************************


Mister Super Juice
Mike Wellins    
USA

Mr. Juice Swimming - Image from Mike Wellins

5m
✓    

 "Mr. Super Juice is an important infomercial with Mr. Super Juice, himself, extolling the virtues of juicing and juicing machines. Mr. Super Juice speaks the truth when it comes to real juicing and delivers a dire warning for those who still aren't ready to worship at the altar of juice."

From a website Mike shares with his brother Dean, a Disney animation guy:

Mike Wellins has been an artist and filmmaker since age 8. Mike Graduated Merced Highschool and attended California State University, Chico, where he studied Art, English, Computer Animation and film and video production.

*****************************************************


Mr. Hublot
Laurent Witz
Luxembourg/France

Image from Zeilt Productions
(Real image is significantly more impressive}

11m
✓
This one has already won at least ten 'best' awards.  It's visually lush if this still is any indication.

I haven't been able to get very much on these films, but of what I have seen, this looks and sounds fantastic.  Check the Mr. Hublot website for very short trailers too.  




******************************************************



The Innovator
Sean McCarthy
USA
2m
✓

Image from Dances With Films

Metro Active has a long story on Sean if you want to know who made this film.  It begins:

"He flash-mobbed the Oakridge Macy's with a cinematographer in a wheelchair and a crew of 15. He was cuffed and booked for the crime of guerrilla filmmaking. San Jose's Sean McCarthy spreads out from student pranks to the film-festival circuit."

I only got a slight sense of the films in competition.  It's clear that Mr. Hublot should be in this group.  I'm waiting to see the others.  I would note that Richard Cunningham's  "A Clean Break" is in the group, but not in competition.   Cunningham's 'Year Zero' was my favorite animated film in the 2011 festival - with a very original look. And apparently it's being made (finished?) into a feature.   I'm looking forward to seeing his new film.  He's a highly talented film maker with his own unique style and I'll be looking critically at the animated films to see why "A Clean Break" isn't in competition.  I'd also note that last time he didn't win any awards here either.  The films that did were very good, but for me Year Zero was a truly special film which broke new animation film ground. 

Why I Live Here: Cold Beauty

It's good that people Outside (Alaska) believe it's cold and dark here most of the year.  It keeps them from moving up here.  But I'm constantly awed and delighted by the magnificence of Nature and the show it puts on in Alaska is never ending.  Even after 36 years here, I'm awed daily.  Fortunately, most Outsiders think such talk is just Alaskans rationalizing why they live in the cold and dark.   That's right.  Seattle's a nice place if you have to move north.  And there's Calgary and Edmonton if Seattle's too far south.   All much nicer than Anchorage.  Really.

We got home from LA just in time for the temperature to plunge to about -5˚F (-20˚C).  But I shoveled the driveway in the cold sunshine yesterday.  Today when I got back in from finishing the job (well there's a bit more I could do tomorrow) the outside thermometer said +9˚F (-12˚C) and tomorrow it's predicted to be in the 20s.

As I shoveled I kept looking up at these birch trees, dressed in hoarfrost, and I thought about how the new camera can take much better pictures of this than the little one.

"1 dead, four people shot at Ramkhamhaeng University after clashes"

 The headline comes from a Thai Visa post.


I've been vaguely paying attention to the latest round of demonstrations in Thailand, but the headline above caught my attention.  In 2006 I taught a class for a month at Ramkhamhaeng University.  It's an open University with lots of students who wouldn't have a chance getting into more elite universities.

The image is from a Youtube videos that begins on the street in front of the University.  There's a by-pass road above and lots of shops on one side of the street and the University on the other.

It's hard keeping things in Thailand straight these days as you can see if you go to these links New Mandala and Bangkok Pundit that I've had up on the blog several years now. It's not even clear that the man killed was at the University from what I'm reading. 

This is also a reminder of where things can end up when people split on ideological lines and see only their differences and not what they have in common. 

[Feedburner note:  Basically it's been working, but 11 hours after this one was posted, it's still not showing up on blogrolls.  When it didn't go up right away, I pinged it, but that didn't help.]]

From Rainy LA To Sunny Anchorage

Somewhere in Alaska air space, I noticed another plane outside the window.  Actually this photo is blown up a bit so you can see that it's another Alaska Airlines plane below us and to the west.

The pilot had banked to the left, then to the right, and back to the left and then I noticed the plane.  I saw the contrails first, and then the plane.

This is more what it looked like out the window.  It stayed with us a minute or so.  Then we banked again and then the other plane seemed to fall back.













You can see the contrail above our engine and the plane itself is almost in the middle.  Click the picture to see it much clearer. 

