Hawaii on YouTube

"Iolani Palace Demonstration"

Over the weekend, I skipped the movies and let my Tivo sit brimming with unwatched shows, opting instead to get my YouTube fix. I've always been one for tapas and pupus over main entrees--the latter being too much of a commitment. Now thanks to YouTube, I can get video pupus too!

Check out these noteworthy Hawaii-related videos on YouTube:

• "Ku I Ka Pono" clip - A 90-second clip from a 10-minute video essay about Native Hawaiians in San Francisco protesting the August 2005 9th Circuit Court ruling declaring that the Kamehameha Schools' "Hawaiians first" admissions policy violates American civil rights laws. The full video essay will premiere at the 2006 Pacific Edge Film Festival.
• Iolani Palace Demonstration - Captured by a bypasser in a van, this clip shows the August 2005 demonstration at Iolani Palace against the above ruling.
• Hawaii for Sale - A short documentary on the increasing cost of living in Hawaii.
• Lost Filming on Halloween - This behind-the-scenes clip grabbed by a downtown pedestrian shows the recently sprung Michelle Rodriguez as, ironically, a police officer.
• Kill Manong - A Filipino spoof of the "Kill Bill" trailer starring an adorable baby, made for an Ilokano (Filipino language) class at the University of Hawaii.
• The Ladies Gentlemen - One of the short films by a prolific local YouTube filmmaker who also appears to be a junior high school student. Your grammar needs work kid (less IM-ing, more reading books, maybe?), but good effort anyway!
• "Jimmy" Music Video - Set in a Hilo cafe, a nerdy haole girl pines for an Asian American boy in this music video of a song by Big Island-based rock band Technical Difficulties.
• "Mienai Tsubasa" Music Video - As you can probably guess, Hawaii is a very popular shooting location for Japanese music videos, commercials, and TV shows. Here's a music video of a single by J-pop girl band SweetS, shot in and around Waikiki.
• FilmHawaii Seminar on Labor Unions: I just posted these last week, but here they are again: Introduction/Background and Becoming Signatory/Contractual Issues.

Really interesting stuff! But, OK, I admit it, searching for Hawaii-related YouTube videos to link to is really just an excuse for me to tell you about a non-Hawaii-related YouTube phenomenon: Two Chinese Boys, the boy-band lip-syncing Chinese duo who entertain tens of thousands worldwide from the comfort of their own dorm room (complete with nerdy third roommate clicking away on his computer in the background). These guys are such comic geniuses, they've already spawned imitators! Who knew that Chinese Chinese kids had such a sense of irony?!

The moral of this post: You can Tube, I can Tube, everyone can Tube! So go ahead: YouTube!

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