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McKinsey & Company Home Risk
Protecting your critical digital assets: Not all systems and data are created equal
January 2017 | Article
By Piotr Kaminski, Chris Rezek, Wolf Richter, and Marc Sorel
Top management must lead an enterprise-wide effort to find and protect critically important data, software, and systems as part of an integrated strategy to achieve digital resilience.
The idea that some assets are extraordinary—of critical importance to a company—must be at the heart of an effective strategy to protect against cyber threats. Because in an increasingly digitized world, protecting everything equally is not an option. The digital business model is, however, entirely dependent on trust. If the customer interface is not secure, the risk can become existential. Systems breaches great and small have more than doubled in the past five years, and the attacks have grown in sophistication and complexity. Most large enterprises now recognize the severity of the issue but still treat it as a technical and control problem—even while acknowledging that their defenses will not likely keep pace with future attacks. These defenses, furthermore, are often designed to protect the perimeter of business operations and are applied disjointedly across different parts of the organization.
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Our research and experience suggest that the next wave of innovation—customer applications, business processes, technology structures, and cybersecurity defenses—must be based on a business and technical approach that prioritizes the protection of critical information assets. We call the approach "digital resilience," a cross-functional strategy that identifies and assesses all vulnerabilities, defines goals on an enterprise-wide basis, and works out how best to deliver them. A primary dimension of digital resilience is the identification and protection of the organization's digital crown jewels—the data, systems, and software applications that are essential to operations.
Burgeoning vulnerabilities, finite resources, fragmented priorities
In determining the priority assets to protect, organizations will confront external and internal challenges. Businesses, IT groups, and risk functions often have conflicting agendas and unclear working relationships. As a result, many organizations attempt to apply the same cyber-risk controls everywhere and equally, often wasting time and money but in some places not spending enough. Others apply sectional protections that leave some vital information assets vulnerable while focusing too closely on less critical ones. Cybersecurity budgets, meanwhile, compete for limited funds with technology investments intended to make the organization more competitive. The new tech investments, furthermore, can bring additional vulnerabilities.
The work to prioritize assets and risks, evaluate controls, and develop remediation plans can be a tedious, labor-intensive affair. Specialists must review thousands of risks and controls, and then make ratings based on individual judgment. Some organizations mistakenly approach this work as a compliance exercise rather than a crucial business process. Without prioritization, however, the organization will struggle to deploy resources effectively to reduce information-security risk. Dangers, meanwhile, will mount, and boards of directors will be unable to evaluate the security of the enterprise or whether the additional investment is paying off.
All data and systems are not created equal
In any given enterprise, some of the data, systems, and applications are more critical than others. Some are more exposed to risk, and some are more likely to be targeted. Critical assets and sensitivity levels also vary widely across sectors. For hospital systems, for example, the most sensitive asset is typically patient information; other data such as how the emergency room is functioning may even be publically available. Risks to priority data include breach, theft, and even ransom—recall that a Los Angeles hospital paid a $17,000 Bitcoin ransom to a hacker that had seized control of its systems. An aerospace-systems manufacturer, on the other hand, needs to protect intellectual property first and foremost, from systems designs to process methodologies. A financial-services company requires few controls for its marketing materials but is vulnerable to fraudulent transactions; its M&A database, furthermore, will need the best protection money can buy. Attackers can be individuals or organizations, such as criminal syndicates or governments with significant resources at their command. The attacks can be simple or sophisticated, the objectives varying from immediate financial reward to competitive or even geopolitical advantage.
Cybersecurity spending: When more is less
In the face of such diverse threats, companies often decide to spend more on cybersecurity, but they are not sure how they should go about it.
A global financial-services company left cybersecurity investments mainly to the discretion of the chief information-security officer (CISO), within certain budget constraints. The security team was isolated from business leaders, and resulting controls were not focused on the information that the business felt was most important to protect.
A healthcare provider made patient data its only priority. Other areas were neglected, such as confidential financial data relevant to big-dollar negotiations and protections against other risks such as alterations to internal data.
A global mining concern focused on protecting its production and exploration data but failed to separate proprietary information from information that could be reconstructed from public sources. Thus, broadly available information was being protected using resources that could have been shifted to high-value data like internal communications on business negotiations.
These typical examples illustrate the need for a unified, enterprise-wide approach to cyber risk, involving the business and the risk, IT, and cybersecurity groups. The leaders of these groups must begin to work together, identifying and protecting the organization's critical digital assets as a priority. The process of addressing cyber risk will also have to become technologically enabled, through the implementation of workflow-management systems. Cybersecurity investment must be a key part of the business budget cycle and investment decisions must be more evidence-based and sensitive to changes.
The business-back, enterprise-wide approach
The key point is to start with the business problem, which requires a consideration of the whole enterprise, and then to prioritize critical risks. This work should be conducted by an enterprise-wide team composed of key individuals from the business, including those in product development, and the cybersecurity, IT, and risk functions. The team's main tasks are to determine which information assets are priorities for protection, how likely it is that they will be attacked, and how to protect them. In order to function, the team must successfully engage the leaders of several domains. They need to work together to discover what is most important—no mean challenge in itself. The best way to get started is to found the team on the agreement that cyber risks will be determined and prioritized on an enterprise-wide "business back" basis. In other words, the team will first of all serve the enterprise. Critical risks, including the impact of various threats and the likelihood of occurrence, will be evaluated according to the dangers they pose to the business as a whole.
The following principles can help keep companies on track as they take the unified approach to prioritizing digital assets and risk:
Start with the business and its value chain. The effort should be grounded in a view of the business and its value chain. The CISO's team, particularly when it is part of the IT organization, tends to begin with a list of applications, systems, and databases, and then develop a view of risks. There are two major flaws to this approach. First, it often misses key risks because these can emerge as systems work in combination. Second, the context is too technical to engage the business in decision making on changes and investments. By beginning with the business, the team encourages stakeholder engagement naturally, increasing the likelihood that systemic exposures will be identified.
The CISO must actively lead. In addition to being a facilitator for the business's point of view, the CISO should bring his or her own view of the company's most important assets and risks. By actively engaging the business leaders and other stakeholders as full thought partners, the CISO will help establish the important relationships for fully informed decision making on investments and resource allocation. The role of the CISO may thus change dramatically, and the role description and skill profile should be adjusted accordingly.
Focus on how an information asset can be compromised. If an information asset is exposed by a system being breached, the vulnerability of this system should be considered, even if the system's primary purpose does not relate to this information asset.
Focus on prioritization, not perfect quantification. The team needs only enough information to make decisions on priority assets. It does not need highly precise risk quantifications—these would be difficult to produce and would not make a difference in deciding between investment options.
Go deeper where needed. The same level of analysis is not needed to quantify all risks. Only for particularly high-impact or complex risks should the team invest in deeper analyses. It should then decide on and acquire the information needed to make more informed investment decisions.
Take the attacker's view. Risk reviews and vulnerability analyses must not focus solely on the value of the information to the company and the ascertainable gaps in its defenses. The profiles of potential attackers are also important: Who wants the organization's information? What skills do they possess? Thinking about likely attackers can help identify new gaps and direct investment to protect the information that is most valuable to the most capable foes.
A flexible systematic process with a designed platform
The object of the enterprise-wide approach is to identify and remediate gaps in existing control and security systems affecting critical assets. The solution, in our experience, will be an end-to-end process, likely requiring multiple development iterations, including a detailed account of hundreds of assets. A workflow system and asset database would be an ideal tool for supporting this complex process, allowing focus on prioritizing risks. A flexible, scalable, and secure online application can be easy to use while managing all the inventory and mapping data, the rigorous risk and control evaluations, sector-specific methodologies, and rationales for each risk level. The platform can also support detailed data to be used when needed as the team undertakes analysis of the priority assets and gaps and makes the recommendations that will shape remediation initiatives.
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In developing this approach for clients, McKinsey experts defined the following five key steps:
Identify and map digital assets, including data, systems, and applications, across the business value chain. This can be accelerated by applying a generalized-sector value chain and a common taxonomy for information assets and then customizing these to the organization.
Assess risks for each asset, using surveys and executive workshops. By basing this analysis on the business importance of the asset, the organization will have identified its crown jewels.
