How To Make Money Selling Drugs is a documentary written and directed by Matthew Cooke that looks to be absolutely incredible (especially if you’re a fan of The Wire)

How to Make Money Selling Drugs offers a provocative glimpse into the lives of those on both sides of the “war on drugs,” delivering a diverse and unique perspective on the subject through interviews with 50 Cent, Eminem, The Wire producer David Simon, Arianna Huffington, Woody Harrelson, Eminem and Susan Sarandon, as well as infamous drug kingpin “Freeway” Rick Ross. Presenting a step-by-step guide on how to go from street dealer to drug lord, the documentary reveals how public policy actually entices Americans into dealing drugs. Bert Marcus Productions was granted unprecedented access from top-ranking government officials, including U.S. Drug Czar to the Drug Enforcement Agency, all providing varied viewpoints on this controversial subject.

(via Nerdcore)

Sasha Grey for Equal Pay Day is an awareness PSA by Equal Pay Day about how there are few ways for women to earn more money than men and how this needs to be addressed.

Porn is about the only way for women to make more than men. Luckily, there are better alternatives. To find out more, visit http://www.equalpayday.be

On average, women still earn 22% less than men. One of the main reasons this issue still exists is that too often young women make career choices led by general expectations. Equal Pay Day however wants to motivate them to think about these expectations, and not just follow them blindly. Sasha Grey wants to as well, and to help spark the debate, she’s agreed to share the story about her short but demanding career in adult entertainment.

Tony Hawk, Rodney Mullen and Steve Caballero were three members of Powell Peralta’s Bones Brigade, the most influential skateboard team ever. Bones Brigade: An Autobiography is a documentary about the team and how they directly shaped the last 30 years of skateboarding. Directed by Stacy Peralta, co-founder of Powell Peralta and iconic 1970s skateboard champion/Z-Boy, this looks absolutely amazing.

It’s not a death metal band, an extreme diet club or historic dominoes association—the Bones Brigade was a talented gang of teenage outcasts. Unmotivated by fame or popularity, they completely dedicated their lives to a disrespected art form. For most of the 1980s, this misfit crew headed by a 1970s ex-skateboard champion blasted the industry with a mixture of art and raw talent becoming the most popular skateboarding team in history. The core unit of the Bones Brigade built an empire that covered the world. They dominated contests, made hundreds of thousands of dollars, created the modern skateboard video, reinvented endemic advertising, pushed skate progression into a new era, and set the stage for a totally new form of skating called street style.

(via Nerdcore)

ParaNorman is a stop-motion animated zombie comedy from the fine folks who made Coraline. This trailer for the film is a model maker and designer’s delight in that it shows the step by step process of how Norman, the movie’s titular character, goes from skeletal sketch to fully poseable model (complete with 3d printed head)!

(hat tip Lisa)

Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator is a unnervingly simple walkthrough of how to take a fake news story from something you thought of on your couch to the front page of major newspapers everywhere. Written by Ryan Holiday, it’s a very interesting reframing of citizen journalism, lazy reporting and reblogging culture as a whole. Having seen enough erroneous news stories that have been traced back to a single errant blog post, it is also (unfortunately) quite accurate.

(via Brain Pickings)

Let’s Get Mystical is a BMX video by Mutiny Bikes that was filmed and edited by Joe Simon, the man behind Mutiny’s excellent RC Helicam Test and One Spring Day BMX videos. Like his other work, this one is a fantastic combination of simple structuring and mesmerizing layering.

WIthout Love… is a visualization of the idea that justice hangs by a single thread. That thread represents your love because without your love, there would be no pursuit of justice. Should that thread break, justice will fall. Honestly, this feels a bit too drastic as a metaphor. An alternative idea is presented by the video’s Vimeo text:

Justice is a garment, a billion threads, interwoven, interlocked, knit together with strength and integrity. Pull one thread from the fabric and the garment begins to fray. Pull ten million threads and justice unravels into injustice.

By framing your (my) relationship to the pursuit of justice in the context of both of these ideas, a more sustainable, scalable and community-based approach appears. Kudos to Justice Conference and Fabric Creative for making me pause to reflect on this one.

Illegal is a documentary about the struggle of undocumented high school students living in America.

Documentary and commercial director John X. Carey captures the plight of four undocumented students who through no fault of their own find themselves in a dead-end situation due to their migratory status. Eddy, Eric, Leti and Mario were brought to the United States by their parents as children. They did not choose to leave their homeland yet they find themselves without a country to call their own. These young adults are American in identity and spirit, if not on paper. They share the aspirations of their American-born peers, but due to their legal status their social mobility is severely restricted after high school graduation. Though they have attained academic greatness and feel as American as their friends our country’s broken immigration system rejects their contributions to our society, and more importantly, contradicts our basic American values and beliefs in the “fundamental right to life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness.”

Through a series of interviews with undocumented kids, activists, policymakers, non-profit leaders, educators and members of the clergy Illegal seeks to raise the consciousness level of the American public regarding the importance of full immigration reform beginning with the Dream Act.

Want to get involved? The Illegal site has four excellent options.

Dead Island is a video game about a small island off the coast of Papua New Guinea that falls to pieces after a mysterious zombie outbreak. To promote the game, Axis, the same animation studio behind Codehunters, put together what is easily one of the most hauntingly exceptional video game trailers ever created. This packs more emotional punch into 3 minutes than most full length zombie movies can ever hope to achieve.

France 5 Rebrand | Idents beautifully executes the concept that, in order to make fluid cuts/edits among multiple subjects, as long as the direction of the motion stays the same, the transitions feel seamless. Put together by Les Télécréateurs for France 5, the idents were directed by Alphabetical Order®.

(via Motionographer)