Author: Martin
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I’m on Instagram — without being on Instagram
I have been paying attention to the political leanings of those who operate social networks for a while. That is why I left Facebook something like two years ago, or maybe more. I don’t remember when I signed off exactly. And I left Twitter when Elon Musk bought it — a social network of this…
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The First Official ‘Purpose’ Trailer
Yesterday, we published the first trailer for our film ‘Purpose‘ on YouTube. Very excited. If you want to watch a making-of, you can find it here.
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My Only Comment About AI, the US Elections, Putin & Globalisation in 2024
Below is my latest animation film on MOPALAB. I think it will be the only public comment I will make about all these things. What else is there to say? Update August 27th: I adapted the film to make a YouTube Shorts version also. It’s a bit tighter and that way, maybe, a bit scarier,…
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My Latest Time-Lapse Drawings
In the background — behind all the work that is currently going on for our documentary feature film — my animation channel still doesn’t rest. Here are the latest time-lapse videos I uploaded. Each of them is one scene or drawing from an animation short film that I am working on — the latest is…
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Inventing Indiana Jones
I found a wonderful little treasure — at least for all film buffs: A transcribed conversation from 1978, in which George Lucas is pitching Steven Spielberg and Lawrence Kasdan his ideas for a new movie character and a new movie. The character would later become ‘Indiana Jones’, and the movie ‘Raiders of the Lost Arc’.…
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My latest Animation Film: Italian-German Culture Clash
I couldn’t even say what triggered this — but one day I thought I had to deal with the horrible German notion of putting pineapple on pizza, from an Italian point of view. The result is the latest animation film on my YouTube channel MOPALAB: Interestingly, soon after I had started to work on this…
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A First-Time Filmmaker’s Rollercoaster Ride
When I decided to go to Iceland for the premiere of my first feature-length film, I realised that I had to document that journey. Today, I am very glad I did — because that journey was as much a rollercoaster as the production of the film had been. Here is a little ten-minute video that…
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When a Japanese Monster Movie Gives Hollywood A Sucker Punch
In May, I wrote about my experience with Apple’s TV+ service, and as part of that, I talked about how horrible I thought their TV show “Monarch — Legacy of Monsters” was. Here is what I had to say about it: At some point I had to stop watching because it was simply too absurd.…
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Feedback for our Film ‘Purpose’ in Iceland
I’ve been back from Iceland for over a week now, and I’m still terribly excited about the great feedback we received at the premiere of our film “Purpose”. Just check out the above quote from Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Co-President of the Club of Rome. There are a couple more on our website: https://purpose.film We’ll be organising…
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Incredible Iceland
I just spent two weeks on a trip to Iceland. I drove my electric car to the Northern tip of Denmark and boarded a ferry there. By way of Faroe Islands, the ship needed two days to get to the little port of Seyðisfjörður on the Eastern end of Iceland. (Turns out: there is no…
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Rou Reynolds: Rockstar and Systems Change Advocate
It was a particular pleasure to interview Rou Reynolds — lead singer, keyboardist and chief song writer in the band “Enter Shikari” — for our podcast “Express Change”. I had the chance to meet Rou already during our work on the documentary “Purpose”, so I knew already what a compelling combination of humble, insightful, entertaining,…
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Uploading my first film to a server in Iceland
Today is a big day. I uploaded a 33 GB file to an online space that’s managed by the people at Harpa venue in Iceland. Because that is where my documentary feature film “Purpose” will have its premiere on June 11th. The file (a 1080 HD mp4) is my finished film. It will be shown…
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My Latest Animation Films
In the past weeks, I have posted a few more MOPALAB films. After ‘The Meet’, which I believe to be a highlight so far, I have added: This is probably the most political (?) of my animation films to date. When making it, I did not set out with that purpose in mind. I just…
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The Last Leg of A Filmmaking Journey
I am typing this on the train, en route to Amsterdam, to see my filmmaker friend Martijn Veldhoen. He will help me with the final sound mix of my film ‘Purpose’. Martijn has made many documentary (mostly short) films, many of which have won prizes at film festivals. He is a fairly unique filmmaker in…
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Two Amazing Women On The Express Change Podcast
I’ve been so busy with the post production of the documentary feature film I am currently working on — I didn’t even find the time to write about two inspiring conversations we posted on Express Change! Katja Iversen — “Step It Up” and Katherine Trebeck — “The Clusterfuck Monologues”. Katja is the CEO of the…
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‘The Meet’ — a 40-Second Film Noir
Here is the latest film on my animation channel. I am quite fond of this one, the old man took a while to draw, and animating those hands wasn’t easy either. I am quite pleased with the final result though.
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What If Our Political Debates Began With Music-Making?
For episode three of our podcast ‘Express Change’, we spoke with Mapumba Cilombo, a musician originally from Kolwezi in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who lives and works in South Africa. The conversation was very warm and uplifting, Mapumba came across as someone I’d like to have as a friend: a shiny, open, kind person…
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Presenting My New Animation Film Project: ‘MOPALAB’
Visual creativity matters a great deal to me. It always has. I love the drawing style of Hergé. I was also very influenced by the early cover designs of the German youth book series “Die drei ???” by Aiga Rasch. I’ve been drawing all my life, on and off, starting when I was two years…
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Learning from Tim Jackson — Episode 2 of Express Change
In 2017, Tim Jackson was the starting point. With him, I began my ‘rethinking journey’ on everything I thought I knew about economic growth. Let’s not forget: For 17 years, between 1999 and 2016, I was an advertising man, an ambassador of economic growth. When we developed the first version of our show ‘vollehalle‘ in…
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Do We Like Our Art And Our Economy Top-Down, or Bottom-Up?
Today, we are launching our first full-length ‘Express Change’-podcast episode — a conversation with Shirley Rodriguez, a New-York-based photographer and filmmaker. There is one idea that Shirley speaks about which reverberates through our entire podcast series: What is the approach to the subject matter? Is it collaborative and open, or is it top-down and closed?…