Storyboards are a way to present the elements of a story in a sequence.  They are used a lot by people who make movies and other media to help them “see” a story and how the pieces work together before they spend a lot of time and money on a project.

When you are working on a team, storyboards are one way to get people, literally, on the same page.  Here is a 3-minute video on how to do that (the written-out version continues below the video).



How to Make a Storyboard from Gilda Haas on Vimeo.

James Cameron has a baseball cap with the letters HMFIC on its crown.  As this is a family-friendly site, I won’t spell out what those letters stand for, but just consider his film Avatar has made a sweet billion dollars worldwide, and I’m sure you can deduce their meaning.  Dr. Pop, aka Comrade Wife, our daughter Chelsea and I saw this wonder in glorious 3D at our damn near neighborhood theater in Culver City.

Like a lot of those who’ve seen the film, the special effects bowled me over from the ten-foot tall blue-skinned Na’vi to the bad ass, escapees from a Halo game, flying death machines of mass destruction the evil corporation wield as they wantonly try to subjugate the paradise planet Pandora.  I was enthralled.  Cameron has talked about having the idea for the film more than a decade ago, but had to wait for technology to catch up to tell the story the way he saw it in his head.  As a kid, he reportedly read a lot of science fiction traveling to school an hour each way in Chippawa, Ontario, Canada.  Well I’m betting he must have stumbled across some Edgar Rice Burroughs’ (of Tarzan fame) John Carter of Mars series of books in all that reading, eh?

In those books the Martians, who call the red planet Barsoom, are a mixed bunch of humanoids that include the ten (or maybe it’s twelve) foot tall green-skinned, four-armed fierce Tharks.  Carter, a former Confederate officer who may be immortal, is kind of magically transported to Mars and becomes a warrior-savior figure there — fighting for justice rather than slavery, so that’s an improvement.  Story elements from Burroughs to the Pocahontas bit are evidenced in Avatar.

I’m not hatin’ on Jim, but as a writer who wrestles with trying to inject originality in his stories, I do have to admit to envy given Cameron didn’t have to stretch when it came to the stock plot and characters in his film.  From the cranky but dedicated scientist, the damaged, conflicted hero, the gorgeous, strong princess, to the one-dimensional villains, we’ve seen them before many times over.  The not-so-subtle subtext of Avatar is essentially the noble natives winning over the expansionist imperialists.  This in turn, according to Patrick Goldstein in his Big Picture column in the January 5, 2010 Calendar section of L.A. Times (and for a big city newspaper, it’s getting awfully thin isn’t it?) has the teabaggers and Palinites all a-twitter.

This is a good thing as far as I’m concerned.  But this intersection of politics and sci-fi, of dystopian to hard-fought utopian visions of the future, are not the stuff solely of other recent big budget movies like 2012 and The Road.  There’s more, and we’ll get to them in my next post.

Five months ago, Brixton, one of the coolest areas of London, adopted its own currency, shown on the right below – the Brixton pound.   (scroll down for photos and videos).

The idea behind it? Helping to maintain a tight and sustainable community by promoting local businesses. The logo says it all: “Money that sticks to Brixton”.

This is how it works:  You exchange your regular British pounds for Brixton pounds at an exchange rate of 1:1 to spend in local businesses who accept the currency. While Bank-of-England-issued money is still accepted in local shops, some businesses incentivize their customers to buy their products in Brixton pounds by offering perks and discounts – more bang for their Brixton buck, so to speak. Brixton pounds can then be converted back just as easily.

By creating a more limited space in which money can be spent, local currencies gain “velocity” (i.e.: “The speed with which money whizzes around the economy, or, put another way, the number of times it changes hands” (definition by The Economistt) as they circulate in the local economy, acting as a powerful tool of reinvestment. According to a study done by the New Economics Foundation, money spent in this type of localized economy actually circulates three times as much as it would if spent in national chains! That means, you are essentially “voting with your wallet”. You decide where your money goes.

Brixton Market

For local businesses, this represents a huge plus as the profit they make stays in the community – as opposed to moving out of the community, up the ladder to high corporate executives of big national chain. This not only creates stronger ties of solidarity within the community, but it also adds value to the services and products sold in the local economy while building a strong local infrastructure.

Brixton shop

In this way then, mom and pop shops are sheltered from the tough competition of chains – who can sell their products at very low prices – jobs are protected in the area, and the community’s sustainability (and survival in these recessionary times!) is assured.

Rosie's Cafe

On top of all of that, Brixton’s local currency is helping keep the uniqueness of the neighborhood alive. About ¼ of Brixton’s community is of African or Caribbean descent. Reggae music blasts through the bustling open air market, as you wander along the stands sporting yucca root, sweet potatoes and plantains all interspersed between Halal butchers, Afro-euro beauty parlors and Vietnamese supermarkets.

fruit and vegetable vendor

It is not the first local currency of its kind. Communities from all over the world have created their own – from Australia, to China, Germany and Argentina. Here are some pictures of what some other international local currencies look like.

Brixton is the fourth community in the UK to print their own money, and there are talks that the city of Amsterdam might take it on as well!

