I spent an afternoon at the Taipei train station with my i-phone. It was a slow, leisurely afternoon for me, but not for the people who had places to go. I love having the luxury of being stationary in a place where everyone else is compelled to move.

This is a little animation I made using my i-phone, a gag software called Hipstamatic and FCP. The music is by Kevin McLeod of Incompetech.com.

We have a new name for the film, it used to be called, ‘Hooch and Hamlet in Chharanagar,’ now its called ‘Please Don’t Beat Me, Sir!’ Kerim redid thewebsite, after we had a couple of our designers fall through. And I finally got around to cutting a trailer.

Scenes from an immigrant’s workers rights I went to yesterday in Taipei.  The theme this year was domestic workers, who want the right to a day off.  David on Formosa has a blog post about the march and immigrant workers in Taiwan.

Every time I see labor contractors in the Foreign Affairs office, they give me the heebie jeebies, they seem like a cross between pimps and petty landlords scared to death of losing their petty privileges, so it was great to attend something where immigrant workers could articulate their concerns.

The visual theme for the protest was slippers, since the Chinese word for slippers 拖鞋, shares its first character to mean ‘delay,’ as in ‘dragging your feet.’  The event ended with the Council of Labor Affairs being pelted with slippers. Me and my friends were in the front of the crowd, the wrong place to be if a crowd is going to be throwing slippers!

This is the first video I shot using the Flip. It was a pain editing it on FCP, and I pretty much had to do it blind, unless I wanted to spend hours rendering it to preview things. I marked in and out points on the audio track and picked an in point on the video and let the chips fall where they may.  Its not the greatest video ever, but it did get done in a couple of hours.

The Bench from Shashwati Talukdar on Vimeo.

A little video I made with friends Olga Humphrey and John Plenge.

Posted via email from Shashwati’s posterous

Daily Kos has a post about the DREAM Act:

Each year approximately 2.8 million students graduate from US High Schools. Some will go on to college, join the military, or take other paths in life, hopefully all becoming productive members of society.

But for approximately 65,000 of them, these opportunities will never be available. Not because they lack motivation, or achievement, but because of the undocumented status passed on to them by their parents.

The DREAM Act would allow these kids to do the things other people take for granted like being able to go to college, get a driver’s license, and get a job. It would allow them to participate fully in society, in the only country they know.

There are a couple of videos in the post. The first one was produced by Theresa Thanjan and me, and the music was composed by John Plenge. Theresa and I also did a music video of a song, ‘I have a dream,’ written by a couple of the kids.

Theresa Thanjan and I produced the following PSA for the Dream Act. The music, Star Mangled Banner was composed by John Plenge.

If you have been following the immigration debate, you might know that the DREAM Act is one of the provisions that applies to young people who came here with their parents. It essentially allows these kids to have a fair chance to compete with every one else for access to education and jobs.

My colleague Theresa Thanjan and I have made a music video for a song written by a couple of kids about the DREAM Act.

Some of the stories about these young people are just heartbreaking. This American Life has a story about one such girl who is struggling to get an education.

To get involved, get in touch with New York State Youth Leadership Council.

I am slowly sorting through our travels in India in January. And some of that stuff is making its way into a videoblog.

A twenty five second quicktime of a clock store window in Ahmedabad. Courtesy of the good folks at Archive.org.

Here is a 30 sec clip from the protest at Narendra Modi’s teleconference at Madison Square Garden. Its part of a conversation I had with a photographer called Stan.

Eventually it might make its way into a bigger piece, but for now its on my videoblg. Its 4.4 mb, feedback regarding how easy it was to view and download would be appreciated.

(Photo by Kerim)

The monkey population in India has increased tremendously. Their natural predators have decreased in population, and their natural habitat has shrunk. In search for food, the monkeys are coming into contact with humans more and more regularly. Something that will probably prove fatal for the monkeys. But meanwhile, they are gracing us with their ingenuity and street smarts. On the road to Delhi from Dehradun, we encountered one such bold fellow.

The monkey above is the subject of my first video-blogging effort. After waiting to see if we would provide food, it padded onto the hood of the car and put his hand in to see if a bag on the dashboard had anything useful in it.