MacDiva & The Master Stick Pounder

What happens when a Diva meets a Master Stick Pounder at the laundrymat?



Here's the SECRET!
You tell her you are an independent filmmaker and you want her to be in your Award Winning Documentary, call in your dynamite team of independents, (It Donned On Me) and the next thing you know, she'll show up with a ton of sticks...




Then you set up a shoot on location with your brilliant and creative team.








Factor in some real dancers:


And...don't forget to have fun while making your movie!



GRAB SOME STICKS AND START POUNDING. And then tell the crew that you just know that you know that you know that you are all winners (even if no one tells you that you are) ...and then the rest is history!

And then you start acting and looking like winners!




All the way to Toronto to the Canadian International Film Festival

Springing Forward

Spring is definitely in the air and I am springing forward this year with new ideas, inspiration from the past presents itself and springs us forward to new concepts and ideas creating openings, blooms, and blossoms. I just completed a project with IDOM (It Donned On Me) for the International Documentary Competion. “Stick & Pound” is a finalist! Of over 100 films eligible for judging, we made the top 14. I will be flying out to Toronto for the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival on April 26th, where our film will be screened. Things heat up as Stick & Pound is being considered for yet another award, the P.O.V. PBS’ premiere showcase for independent, non-fiction film.

The film features Melanie DeMore, Singer, Composer, Songwriter, and Master Stick Pounder.

What is Stick Pounding? Creating rhythmic sounds with sticks of course.



Its origins are from the Gullah tradition. What is Gullah?

The Gullah people are the different African tribes brought to the Georgia Sea Islands during slavery. These different tribes created an entire culture and language for the purpose of communicating with each other. Out of this culture, comes stick pounding. When the drums were taken away, stick pounding became the rhythmic language of the Gullah people.

As an Oakland, CA resident, Melanie DeMore performs with "The Linda Tillery Cultural Heritage Choir. She also teaches stick pounding in the bay area. Her energy is HUGE, the Director of the Oakland Children's Choir, and the voice coach of several young bay area popular singers that have gone on to big careers. Some of her students were "American Idol" contestants and popular Bay Area R&B singers.

I'd seen her Christmas Eve show at Yoshi's where she performed with Linda Tillery & The Cultural Heritage Choir. The show was sold out. Fate had me run into her at the laundry mat on Park Blvd in Oakland a few days later. Where I introduced myself, told her I'm a filmmaker and the rest is history.

In March I interviewed her and set up a shoot where she was choreographing stick pounding at a rehearsal with a well known Dance Company in San Francisco during International Women's Week.

I was so honored to set up the shoot and indeed it was a tremendous success for myself as well as the crew.

Guess what? Of 170 entries in the international documentary film challenge, the film made the 14-finalist list.

I am so proud of the crew It Donned On Me. The screening will take place on April 26th in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In Toronto several broadcasters and distributors will screen the films. To include history channels, and etc.

I am so excited about this. The other finalists are from Amsterdam, Sydney, Australia, Brooklyn, NYC, and Seattle, just to name a few of the places.

Since June of 2007 we’ve been Nationally Acclaimed Award Winning Filmmakers. Thanks to the creation of “Stick & Pound”, we are Internationally Acclaimed Award Winning Filmmakers.

As I continue to plant more seeds...just watch me bloom! The best is yet to come.


Profound Peace & Blessings,
Dinah

Happy 2008 Hollerations!

The Diva is back in the House continuing on the journey to REPRESENT the binary stars of the solar system. This year stronger and at warp speed. Named for 2 American stars...Dinah Washington & Dinah Shore. I, Dinah, Daughter of Isis, Daughter of Yemanya, Daughter of Ochun, Daughter of Ruby Mae, Grand Daughter of Olivia Michelle, Great Grand Daughter of Eliza Michelle, youngest sister of Stanley and Connie...Mother of Hasani. I walk the path of light, beauty, and balance. I am a woman of power, of passion and compassion. According to the Myan calendar I am a World Bridger . I am a bridge between cultures, with new ideas and new ways of looking at life through film based on the traditional, the nontraditional as well as the multidimensional ways of viewing and creating people's stories as seen through the lens. I REPRESENT new and innovative ways of seeing the
good intention and the feeling nature of the true, the fun, and the REAL. I am creative. I am innovative. I am a Multi Media Goddess. This is the path I have chosen to walk. Most of all I am EVERYWOMAN. I make pictures come to life on film about discovery without the usual preconceived ideas!

