A morsel from Art and Fear: "Talent is a snare and a delusion."

I'm going to spend two hours on this film today.

I really should capture footage onto a hardrive but I dont know how to.

What other footage should I get? I'm not sure.

I could watch prelinger stuff about banks.

I can think about the narrative structure:

Titles: eyes wide open. Bank-Notes. My Bank Got Bought.

my bank got bought. first it was bay bank and then bank of boston then fleet then bank of america. so i moved my account across the street to a bank, i dont even remember what is was called but it had the word massachusetts in it, so I figured it was local, but it promptly became banknorth which became TD banknorth. One day soon after the TD appeared on my bank statement stationery, i took five minutes to look up TD on the internet. that simple two letter prefix. a whole other world! (show newspaper of TD Toronto Dominion.)

i felt so suspicious, like someone was scamming me. i was trying to use a small bank -and even that got bought out. a small bank seemed more trustworthy, committed to the community, a smaller entity and so i could know it more easily. my instinct was to prefer small, local, even though i still knew nothing about how banks worked, or precisely why it would be important to support a small bank.

i had my money in a checking account with no interest. it wasnt much money. but i didnt want interest all these years if i didnt know where the interest came from. but even if im not getting interest, it dawned on me that the bank is using my deposits to make more money for itself. im complicit even if im not getting the interest. im lending them fodder to do more of what they do. and i dont know what this is!

there is a wise saying. "only connect." to connect to a world as mystifying and invisible as the financial industry take some time. so i made some time:

how do banks work? what impact do they have on the landscape, on economic opportunity and division of wealth and resources? what does it mean to MAKE money? where does money or profit come from --isnt there a law that energy and matter cant be created, only transfered? what is the transfer when profit gets created? the profit that pays my interest whether in a bank or mutual fund? where do i move my account? i have heard of credit unions, what are they? this whole finance industry freaks me out --a bunch of people playing a game i dont understand but it affects the landscape, literally the alteration of land around me. the work and everyday lives of so many people.

I started on a journey to understand banks and to decide where I could open my bank account and feel okay about it. i had a feeling banks would be a point of entry for understanding the logic of this strange thing we call the economy.

What happens when one opens ones eyes, connects to invisible things. money circulation is invisible. can we make it visible? audible? can we connect to it.

If you could make a bank audible what would it sound like? a song!

1. some things you should know about banks: they were started a certain date; they use fractional reserve. they are all wrapped up in the government. there are different kinds of banks. commerical banks have stockholders. banks have subcomponents. big banks like TD banknorth make lots of money. how? how do they make their money. who profits from this? who owns stocks of bank north? where is this info available?

my fave facts about banks: they create money. most money.
they do a lot of currency trading.
they are at total odds with democracy.
they consolidated the finance industry.
how do small banks make their money? how do big banks make their money?
why is it important to support small banks?
big banks are often involved in subprime industry
part of profiting from huge credit problem.
can i interview someone at td in toronto??
banks are yucky.

2. where should i open my account? i heard about a homegrown alternative: common good bank. its not ready yet so i moved my money to cu and cdcu. i liked the cu but i really liked the cdcu.

go to nc. and footage from cliff

so i moved my acocunt.

so what?

drop in the bucket.

3. a song about all the money in the world. does my little acocunt what fraction of the world's money am i putting in the cdcu? what frcation of the worlds money is in all cdcus? im wondering how meaningful this kind of work is, given the huge amounts of money in commercial banks. is this worth doing? how is one to make a difference if one tries to speak and use the language of money and doesnt have access to a lot. i convinced others...is this significant? i convinced my union and im working on others. move your money to cdcus. you there, you should too. the list for cdcus

get cdcu to say it is worthwhile, even small amounts.

5. but then there is the ethical issue, raised by islamic finance and others. what does it mean to make money from money. is this the source of ever expanding economy? is my interest, my bank account, my interest making me complicit and even responsible for environmental destruction? for global warming?

who can help me with this one? where does interest come from?

my boyfriend b. who is helping me make this film, i wanted him to move him account to cdcu. he has no interest in his money market account. i became greedy. you could get 5%! but he prefers no or little interest. he is right. on what ground do we deserve money made from money?
something for nothing. but we do pay the price, we just dont see the price unless we connect.

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next steps: LA times article on Gates foundation; how do banks help; detail clarify distill the problems with banks; learn how to capture footage; see about visiting the boston fed, read over the blog.