The US Campaign for Burma is still kicking with daily videos showcasing Burma’s fight against its military junta.
The above video is a collaborative effort. Isaiah Seret wrote and directed the video. Our nomadic homie Alexander Kori Girard created the drawings and hand-drawn type. I put all the pieces together, added the type cards and laced it all with a bright shiny ribbon. Jesse Klein edited it. and that’s Beirut on the track with “The Penalty”.
Again, do yourself a favor and watch it in high quality, under the lower right hand side of the video.
More on Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced kinda like “on son sue chee”).
Isaiah Seret’s Hitler Is Alive in Burma psa starring Ellen Page, finally hits the inter-tubes. Great narrative and style with Sufjan Stevens on the soundtrack, super tight. Again, do yourself a favor and go check out the high quality version over on You Tube (the link is a javascript under the video player in the rate/views box).
Relatedly, if you feel like supporting the cause, drop by the Burma: It Can’t Wait website and sign up as a voice for Burma. With the recent cyclone devastation and subsequent refusal of international aid by the military junta, Burma’s situation went from worse to extremely worse. Most people think money is the only way to help a cause such as Burma’s, but that’s not true. Knowledge, international pressure and some serious publicity are the tools of undoing brutal dictatorships in this interconnected day and age. Your money is valuable, no doubt, but so is your voice. So please add it to the Burma: It Can’t Wait campaign and help draw attention to a brutal dictatorship that continues to slide under the radar.
My homie Isaiah Seret gets a super-huge write-up in the New York Times for his work directing Ellen Page in a spot for the Burma Can’t Wait Campaign:
The spot is one of 30 produced for U.S. Campaign for Burma, starring celebrities like Will Ferrell and Jennifer Aniston. They will be distributed on Fanista.com, a social-networking and entertainment retail site, then passed along to sites like YouTube and Google Video every day for the next month. The goal of the campaign is to thrust the cause of human rights in Burma — now known as Myanmar — into the orbit of A-list activist causes, along with Tibet and Darfur, and to encourage international pressure on a government that activists say is one of the world’s most oppressive.
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A story that is going to hold people’s interest also needs a villain. While General Shwe is a natural in the role, said Isaiah Seret, a 30-year-old music video director who was enlisted to write and direct the Ellen Page spot, the general also came with built-in drawbacks — his name lacked impact, his face was forgettable. The general, Mr. Seret said, lacked what is known in marketing vernacular as a “unique selling point” — like Hitler’s mustache. So the director attempted to turn the general’s blandness into a joke. In the spot, Ms. Page scribbles a Hitler mustache on a large photo of the general and declares, “Make no mistake about it, he is a professional dictator.”
Isaiah conceptualized, wrote and directed the Ellen Page piece (which debuts in the next few days - i think), as well as seven or eight others that will be released one-a-day for each of the 30 days of the campaign. I’m super excited to see Isaiah’s name up in print. I think he hit a home-run with this spot. Sometimes stars align and this is one of those times. He’s been working like mad on this campaign and it completely dove-tails with his personal voice. This guy is definitely an artist to watch. Each time I see new work of his, I’m amazed at his progression in style and form, without losing his personal voice. I’m callin’ it now: Dude is gonna be famous.
Hi, my name is Ed. I’m a graphic designer who lived in L.A. I quit my job, sold my car, rented out my house and moved to Mexico. Along the way, I learned how to surf and fell in love. This is my story.
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