Identify potential attackers, the availability of assets to users, and current controls and security measures protecting the systems through which access can be gained to the assets, using similar surveys and workshops as in step two.
Locate where security is weakest around crown-jewel assets and identify the controls that should be in place to protect them, by comparing the results of these assessments using dashboards.
Create a set of initiatives to address the high-priority risks and control gaps. Implementation will involve a multiyear plan, including timelines for follow-up reviews. Once the initial assessment is complete, this plan becomes a living document, regularly refreshed to reflect new data, systems, applications, risks, and mapping, as well as progress to remediate known vulnerabilities (see sidebar, "An institution's progress").
An institution's progress
One financial institution that used our approach was able to identify and remediate gaps in its control and security systems affecting critical assets. The change program began with a risk assessment that had highlighted several issues. Business and IT priorities on cybersecurity spending were found to be somewhat out of alignment, while communication on risks and risk appetite between risk management and businesses was less than optimal. The lack of agreement among stakeholder groups consequently stalled progress on a mitigation plan for cyber risk.
In response, the company established a unified group which together developed a work plan to protect critical data. The team inventoried all systems and applications in all business units, validating the results with key stakeholders to ensure completeness. They then identified critical data and performed a risk assessment with input from the stakeholders. The team was now able to identify the critical information assets based on potential risk impact. The level of control in each system was also evaluated, as the team mapped information assets to the systems and applications where they reside and isolated gaps between current and needed controls.
The critical data assets requiring additional protection were identified globally and by business unit. The systems and applications holding critical data that needed remediation could then be addressed. The team developed a series of detailed scenarios to reveal system vulnerabilities and help stakeholders understand what could happen in a breach. A comprehensive set of prioritized initiatives and a multiyear implementation plan was then created. The data resulting from this process are continually updated and provide guidance in budgeting decisions and board reviews on an ongoing basis.
The process promotes cyber-risk transparency, answering key stakeholder questions: What are our inherent information risks? Where is our organization vulnerable? How big (and where) is the residual exposure? What remediation actions should we prioritize? How do we know if what we did is working? Information-risk trade-offs can be defined based on a perspective on value at risk across the company. This helps the C-suite and board discuss information-security risk in terms of enterprise value, providing transparency on what risks they are willing to accept and why.
McKinsey on Risk, Volume 2
Results inform budget and investment decisions, helping to satisfy both regulatory and shareholder expectations. With investments targeted to best protect the most sensitive digital assets, costs are held down as the digital resilience of the organization is elevated. To build digital resilience into their operations, furthermore, the process can help organizations create periodic assessments to highlight trends and new gaps. Risk managers can then develop new initiatives prioritized to the enterprise's global needs.
Organizations in sectors with higher digital maturity will benefit the most from this approach, including financial services, manufacturing, and healthcare. They face the tough task of fully protecting their most important assets, while not stifling business innovation. To achieve this balance, the business, IT, risk, and other functions will have to work together toward the same, enterprise-wide end—to secure the crown jewels so that the senior leaders can confidently focus on innovation and growth.
Piotr Kaminski is a senior partner in McKinsey's New York office, Chris Rezek is a senior expert in the Boston office, Wolf Richter is a partner in the Berlin office, and Marc Sorel is a consultant in the Washington, DC, office.
The authors wish to thank Oliver Bevan and Rich Cracknell for their contributions to this article.
'The ghost in the machine': Managing technology risk
The rising strategic risks of cyberattacks
Is cybersecurity incompatible with digital convenience?


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Joy House Productions
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The Script of Life (feature film) interview with leading actress – Erica Long
ABOUT Leading actress – ERICA LONG (who plays Lana Ong)
Erica Long is a Chinese/Taiwanese Australian actor who graduated from UNSW with a law degree before deciding to dive into the industry. She has been in such films as Pearl Tan's "The Casting Game" and Joy Hopwood's "The Script of Life". She has also appeared in Tsu Shan Chambers' digital series, "The Wild Orchards", which generated 9 award nominations at LA Web Fest 2018 and is also one of the Executive Producers of Serhat Caradee's latest feature film, "A Lion Returns".
Q.1. What made you want to break into acting as a career?
I was terrified of drama in high school and always got a nose bleed whenever I had to perform. I was so filled with dread that one time, I hid in the toilet until my drama teacher came to find me. These memories from high school were like stains that refused to go away. Once I finished my law degree, I decided to challenge myself by taking a short screen acting course at NIDA. And gosh was I surprised – it was extraordinarily fun, I got along really well with everyone in my class, and I felt like I could give a voice to multiple people and live multiple lives in one lifetime. That was when I caught the bug!
Q.2. Who were your role models when growing up and why?
I love Ang Lee – his films, his story and his perspective of the world. As a Taiwanese artist who studied in and later struggled for years in America, each piece of his work is incredibly different yet at the same time, they all explore the idea of repression and being an outsider (outsider in society, outsider to oneself, outsider to one's family and culture etc). I find his work fascinating, universal and reflective. I also find his persistence inspiring – to me, he is the embodiment that our journey as creatives is a marathon, not a run.
Q.3. What was your last big acting job? (The Script of Life)
I was cast as one of the leads in Joy Hopwood's feature film, The Script of Life. I'd worked with Joy previously and she asked me to go in for a read with the lead, Callum Alexander. At the time, I thought she just wanted to watch Cal's performance live (he had auditioned via self tape) and wanted a reader in the room so she could focus on his performance. As it turned out, the read was part of my audition for the role of Lana Ong. It's funny how the universe works sometimes – unbeknownst to Joy at the time, Cal and I are good friends and I was Cal's reader when he put together his self tape! After that afternoon, we had a few more script reads together and Joy decided she would keep me on. I was over the moon when I heard this.
In terms of being on set, I loved working with the whole cast and crew. Everyone was always relaxed, playful, professional and happy – we had blunders here and there but we always managed to straighten our faces, stop laughing and keep going. The film is set in Spring but we shot most of the film during winter and I distinctly remember all of us trying to keep each other warm by finding random blankets / jumpers (seemingly out of nowhere) and passing it to each other! It was like we were one giant happy family.
Q.4. What changes have you seen in the last few years in regards to diversity?
The past few years has seen an abundance of conversations regarding diversity in the industry. In addition, the successes of movies like Crazy Rich Asians, Black Panther and Always Be My Maybe has demonstrated that there is a huge audience for a diverse cast. I think major studios, networks and streaming services are finding themselves increasingly incentivised by the audience from the bottom-up and senior management from the top-down to write and produce projects that more accurately represent society, whether that be in terms of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation etc.
We are also starting to see a similar movement in the Australian industry. Shows such as Hungry Ghosts, Chosen, Pulse and Cleverman (just to name a few) and plays such as The Big Time, Chimerica and Australian Graffiti indicate that there are now more diverse people who occupy roles both behind and in front of the camera and stage and that the industry is now trying to reach a position where representation is no longer talked about because representation is the norm.
Q.5. How can we maintain diversity in the entertainment industry?
I think it is important for people to continue to challenge the traditional image of who should be cast in a particular role and ask "what if" a person of colour or a person of a different gender or sexual orientation played that role instead? By doing this, I think we will be able to distribute more opportunities across the field and ensure that creatives across all fields are able to develop. By ensuring that the talent pool is able to upskill and be recognised by the industry, we will be able to prevent talent from dropping out of the game prematurely. Ultimately, if we remain open to new voices and trying new things, beautiful stories and voices which have hitherto been unheard or unseen will start to emerge.
Q.6. What quote do you live by and why?
At the moment, I'm living by Will Smith's quote "Don't chase people. Do your own thing, be yourself and work hard. The right people – the ones that really belong in your life – will come to you. And stay."
Q.7. What do you find doing in your spare time other than acting to maintain wellness?
I love to spend time with my cats (Creme Brûlée and Souffle). I also love to travel and often find myself daydreaming and researching about my next destination. Lastly, I go to boxing sessions with my friends – nothing too serious, more boxercise than anything but it's great fun! I have a love / hate relationship with this last one but I find that it helps me deal with any stress or pent up frustration / anger I may have at the time.
Q.8. Who is your favourite actor/ actress and why?