Last year I delved a little deeper into my self discovery as a filmmaker. I went into 2007 not know exactly where I was going. Just couldn't explain it to anyone, especially myself. There are no words for it. I was constantly being asked what was all this filming stuff, what was a 3 minute movie going to do? All the editing all night long, not sleeping during 48 hour film projects, what was going to get me. Often times my answer was "how the heck do I know...sh*t". I'll just have to know when I get there, just as you'll know when you get there. This is what I do. Can You Dig It? Delivering six short independent films online and at least five collaboratives with my crew of independent filmmakers known as It Donned On Me, creating films made in 48 hours...to include being selected by Visa to make a 3 minute narrative film with the IDOM crew, and competing in the (NFC) National Film Challenge, I know for sure that you don't always HAVE to know where you're going in order to get to where you need to be. This is HOW the Sky Becomes the Limit. As a result, in 2007, along with the IDOMers (having the same kind of passion) I became a Nationally Acclaimed Award Winning Filmmaker and it ain't over yet. Just doing what I love and doing it with people of like mindedness. This type of energy is propelling me to soar at higher elevations like the eagle.

One soaring eagle in particular, Melvin Van Peables took flight when he made an 11 minute movie back in the late 60s. Most people don't know about this. Mainstream America laughed and thought he was a big joke. Not the French, they gave him hope because they recognized he was much smarter than all that. They loved his 11 minute movie and actually paid him money and treated him with dignity and respect while all along he had nothing...(that includes food too, y'all). They even asked him to represent them in the U.S. as their French Deligate. (This blew Hollywood and the rest of America away.) Most of us who know of him only know of his feature film in the 70s, "Sweet Sweet Back Badass Song", an avantegarde freaky film which became mainstream. (And his films of more recent times.) But it was that controversal outrageous film that polarized people, thereby creating a new genre known then as Blacksploitation and Soul Cinema.


A Course in Miracles says...
Where do all these differences come from? Certainly they seem to be in the world outside. Yet it is surely the mind that judges what the eyes behold. It is in the sorting out and categorizing activities of the mind that errors in perception enter. And it is here correction must be made. The mind classifies what the body's eyes bring to it according to its preconceived values, judging where each sense datum fits best. What basis could be faultier than this? Unrecognized by itself, it has itself asked to be given what will fit into these categories. And having done so, it concludes that the categories must be true. On this the judgement of all differences rests, because it is on this that judgements of the world depend. Can this confused and senseless "reasoning" be depended on for anything? The body's eyes will continue to see differences. But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer aknowledge them. --ACIM Manual for Teachers

While I have always admired those peeps who know how to set specific goals down to the "T" and manifest exactly as they planned, I must say that I admire MYSELF for following my own bliss...the unknown...when you do, it's true what they say, stuff just starts showing up.

This year I am flying higher and going deeper into portals and assemblege points as I shine the light on a new and different language in the art of film.

Production of new short films are forever ongoing for me. You'll be seeing improvements and more features on this blog and Itdonnedonme.com as I continue to grow on my own and as I team up with my fellow crew members right before your very eyes. I believe that language is an important element in film. And 2008 will be a great year to watch me craft a new language on film, language that is visual and not just verbal; language that you DO understand especially if you don't speak it. Sometimes words get in the way. Sometimes we don't even need words to get a point across. As a healing transmitter, it is my intention to show new and different ways of communicating with the world through the language of film.

I'd like to end with 2 profound quotes:

Avoid logic and go around common sense. --MELVIN VAN PEABLES

The body's eyes will continue to see differences. But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. - A COURSE IN MIRACLES

Thanks for being a part of my journey and the best to all of you.