For more information on the Brixton pound, you can visit their website at www.brixtonpound.org

And here are two cool videos from www.debateyourplate.com and the BBC’s Politics Show.

If you sit very still and stare at downtown L.A. from the window of the Bonaventure Hotel’s cocktail lounge, this is what you will see:

The slowly revolving floor shifts the gorgeous view before your eyes. But apart from saving up for the drinks, how do you get here?

It’s public of course, but that does not make it easy to find. There are three entrances to the Bonventure, but none of them are your traditional grand salon entrance. And two of them are from those secret sky bridges of LA, the one we took joins the hotel to Hope Street past the YMCA. You enter what feels like a back door onto the fifth floor of a dark and massive tower with spiraling stairs and pillars, and street signs to direct you to where you want to go:

Not all elevators go to the top you see, neither do the escalators. In fact, I don’t think there were any escalators on this floor. You have to find the red elevator, the red one! (The vertiginous ride in the glass elevator up the outside of the building for 35 floors and all of Central LA laid out beneath you? Highly recommended.) Any other colour and you will be lost in this vast echoing space.

It has its own stores, its own running water far far down below, it even has its own track and exercise machines where you can sweat in full view.

Built by John Portman and opened in 1976, it is an iconic building. And wandering through it, I couldn’t help but think of Frederic Jameson’s comments in an essay called Postmodernism and Consumer Society. He writes that the Bonventure has no main entry because it does not wish to be part of the city, it wishes to replace it. That it puts you into such a vast space so full of stuff you can no longer get a measure of just how big it is, you lose just how much emptiness is enclosed by these enormous walls of glass. The building toys with your perspective.

He writes that this is a space that takes vengeance on those walking through it, one that forces you to lose your bearings. It transcends us as human beings, and makes it impossible for us to find ourselves within such a context.

Me? I thought it an incredible building, but it did make me feel very small, very lost, very much in desire of a nice drink. So I set off in search of the red elevator, and thought about architecture and its impacts on how we live and see ourselves in the world. And this one almost cathedral-like in how it humbles you, God replaced by wealth, retail, and facilities for showing off while working out…

In US cities today, our public safety officials typically respond to violence by locking people up, by moving the offender far away from their families and their communities. This process of removal is almost always handled by the police, the only government officials that many US residents will ever see. And whether the people involved in the incident are youth or adults, the official response is roughly the same.

Alternatively, there may be no real response to violence at all. This is especially common in cases where weapons are not involved. Neither of these two extremes –police-led removal and inaction – does anything to address the underlying causes of violence. Neither accounts for the pain, neglect, or stress that can drive people to harm one another. Moreover, neither extreme deals with the hurt caused to others by an act of violence, the survivors, victims, witnesses, and loved one whose lives are forever changed by the event .

This begs the question, what is so public about public safety? Is it just that criminal justice employees are paid with tax payer dollars? Can real public safety be achieved without meaningful public involvement? Restorative justice is a philosophy that emphasizes the critical importance of involving parents, brothers, sisters, lovers, friends, children and other community members in the peacemaking process following a violent incident. It focuses on repairing the harm caused by crime and conflict, healing broken relationships, and addressing the underlying reasons for any offense.

A common saying in restorative justice circles is that “hurt people, hurt people.” This phrase suggests that healing is, in and of itself, an act of violence prevention.  Like a wild fire that can only spread when surrounded by dry conditions, violence can only thrive when hurts go unhealed. Extending this belief, restorative justice supporters argue that our streets can be made safer simply by creating community spaces to lovingly confront past pains. For restorative justice folks, healing is prevention.

It was precisely this understanding that guided Chicago’s first “Day of Healing” on December 8^th of 2009. Called by the Community Justice for Youth Institute, the day was initiated as a response to the more than 50 youth killings that happened between January and November of 2009 (see map below).  Thanks to the work of over 30 community organizations and schools, the day was organized in a matter of weeks. All across the city, from the South Side to the Wild West to the North Pole, these groups brought together youth and adults whose lives have been seriously impacted by violence.

Map by Andrew Greenlee

More than 40 peace circles  were successfully organized on that day, each one providing a safe space where people volunteered to sit down with one another and to share whatever was in their heart. Some circles explored the root causes of school fights, some provided a safe place for people returning from prison to share about their personal journey, while others brought together community leaders to reflect on the peacemaking work they’ve been doing for years.  Since that day, all of the circle organizers have met again and are planning to coordinate similar days of healing on a regular basis throughout 2010.

Chicago’s “Day of Healing” model offers a prime example of what peace and safety can look like when neighborhood leaders take charge. Whether you are a high school student, a teacher, a grandparent, or a non-profit worker, you have the ability to organize and facilitate peacemaking circles. You have the power to change the culture of justice at your school, on your block, and in your neighborhood. It is not enough to outsource safety to the police, or to simply ignore violence when it occurs. Real public safety requires the regular involvement of the real public. And that means us.

To learn more about peacemaking circles, restorative justice, and Chicago’s “Day of Healing,” go to:

http://cjyi.org/

http://healingchicago.wordpress.com/

http://www.livingjusticepress.org/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-koehler/power-with-power-over_b_312935.html