Welcome To Updoc Films

June 14th

Updoc Films' Corporate Media Survival Guide series is being translated into Turkish and posted both on Youtube and Facebook. How The News Works can be viewed here. More information and links will follow.

March 31st

New York based independent artist SmartBlackKid is sampling sections from Updoc films', How Television Works into their first official studio album. "My album contains thought provoking lyrics that challenge the listener to question or break from the status quo reality of various aspects of American culture. As I've approach the final mixing stage of the project, the idea came to me that I could make the album more dynamic by interspersing quotes from my favorite thinkers and documentaries."

March 28th

Australian metal band, The Molotov will be streaming Updoc Films' Corporate Media Survival Guide series between sets during their upcoming tour. "Most places we play usually play their own music but leave our graphics/DVDs running on projector screens & walls etc so we run short takes from things like Manufacturing Consent, The Corporation etc, all w/ subtitles encoded so ppl can read it while the music plays."

August 28th

At last, a powerhouse competitor has challenged the market dominance of the corporate coffee colossus, Starbucks. The name of the upstart competitor? Starbucks.

Well, actually, you won't find the corporate name on the challenger, and that's the point. With its own sales declining as more and more caffeine consumers reject the cookie-cutter corporate climate that the coffee chain epitomizes, Starbucks is launching a new line of stores that jettisons its own brand – no Starbucks sign outside, no logos inside, and none of that generic blandness that makes each Starbucks store just like the 16,000 others in the chain.

The new shops strive to be the anti-Starbucks, with funky stylings and localized names that disguise the corporate presence behind them. The idea, says Starbucks' senior vice president of global design, is to give the stores "a community personality."

This is, of course, a deliberate consumer fraud, but it's also so clumsy and transparent that it's doomed to be an embarrassing failure. Start with the fact that genuine coffee shops already have "a community personality" – and one thing none of them has is a senior vice president of global design.

Corporate chains can't do "community," can't do "funky," can't do "cool," can't do "independent" – because they're not. One clue into Starbucks' inherent lack of cool came last year when it surreptitiously deployed a gaggle of market researchers into local Seattle coffee shops to gather intelligence on what constitutes "community personality." The spies didn't exactly fit in – on each of their forays, they arrived as a group, poked around, jotted notes in folders labeled "Observation," and then left without even buying a single cup of coffee!

It's no secret that sedentary behavior contributes to obesity and chronically poor health. But not all sedentary behaviors are created equal, according to a new study that examines the link between blood pressure in children and their choice of inactive pastimes, including watching TV, using the computer and reading.

Researchers in the U.S. and Spain collaborated on the study of 111 children ages 3 to 8 and found that of all the forms of inactivity they examined, television-viewing was the worst. It was linked to significantly higher blood pressure in children - the more TV kids watched, the higher their blood pressure - and the effect held true regardless of whether a child was heavy or at a healthy weight. What's more, other sedentary behaviors, like using a computer, were not associated with similar blood-pressure hikes, according to the study, which was published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

"These results show that sedentary behavior, and more specifically television-viewing, is related to blood pressure independent of body fat or obesity level," says Dr. Joey Eisenmann, a kinesiologist at Michigan State University and one of the study's co-authors.

To determine levels of inactivity over one week, the children in the study wore accelerometers, which resemble pedometers but instead of tracking distance, they record the body's acceleration in a vertical plane - sitting results in a score of zero, and walking and running produce progressively higher scores. The researchers considered anything under a score of 50 per day as sedentary. They coupled this data with reports from the children's parents about how much time the kids spent in inactive pursuits, including watching television, sitting at a computer, playing video games, reading or doing other projects that don't require much movement.

The children were sedentary for five hours each day, and 1.5 of those hours were spent in front of a TV, computer or video game, on average. When the researchers further broke down screen time by activity, TV-viewing had the strongest correlation with higher blood pressure. Kids watching from 90 to 330 minutes of television each day had systolic and diastolic blood-pressure readings (the two numbers that indicate pressure caused by blood pumping from the top and bottom chambers of the heart, respectively) that were five to seven points higher than those of children watching less than half an hour of television a day.