It's a wrap Double 07...Whad Up 2008!

Out
D2

P.S. For your viewing pleasure I made a short piece as a "Birthday Tribute" to my mentor Evan Donn. Here you get a glance of me with my It Donned On Me Crew Members, the faces behind our Award Winning Movies made for the 48 Film Projects and the National Film Challenge.

ZimbabweOnTheWestCoast6

Featured Zimbabwean artist Thomas Maphumo speaks on the children of Zimbabwe. Thomas Maphumo is in exile. He and his band, the "Blacks Unlimited", along with a local African American Jazz Trumpeter, Khalil Shaheed creates great "Afro Jazz Infusion". I cannot get the rhythms out of my head.
ZimbabweOnTheWestCoast 6

ZimbabweOnTheWestCoast5

Zimbabwe's Oliver Mtukudzi and his band, The Black Spirits made an appearance in Oakland, CA in 2006. I had a golden opportunity to speak with him and some of his band members. Here's what they had to say.

Episode 4

Featuring the music of Dominion Accapella, under the direction of Valerie Brown; and the KTO Project, a Zimbabwean/American band founded by Kelly Takumba Orphan (former student of the University of Zimbabwe).

More scenes of my Beloved Binga Rural Community and Lake Kariba and Ntengwe's own.
PlanetaryLiberation No. 4

Episode 3

Ntengwe's children of Binga continue to sing their hearts out to the world in an attempt to share their feelings as we journey beyond the middle passage (the journey on slave ships from Africa to America) to present time...living and performing and remembering the dreams of those ancestors that survived the passage. We are all living the ancestors' dreams...as Composer, Jacquline Hairston and other well known musicians and performers share theirs.


Planetary Liberation No. 3

PlanetaryLiberation No.2

The host of Echoes of Africa and I continue our radio interview on Ntengwe for Community Development in Zimbabwe. The episode features more photos of the elephants and nature scenes of Zimbabwe, as well as scenes from everyday life of the people. Ntengwe youth meet at their home office for meetings. This is where I stayed during the time of my 2004 visit to Binga, Zimbabwe. Also shown are photos from the opening ceremony for their new "Drop-In Center" which opened it's doors during 2006. The "Drop-In Center" was designed and donated by the Japanese Embassy. I saw the final blue print (2004)at while I was there, before it was actually built. The center provides a place for the children to come and have breakfast before school, in the mornings and do homework after school and have more meals.(when there's food in Binga) Some of the children are seen clad in new clothing and tennis shoes donated from Europe for the ceremony in honor of the opening of the Ntengwe Drop-In Center.

At a service at the East Bay Church of Religious Science in Oakland, CA, I managed to capture footage taken during a service that empowers children and communities.

ZimbabweOnTheWestCoast6

Zimbabwe on the West Coast

Featured Zimbabwean artist Thomas Maphumo speaks on the children of Zimbabwe. Thomas Maphumo is in exile. He and his band, the "Blacks Unlimited", along with a local African American Jazz Trumpeter, Khalil Shaheed creates great "Afro Jazz Infusion". I cannot get the rhythms out of my head.
ZimbabweOnTheWestCoast 6

Planetary Liberation Episode 1

This first Episode explains how it all began for me. A visit to Ntengwe for Community Development in Binga, Zimbabwe. Ntengwe is a not for profit organization which targets youth, orphans and vulnerable children, and women infected and affected by HIV and AIDS. Founded by my Sisteren, Elizabeth Markham who spent many years growing up in Africa. Many of her ideas and goals were conceived here in the Bay Area as a dream to empower the children of the Tonga and Shona Tribes of Zimbabwe.

This first episode introduces the children and their music from the CD, “Tuli Bamuchaala – We are The Orphans”. The creative process began with participatory research of over 500 children and the formation of a 200-voice children’s choir. The children composed their own songs, ten of which are featured on the CD. The children sing about AIDS and how it is taking the people they love away from them. World renowned Zimbabwean musician, Oliver Mtukudzi came on board in January 2003, when he traveled to Binga district to produce and contribute his much loved vocals to the recording of the CD.

