Young Oakland artists L.L.D.B., Pamela Arriera, and Taiwo Murray collaborated with AshEL SeaSunZ (of the green hip-hop group Earth Amplified) to write the track, using a beat created for the project by FX at Youth Uprising. Oakland video students at KDOL-TV  helped produce the video, which was shot at People’s Grocery in West Oakland.

Four teens wake up from another evening’s sugar bender to find themselves transformed into fast food icons, sugar and burger addicts under the thumb of their nefarious gang leader, Ronald McDonald. Ronald forces them out to the street to sling sugar and chips to the neighborhood kids, sucking them dry of their money and their health. The kids are trapped– addicted to the fake “I’m Loving It” lifestyle. But when they finally have had enough of Ronald’s controlling ways, the kids leave him behind, and find themselves learning a whole new way of life in the community garden. “Are You Loving It?” is about the real love that’s found by going back to the land and leaving fake food behind.

New press on the video:

Follow the launch on facebook

Here is some background on the Syria conflict, from KQED:

Do Now

Should the United States intervene in Syria if their government uses banned chemical weapons on their civilians? Does the US have a duty to take a stand on the use of chemical weapons in foreign countries?

Introduction

The conflict in Syria grew out of the 2011 Arab Spring protests, when Syrians peacefully demonstrated against Mr. Assad, who succeeded his father Hafez al-Assad, as president. This family had held the presidency for 40 years. Protesters demanded democratic reforms and the Syrian government unleashed security forces on demonstrators, killing many protesters and igniting a movement made up of secular rebels who aligned with the Free Syrian Army, and rebel militias, the most powerful of which are radical Islamist groups.

After two years of struggle and 100,000 dead, the conflict has escalated to new level. There is strong evidence that the Syrian government under President Bashar al-Assad’s forces has used banned chemical weapons on civilians. Last week hundreds of civilians were killed in this chemical attack on the capital, Damascus, which is home to Sunni-communities and Sunni rebels – the largest religious group in Syria.

This breach of international law presents a major challenge to the Obama administration in that Assad’s forces have crossed what the Obama administration has called a “red line.” “We cannot have a situation in which chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people,” Mr. Obama said….. “We have been very clear to the Assad regime but also to other players on the ground that a red line for us is, we start seeing a whole bunch of weapons moving around or being utilized.”

“That would change my calculus,” he added. “That would change my equation.”

President Obama is considering limited military intervention to contain the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons. This would not involve deploying American troops in Syria. The plan would be to target the military units that have used chemical weapons, but would not target chemical weapons storage facilities. But can this kind of engagement work? Can military involvement be controlled in this way?

US intervention impacts the Obama administration’s foreign policy and the path that is being forged. The strategy has been to reduce American military involvement abroad, having withdrawn forces from Iraq two years ago and planned withdrawal from Afghanistan next year. Should the US be embroiled in yet another conflict? Is intervention justified in this case?

What do you think? Add your voice to the KQED Do Now page at: http://blogs.kqed.org/education/2013/08/30/should-the-u-s-military-intervene-in-syria/

From our friends in Richmond at the RYSE Center:

Young artists from Richmond, CA have something to say and the RYSE Youth Center provides support in elevating youth voices in meaningful ways. Street Literature is the result of young folks coming together to share the impact that the deaths of individuals such as Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, and Israel Hernandez have had on them. Tired of being ignored, silenced, judged, and criminalized, these youth decided to voice their thoughts on how they are viewed and treated in our larger society. Using hip-hop music as a tool for self expression, these young artists have demonstrated the courage to speak their minds, to make the world see them for who they really are, and to emerge as young leaders in the effort to transform both their own community and communities like Richmond, CA around the world.

Episode 03 features the award-winning animated short, “Wake Up Call,” produced by MetWest interns at KDOL, as well as “Solarize”, a homegrown music video (produced in collaboration with our friends at United Roots) that tackles the topic of climate justice and indigenous rights. We’ve also got music videos from Muse Video’s own L.L.D.B. and La’Marley and Lani from Youth Uprising. We also talk with young climate activist Shadia Fayne Wood of Project Survival Media about what young people can do to address climate change.

Muse Video is proud to present a new music video project that brought together some talented youth artists from United Roots Oakland who created a track about global warming. Desirae Harp and Fly 50 joined music mentor SeasunZ, of Earth Amplified, to write and perform the song. Beat production and sound engineering by Luis Montoya and Mansa Evans.

Our MetWest High School student interns have been hard at work designing scenes and character sketches for the piece and bringing them to life through animation.

We hope that this project will be eye-opening for other young people and inspire them to act on this critical issue. Check out our video below:

In our video, we give ways to decrease your carbon footprint, but it is also important to join the social movement and learn about other things that you can do to help save the planet!

There are a lot of ways to get involved and there are plenty of organizations that are doing great things here in the Bay Area. Here are some groups that inspire us:

Alliance for Climate Education

From the beginning of this project, ACE and their amazing multimedia presentation have been a huge inspiration for us. We had ACE presenter Ashel Eldridge come to MetWest High School to educate us and our classmates about climate change. Their work inspired us to act and make our own video on the issue. Go to their website and tell your teachers and principals that you want to bring ACE to your school! The first step to creating change is to educate the people around us on the issue.

http://www.acespace.org/teachers/book

+350.org

350 plays a key role in organizing what’s quickly becoming the biggest social movement in a generation, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people from all around the world. One of the biggest campaigns going on right now is the fight to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline from being completed, which would be a huge blow for reducing our climate emissions and our reliance on fossil fuels. Go to their website NOW to sign their pledge and support the campaign against Keystone XL.

http://act.350.org/letter/a_million_strong_against_keystone/

Global Footprint Network

Another local organization here in the Bay Area, GFN has a great online game where you can find out your own carbon footprint. Check it out!