Peter Dinklage, hands down. He's just such an inspiration – he's an animal rights' advocate, he's extremely talented and charismatic and he's someone who has made it in the entertainment industry without ever compromising his own code. I was listening to a speech that he gave and he said "Don't search for defining moments, because they will never come. The moments that define you have already happened, and they will already happen again. Don't wait until they tell you you are ready. Get in there. I waited a long time out in the world before I gave myself permission to fail. What did Beckett say? "Ever tried, ever failed, no matter, try again, fail again, fail better." The world is yours. Treat everyone kindly, and light up the night." I love this.
Q.9. Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?
Gosh, that's a long way away! I would love to be a series regular on a science fiction / speculative fiction or courtroom drama show (along the likes of Rake, The Good Wife and The Handmaid's Tale). I'd also love to be spending time with my future family and my fur babies (my two cats).
Q.10. What advice do you have for the next generation?
As actors, we often don't even hear the word "no". Instead, we battle through a lot of silences. There are a lot of days when I feel inadequate and I've recently realised that the only way I've managed to drag myself out of these days is to live life. Life is happening all around us – make friends, spend time with family, travel and delve into a hobby that's not acting. Love yourself, love others and love life.
The Script Of Life has won best Romance Comedy at Amsterdam International Film Festival, Finalist – Best Cinematography Awards, World Film Fair Finalist 2020 and is set for release 14th February 2020 through Leomark Studios L.A. (distribution)
Filed Under: children, books, foodies Tagged With: actor, actress, Erica Long, film, films, The Script of life
Interview with Alex Lykos about his latest film, "Me and my left brain," & his latest idea for the Oz film industry.
Alex Lykos makes his directing debut, a new Australian comedy called Me & My Left Brain & is the writer of the successful Aussie movie – Alex and Eve.
Me & My Left Brain stars Mal Kennard as Left Brain (Catching Milat), Rachel Beck as Vivien (Hey Dad!), Chantelle Barry as Helen (Entourage) and Laura Dundovic as Sandra (Ruben Guthrie) as well as Lykos who plays the film's central character Arthur – his second acting role after a brief appearance in Alex & Eve.
J.H: What inspired you want to make, Me and my left brain?
A.L: The making of Alex & Eve film wasn't a pleasant experience for me. And coming from the theatre whereby we were putting on 2 shows a year, the process of filmmaking felt extremely slow. We spent 6 years in development and I thought that there has to be a better way. So for my next film I adapted Me & My Left Brain which I knew could be shot on a much lower budget and therefore get it made much quicker.
J.H: How did you come to choose your actors? (What was your casting process?)
A.L: Being the writer of the film, I had a strong but abstract idea of what I was looking for. I put together a shortlist of names for each role and then met with prospective actors. For example, for the role of Left Brain, I planned to me with Mal Kennard for half-hour. Two-hours later, we were finishing each other's sentences. The chemistry was instant.
J.H: Do you see a change in the TV and cinema landscape regarding diversity?
A.L: I think now there is a strong push at both the state level of government and an overall acknowledgement from the public that we are a diverse nation. And with more and more creatives from a CALD background, there is a shift in progress, which will gain momentum and down the road the shift will be exponential.
J.H: You are one of this year's judges for the annual Joy House Film Festival, what are you looking out for & what makes a great film?
A.L: I always gravitate to good story with interesting characters. Production values are nice but they do not make or break a film for me. If the story is good, I wont notice the production values.
J.H: You've come up with a great idea attracting the Australian public to come and see more Australian Films, what made you come to think of this and what is it exactly?
A.L: The idea came to me as we prepare to promote our film. Whilst brainstorming ideas I thought, what if Australians could watch Aussie movies for free? So from there I thought of an annual government cinema voucher scheme.
J.H: When is "Me and my left brain?" coming out, where can we see it?
A.L: The film was scheduled for release 16th May. However, we understand that the federal election is going to be called for Saturday 18th May — which will make it tough as the country is distracted at this time.
We are speaking with cinemas for an alternative date in June. We are waiting to confirm this new date if it is possible.
Alex Lykos video link:
Federal Govt Scheme for Oz Film industry
Filed Under: Film Tagged With: Alex and Eve, Alex Lykos, films, Me and my left brain
World Film Fair (New York) – filmmakers & distribution
The first World Film Fair was held in New York on 26th to 31st October, 2018. Joy House Film Festival was invited to attend this event and we submitted all our 10 finalists' work and one of our own feature films, The Casting Game, to be judged among thousands of entries from across the world.
The opening dinner was held at Trump Hotel, 1 Central Park West, New York, where many filmmakers and directors from other international festivals attended. Here media asked, "what makes a good film?" & "what makes your film festival different from all the other festivals in the world?" My answers were, "a great story and the right chemistry of characters/ actors, especially the leads and the way the film was shot – cinematography." (Key points I've learned from Australian distributors.) The answer to the second question was, "to spread joy through the many films selected and awareness in diversity – not only through the casting of the actors but through the story itself. My aim is for people to feel uplifted after attending my festival and hope for social change in thought, action and behaviour. To change people's views – acceptance, forgiveness, kindness and paying it forward. These have been popular themes for Joy House Film Festival films and my own work."
The films were shown at The Producer's Club in uptown New York and Cinepolis in Chelsea. They were screened on rotation from 10am to midnight over four days. Here I was lucky to meet some wonderful filmmakers from New York, Los Angeles and Switzerland. Jillie Simon, Markus Otz, Emine Dursun, Phillip Walker. They were generous in sharing their thoughts about filmmaking. Many shared the importance of choosing people well, ones who are positive and enthusiastic throughout filming and who can actually deliver, in terms of cast and crew. And the importance of selecting great talent. I admire Jillie Simon's tenacity in casting Eric Roberts in her film, "Hungry." It took great persistence and it paid off in the end as her film has been selected in many festivals and won over a dozen awards. Well done Jillie!
On closing night, it was a great surprise that our 2018 Joy House Film Festival winner, "Joy and Heron" won best World Film Fair's international animation award, and "Give me a minute" won best World Film Fair short film in Australia/N.Z/Asia & "The Casting Game" won best World Film Fair feature film in Australia/N.Z./Asia too.
I went to New York with no expectations as I was just happy that our films were selected for exhibition and came back extremely proud and chuffed that our films were well received and won awards. We look forward to World Film Fair 2019.
While over in New York I was fortunate to meet distributors outside from World Film Fair. I'd like to share some important food for thought & lessons I've learned, as I'd like filmmakers in my shoes to be prepared and receive contract deals too.
Firstly, always make contact before going there and show a press kit of your film, trailer and a private link to your film too. Some distributors may only have time to read your press kit and see your trailer, so carry a USB of the best parts of your film and your whole film too – they'll probably have time to just watch 10 mins of your film with you. Others do watch your film privately.
Secondly, they'll ask for the budget breakdown of your film. Who brought in what. Never give a budget based on in-kind work or evaluations, as I learned in Australia in my first ever distribution meeting, that the market value for some work is based on experience and to over value your work as first time filmmakers is perceived to be arrogant / narcissistic. So keep the figures real. Over here I was asked, "Were your E.P.'s on board in title/name only, where they bring in at least a fifth of the budget and finish their work when filming finishes or are your E.P.s on board fully-fledged, finishing after the festival circuit is complete and distribution, and have ownership of rights / profits etc?" Also distributors would like to see a copy of the chain of title – rights to the story and ask what each of you are currently doing.
During conversation, you'll be asked what made you want to tell your story and why you're the best person to tell that story. It's also great to find a connection with the person you're dealing with, like I did with one here. It's important to show humility – we talked about how life is too short to hold grudges and the power of forgiveness, and we connected when talking about our fathers.
Once you break down any fronts/barriers a person may have and just be in the moment, (don't go in with any preconceived ideas or perceptions or expectations, and if you have a good enough product that has won awards, and has been selected into festivals), you have a greater chance in securing a distribution deal. I hope this helps you in reaching your goals and dreams as filmmakers. Don't ever expect things in life as you'll be greatly disappointed, just enjoy the ride!
