I gave this interview at the 2008 Arizona Black Film Showcase about the Revolution music video. They just posted it to YouTube this week though.

Watching this interview gets me excited to attend more film festivals on behalf of the Michael Jackson Shining music video. Shining has already won 5 film festivals, but I still haven’t attended a single one for it. Thankfully this weekend will be the first– The San Diego Black Film Festival. We’re screening at two different times throughout the weekend, so I’m assuming we’ll have opportunities to do more interviews like this.

So, it’s my birthday today and I’m sitting here at midnite watching my new Michael Jackson music video… the first music video that I’ve shot, directed, edited, and performed in… and I can’t complain in the least. Here’s to another year of creation…

I can’t remember the first time I realized that Michael’s birthday was the same day as mine (it may have been on Entertainment Tonight), but for some reason it always seemed to make sense that we were so close on the calendar… I felt close to him as it was. Some people believe in astrology and most don’t, but regardless our personalities are similar in some ways (won’t get into it here). Still thought it was silly to think that I might have had some kind of “cosmic connection” to my favorite pop star… I think there’s a psychological term for feeling like that.

But it’s interesting now to see the fact that there is somewhat of a correlation between our two birthdays… at least for me now. Michael stepped up his creative game with Thriller, one of the first “real” music videos, and now I feel like I’ve definitely stepped up my game with my first “real” music video.

Ok… so maybe that’s all a bit of stretch, but it’s my birthday, so give it to me anyway… what can I say I’m just a big MJ fan like anyone else out there.

The truth of the matter is that I planned for everything to sort of work out this way. I must’ve decided over a month ago that I would release this video for My/Michael’s birthday weekend because I wanted to feel more “connected” to Michael, and now I do. And even for the project itself… we always wanted to be in MJ videos, ever since we were kids, and now we are (we’re in like… 12 of em). And now people all across the world (hopefully) are watching the video with me on my birthday… my little gift to myself.

Makes me appreciate even more how important it is to give gifts to yourself. Sometimes you end up getting something someone else wanted as well… and you inspire them to get something for themselves as well.

yes!

I bumped into Bryant Terry at the Oasis last night, and the first thing he tells me is that I’m featured in the promo video for his book signing at the MoAD last month… so I am (1min33sec). Bryant and I had a chance to talk briefly while he signed my copy of Vegan Soul Kitchen, we have a mutual admiration for each other’s work… I got a cookbook, and he got a $25 Obama bill

Running into Bryant last night reminded me of one very important principle: I need to use cookbooks after I buy them! So this week I’m going to fore go the Souley Vegan stand at the Grand Lake farmer’s market and buy some vegetables for one of Bryant’s recipes instead. That way, I can actually talk to him about tips and techniques the next time I see him.

I spoke at my old high school last week as part of a Films for Social Justice Festival. I hadn’t been back since graduation, so it was cool to be there showing music videos and talking about new media education. I showed Revolution, We Need A President, and SMASH Technology The Future… I also gave out 250 $25 Obama bills, and introduced the Distant Dispatches website as a transition into David Gilbert’s presentation.