I am proud to introduce the music of these beautiful african children. Their CD was first aired in the US in the summer of 2005 on Radio Station KKUP, in San Jose, CA.
Planetary Liberation No. 1

Last week's screening of my latest video was good. Somehow I thought it was far from finished, however, it really was more complete than I thought. Sometimes my mind will work a little overtime. The video portion worked. Compression was a lot better than my last piece, my transitions and effects worked. My mentor, Evan Donn's comments were "very good".

As mentioned before in my October 17th blog, my lastest featured Zimbabwean artist Thomas Maphumo and his band, the "Blacks Unlimited", with a local African American Jazz Trumpeter, Khalil Shaheed. It was a great "music infusion". I cannot get the rhythms out of my head.

Next month I will be filming him during a live radio broadcast. This will be very interesting as well as exciting. Thomas Maphumo is one of those musicians in exile. Can't wait to hear him speak on it. I'll keep you posted.

I'm currently preparing two more movies. One on the first of a new concert series at the Jazz Conservatory in Oakland, and another one at a live jam session of jazz musicians in Berkeley featuring Jazz Trumpeter Rasul Siddik. Rasul, an African American Brother, is a trumpeter who has lived in Paris, France for over a decade. He made a rare Bay Area appearance in October. Some of the same guys who performed at the Jazz Conservatory were there jamming with him and MacDIVA was definitely in the House.

That's it for now. Thanks for hanging with me.

Peace & Love!

Below I've listed three things I'm going to do differently on my next film.

1. Compression: I like working in several programs. Final Cut Pro, After Effects and iMovie. I find integrating FCP and AF with iMovie gives iMovie the pop it needs. However, the mistake I made with my previous film was not being mindful of the compression rates before transporting from one program into the next. With the compression rate being consistent in each program I can expect better clarity throughout the entire film.

2. "Thou Shalt Not Zoom". Instead of going from a wide shot to zooming in on a close-up, I will pause first and zoom second. No zooming! Why? Because it's all wrong! Over all, things will generally look better and be easier on the physical eye.

3. In this next episode I will bring in a different Zimbabwean Artist, Thomas Maphumo and his band, along with Africian American trumpeter Khalil Shaheed for the integration of African Music with American Jazz. Since my mission involves the Ntengwe Children of Zimbabwe's Orphan Project, the music from their CD will also be used as a backdrop. The results: melodies and beats that one will always remember.

Peace Out!

The programming for HDTV article from the Mark Cuban weblog "blog maverick" is all about marketing and not digital workflow per se, but it is when you look at the future of technology which is marketing, marketing and more marketing. Just more creative, more expansive and very different.

Production of Series 1 has been ongoing for sometime now. Approximately a month. I had been very busy rolling with my crew "It Donned On Me" Productions. We've been on a roll since the summer and we are now known as an "award winning" film crew, "I know that's right! More on IDOM later. As for the current episode I'm working on: It is a continuation of my shorts done on the African Diaspora. I've been at 4 minutes for the past week. Because it was not screened last week at CSM as planned, I've had an extra week to bring it down to 3 minutes. It's not been easy.

I've actually done two individual projects that are basically the same. The first one started out in FCP. I also did some editing in iMovie and exported that media into FCP, and also dropped in some AE. I have had some technical problems with my computer running slower than normal, files going off line and problems editing the audio in FCP

In the second one I exported some FCP and AF media into iMovie. Here, the audio is easier to work with. I managed to get more done in less time.

I actually like combining all three programs, FCP, AE and iMovie. Sometimes iMovie alone can be pretty weak. This is when I call in my back up team (FCP & AE). It is when I enjoy working in iMovie the most. I do however, know of some dudes that can work the shit outta some iMovie. Have you thinking you're having a conscious awakening while still in the dream state kinda lookin film. I'm talkin bout Joe Kirsch, Apple Store, Burlingame; and Lucky, Apple Store, Cupertino...yeah, he's that good. Lucky is really Da Man, he is also a DJ. Anyone who crosses paths with him knows it. Joe Kirsch did. Lucky was the first person I met when I lived on the penninsula. I guess there are no accidents in the Universe.