"These results show that TV-viewing really is the worst of all possible sedentary activities," says Dr. David Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life Program at Children's Hospital Boston, who was not part of the study. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under 2 should not watch any television and that older children limit their viewing to one to two hours per day.

So what is it about watching TV that's worse than playing video games or surfing the Internet? Certainly, playing games and using computers involve some movement, like fidgeting or changing body positions, but is that enough to explain the difference? The study's authors propose several other possible explanations. For instance, beyond the complete inactivity involved with TV-viewing - which alone raises the risk of high blood pressure - children may be compounding their sloth by eating junk food. "A full bag of chips or a plate of hot dogs can disappear a lot more quickly while watching TV than they might at any other occasion," says Ludwig. And the types of foods that children are likely to be eating in front of the tube, like salty snacks, can push up blood pressure readings.

In addition, say the authors, if kids watch TV too close to bedtime, their minds may remain stimulated just enough to keep them awake and miss out on precious hours of sleep. Cutting short a good night's slumber, past research suggests, can lead to weight gain and hypertension, since the body's metabolism doesn't have enough opportunity to recharge and renew itself overnight.

To those reasons, Ludwig adds a few others. Previous studies have found that watching television lulls people, especially young children, into a low-energy state that is akin to sleeping - that's about as sedentary as a person can get. "Some studies suggest that the metabolic rate can fall even below that of sleeping," he says. "They suggest that children are getting into some deep hypnotic state at times." (See the top 10 TV series of 2008.)

Worse yet is the content of television programming, which Ludwig suggests may have long-lasting repercussions. "There is the possibility that the greatest long-term impact of TV viewing is on children's eating habits through food commercials," he says. Some experts estimate that youngsters are bombarded with 10,000 food commercials each year during children's programming, and most of them aren't promoting salads or fruit. All this marketing, says Ludwig, changes children's taste preferences and causes them to crave - and beg for - unhealthy foods. "Children are seeing these commercials at an age when they are just establishing eating habits that can become ingrained and last a lifetime," he says.

Eisenmann stresses that while the new study found an association between TV-viewing and higher blood-pressure readings, it did not measure whether children developed hypertension. However, in previous studies involving the same group of children, whom he and the other scientists have been studying for four years, about 20% of the children had developed prehypertension or hypertension - often because of weight gain.

Although the study did not follow the children over time, the findings still suggest that TV-viewing has a strong influence on the health of young children. Environmental and lifestyle factors, like diet and inactivity, account for about 70% of a person's blood pressure (genes determine the rest), and high blood pressure at a young age may increase kids' risk of developing heart disease in adulthood. "There is no fundamental biological need for TV-viewing in childhood," says Ludwig. "So these findings certainly warrant follow-up."

June 4th

CafePress, the world’s leading print-on-demand service, announced a major change June 1st that will have a huge negative impact on its huge community shopkeepers that manage over 6 million online stores.

Since 1999, people can upload their designs on CafePress and sell them on t-shirts, stickers, buttons and many other products. The designer determines the price of the product and thus the commission they will earn when the product sells. When someone orders one of your products, CafePress will kick into gear by printing your design and sending it to the customer. The shopkeeper gets the commission. CafePress also has a marketplace where everyone’s designs can be found. For many shopkeepers most of their sales come through the marketplace, as CafePress spends a lot of money on advertising and their pages rank very high in search engines.

What CafePress recently announced that is making everyone very mad is that they will fix all prices in their marketplace and give shopkeepers only 10% of the final retail price. 10% is very low, as some shopkeepers have markups of as high as 30% to 40% to make a living. If in the past a t-shirt had a base price of $15 and the shopkeeper decided to have a $5 markup the t-shirt will sell for $20 and the shopkeeper will get $5. In the new scheme CafePress will be able to determine the retail price of all products in their marketplace and give the shopkeeper only 10%. So if they decide to sell the t-shirt for $18, the shopkeeper will get only $1.80. That is a huge cut in earnings.

In the summer of 2008, CafePress already made some unpopular changes to their volume bonus scheme that resulted in shopkeepers’ income to drop 20% to 30%. As a result of that change some shopkeepers already left CafePress and moved their designs to other print-on-demand sites, like Printfection. This week’s announced change will cut another 50% to 80% off people’s income. This has hundreds of people enraged on CafePress’ forums.

