(Entertainment-NewsWire.com, December 10, 2014 ) Sunland, California -- The We Make Movies Film Geeks Podcast took an interesting turn this Sunday as the conversation turned to the protests happening in Ferguson, and all around the country.
Show hosts Garrett Robinson, Chad Kukahiko and Michelle Loucadoux are no strangers to controversial subject matter on their show. Though the primary focus of the podcast is on filmmaking, they cover a wide range of topics from the Arab Spring to police brutality. In their minds, these topics bear mention on a film podcast because of the role of online video within them.
"Video is one of the biggest reasons this issue is in the news at all," says Kukahiko, frequently the show's proponent of social consciousness issues.
It's true that the proliferation of cell phone video, and the subsequent posting of those videos online, has played a huge role in the proceedings of these cases. Within hours of the fatal shooting of Tamir Rice, CCTV footage of his killing had been posted online for the world to see. Eric Garner's infamous chokehold video is at the center of thousands-strong protests that continue to rage in New York.
"It's a virtual certainty that [this problem] has existed for a long time...The amazing thing that video is allowing is, we're able to ask questions about it that we've never asked before," said Robinson.
As video becomes more and more commonplace in our society, and as filmmakers can now turn around feature films based on real-life events in record time (witness the film Fruitvale Station), the role of today's independent artist in effecting social change may never have been more important than it is today.
Ferguson and related protests have also spawned a new wave of citizen journalists, ordinary people who livestream video to the Internet during the protests themselves. In many cases this has shined a light on police wrongdoing that would otherwise have been unknown, such as the August tear gassing of the Al Jazeera video news team in Ferguson.
The indie filmmaking podcast has several hundred listeners every week, and can be found on the We Make Movies website as well as the personal website of Garrett Robinson.
About Living Art Books
Garrett Robinson is the bestselling self-published author of the Nightblade and Realm Keepers series of fantasy novels. He is also a growing YouTube and Twitch personality, and a blogger whose work can be found on GarrettBRobinson.com.