Gotta work out the kinks with the audio and be ready for screening tomorrow night.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Since last year I've become a fan of Josh Oakhurst, kindred sprit to many of us. He is the perfect example of making shitty video look worth it. He literally turned shit to sugar in his "5 Star Basketball Camp" video made with shitty MiniDV. For me, it is the key to creativity. That's right...letting the creative juices flow. I am learning there are lotz o ways to get your work out there and money should not be an issue. You just gotta do something. Actually, I think it's not a bad way to start out. The more mistakes you make...sometimes...the better you get, and the more costly your project if you're working high end. And mind you, mistakes...they do happen. Sometimes they are blessings in disguise and sometimes not. I've learned that when you work cheap and get good, by the time u get the higher end equip, you're rocking and rolling. It's just a matter of "working that timeline" or making the timeline work for you. The secret is in the "keyframing" BA-BE...the keyframing. I'm working it.

Gone Y'all!

Since the release of the music CD of the children's recording with Oliver Mtukudzi, Tuli Bumachala (We are the Orphans) I have worked diligently to promote the music of these beautiful children whom I spent time with. Aside from using their photos and songs as a backdrop for my previous short films, each year since my visit I've done a radio talk on San Jose, California's Radio Station KKUP's Monday show "Echoes of Africa". The show is hosted by Emmanuel Nado (a native of Cote Avoire). It is a music and news talk show on the "Continent".

Last year Oliver Mutazudzi once again made his annual pilgramage to Oakland, however, this time he'd joined forces with an African American Doctor, Dr. Scott and the community of Allen Temple Baptist Church of Oakland who journeys to Zim several times a year to bring medical services to the people and the area surrounding Harare (the capital of Zimbabwe).

The first of this series focus is Oliver Mutakudzi and his band, the Black Spirits and their visit to Oakland, CA. in 2006. I was first acquainted with Oliver during my Ntengwe Visit in 2004. Ntwengwe Community for Development is a not for profit organization based in rural Binga. (See Photo) I spent time in the bush with the people and their experiences with HIV and AIDS. Around that time Oliver recorded a CD with the Ntengwe Orphans entitled Tuli Bumachalla which translates to "We are the Orphans". When I spoke with him in 2005 after his Oakland performance he told me personally that he was amazed at how these children wrote and composed their own songs and how talented these children are in their expressions of being alienated from the rest of society because their parents died of these deadly diseases.

A TASTE OF WHAT'S COMING!

As previously stated, the next five series will represent different view points and experiences consisting of art as culture and entertainment, weaving stories of experiences to the connection that is a direct result of the "middle passage" from Africa to America. Let's face it, we are living proof of the ancestors dreams. We all have come a long way baby. I will now reach back to Africa with the emphasis on Zimbabwe as we bridge the gap to modern day rural Zimbabwe, (a country governed by dictatorship) and the psychological and social issues surrounding these experiences as it parallels to what's happening in modern day America. Featured live musicians are Dominion A Capella and the TKO Project. Also, music from the CD "We are the Orphans" performed by the Ntengwe Orphan Choir featuring Zimbabwe's own Oliver Mtukudzi.

The footage I'm using for the series is more about spontaneity then anything. At the present time I am working with already existing footage that needs editing. Realizing I've come a long way in a short time I am challanged with using my editing skills to make okay on the spot...no time to set up tripod or proper use of lights in a big crowd...this is a golden opportunity...ready, set, go kind of thing.

Not very easy considering shaky footage, no mics and crowds of people all around. I am determined to give it my best shot.

I have five series that are now in progress. The series will be a continuation and expansion on the previous works done on the African and African American Diaspora with Zimbabwe and it's children as a backdrop. I've come a long way since last year and I'm continuing to grow and expand in my knowledge of producing film.

In the first of these next five series I will focus on Zimbabwean musicians and American musicians who share a strong connection to the Zimbabwean experience as they sometimes share the same stage in the Bay Area's Multicultural East Bay.