Many shopkeepers have built up a business on CafePress that allowed them to quit their day jobs and work on CafePress full-time. A lot of these people will now be forced to find other jobs in a time when jobs are scarce. There are also people who have managed to make a living off CafePress because their illness prevented them from working out of the house. They are also screwed. Others were laid off from their job and are using CafePress to make some extra money. Thousands of others are relying on CafePress to supplement their income besides their other job(s). For all these people their CafePress income pays for their mortgage, bills and children’s educations. A sudden cute of 50% to 80% in income is outrageous.

It is not only an immoral and greedy business decision, it also doesn’t make any sense from every other perspective. CafePress’ entire community is built on the premise that shopkeepers own their own designs and can determine the markup. Some people just put simple text on their t-shirts and sell them with a low markup. Other designers get expensive graphics software, buy fonts and spend hours or days to make an elaborate design. It makes no sense whatsoever to fix prices on all these designs and to lower people’s markup to 10%.

If CP is smart they will revert this planned change. Many big shopkeepers, who work on CafePress full-time and depend on the income to pay their bills cannot afford the 50% to 80% pay cut. CafePress’ announcement yesterday was the equivalent of laying off thousands of people. Many of these successful shopkeepers have already announced that they will close their CP stores and move to other PODs like Printfection. If CP goes ahead with this change it will be the end of CafePress.

May 31st

The American Medical Association Alliance is continusing it's push for any and all movies that include smoking to be given an R-rating. Dr. Jonathan Fielding of the AMAA drops the heavy research evidence that 1-in-3 kids who see smoking in movies, or whose favorite superstar smokes in a movie, are much more likely to start smoking themselves.

The MPAA defended the status quo stating that they have been including the act of smoking in their rating systems for "a while now" and that of the 55% of all movies that included smoking, only 21% were given a PG-13, with 5% being PG — leaving 75% of the movies getting an R.

The AMAA wants any movie with smoking to be rated R. Their example of the year is the recent hit X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which depicts Hugh Jackman smoking a cigar for two-hours. AMAA President Sandi Frost called the cigar smoking featured in the film gratuitous and went on to say,

Millions of children have been exposed to the main star of the film, Hugh Jackman, with a cigar in his mouth in various scenes. I’m willing to bet that not one child would have enjoyed that movie or Mr. Jackman’s performance any less if he hadn’t been smoking.

20th Century Fox erroneously explained that they did consciously cut down on the smoking showed in the movie, even though Wolverine is routinely smoking a cigar in comic books - a bogus claim being that Marvel Comics has banned smoking since Editor in Chief Joe Quesada's father died of lung cancer.

Keep up with the The AMAA with a mobile billboard that features a young girl asking the important question, “Which movie studio will cause me to smoke this summer?”. They also created a Facebook Movie Smoking Scorecard page with a summer movie report card. Check out the links to join the fight.

Everyone at Updoc Films wishes the AMAA success.

The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied.

That quote comes from a 1995 report by scientific and technical experts working for the Global Climate Coalition. The GCC was a group organized and funded by Big Oil, automakers, utilities, and other major Industrial polluters.

Throughout the 90s, the GCC attempted to debunk the idea that big business was causing a buildup of Carbon Dioxide (and other harmful greenhouse gases) in Earth's atmosphere, directly related to that thing hippies and lefties called Global Warming.

They ran a series of multi-million dollar media campaigns on behalf of these industries in order to create doubt in the public mind. But in the end, it was clear that even the GCC with all their media spinning, couldn't turn a blind eye to the truth.

Fifteen years later the GCC documents have been made public with such damning insights which include, "climate change most certainly is happening" and Industrial businesses were a central cause of it. Back in 1995 when these conclusions were presented to the Industrial sector, the inconvenient truths were simply removed, thus forestalling any action on the worsening problem.

This is the same ploy that the tobacco giants used for decades, to deny any link between smoking and cancer. Always remember that corporate interests include the ability to create "scientific" smokescreens to dupe the media, government and the public into thinking in contradiction to the truth.

Remember this ploy the next time you hear any special interest group spouting science to justify or defend abusive practices.

