The internet is wrought with folks trying to carve a living out of marketing, web design, blogging, online sales and video-for-the-web. From solid and sound startups, to hobbyists, to those hoping to go viral, the web is a place where business is business as usual and dreams are waiting to be realized; but for one Los Angeles video producer/blogger, it’s anything but. Mark Horvath, having survived being homeless himself on Hollywood Blvd. has made it his mission to make that which goes ignored and unseen every day – seen. His goal: to make the invisible… visible. Welcome to invisiblepeople.tv.

When one thinks of a homeless person, the mind reaches for an image of an older man, filthy from the street, panhandling. We all have a vague recollection of the homeless people that we’ve come in contact with, but alas – only a vague one. Why? Because we don’t want to look them in the face. We don’t want to have to deal with the grim reality, and in this economy more and more people are finding themselves just a paycheck or two away from a similarly grim reality.

Mark uses his camera and his television production skills to capture the stories of people living on the streets. He gives them the opportunity to share their experience so that we might better understand not just their plight, but rather the causes of homelessness so that we might be better capable of coming toward solutions to end it. Through his lense, Mark (@hardlynormal on Twitter) shows us that homelessness isn’t just panhandlers and people sleeping under bridges; rather, we learn that these are people just like us in bad situations that ran out of options.

While some of them are hard to watch, I think that its imperative that we all watch and listen and pay witness to their lives, their stories because in the words of Solomon Burke, “None of us are free, while one of us is chained.” These are just a few of their stories.

Marco and Cherese from invisible people on Vimeo.

Mark from invisible people on Vimeo.

Sandy from invisible people on Vimeo.

Thomas from invisible people on Vimeo.

If you enjoyed or appreciated these videos please check http://www.invisiblepeople.tv and leave a comment to let Mark know how much his hard work is appreciated. You can also follow invisiblepeople.tv on Twitter, Myspace, and Facebook.

BEIJING (AFP) — Beijing police said Thursday it had handed out 10-day detention terms to six foreigners believed by an overseas activist group to be pro-Tibet campaigners involved in Olympic protests this week.
SFT’s Statement on the Sentencing
These individuals were in Beijing to amplify Tibetan voices calling for freedom and human rights and the right of all people to freedom of expression. They are no more guilty of a crime than Tibetans or Chinese who speak out for justice and for the Chinese authorities to sentence them at all shows the government’s paranoia and intolerance of even the most peaceful challenges to its control. (continues below…)
SFT WILL FIGHT THIS UNTIL THEY ARE HOME – MORE HERE SOON ON WHAT YOU CAN DO: Remember why they went, and keep in mind – Americans get 10 days jail, Chinese grannies get one year forced labor, and Tibetans get shot.

free the baghdadbrian5

I’ve met a lot of great people via Jonny’s Partay. I’ve met folks that are using social media not just as a tool to further their career, launch their startup, become a superstar overnight, or let us know what they’ve had for lunch; but, people who are using technology to exact social change via the mediums. To perfect examples of this are Brian Conley, award winning videographer and creator of AliveInBaghdad.org, and James Powderly one of the minds behind Graffiti Research Labs, a group that exercises free expression using technology and art with the world that we live in as their medium. Brian Conley is a former guest of Jonny’s Partay and an all around great guy, videographer, citizen of the world, filmmaker, educator and peace fighter – he stopped in DC for a tweetup earlier this year to meet and greet some folks at a bar near Capitol Hill. James Powderly is a personal friend of Jonny Goldstein and fellow Alums from the interactive technology program at NYU. These guys were in China reporting on the struggle for Tibetan independence, covering news that the networks were all too busy to cover because its apparently more important to keep track of how many Gold medals the Chinese have won than the freedom of a people. And while we were sleeping…

Right now those Olympic rings are looking a lot like handcuffs. Brian Conley, his friend Jefferey Rae, James Powderly and others were arrested and are currently being detained in a Chinese prison in Beijing. Details started pouring in around 1am this morning via twitter after a post on FreeTibet2008.org surfaced. It was all abuzz on twitter with folks like NBC’s @NewMediaJim and NPR’s @ACarvin scouring for details to compile as much information as possible about the incident. At this point the best that we all can do is to get this as much press coverage as possible to demand and ensure their safe return. Please Digg this article about their arrest and subsequent detention to help free our friends.

Below you’ll find a few posts I’ve collected from around the world wide web showcasing the developments (or the lack of them – we just know that they’ve been detained at this point) in this story. The real question again – is why isn’t this being covered in the main stream press aside from the NY Times? Where are the networks? If these were mass media journalists it’s a sure bet that this would be national news. Again – has the line been drawn between professional journalist and citizen journalist? These are American citizens, friends, and generally great people fighting for something bigger than themselves. So please – Digg the story above and help free the BaghdadBrian6.

Found Articles:
NYTimes
BoingBoing
MobLogicTV
NewTeeVee
BlipTV
TakePart
ReadOrAlive
ReadWriteWeb
ChrisBrogan
Beet.tv
FoxNews.com

Doctor Popular pointed out to me one day that a blog post he had written showed up on the front page of IMDB (The Internet Movie Database). I had mentioned that I had a film club in college and had been, in fact, dying to start a film club here in DC. Previously I had been watching films with a pal of mine in the basement of a bar on Capitol Hill during his late-night-dead-shifts. I threw out the possibility of throwing up a Ning site. And the rest is history. Documentary club was born! About 25 minutes later we were talking layouts, films, how to snag members…and speaking of snag.

snagfilms.com

In the process I came across a great site called Snag Films. These folks have, for your viewing pleasure, a number of great documentaries free, viewable, streamable, and even cooler – embeddable. So you want to throw up SuperSize Me on your site because you think it’s cool and you wanna’ share it with your friends. Yep, you can do it now.

So, we’re pretty excited. We’ve got about twenty-five members now and a list of 5 films to choose from for our first two films for the month of August. On tap for the first month is a very likely candidate “Heavy Metal Parking Lot” of which we have the directors of the film John Heyn and Jeff Krulik on board to participate in the conversation.

I’m really excited about this on so many levels. We’ve been contacting the makers of other films in hopes of getting them on board as well – and so far they’ve been really receptive. The documentary community, much like social media really seems to be, by nature, very open and cooperative. I love the entertainment aspect combined with the educational aspect – and now to throw in the community aspect, just seems to bring it full circle. What were documentaries made for if not to be discussed! Come, joinus! Voting for the August films ends August 1st. Hope to see you there!