Filed Under: children, books, foodies Tagged With: distribution, Diversity, filming, filmmakers, films, Give Me a Minute, Joy and Heron, The Casting Game, World Film Fair
Interview with Joy House Film Festival's Best Women's & People's Choice Award Winners
The Annual Joy House Film Festival was on again at Hoyts cinema on Sept 9th, 2018. The only uplifting festival Downunder that promotes stories of JOY and celebrates DIVERSITY, supported by the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance's Diversity Committee.
I had the privilege of interviewing our Winners, this week my interview is with our Best Women's Filmmaker ("Munchies" – Hayley Warnock) and People's Choice Winner ("That's Life" – Katharine Rogers).
1) What made you want to produce / make your short film?
H.W.: I am a self taught stop motion animator. For every stop motion that I make, my aim is for it to be better then the previous one. This particular film Munchies had the biggest, most detailed set i've ever made before. It had proper film lighting instead of my desk lamps and I used stop motion computer software to help capture the animation. My overall goal for this film was to keep enhancing my animation skills and tell a story along the way.
K.R.: Growing up I spent a lot of time watching movies. They formed a lot of my childhood and I had an understanding of movie images and the power of stories to move people. When I started telling stories it seemed natural to tell them in a visual medium.
Hayley Warnock Katharine Rogers
2) What do you consider important as a filmmaker and why?
H.W.: When you don't have human characters that people can relate to, I think as an animator you have to work extra hard for your characters performance to be taken seriously, however I think every element that goes into filmmaking is equally important. If you have a message that your audience can take away from your film, and they think about your film after it is shown, then you have created more than just a film.
K.R.: It always comes back to story. Everything you do should be informed by the story you're telling. And only tell the story if it's something that matters to do you.
3) Did you see any challenges whilst making your short film entry?
H.W.: My biggest challenge while making Munchies was the ability to create realistic smooth movements. Stop motion obviously requires an incredible amount of patience and if you lose focus even for a second you can lose the flow of your movements. After creating all the elements of the set with plasticine or other materials, another challenge arose when I had to move house. It meant carefully picking up and transporting the set across Melbourne. To top it off it also meant tilting the set on its side to fit through the doorframe! It was a delicate process. Luckily there were only a few carrots that didn't survive the trip.
K.R.:
It's always challenging making a short film. No have no budget or very little budget and you're trying to make everything work to your advantage with only minimum help. In my case I only had some of the actors for a short window of time, so I had to figure how to get the most out of the time and get the essential shots to tell the story.
Munchies set
4) Who inspired you to be a filmmaker and why?
H.W.: I don't necessarily get inspiration from any person in particular but rather certain films or single moments in films. When I was much younger I wanted to make films but I didn't have anybody that wanted to act in them, so thats when I decided to make my first animation. I didn't need to rely on any actors, I could create my own. However in saying that, YouTube has been an incredible source of inspiration for myself and if I had to pick a singular person, it would be Brit Marling.
K.R.: 'm not sure there was just one filmmaker. There were a number of filmmakers who have influenced me over time. It changes, a little I think as your tastes change. I grew up watching MGM musicals so those must have had some influence and then I saw a of arthouse and offbeat cinema which as a young teenager kind of blew my mind, so all that factors in.
5) How did you discover the annual Joy House Film Festival and why did you want to enter?
H.W.: When entering film festivals you never really have anything to lose, so when I came across the Joy House Film Festival in the online platform FilmFreeway, I was delighted to read about the festival and subsequently entered. There is something extra special about film festivals hosted in Australia, and it was a great opportunity for my film to reach a wider audience.
K.R: Three of my films have played at JHFF. I can't remember how I discovered it, probably via one of the film festival entry sites. I think it's always nice to have a screening in your home town and they're aren't masses of short film festivals in Sydney so Joy House Film Festival definitely adds to that landscape.
6) What's the best thing about the Joy House Film Festival?
H.W.: I was lucky enough to attend the Joy House Film Festival this year. The biggest thing I noticed was that everyone was very supportive of each other with a general vibe of happiness going around! I also loved that it was inside the Hoyts cinema. Everyone's film looked fantastic on the big screen!
K.R.: I really like that the festival's focus is on Joy and Diversity. There aren't really any other festivals I can think of that focus on that topic. A lot of my films are joyful, which is unusual in Australia (lots of shorts made here tend to be quite dark) so it's nice to have some place to show films that focus on something positive.
Joy House Film Festival is always held on the Sunday after Father's Day in September every year.
Spread the JOY! Pay it forward.
Filed Under: children, books, foodies Tagged With: Diversity, film festivals, filmmakers, films, Joy House Film Festival, Katharine Rogers, Munchies, That's Life
Interview with the Joy House Film Festival's Diversity & Youth winners 2018
I had the privilege of interviewing our Winners, this week our Youth & Diversity winners – Shejuti Hossain (Creed) & Ehsan Knopf (Digby Webster)
Shejuti Hossain
Ehsan Knopf
1) What made you want to produce / make your short films?
E.K. : Digby Webster is a short excerpt from a longer feature documentary called "Flying Solo", inspired by my own diagnosis with a disability, Asperger's syndrome.
S.H.: For me, it was about the message that our short film conveyed. Many cross cultural youth in Australia, myself included, face issues with being caught in the middle of two clashing cultures. It becomes an internal conflict where one is torn between wanting to follow the beliefs and traditions that they've been brought up with at home, as well as trying to 'fit in' to the starkly different culture present in the country/city they live in.
The aim of the film is to contribute to building resilience and social cohesion so that different cultures aren't seen as opposing cultures. It aims to educate non-islamic people about our side of the story, how our faith isn't any less than their beliefs, and how we can all live in harmony if we look past our prejudices.
Digby Webster Documentary
E.K. : Using the craft to offer a glimpse of a world largely unseen by the general public, and using that unique perspective to transforms perceptions around certain subject matter or theme – in this case disability.
S.H.: Film is a powerful medium to spread a message as, if done well, it can captivate an audience and leave a real impression on them. Humans connect through stories, finding areas they can relate, and learning about something outside of themselves.
Filmmaking gives one the power to invite an audience into a certain realm for at least the duration of the film, and perhaps open their mind up more, ultimately making our world a more connected and interesting place to live. It can spark discussions, present new ideas and open up space for groups or minorities that didn't have space before. This is important for the audience as well, as the audience gets the opportunity to have an experience vicariously that they may not have had the chance to do otherwise, perhaps making them more curious about the world they live in.
E.K. : The feature film was produced off my own bat – largely edited, financed, produced and directed by me over five years. It required a lot of dedication and self-sacrifice to see it through to the end.
S.H.: We faced quite a few challenges during the process of creating the short film. We had a very low budget for film, which was the root of many of the difficulties we had.
It was also challenging to film outdoors in Melbourne's temperamental weather. There were days where there were intense storms and hail – not ideal for shooting a soccer film.
Nevertheless, the dedicated cast and crew persistently overcame these challenges to make this film a success.
E.K.: BBC presenter David Attenborough and is passionate interest in the natural world kindled wonder in me – as well as the drive to help in turn kindle it in others.
S.H. :My parents inspired me to be a filmmaker through their love of film. Although they are not filmmakers themselves, my parents have encouraged a culture within our family of watching movies together, and discussing them, for as long as I can remember. We wouldn't only talk about the stories, but the interesting way the films were shot, creative decisions from the director, the music, the acting, the subtle and overt messages and so on and so on. They inspired me to look at film as something powerful and malleable, limitless in its ability to tell a story.
E.K. : Through a friend. I thought the festival would be a wonderful opportunity to help reach a new audience with the film – through the short film format and to film festival attendees. Compared to where it had previously had screened, as a two-part feature documentary on ABC's Compass program.
S.H: I discovered the Joy House Film Festival through the FilmFreeway portal. I wanted to enter as I admired the theme of 'Spreading joy and happiness'. I think that's important, as the day to day things we see on the television and in other media is often not very positive, and I saw this festival as wanting to change that.
E.K.: It's desire to embrace and celebrate diversity.
S.H. : The best thing is the opportunities being part of the festival opened us up to. Being part of Joy House Film Festival gave us the opportunity to show our film to a wider audience in Sydney, network and take our film to the next level at the World Film Fair.
Joy House Film Festival is held on the Sunday after Father's Day in September every year.