Every new invention, gadget, and lifestyle altering device was introduced to the public as conveniences. Television, Microwaves, mp3 players, Digital Television were sold to the public under the best terms as possible. They were designed to enhance our lives, making things easier, faster and more fulfilling. Nobody told us that television was addictive and would alienate us from our community, because those kinds of truths never sell televisions.

Over time these lifestyle conveniences were adopted in our every day lives and soon they became a necessity. The open fire became a wood stove which became an electric stove, then a microwave, then a drive thru window at McDonalds. We call this progress. Instant coffee, instant popcorn, microwavable dinners, GPS, The six o'clock news, podcasts, fast food, cell phones. The list goes on and on.

These conveniences are systematically destroying the social rituals that we used to take for granted. By accepting Corporate America's agenda, we are speeding up our society, sacrificing moments of time spent socializing with friends and family, gardening, reading, harvesting, cooking, and most of all, having quiet time to ourselves.

Instead of using the microwave, cook outside. Build a fire-pit if you have the space, start a vegetable garden. Instead of using your dryer, hang your clothes up outside. Ditch the GPS and ask directions. Create and inject some rituals into your daily life that will slow your world down. Leave your cellphone at home the next time you go out and reclaim your time for yourself. Enjoy slow food.

Those "must have" items in your life? They are not life and death necessities. For thousands of years people lived without such nonsense. De-clutter your lifestyles choices and reap the rewards of living simple.

Traditionally, SXSW is a place for independent bands to get noticed by the industry professionals and media gathered to scout talent. But a Friday night performance by Metallica stole the thunder from underdog acts hoping to get noticed. As it turns out, Metallica's performance was tied to the release of a new Metallica... video game?!

Confirmation arrived Sunday night as the former thrash gods were shown in a Guitar Hero commercial, peddling the latest fad in video game garbage. It seems that the only way Metallica can stay on top these days is to embrace Corporate America, and doing so, they turned a traditionally indie downtown music scene into a embedded video game commercial and sold themselves to Satan. Congratulation, dirtbags. What will you do for an encore, exume Cliff and have a reunion tour?

People who create and depend on gimmicks do so because whatever artistic integrity the artist initially had (that drew crowds of admirers to empty their wallets on command), simply isn't working anymore. It's become blatantly obvious that these old men have nothing new to say.

According to International Flavors & Fragrances and Givaudan, our traditional chicken is about to become obsolete. Two of the world's largest flavor companies have embarked on a major research project to streamline "a more authentic" chicken flavor. The multi-million dollar project has set out to determine the five core flavors - boiled white meat, boiled dark meat, skin, roasted and grilled.

"Eating foods in their more natural state is a lot more healthier for the variety of nutrients they provide", says Christine Gerbstadt of the American Dietetic Association. In other words, if you must eat chicken, skip the chemicals and eat free-range.

March 4th

Hallelujah! The archbishop of the Italian city of Modena wants young Catholics to give up text messaging, social networking websites and computer games for Lent. Monsignor Benito Cocchi said foregoing the activities would help them "cleanse themselves from the virtual world and get back into touch with themselves".

The average Italian sends 50 texts a month from their mobiles, the second highest rate in Europe, behind the UK. Other Italian bishops have given their backing to the appeal.

February 20th

Some of you have already seen the anti-christ. It's not a man or woman, but rather a so-called charity called One Laptop Per Child. Here's a slice of the 1LPC's Mission Statement:

To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.

TRANSLATION: The laptops are equipped with hardware, software, and internet access provided by large corporations, and like most computes, will require upgrading which means more money spent on top of the base price of two hundred dollars per laptop which I doubt the world's poorest children could afford. These targeted children are nothing more than an artificially created demographic for advertisers to foist their corporate friendly messages and sell their garbage products and services to. Money = Slavery.

When children have access to this type of tool they get engaged in their own education. They learn, share, create, and collaborate. They become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future.

TRANSLATION: Privatization of the education system! Once the little kiddies are hooked on their new brainwashing toys, they'll yearn for the kinds of modern living that they are bound to be exposed to and decide to move away from their traditional lifestyles and values. Assimilation! Submission! Think of it as a more effective means of controlling the population without resorting to violence. And for the record, the real way to connect people is through community, not technology.