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/calculators/

Facts to Think About

If we want to change the world, first we have to know where we’re at and just how dire the situation is. Here are some facts to keep in mind:

- The Earth should be nearing the bottom of a several-thousand year cool-off. Instead, temperatures are rising rapidly, at unprecedented rates.

- Scientists have shown that this global warming is directly linked to human activity. In the past century, humans have started to burn massive amounts of fossil fuels like oil and natural gas, releasing carbon doxide and greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

-The climate change that results from all those greenhouse gases don’t just make things hotter– it causes the entire weather system to go haywire, making droughts and floods worse, storms like Superstorm Sandy to get more intense, and causes a huge loss of life for humans, animals and entire ecosystems.

-Montana’s Glacier National Park now has only 27 glaciers, versus 150 in 1910. In the Northern Hemisphere, thaws also come a week earlier in spring and freezes begin a week later. All this melting ice is happening all over the world, and will cause sea levels across the entire world to rise, wiping out coastal cities and ecosystems.

- The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that 11 of the past 12 years are among the dozen warmest since 1850.

-The Arctic is feeling the effects the most. Sea level increases up to 59 cm. According to the multinational Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report between 2000 and 2004, average temperatures in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia have risen at twice the global average.

-Highly sensitive coral reefs around the world have been suffering from climate change too, bleaching and dying off in response to the stress from water temperature changes. These situations will increase drastically in the next 50 years as the sea temperatures rise.

So what do we do?

Share this video and website with your friends, educate the people around you and join the already huge movement to reverse our path and end our reliance on fossil fuels!

The Student Animators:

Kevin Gonzalaz

Bio: Kevin is a senior from MetWest. Kevin likes to be with his girlfriend, do video production and learn new things on the web.

Kevin says, “Every stage of the production is key and on that software, we had to trace our hand-made drawings, create scenes and characters to have them be digital, add color and soon import onto Adobe After Effects.“

Hector Verduzco

MetWest student Hector Verduzco working on a scene in Illustrator.

Bio: Hector is a sophomore at MetWest, what he enjoys is drawing graffiti, playing sports and hanging out with friends.

Hector says: “Its an animation addressing many of the global problems that we face on a daily basis and the steps we can take in order to make sure that we stop perpetuating this horrible cycle of global warming.“

Karen Perez

MetWest Karen Perez student having fun on the job.

Bio: Karen is a freshman at MetWest, she enjoys listening to music, playing around with friends and texting on her phone.

Karen says “ What I learned during the project was how to use illustrator and learned more about climate change… and what change we could do to help prevent …floods and saving species of animals.”

Samaiyah Zareef-Mustafa

MetWest student Samaiyah at KDOL.

Bio: Samaiyah enjoy cooking, drawing and gardening.

Samaiyah says “Also, everyone had a lot of ideas about the video but we all had a chance to express ourselves and contribute equally…I can say that everyone enjoyed themselves and is pleased with the final project.”

Pancho

MetWest student at KDOL working on grocery scene.

Bio: Pancho likes to do graffiti, work with Adobe illustrator and listen to music.

Pancho says ” taught us things by steps so we can not only do the video on time, but get new skills and learning new things every time we came“

Guayo Cartagena

MetWest student Guayo making faces.

Bio: Guayo enjoys fiddling with Final Cut like Folk do with Fiddles. He also enjoys puns and is a fan of the Hip-Hop genre. He also enjoys basketball.

Guayo says “It is only with a unified effort that we can begin to shave off many of the effects global warming brings to beard of our planet.”

Dontae Sharp

MetWest student at KDOL

Bio:  Dontae is a sophomore at MetWest, he loves to play basketball, likes hip-hop music and loves to do engaging activities.

Dontae says “The problem is learning about climate change has been hard for me, just like a lot of other teens who have taken interest or heard about it. Its hard to actually picture the effects that we have on the climate and our world…Green house gases stay in the amosphere for hundreds of thousands of years. Knowing that we make cars and other engine based machines which produce a lot of co2 and other green house gases has opened my eyes to our problem with producing too much green house gas.“

Francisco Palma

MetWest student working on room animation.

Bio: Francisco is a freshman at MetWest, he enjoys playing FIFA 2013

c

MetWest student Lawrence at KDOL

Bio: Lawrence is a senior at MetWest, what he enjoys it to run track, sing and act.

Lawrence says “I feel as if we put all of the information that we wanted people to know but to also give them solutions to fix the problems that we as a community should see and understand how it will affect the word we live in.“

The Mentors:

Jake Schoneker

Bio: Jake is the Program Director at the Media Enterprise Alliance at KDOL-TV and Executive Producer of Muse Video. He’s a graduate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and an experienced multimedia storyteller. His work has appeared on the PBS NewsHour, the Washington Post, the AFP and the Phnom Penh Post.

What Jake says “It was a real pleasure getting to work with such a talented group of young people on this project. From the beginning concept to the final animation steps, everybody put their mark on the final product. As a video artist and someone who’s concerned about the climate, I’m so excited  to be part of this project.“ 

Kevin Kuo Bio: Film & Animation, Sports, Music

What Kevin says “A challenging project to achieve both narrative and stylistic creativity.”

Our New Pulse artist profile series continues with the East Bay’s own Necie Marie, a powerful young poet and rapper representing United Roots in Oakland! Produced by Muse Video and All Is One Productions.

Muse Video and All is One Productions brings you the third installment of our artist profile series, New Pulse– this time featuring Oakland’s own rapper and beat-maker extraordinaire from the United Roots crew, RythM!