Filed Under: Film Tagged With: Creed, Digby Webster, Diversity, Ehsan Knopf, filmmakers, films, Shejuti Hossain
Q & A with Australian screenwriter / producer / director Tony Ayres
Tony Ayres (born 16 July 1961) is a Chinese-born Australian screenwriter, director in television and feature film. He is most notable for his films Walking on Water and The Home Song Stories, as well his work in television –The Slap and teen adventure series Nowhere Boys. He's Executive producer on Maximum Choppage (a six part kung fu comedy series for the ABC starring Lawrence Leung) and The Family Law (six part comedy series for SBS based upon the memoirs of Chinese Australian journalist, Benjamin Law).
Q. When you were growing up who were your role models on Australian TV & Film?
Tony: When I was a kid, I actually avoided Australian film and TV. There was nothing that I watched, except for getting the occasional guilty glimpse of "Number 96" or "The Box". Perhaps it was because I felt a typical Australian cultural cringe? Or perhaps because there was no one on the screen who represented "me"? Or some weird amalgam of both. The shows I loved were mainly American TV shows.
Q. What made you want to break into Australian TV / Film?
Tony: I had always loved words and wanted to be a writer, but half way through my university degree, I realised that academia was killing my passion for literature. I ended up changing to a visual arts degree at the Canberra School of Art. If I had found a creative writing course, I probably would have done that. Film and TV for me was never a driving passion, more a logical deduction. Words + plus pictures = screen. It was only when I started getting into the area that I grew to love it.
Q. How did you get started in your career?
Tony: After film schools (both VCA and AFTRS), I started work as a TV writer, and was fortunate enough to get work from the start. Lucky, because I entered the industry relatively late (my late twenties). Those were the days when SBS was starting to produce scripted drama, and there was a greater appetite for multicultural stories. I wrote a number of TV plays for a number of anthology series- "Under the Skin", "Six Pack" and "Naked- Stories of Men"- which gave me a grounding in writing drama. As well, I started directing documentaries and short dramas which gave me a taste for directing. I feel like I was at the right time at the right place because I was able to make an early career out of the marginal identity politics which I was personally grappling with- being Chinese, being gay, being Chinese and gay. I think that's harder to do these days.
Q. Do you see a positive change to colour blind casting in Australian TV / Film and Theatre and do you incorporate this method of casting in your own productions?
Tony: Honestly, whilst I think the rhetoric has evolved, in the scripted area I don't think that there has been a substantial change in terms of colour blind casting. Every few years a non-Anglo actor will do a significant film or TV role and in the press junket raise the question of diversity as a public issue. There will be a flurry of associated articles, and these days a bunch of "likes" on Facebook, but soon after the status quo will settle again. The network mental "default" will still to be to white. Non-white cultures will still be massively under-represented. It will be just as hard for non-Anglo actors who attract attention through a breakout role to sustain their careers. Diversity for the Australian entertainment industry is like "gay marriage" for Australian politics. A lot of people believe in it, but few people are prepared to cross the floor to vote for it.
For there to be substantial change, I think that it's about the people who are genuinely invested in the issue of diversity (ie people from diverse backgrounds themselves) becoming the decision makers, the commissioners, the network executives, the makers. I guess I'd look at my own work as an example. Diversity is important to me because I have personally felt the effect/damage of growing up Chinese in a white culture. So, it's one of the determinants of what I do. My kids show, "Nowhere Boys" has a recurring role for a Chinese Australian actor (and the actors playing his family). I'm currently executive producing "Maximum Choppage" (six part kung fu comedy series for the ABC starring Lawrence Leung) and "The Family Law" (six part comedy series for SBS based upon the memoirs of Chinese Australian journalist, Benjamin Law). And I'm also EP'ing a feature film, "Ali's Wedding", a Muslim romantic comedy.
Q. What changes do you want to see happen in the entertainment industry?
Tony: In terms of diversity, I'd like the Australian government funding bodies to take this issue seriously enough to create some kind of quota system in terms of representation. The US and UK industries have both found relatively benign ways to legislate for diversity, and I don't think it's harmed their products or their share of the world market.
Finally what projects are you currently working on?
Tony: Aside from the shows listed above, I'm also executive producing a new show for ABC Drama called "Glitch" which is the ABC's first supernatural TV series, and EP'ing and co-writing the feature film version of "Nowhere Boys". There are some exciting new projects in early days as well, yet to be announced. But a recurring theme of diversity can be traced through them all.
Filed Under: children, books, foodies Tagged With: actors, films, Maximum Choppage, Nowhere Boys, television, Tony Ayres, writers
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Travelling Footprints: Travel Writing and Blogging - Can We Travel and Be Paid Yet Stay True To Our Hearts?
Travel Writing and Blogging - Can We Travel and Be Paid Yet Stay True To Our Hearts?
Yesterday I had an epiphany regarding my writing. We all have dreams and we all would love an income of some sort from our dreams, but how do we get a balance between being paid to write when travelling and selling out to PR companies and hotel chains?
Now I am writing this from a position of neither, but I want to get my writing started on a pure footing. I have been writing my more philosophical blog Kelly Martin Speaks for a long time and have always spoken from my heart, not writing for the audience but writing for me. It was, and from time-to-time it is very cathartic and enjoyable to write that blog.
Since starting to write about travelling (and even though the opportunities to travel are not flying in - yet!), I am still writing and considering my future.
I am very passionate about seeing the world and I have browsed various sites about how to make money from travel writing. I have followed the formula - how to get followers on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and to be honest it has always felt forced. A mechanism shown to us by those that are already there, who already are making bucket-loads from travel writing (easy to say when you are there).
I was doing everything they said to do, but nothing increased traffic to my blog; nothing increased my re-tweets on Twitter; nothing increased my Facebook following, and I realised I was seriously selling myself short.
Who is this? Who have I become? Someone trying to take the conventional route to get to where I want to be. I have never been that person. I always have stood aside from the crowd, doing my own thing, sometimes controversial, and I was trying to fit my square peg into that round hole again - DOH!
I noticed many of my friends that blog. They write Mommy blogs, beauty blogs, fashion blogs and many of them have a lot more followers. And I understand it is a big thing to connect as women and talk about these things, but I have never been that sort of woman.
So something was curdling away inside me - what are followers? Do I want followers or genuine readers? Do I need 1000's of Facebook followers and Twitter followers? What does this mean? How many of these people actually spend time each week reading and commenting on other people's blogs?
I realised - hardly any!
This realisation took a weight off my shoulders. Instead of trying to jump through hoops to be popular, I was going to have to turn back on myself and do what I have always have done - write for me. And if people comment they comment, and if they don't they don't.
I know a lot of people who hold give-aways on blogs and I have considered this too. Many of them make you jump through hoops to win the prize. And as someone who enjoys the hobby of entering competitions, I realised most of the people (including me) jump through the hoops but I do not transform into a genuine reader. And I bet I am not the only one.
So how do we get genuine readers?
You just write. You love what you write. And you get to the point that you no longer need that audience.
After thinking about this more, I stumbled across some mind-blowing articles written by travel writers on-line They spoke about things I have little knowledge of at this time. Many travel writers that travel and get paid or receive trips to travel from companies can often be on press trips or are sponsored in some way.
Personally, I had looked into receiving trips to travel and write about the trip, and the articles I read made me rethink things. Does a person on a press trip really travel? If it's limited and scheduled to a certain timing, to a certain place, to a specific hotel, where is the spontaneity involved in writing from the heart? Where one sits in a cafe for hours idling away the day, people watching and relaxing, wandering down some back street in an old quarter and finding a hidden gem of a restaurant or other wonderful attraction?
Someone wrote about how travel writing used to involve authentic, brilliant writing and companies would pay to advertise alongside these brilliant writers. And then PR companies seemed to take over, and businesses ended up paying those PR companies to get them business and press trips. So, sponsored writing in many ways began. No negatives written about a place, and while many trips I have had have been amazing, there is always some slight critique to mention but this can only improve the trustworthiness of the article written.
Now, I am no expert in travel writing, I am a newbie, yet I want to place my footprints on real experiences, where my soul is in my writing, and I am not writing to fulfil the needs of a business or a company. Now maybe I need to compromise? Or maybe somewhere along my travel writing days genuine companies will be open to writers who write from real experiences and the company can then respond in a positive way by making changes if necessary. This to me would show growth in the whole travel writing / PR industry.