Waiting to take off in rainy LA

After a week of sunny warm days in LA, it was raining Friday when we left.  But they need whatever water they can get down there.  Seems we left when it started raining in October too.










Shortly after we had flown alongside the other jet, the clouds started to break up and we had some spectacular sunset views.






Clouds hanging over the water as we're getting near Prince William Sound.  










The setting sun makes big and stark shadows in the water. 

Shooting out of airliner windows offers challenges, like all the spots in the lower left not to mention the smudges that refract the light.  But have to just make do since the picture below is so spectacular.  I've done no photoshop clean up or enhancement  on any of these

Soon we were flying up Cook Inlet.  Here the ice picks up a golden glow from the sun.

We're getting close to the airport.  This is ice on Cook Inlet.

The nicks and scratches and water on the window are much less visible when the sun's not shining directly at you.  More ice patches just before we land.



I stuck this one in to contrast with the view of the airport in LA with the rain drops on the window.  It was 3:20 pm.

People in LA were asking if it's dark all the time now, so I thought it would be good to show that it isn't.  In LA now, the sun was setting around 4:30pm.  I do have to say that it gets light in LA around 6:30am.  In Anchorage on November 29  sunrise was 9:42 am for a total of 6 hours and 12 minutes from sunrise to sunset.  Officially, the sunset was 3:54 pm according to Time and Date. 

And the twilights are much longer this far north.  In LA the sun seemed to drop into the ocean pretty fast and we knew we didn't have much time to bike home before it was dark.  But here, the glow lasts. 

And on a sunny day like Friday, even after the sun is gone in town, it's still up there in the mountains as you can see in this ride home from the airport.  The camera says this was taken at 3:48 pm.


I keep thinking these flight pictures are going to get boring, but each trip the light is different and the views are different.  Saturday is the last LA-Anchorage non-stop flight of the year.  I'm not sure when they start again in 2014.  It sure makes the trip a lot faster.  Today it was 5 hours and 15 minutes.  

Oh, yeah, it's just below 0˚F (-18˚C) here. 

AIFF 2013: This Year's Logo Way Too Busy

 

I like the curve of the red line that lists the venues.  In fact I like individual parts.  I like the snowflake incorporated in the film reel.  I like the colors. I like the pieces of the snowflake in the bittersweet shimmer bar on the right. (I couldn't think of a name for the color so I looked it up.) But as a whole, this logo is way too busy for me. It's like three different logos squeezed into one. My eye is scattered into all different directions.  Lettering is horizontal, vertical, and curved.  And that photo is jarring; it doesn't fit in with the rest.  Why is the curve on the left cut off?  Why does it say Freeze Frame? It's the top phrase in the largest font. Yes, I know it's a film term, but what exactly does it mean here?   It already has the word 'freezing' in it. I'm sorry, this is my least favorite of all the festival logos.  

Tell me I'm wrong and I'm missing something here.

I originally had thought that maybe this was the logo for this year because it was on the AIFF website first:

 

But it's just the poster for the Family Fun Films.  This one is kind of cute and whimsical.  

I also see that Lion Ark is listed for the Family Fun Films.  I saw it LA, and I think it's a fine film, but there's some pretty graphic violence against animals shown.  That PG-13 rating has a reason.  

It does appear that Lion Ark shows after the Family Fun part of the Festival. Don't bring the younger kids to this one.  There's a lot all the kids would like about this, but parts that would be disturbing to the younger ones.  At least I hope that the kids aren't so used to violence that they wouldn't be disturbed. 

Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks the logo is cumbersome.  

I found this edited version on the website of one of the films in competition.  They actually had to change the lettering (the actual logo has the date where it says Anchorage International Film Festival.) And they removed the reddish venue list that looped around on the black.

As I said, there are several logos in this logo and this one works for me - just needs a year and dates and it would be fine. 

And even Festival Genius used this portion of the logo for one of the films in the AIFF.



If different people independently find they have to edit the logo to fit, there's something wrong.  I hope the logo approvers take note for when they pick next year's logo. 

Tomás' Video

My friend Tomás, is a very talented cartoonist who lives in Spain.  When he sent me a link earlier this year to a music video he'd done the visual for, I was impressed.  Very original and imaginative.  I told him to submit it to the Anchorage International Film Festival.  He did.  But it didn't get accepted.  Perhaps they don't like music videos, but I don't think their rules say that.  I still think it's very original, well drawn, and very evocative.  (Whatever that means.)  You can see a snippet of it yourself.   And, of course, I'm looking forward to see all the animation at the festival that is better than this. 





Note: I'm not complaining that it didn't get in. Just stating facts. Each person has his own aesthetic preferences and the people who decided on the animated films made choices that were right for them. And I haven't yet seen the others. Tomás wrote recently that the trailer can now be posted.