The not so recent and yet ever evolving hybridization of technology is a result of various corporate agendas. People are becoming more and more wired into a larger web of corporate control. To what end? propaganda, manufacturing consent, governmental, commercial and ideological. Cellphones, internet, movies, email and streaming media is all one big conglomeration of pay for play aclimatization. Once we're comfortable with all these technologies, it's only inevitable that the corporations will push the envelope further.

These companies' primary goal is the categorization and sectioning off of the digital landscape just as we've done to our physical landscape for hundreds of years. Manifest Digital Destiny. We try to stay under the radar as much as possible these days because of it.

Looking ahead one day we will be completely surrounded by digital components that will be operated by a single operating system. Televisions, computers, cellphones, radios, GPS systems, refrigerators, mp3 players (and many more) will have electronic reminders that automatically generate lists attached to websites, credit cards, bank accounts, credit ratings and even the IRS. These multitudes of computerised systems will self-regulate, order, calculate, deliver and bill all independent of any human interaction.

Who is to say that when a product (say a toaster) is wired into the system, that the corporation couldn't use the larger web to send out a signal to destroy the toaster. Once destroyed, the computerised toaster sends out a message to a website to order it's replacement. Your credit card gets billed and the replacement toaster gets delivered without you even knowing that your previous toaster was murdered. Planned obsolescence becomes proactive obsolescence.

Better yet, whats to stop a corporation from simply continually charging your account for a product that continues to function? You may have bought the product, but you still have to pay for it's services. 59 cents to heat the coils in your toaster... 99 cents to use the flushing mechanism in your toilet... a dollar fifty to bake some cookies. That's Capitalism.

Once the systems are in place, we will welcome them because we will have been brainwashed into thinking that we can't live without them. Our future will consist of an ever evolving number of socio-technological convenience-to-necessity transitions.

February 9th

We've received our first look at the upcoming Corporate Media Survival Guide. Devon hasn't said specifically what topic he's addressing (really attacking), but you can imagine it has something to do with mass media. Stay tuned for more!

February 3rd

So the media has decided to jump down the throats of two celebrities. Recently Jessica Simpson has been unjustly and heavily criticized for gaining a modicum of weight making her look like a normal and healthy individual. People in the media seriously need to back off. She's now being labelled with the same forecasted "the downfall of a star" doom that Britney Spears previously receieved, and for what? nothing.

Speaking of backing off, Christian Bale should have thought about doing exactly that before he threw a tantrum against a lighting technician during a shoot on his recent movie. Bale is losing respect and fans because of his temper. Earlier today Updoc staff chimed in. Devon said, "Screw Batman. Screw Terminator. Nobody should talk like that to another human being." Lindy added the following, "I don't care how great a Batman he is ... there is no way I will ever, EVER spend a penny or a second of my precious time on one of his endeavors." The rest of us in the office couldn't agree more.

February 2nd

Updoc Films has undergone the knife! We've slashed back the redundant features of our old website and focused on the parts that we enjoy the most. Some of the changes include replacing our old emailed newsletter with this blog page, moving our Current Feature to the front page and organizing our films into a more concise and easy to follow collection. Stay tuned for more in 2009!

We just received an announcement from Devon Grey this morning that the next installment of his Corporate Media Survival Guide series has undergone production. Devon says, "The short film is the next logical step both in subject matter and production aesthetics. The examintion of contemporary media now turns towards the visual language of mass media which will includes various systems of propaganda, manufacturing consent, emotional manipulation - all used to further corporate agendas."

While surfing the web the other day, we found that youtube user BadStar77 has taken our How Television Works short film and translated it into french. Click here to check it out.

Updoc Films was saddenned to learn of the passing of Patrick McGoohan today. As actor, writer, producer and director, McGoohan influenced many of us in the work we seek out to create, the questions we chose to ask and the personal integrity we hope to carry both in our professional and personal lives. McGoohan is survived by his wife and two daughters. He will be sadly missed but never forgotten.

January 5th

Anyone looking to make a backup copy of The Dark Knight might be in for a surprise. Apparently Warner Brothers installed some pretty intense anti-piracy scripting to keep the DVD from even playing in a computer! Some fans are calling for outright boycott against the company while other more computer saavy people have taken the scripting as a challenge, finding ways to crack the code and beat the system.