When I think about press trips, I think of a nice trip funded by a company. Yes, I would be seeing somewhere new, and yes, I want that, but how to get the balance?
Is it okay to take sponsored press trips? How do you feel about this?
You must, seriously best thing I ever did and I am not done, as soon as I am able I will say goodbye to the UK and my dream is to travel until I find the place I want to put my roots down in life.
PR firms has been increasing a lot. The travel public relations are providing an integrated marketing campaign within the travel and tourism sector.


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Q: How to tell Javascript script to only run in the Header of a web page? I have a website owner who uses X Theme on Wordpress for website development. The theme has an option where you can easily add custom JS, but it is global by default. This owner wants the JS script to only run in the header of the site.
What is the easiest way to go about achieving this?
Thanks,
Mr. Robot

A: Depending on what type of Javascript code is, most tracking scripts like Google requires it to be in the head tag. I don't see why any other code needs to be in head. There are a few ways to include it in a Wordpress head.

*

*Simplest would be to download a plugin: Plugin Link

*Make a child theme and Enqueue the script. I dont know too much on this one but you can View it here
Hoping I gave you some ideas on how to continue.

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The Life of the Yiddish Folksinger:
Lifshe Schaechter-Widman
Itzik Gottesman
The folklorists who collected, recorded and examined Yiddish folksongs beginning at the end of the 19th and early 20th century thru the 1960s did so with little concern or interest in the life of the singers themselves. They were either looking for materials to give insight into Jewish history or into the "inner Jewish life," as did Peysekh Marek and Shaul Ginsburg for their 1901 collection, or they were seeking "pearls" of Jewish folk poetry, as did I. L. Cahan and Shmuel Lehman. The pioneering folklorist S. An-sky sought the authentic Jewish spirit--the folksgayst-- and the same could be even said about Ruth Rubin after World War Two. They left us treasures of Yiddish songs but relatively little information on the creators of these "pearls."
Through a rare side comment here and there in these earlier printed folklore collections, we can glean important insights about the Yiddish folksinger, but before World War Two, only the Soviet ethnomusicologist Moyshe Beregovski asked questions of the singer about his or her life and analyzed the performance to some degree.
To find ethnographic descriptions of Yiddish folksingers and not just the texts to songs, one can turn to the work of journalists such A. Litvin ( the pseudonym of S. Hurwitz), who traveled through Eastern Europe before World War One and published his six volume Yidishe neshomes [Jewish Souls] in 1916, filling them with accounts of folk street performers. Menakhem Kipnis, based in Warsaw was another noted journalist and writer in Poland, also known as a singer and photographer, who would on occasion write about folksingers, klezmers, and cantors with an ethnographic eye.
The lack of contextual and biographical information on Yiddish folksingers was filled in part by the initiative "The Yiddish Folksong Project," conceived and directed by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett from 1972 to 1975 and conducted through the auspices of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Prof. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett [BKG] designed a lengthy questionnaire to be asked for each song in the performer's repertory. Among the questions for the singer were: when did you last sing the song? what kind of song would you call it? what do you feel about the song?
The Folksinger Lifshe Schaechter-Widman
To write the grant for this project, BKG interviewed my grandmother, Lifshe Schaechter-Widman (1893 - 1974) in New York and recorded her for more than 40 hours during the last years of her life. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett has recently donated all the tapes of this project to YIVO. These interviews with LSW provide most of the details of the following examination of the life of the Yiddish folksinger.
We are also fortunate that Lifshe Schaechter-Widman [ LSW] wrote her memoirs in Yiddish, Durkhgelebt a velt [A full life], in 1973, a work in which song and singing play a part. In addition, in 1954, Leybl Kahn, a member of the YIVO "I. L. Cahan Folklore Club" recorded LSW singing approximately 90 songs and these recordings include some biographical and contextual information. Based on these memoirs, the BKG recordings and discussions with other family members, one can obtain a better picture of the life of the Yiddish folksinger than ever before.
Lifshe Schaechter-Widman was born Lifshe Gottesman in 1893 in a small town, Zvinyetshke on the Dniester river in the region called Bukovina. Her father's name was Yoyne Fishbach, but since many Jews only cared about a Jewish wedding contract and not about a state wedding license, all the "bastard" children took the mother's last name of Gottesman.
This province belonged to the Austro-Hungarian empire until World War One, so all the Jews could speak German, as well as Ukrainian, the language of the co-territorial people, alongside their native Yiddish. It became part of Romania between the World Wars and is divided today, with the southern half of Bukovina in Romania and the northern half in the Ukraine. Her mother Tobe was left a widow when Lifshe was three years old, and together with three older brothers and an older sister, she was raised in this shtetl till she left for America alone at the age of fifteen.
Zvinyetshke was a small shtetl and Lifshe joked that it was so tiny that if a horse and wagon entered and stopped in the middle of town, the wagon shaft would be at one end of the shtetl and the wheels at the other end. Zvinyetshke was just across the Dniester river from the much larger town of Zalishchyky (Yiddish = Zalishtshik), which was Austrian Galicia before the first world war and Poland between the wars. Zvinyetshke became part of Romania after World War One though no one there spoke (or sang) Romanian. Today Zvinyetshke, like all of northern Bukovina including the capital city Chernivtsi (Yiddish = Chernovitz), is in western Ukraine.
The lay-out of Zvinyetshke was not typical for a shtetl. The Jews lived at the foot of two hills, their homes built on both sides of a road leading over the Dniester river a half mile away. The Ukrainians lived on top of one of the hills where the church was located. Nevertheless, interaction between the Jews and Ukrainians was constant and this is revealed in Lifshe's repertoire, which included many Ukrainian songs that she learned mainly from the Ukrainian girls who worked in Jewish homes. She even learned a Ukrainian song composed by the local Eastern Orthodox priest upon the death of his wife in childbirth.
Then and Now: Lifshe Schaechter-Widman's Hometown of Zvinyetchke, Bukovina, Ukraine
Photo by Itzik Gottesman, 2010
One of the wonderful features of "The YIVO Yiddish Folksong Project" was that it researched not just the Yiddish repertoire but the entire multilingual repertoire of the Jewish folksinger in Eastern Europe. For Lifshe this meant including the Ukrainian and German songs that she sang in addition to the Yiddish ones. The interviews with LSW also reveal that she loved to sing in all three languages and that she and her audience would cry just as easily from hearing a Ukrainian song as a Yiddish one.
The Jews of Zvinyetshke recognized her singing ability at a very young age, seven or eight years old. She was taught songs by members of the community with the expectation, it seems, that she would sing these songs back to them or to a larger group. She readily acknowledged that others who sang in the town knew perhaps twenty songs, but she and her two aunts knew many, many more. She learned quickly which songs were appropriate for what audience. Using her terminology, the audiences could be either meydlekh (unmarried girls), vayber (wives, married), or forgeshritene ("progressive" but used as a catch-all word to include the Jews who were not as strictly religious as the Hasidim, as well as Maskilim and Zionists).
Though she learned a couple of worker's songs in Eastern Europe, those songs mainly entered her repertory when she came to America for the first time in 1912. However, in her interviews with BKG, she was quite conscious of class differences in her town. She had come from a middle class family until her father died of cholera. After that loss, the family suffered from poverty, but her mother still looked down upon the working class and considered her family to be of a higher social status. When young Lifshe played too long with the children of the working class, her mother would come and take her home. But in the meantime, she learned songs from their fathers; the roofers, cobblers and tailors.
She would not sing to Hasidic Jews because of the religious restraint that prevents women from singing for men. Her own brother, Srul, was a devoted Vizhnitzer Hasid and when he was younger he did listen to his sister's singing, or he left the room "but did not go far." Lifshe remembers times when the boys and girls, probably younger then thirteen, would get together and sing. She describes how the girls were the primary singers and the boys would join in and occasionally sing a funny upbeat song.
Unlike the way the term folksinger is used today, Lifshe was never paid for her singing, nor sang from a stage, but her singing often did help her get on someone's good side and obtain needed favors. She wrote in her memoirs that on the ship to America from Germany in 1908, she sang German songs for the sailors and in return was given decent food for the long and arduous trip.
