Thursday, April 1, 2010

The Yes Man

I greatly enjoyed the film The Yes Man. It was about two anti-corporate activists who used the internet at first to be critical about policies involving corporations. They do their job a little too good and make a site that is identical to the WTO (world Trade Origination) and people, unaware of their mistake sent them e-mails and invite to attend conferences to give speeches about what the real WTO is doing. The activists see the real WTO as hypocrites, the WTO mission is to govern and encourage trade between first and third word countries but instead have help the cause of corporations by helping them come into foreign nations and exploit their cheep labor and lack of labor laws. Now that other originations think they represent the WTO they use this opportunity to remove the hypocrisy and give speeches that reflex the WTO actions. This results in over-the-top, offensive, racist and sometimes crude speeches about the future plans and stances of the WTO. What is most impressive about these activists work is the extent, detail and amount of prep work they go through to make fools of themselves and the WTO. For example, they spent nine months working on a computer simulation, with the help of a computer programmer, and a presentation alone for a single convention. Then they find out that it was canceled. At another point in the film, they hire a Hollywood costume designer to make them a “manager leisure suite”, which entails a breakaway business suite, a full body suite that is covered in gold paint and a huge inflatable penis-like “TV screen” coming from his crotch. To their dismay, their presentation did not cause a stir.
I guess the only thing I can take away from this film and apply to my experience in the 6-by-1 class would be their prep work. The prep work and imagination these activists had is amazing. To be so straight faced with these outrageous presentations, and to spend nine months on prep work shows me that planning ahead is not only a good idea but that the difference between great and just ok work. I’m still not sure how to plan for the 48 hour video race. I know that im going to use my consumer digital camera, and that I have 720 frames to work with and, of course, I have two day to shoot it and edit it. The last step is working with the mystery object.

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