Bulls’ center Joakim Noah grew up listening to Fela Kuti with his tennis star father, Yannick Noah, and his Cameroonian soccer champion grandfather Zacharie Noah. In this short doc, Joakim talks about Fela’s audacity to speak the truth on behalf of his people, Tupac carrying the torch, the importance of knowing one’s roots, and how Obama schooled him.

Shot and Edited by Sam Bathrick for OKAYAFRICA TV

This short docupromo follows hip-hop legend Q-Tip as he traces his African roots with a simple DNA swab. Produced in association with OkayAfrica.com and AfricanAncestry.com.

Camera: Sam Bathrick

Edit: Adam Barton

We caught up with Nigerian songstress Nneka for some honest news on Africa. Ebony.com premiered this short doc in which Nneka dishes on Nigerians’ growing dissatisfaction with the “Vagabonds in Power”, Nigeria’s tricky relationship to oil, and her involvement in the historical “Occupy Nigeria” movement earlier this year.

Directed and Edited by Sam Bathrick
Camera by Adam Barton

Having spent a little time recently with Eli chatting about this new endeavor, I’m really excited to see what happens with Upworthy. It’s a great team of experienced people from the right backgrounds to try and make something like this work. Let’s hope it does!

-Adam

When filmmaker Gena Konstantinakos got in touch with me to help shape her new pro-Net Neutrality documentary satire called The Internet Must GO (working title), getting involved as a co-producer and editor was a no-brainer. Most any creative person, business or brand needs an open Internet. Everyone needs an open Internet EXCEPT the ISPs and yet most people don’t have any idea what Net Neutrality really means. And the reality is that the laws that protect Net Neutrality are under attack and at risk of being changed or altered in potentially disastrous ways.

With funding from the Ford Foundation and others, we are hard at work – making a comedic short film to educate the masses and we’re plotting an extended outreach campaign that will make the most of some of the Internet’s best tools – social media, video streaming and the blogosphere. We’re teaming up with motion graphics experts, social media strategists and policy experts to both get the word out and to stimulate progressive action!

More updates to come soon.

-Adam

As the co-producer and lead editor I couldn’t be happier that this film has made it to theaters. It was a huge effort to shape this movie and an incredible learning experience for me and everyone involved. Now the goal is to get as many people as possible to come out and see the movie! Here is the synopsis:

Kumaré is an enlightened guru from the East who builds a following of disciples in the West. But Kumaré is not real. He is an American filmmaker named Vikram Gandhi, who has transformed himself into Kumaré as the centerpiece of a social experiment designed to explore and test one of the world’s most sacred taboos. Concealing his true identity from all he meets, Kumaré forges profound, spiritual connections with real people from all walks of life. At the same time, in the absurdity of living as an entirely different person, Vikram the filmmaker is forced to confront difficult questions about his own identity. At the height of his popularity he reveals his greatest teaching: his true self. A playful yet genuine and insightful look at belief and spirituality, the film crosses a line few have dared to cross, all to discover: from illusion comes truth.

Time.com did a piece about our premier in Austin. Seriously good times down there.

-Adam

The project traces mankind’s drug use through the ages, examining the many ways humans have used substances – for medicine purposes, for spiritual practices and for recreation and escape. From early human’s use of psychedelic mushrooms to the modern debate over the drug war, The Stoned Ages covers a wide swath of rich history, providing a provocative lens with which to examine our past.

Update:
The show has been ripped and put on youtube – see below for the final 15 minutes. This is some of our favorite material, including part of a tour of a secret DEA drug holding facility and a visit to the NYU psilocybin lab where researchers are using the active ingredient in magic mushrooms to help ease the pain of end-of-life cancer patients.

Psst. Here is the whole show. Youtube is crazy these days.

Here’s a new music video that we made for Vieux Farka Toure’s haunting single “All The Same” for his new album The Secret. Featuring soaring vocals from Dave Matthews, this track evoked a rare beauty and simplicity that we tried to compliment with the story of a child’s imagination and his attempts to find his place in the world.

Sam Bathrick directed a stellar group of kids including Henry Fields (Boy), Jasmyne Hart (Girl) and Cameron Castonguay. Crew credits as follows:
Co-Writer: Eileen O’Neill
Producer:
 Adam
 Barton

Director 
of
 Photography:
 Henry 
Jacobson

Director
 of 
Photography
 2nd 
Unit:
 Alex
 Cullen

Assistant
 Director:
 Emma
 Tammi

Art
 Director:
 Jimmy
 Williams

Choreographer
 & Associate 
Producer: 
Korin
 Mills
Production
 Assistant / Swing: 
Matt
 Schwartzfeld

Executive Producers: Eric Herman, Modiba Productions (modiba.net), Six Degrees Records (sixdegreesrecords.com)

TED talks have caught on like wild fire in the past few years. It flies in the face of web content that typically succeeds – each video is long (most are over 18 minutes), each features a single person giving a lecture (weren’t lecture classes the hardest to sit through in college?) and there are relatively few dancing babies and skateboarding dogs in any given presentation. But the ideas are cutting edge, delivered by great speakers at an event that has become a gold standard for technology and design.

In a recent video, TED co-founder Chris Anderson (author of The Long Tail) laid out his theory of “crowd accelerated innovation”, basically saying that web video is allowing innovators all over the world to reach a greater audience and thus stimulating that audience into making their own innovations. Anderson claims that this cycle of innovation will accelerate the generation and implementation of good ideas in all walks of life – improving everything from dancing to medical research. This certainly makes web video seem more important than being simply a platform for sports highlights and weird pet tricks. Anderson goes so far as to say that web video is akin the the printing press in terms of having the potential to create a paradigm shift in information exchange.

While I am not sure I agree with everything Chris Anderson says (his presentation is still filled with a child dancing phenom and a unicycle expert), I do agree that web video is as powerful a way to express ideas that is growing and becoming a more and more important part of the media. And it continues to evolve as bandwidth improves. But it has to be GREAT to break through. For me, all of this is justification why I founded Native Resonance and have invested my professional career in learning how to tell stories with video. Filmmaking has been the backbone of this pursuit, but Native Resonance exists because we are passionate about taking great ideas and finding exciting ways to share them with the world. This could be in a documentary, music video, comedy sketch, commercial or viral video.

Do you have an idea that needs to be heard?

-Adam

Bajah, A-Klazz & Dovy Dovy were three of two million people displaced by a brutal 10-year civil war in Sierra Leone. Since then they have been called “the voice of voiceless” for their pro-peace message of understanding and reconciliation. Their music has been featured in the major motion picture Blood Diamond and the very recent HBO documentary War Don Don. Native Resonance sat down with the guys to get some perspective on their experiences in the war and how it has shaped their music and approach to making art. CauseCast recently picked up this segment on their site.

*If you look carefully in the live performance footage of this War Stories doc (shot at the Highline Ballroom by Sam) you can see Ishmael Beah rapping with Bajah. He is a former child soldier who wrote the best selling memoir A Long Way Gone about his experiences in the war. It is amazing and powerful book.