An early source of Widman's repertory was her mother. LSW estimated that she knew thirty songs but as she led such a difficult life, she was rarely in the mood to sing them. When Lifshe heard her humming one to herself she asked her to teach it to her. During the Dreyfus Affair (1894 - 1906) Tobe heard an organ grinder in the street singing a song about the news and she learned it from him, and then taught it to her daughter. "Drayfusl mayn kind" [Drayfus my child] is not a typical song in LSW's repertory but one of the earliest she remembers.
The core of Widman's repertoire learned in Zvinyetshke (1893 - 1908) was comprised of two main types of song: the lyrical love song and what yiddish folklorists call shteyger-lider: sad songs about life's ups and downs, family misfortunes. In LSW's own words "The young unmarried girls sang about love, their future husbands and how wonderful life would be after the marriage. The older women were already married and sang about how miserable life really was."
When Lifshe was not yet ten, older teenage girls took her along on Sabbath walks where these lyrical love songs and love ballads would be sung. Many of these songs are, in fact, not all positive, but are about break-ups and unrequited love. Here is another example from the Leybl Kahn recordings of 1954 "In mayn hartsn brent a fayer" [In my heart a fire burns]. LSW learned most of these lyrical songs from two young unmarried aunts, Tsipe and Sheyndl, who sang beautifully and made a deep impression on her.
Every Saturday night, after the conclusion of the Sabbath, the older married women would gather together in the kitchen at someone's house to gossip and sew socks or make jam. As the men sat in the dining room and discussed politics or sang zmires and religious songs, these older women would sing songs about evil stepmothers, widows, divorced and abandoned wives, barren women, and, above all, about orphans. One haunting example of these songs is "Az se shtarbt nor op dos ershte vayb" [As soon as the first wife dies]
The meydlekh also got together Saturday night after the Sabbath to sing and form a klyake, a collective work group, and usually plucked feathers. This was another opportunity to learn and perform.
Another source of LSW's repertoire was the street: songs about the Kiev and Kishenev pograms she learned from pogrom survivors; dicey songs learned from plagers (young Jewish draft-dodgers), purim songs from the purim-shpiler and legendary ballads about past tragedies in her town such as: "A naye geshikhte" about a groom who drowned before the wedding. LSW said that this tragedy actually happened in her town, but essentially the same song was known in many towns in Eastern Europe and in each town, the singer claimed it to be true.
LSW's mother Tobe remarried and Lifshe did not get along with her stepfather. She took off for America in 1908 and lived on the Lower East Side of NY and loved it. There she hoped to join the Yiddish theater and had hopes of being a professional singer. The stage, however, was not looked upon as a ladylike profession and Lifshe's older brother, Luzer, told her that if she appeared on the Yiddish stage he would sit in the front row with a revolver with one bullet for her and one for him, thus ending her hopes as an actress.
On the streets of New York, Yiddish songwriters would stand on a soapbox in the street and sing their newest creations. Lifshe would give him the penny with which she was supposed to buy seltzer and instead come home with his song sheet. In this way and by attending the theater she learned many popular yiddish hits, such as "A brivele der mamen," and "Dos talesl." In the sweatshop where she worked, she was recognized as one of the best singers, but the full range of her shtetl repertoire was not what the immigrant girls wanted to hear. This was clearly a blow to LSW but ever eager to please an audience, she learned the upbeat American Yiddish songs and current English-language hits and performed them for the working girls. The lyrical love songs from Zvinyetshke, though, were still popular among the sweatshop workers.
Because of a financial matter, Lifshe returned to Bukovina, to the capital city Chernovitz, just in time for the First World War. She married Benyumin Schaechter, an intellectual former Yeshiva student, in Vienna and learned his repertory of nationalist, and anti-Hasidic songs. In the BKG interview, she says that she did not particularly enjoy singing these mocking songs because she found them to be disrespectful of the older generation but if that is what the audience wanted, she was willing to perform them. An example of these songs is "Bay deym ruv in shtib."
Chernovitz, Romania 1937: from left – Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, cousin Lusye (Gottesman) Buxbaum, brother Mordkhe Schaechter, mother Lifshe Schaechter-Widman (Beyle's mother), father Binyumin Schaechter, grandmother Taube Gottesman
LSW lived in Chernovitz, the capital of the Bukovina region, with her husband and two children from 1923 to 1945. She was a popular merchant with a couple of stores. The vast majority of her songs was learned during the first twenty years of her life and those years in the big city, then Romania, are not reflected in her repertory. This is in stark contrast to the repertory of her daughter Beyle, who learned songs from the Chernovitz Yiddish theater, local composers, and new compositions with texts from modern Yiddish poetry.
LSW survived the Holocaust but lost her dear husband, who died in a Soviet gulag. In 1951, she returned to New York and settled in the Bronx. Her shtetl repertory was only appreciated by a handful of people and even her daughter, my mother, once teased her for crying after every song. For a long time after this comment she did not sing those songs in public.
During my research into the YIVO Ethnographic Commission based in Vilna (1925-1939), it was always a wonder to me that rather unknown American popular Yiddish songs were collected in small towns in Eastern Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. True, some of this can be accounted for by traveling American Yiddish theater troupes, but it is also true that they were disseminated by singers such as Lifshe who spent years in New York and then returned to Eastern Europe with a large American Yiddish repertory.
In her last years, LSW was still appreciated as a great source of Yiddish folksongs and as a great singer, but her repertory was never performed by others until recently in a strictly folkloric context. Nevertheless, to understand Eastern European Jewish life and culture, singers like Lifshe Widman must play a key role in illuminating that history.
Liner Notes for "Az di furst avek." Recording by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman.
Brayndl Prize
Study of Yiddish Folksong
Rhythm in Yiddish Song
The Folksinger
Morris Hollender
Yitzchak Milstein
Bronya Sakina
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Yangon - Authorities arrested 15 men and seized the largest shipment of illegal drugs in Myanmar history, officials said Sunday.
The navy intercepted a ship near southern town of Kawthaun, en route to Thailand with around 2,400,000 pills of Ecstasy that police estimated was worth up to 20 million dollars.
"This seizure is the largest amount in history," senior anti-drug official Myint Oo said.
Fifteen men including the captain were arrested and detained at police station last week, he said.
Authorities in July seized heroin with an estimated value of 2.3 million dollars in the town of Tachileik in Shan state, near the Thai border.


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https://www.sfgate.com/world/article/Obsolete-tunnel-finds-second-life-as-vertical-13199259.php
Obsolete tunnel finds second life as vertical farm in South Korea
By Jung-Yoon Kim
Published 1:46 pm PDT, Saturday, September 1, 2018
Choi Jae Bin, head of NextOn, describes the firm's cultivation system last month at the facility in the city of Okcheon. The high-tech farm occupies a shuttered former highway tunnel.
Photo: Han Myung Oh / Associated Press
OKCHEON, South Korea — Behind a blue wall that seals a former highway tunnel stretches a huge indoor farm bathed in rose-tinted light.
Fruits and vegetables grow hydroponically — with no soil — in vertically stacked layers, illuminated by neon-pink LEDs instead of sunlight.
Operators of the high-tech facility in South Korea say it is the world's first indoor vertical farm built in a tunnel. It's also the largest such farm in the country and one of the biggest in the world, with a floor area of 25,000 square feet.
Indoor vertical farming is seen as a potential solution to the havoc wreaked on crops by the extreme weather linked to climate change and to shortages of land and workers in countries with aging populations.
The tunnel, about 120 miles south of Seoul, was built in 1970 for one of South Korea's first major highways. Once a symbol of the country's industrialization, it closed in 2002. An indoor farming company rented the tunnel from the government last year and transformed it into a "smart farm."
Instead of the chirrups of cicadas, Claude Debussy's "Clair de Lune" resonates in the tunnel in hopes of stimulating the crops' healthy growth.
"We are playing classical music because vegetables also love listening to music like we do," said Choi Jae Bin, head of NextOn, the company that runs the vertical farm.
Sixty types of fruits and vegetables grow in optimized conditions using NextOn's own growth and harvest systems. Among them, 42 are certified as no-pesticide, no-herbicide and non-GMO products, said Dave Suh, NextOn's chief technology officer.
