For a couple of month’s I’ve been trying out Fotomoto, an online service that make’s it possible for me to easily offer high quality and fine art prints for sale. Just a couple of days ago they launched the fin arts choice and finally I think I can offer some selected images as limited prints. Check them out here, and if you’re interested in another of my images contact me for pricing.
The summer has finally arrived in Sweden. It’s been a couple of beautiful weeks and to a swede that means trying to catch as much sunlight as humanly possible before the winter darkness comes.
That is having a negative effect on my blog though, it’s not going to get any frequent updates during this time. I’ve more or less made my office mobile and struggle with idea development and administrative work in the sun. It is a great way to get inspiration, although it’s not always seen as a proper way to be working.
I think one should really think more of how and where they work. To sit alone at the beach has a profound affect on the way I focus on one task. All the distractions from the office and being connected is gone. The office is often not stimulating my mind enough and during the summer I often just want to be outside. That makes me think about my work situation.
Everybody struggles with being as productive as possible, still few question the office space. It’s a weird thing, since I freelance I don’t have a boss or a company of values to attend too. I think I’m a bit more free than a lot of other people. A couple of my friends are struggling with wanting to go swimming on a sunny work day. If it would be allowed I’m sure they could handle the responsibility of working on other locations than the office and still be as productive, but the structures of corporations makes that impossible. Something I really think affect the people more, they feel locked in at their office during the summer and become even less effective.
This way of working is not possible for everyone, but for creative people I really believe it can be a great help to sprung new and innovative ideas. Take the creative team to a beach for a day, that will have a positive effect on both their creative work and how they perceive the company. It has to be fun to work, otherwise the risk is people not working, or moving on to another company.
I couldn’t go to the beach to edit a movie, but writing, idea development, meetings and administrative tasks. All that is possible to do without and office. For me it would be a lot easier to do that work with an iPad, but unfourtionatly Apple for some reason has another plan for Sweden.
A while back I was asked to submit Maud & Leo to the online film festival We Speak Here. Now it’s finally up on their website, be sure to check it out and help us win the viral price by sharing the movie.
So far well over 20 000 people has downloaded the movie from Clearbits. If you’d like to download the movie you can do so here.
Finally it’s time to say hello to the two stupidest guys in Stockholm, Patrik & Eric. This spring we’ve been working on a hilarious project called DUMMAST.tv. It’s a documentary styled humor show about two guys in Stockholm and their journey to get their tv-show on the road.
They struggle to understand the television-industry and try out breaking new stuff as they become the worlds first male bloggers. It’s a partly documentary, and partly fictional story, where the line between what’s real and not is blurry. The show aims to play with the industry’s conceptions of how you should make television and not.
Our goal has been to make a garage type of television that feels like a friend just started to film his friends. Something that is partly true, we’ve deliberatly tried to make it feel like anybody could have done it. By building the story from the reality, in this case three friends that want to make TV. We feel like we have a killer simple but just as brilliant concept. The program should have the feeling of not having a clear concept or direction, the more chaos the better. Because Patrik & Eric has no idea what they’re doing, we’re aiming for the audience to be in the same place as they watch the show. We’ve gone live with four episodes at the moment, unfortunatly they’re in swedish. Check out the website and like us on Facebook.
Then something just happens. You suddenly realize that you have enough pieces to put the idea together. You start to see the people and stories that you’ve been looking for. I think we’re moving towards that place at the moment. It’s not exactly the way we set out for it to be, but I think it feels better than the original idea. Mostly I think it feels better because it’s for real, actual people that is living the idea.
At the moment we’re thinking of financing the project one step at a time. I have all the equipment for the production, so all that we’re actually in need of is financing for the costs of shooting the project. Recently I started to break down my projects into these kind of stages.
Stage 1
First research + pre-shooting, in that phase there’s no funding.
Stage 2
The second stage is financing the actual shooting and then shooting it.
Stage 3
Then when that is done, we jump into the editing room and build the whole story, when that’s done we actually will be trying to finance the whole project.
This way we have far more control and ownership of the project, something I think is vital to realize and be true to our visions.
This process is really inspiring to me. It’s like sculpturing, you slowly shape the story piece by piece. Where you often have no idea of where your going. Creative minds work this way, I feel at most creative when I just do things without planning too much. I have a clear idea, but I’m open to things that just happens on the spot.
I find myself really locked in when working in more structured ways. Something I believe create predictable stories. That being said, let’s see where the project ends up. Even though I work in a creative chaos many times I try to keep extremely structured. Recently I read “Making Ideas Happen” by Scott Belsky. It’s a great and inspiring book that makes the obstacles of making ideas happen really clear. A lot is common sense, but it was great to just hear it in an obvious way.
Another group of YLVP’ers recently left Sweden for their respective country. They have been in Sweden for four week’s, to attend the Swedish Institute’s inter-cultural leadership program, The Young Leaders Visitors Program. During these intensive weeks they have made a lot of new friendships that will last a lifetime. I believe that many think that their life has changed profoundly during this program. It brings a lot of new skillsets to the participants. It’s a great program that promotes democracy and teach the participants both leadership skills as well as the use of social media.
I had the prevlidge to meet all these amazing people because I was documenting their time here in Sweden in pictures and video. One of the projects during this period lasted for a week. I was following them around to make a film about them and the program. A short story about why they are in Sweden. Here’s the video:
During The 5th Global YES Summit, Rework The Work, I was following the participants from The Young Leaders Visitors Program (YLVP) around. Rework The World was a chance for all if the earlier and new participants to meet and build an even stronger network. Here are some of the images from the day’s in Leksand, more can be found on my Flickr.
I recently got the fantastic news that I will get funding for the development of a documentary that I’m working on. It’s great news that give me the possibility to focus on finishing the first stage of the project this fall. I’m going to do the last couple of interviews and then edit the movie together. After that I will be applying for more funding to finish off the project. For now that’s all I’m going to say 
.
The last couple of weeks I’ve been working with the Swedish Institute and YLVP. Mostly I’ve been broadcasting their lectures live via Bambuser, but I’ve also done some photography during my time there. Here are some of the pictures, more can be found on Flickr.
The Young Leaders Visitors Program (YLVP) is an intercultural leadership program with focus on social media as a tool for positive change. The program invites young opinion-makers from Sweden and selected countries in the MENA region who are actively working for social change in their respective contexts. To follow the program visit www.YLVP.se or use the #YLVP on Twitter.