He said the tunnel provides temperatures of 50 to 72 degrees, enabling the company to optimize growing conditions.
High-tech smart farms, used also in places like Dubai and Israel where growing conditions are challenging, can be a key to developing sustainable agriculture, experts said.
"Society is aging and urbanization is intensifying as our agricultural workforce is shrinking," said Son Jung Eek, a professor of plant science at Seoul National University. Smart farming can help address that challenge, he said, as well as make it easier to raise high-value crops that are sensitive to temperature and other conditions.
The farm will begin supplying vegetables to a major food retailer and a leading bakery chain beginning in late August, NextOn said.
Jung-Yoon Kim is an Associated Press writer.


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Hunter Mauled By Grizzly Bear Near Cody
Zach Spadt
Zach Spadt Published: October 5, 2021
Zach Spadt, Townsquare Media
Officials in Park County say a hunter sustained injuries after being mauled by a grizzly bear on Saturday.
According to a news release on social media, authorities in Park County received a 911 call from the 45-year-old hunter, who advised that he'd been mauled by a bear and needed assistance.
He was roughly five miles from the North Fork Highway.
Park County Search and Rescue, a Guardian helicopter from Riverton and a Cody Regional Health ambulance all immediately responded.
At the same time, the injured hunter made the decision to begin riding out of the wilderness to meet emergency responders.
At roughly 9:30 a.m., search and rescue crews made contact with the injured hunter on the north side of the Shoshone River.
Then, just after 10 a.m., the hunter and search and rescue crews arrived at a staging area where he was treated by EMS personnel. He was then flown to a hospital in Billings for additional care.
Wyoming Game and Fish is currently investigating the mauling.
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Filed Under: bear mauling, Grizzly Bear, grizzly mauling, north fork shoshone, Park County Sheriff's Office
Categories: News, Wyoming


Labradoodles first came to public attention around 1988. With famous celebrity owners like Tiger Woods drawing even more attention to this cross-breed, they are sure to continue growing in popularity.
Labradoodles are just one of a number of cross-bred dog types that fall under the recently coined category of "designer dogs." These good natured pets are the result of breedings between Labrador Retrievers and Standard Poodles.
The original Labradoodle traces its beginnings to Australia, where Wally Cochran of Royal Guide Dogs carried out the first deliberate cross-breedings in an effort to create a hypo-allergenic dog breed that could be used as service dogs.
Cochran had allergy testing performed on saliva and dander samples from all resulting offspring of these first matings, and pursued his breeding program using only dogs that were proven to have less allergenic tendencies. Within a few generations, he had established a line of dogs that, although not purely hypo-allergenic, still caused far fewer reactions in dog allergy sufferers.
Of course, once this breeding program became public knowledge, many individuals hoping to cash in on the hypo-allergic bandwagon began indiscriminately breeding Poodles and Labs together calling the resulting pups "Labradoodles," a term Wally Cochran himself had originated. As a result of this market flood, most Labradoodles today are not likely to be truly hypo-allergenic.
As yet, there is very little uniformity in the appearance of these dogs. Some look quite a bit like their Poodle ancestors, while others more closely resemble shaggy Labs.
"Doodles," as they are affectionately called by their fans, are available in a range of sizes.
Standards can range between 50 and 75 pounds, with females at the lower end of the scale and males at the higher end.
Mediums fall in the 40 to 50 pound range.
Miniatures range from 25 to 45 pounds.
Currently, there are two main coat types for Doodles.
Wool curly coats are similar to the traditional poodle coat texture.
Fleece coats have a softer texture than wool coats, and hang in loose curls.
Although the hypo-allergenic quality of these dogs remains questionable, there is no room for doubt about their wonderful personalities. The ideal Labradoodle is a highly social creature, affectionate and loyal by nature, and very tuned in to its human companions. It also tends to get along well with other canine companions, being less territorial than some breeds.
Doodle training has also proven to be a success. These dogs easily learn what is required of them for daily family life. Plus, they have also made their mark in the service dog arena becoming guide dogs for the blind and terrific therapy dogs.
It's difficult to predict what the future may hold for this aspiring dog breed. Will quick cash breeding give way to a renewed effort to establish a truly hypo-allergenic pet or will Labradoodles turn out to be a canine fad? The answers to these questions remain in the hands of Labradoodle breeders everywhere.


I've always been exciting about using Amazon.com, whether it's to make money through their affiliate program or to launch an ebook or a real book. They have millions of customers on their site and their name is a trusted brand that no one questions. In short, working with Amazon in any form is quite powerful.
A few months ago I was looking into the business of ebooks and how to make money by selling digital books through Amazon. One of the best sites and guides I came across was the one from Eric Lass over at Shuckabuck. I did focus a lot of time and effort into releasing my "Blogging Tips: Confessions of a Six Figure Blogger" book, I didn't get to really spend any time working on releasing other short books and guides… however Eric continues to do very well in this niche, which makes him a perfect candidate for today's "Meet the Bloggers" interview.
I found out about blogging and affiliate marketing through a magazine article back in 2008 from Entrepreneur magazine. The article was written on John Chow and he "make money by teaching people how to make money".
That article got me to read his blog almost daily and finally start my own blog – shuckabuck.com. Which at that time was a blog about online poker. I did a lot of online poker from about 2002 till 2006, and I used shuckabuck.com as a way to refer people to other poker rooms and training aids.
I later found out about search engine optimization and getting traffic to my website, so I started doing SEO and created about 50 new sites from 2009 until about 2011.
My focus was online poker until the United States Government shut down all the sites. My blog is now about kindle ebooks and self publishing for the most part – my little affiliate websites still make a little income, but most of my revenue comes from kindle books now.
I chose kindle books because that's what I actually know a lot about and I can teach other people what I do.
I sell an eBook on shuckabuck.com called Publishing for Profit which teaches people a step-by-step "formula" to create best selling kindle books.
Oh boy, everything. I wish I knew everything I know now back in 2008. But in order to get started you just have to do it, some of the stuff you can learn from a couple youtube videos, other things you may have to purchase a training course or "learn on the job".
I don't visit any blogs almost daily anymore mainly because their isn't much I can learn from them since I'm doing kindle stuff and other people are still in the SEO and affiliate marketing world.
I do recommend checking out LostBallinHighWeeds.com – he has some very interesting stuff. I would also recommend checking out NichePursuits.com and SmartPassiveIncome.com.
This tool I still use quite a bit even though I don't do much as far as "blogging" on a daily basis. The tool is THE BEST for finding long tail keywords from the google auto suggestions.
Those 2 tools will let you manage and schedule your social media stuff pretty easily.
Lastly, I recommend hiring someone to do your backlinking for you so you can focus on creating awesome content and marketing your blog. The last thing you want to be doing is creating backlink articles when you can growing your facebook page or marketing your products and services.
Start now – ask questions later. It's fine if you don't know exactly what to do – you just need to know that you do need to start. The earlier you start, the better off you will be later.
Quality over Quantity. Create a valuable blog, then create valuable services or products and people will come back, and eventually the search engines will like your site. Focus on quality content 100% of the time.
After hosting you wouldn't have much left, but other than that, I would use about 50% to get some facebook fans so you can get instant traffic when you post new stuff.
I would then use the other 50% for your first few months of an email marketing service like Aweber.
They can contact me at shuckabuck.com using the contact form, at facebook.com/shuckabuck, or on twitter @shuckabuck.


Issue 05, Vol.3 of intelligence Magazine will feature a comprehensive cover story on Shinsuke Takizawa of NEIGHBORHOOD with 2 cover options.
Features include interviews with revered painter James Jean, Derek Harris of Lewis Leathers, Toronto based jazz band Badbadnotgood, Toshinosuke Takegahara of Authentic Shoe & co. and an in-depth story on the creative team (Ryo Kashiwazaki and Erman Aykurt) behind the adidas Originals by Hender Scheme project.
Issue 05 also emcompasses a diverse range of editorial content showcasing Mackintosh 0001 by Kiko Kostadinov, visvim, NEIGHBORHOOD, Junya Watanabe MAN and Levi's® Vintage Clothing. Supplementing editorials include mixed styled spreads from NYC, a photo essay by Snow Peak and a seasonal product focus from HAVEN.