Tag: Include emotion

TELL A STORY

MAKE A WEBSITE

“Blood, Sweat & Takeaways“
A four-episode reality TV series produced directed & produced by James Christie-Miller for Ricochet Films for television broadcast on BBC3.
All episodes embedded above. Also available on Box of Broadcasts (with institutional login) here.

Lauren, 21, and loves luxury food. Jess, 19, is a fussy eater. Manos, 20, loves fast food. Josh, 20, loves to cook. Stacey, 20, is an ethical shopper. Olu, 25, is a fitness fanatic. But this group of multicultural Brits who don’t seem to care where their food comes from. Until they are approached by a TV company which challenges them to travel to Indonesia and Thailand and to step into the shoes of the farm, factory and trawler workers who source and process it for export. Over four episodes – on Tuna, Prawns, Rice and Chicken – they’re filmed working alongside supply chain workers, earning and spending the same 40p an hour wages, and living in the same places. They relentlessly gut, behead and loin tuna fish in a factory. They work in waist-deep mud farming prawns and up to their ankles in water in a rice paddy field. It’s hot. All they have to eat each day is a banana and a slice of bread. This is a shock to their systems. This is car crash reality TV. They crack under the pressure, retch, cry, faint, fall out, fight, refuse to work, slow down the production line, get sick, feel guilty, insult and patronise their co-workers and escape to a comfortable hotel, eat at McDonalds and get first class medical care. Olu is sent home after a fight with Manos. He’s replaced by James, a young farmer. At least he knows where food comes from. But, as they get over the shock, episode by episode, they are humbled by the experience and become more appreciative consumers. This is the second ‘Blood, sweat and…’ series broadcast by the BBC. And it’s equally successful, attracting big audiences, winning awards and being shown around the world. Its aim is to encourage young people to think about who makes their stuff, and to find their own solutions like the cast members do. Because this is reality TV, much of the discussion focuses on the cast and how ‘spoilt’ they seem to be, how terrible they are as British ‘ambassadors’ in Thailand and Indonesia, how distastasteful it is for them to ogle at squalour, and how easy it is for them – unlike the people they’re working alongside – to leave. Critics say that its reality TV format encourages an enjoyment of the casts’ meltdowns more than their thoughtful reflections. Others quibble the facts and argue that the series’ narrative arc is a work of fiction. Others say that it places too much emphasis on consumer awareness, without provinding any ideas about what viewers should do next. And there’s nothing in this series about other responsible actors in these supply chains (for a comparison, see our page on the BBC’s ‘Mangetout’ documentary here) and nothing about the need for structural change (e.g. living wage legislation). But the BBC sets up a web forum for people to discuss these issues and one cast member ends up on a late night BBC news show challenging some glib trade arguments made by a represenative of the British Retail Consortium. So, what does this TV series do for its British cast? Its Thai and Indonesian participants? The production company? The last one is easy. The success of this second ‘Blood sweat and…’ series is followed by the making of the next series. ‘Blood, sweat & luxuries’. Then, years later, TV production executives in Holland and the Czech Republic reported that it has inspired new reality TV series. The whole series was uploaded to YouTube in full in 2022, where a whole new generation of viewers – around the world – could engage with the series, its characters and its message.

Page reference: Harriet Clarke, Ben Thomson, Victoria Bartley, Katie Ibbetson-Price, Emma Christie-Miller & Harry Schofield (2025) Blood, Sweat & Takeaways. followthethings.com/blood-sweat-takeaways.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 102 minutes.

Posted on December 20, 2024February 11, 2025 by Ian Cook

A Gadget To Die For

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Electronics

“A Gadget To Die For“
Front page headline and feature story in by Martin Hickman in the Independent Newspaper, plus a timeline of corporate and activist activity into which this story fits.
Front page featured above. The full text of the article is available below, and on the newspaper website here.

On May 27th 2010, the UK’s Independent newspaper published one of its most memorable front pages. This was the day that Apple’s new iPad device was being launched in the UK. The hype for this product had been extreme. At its launch, Apple CEO Steve Jobs had said it could help consumers to do things ‘in a much more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before’. Classic commodity fetishism! Apple Stores had so many orders that they had to meet. The factory where they were being made in China – owned by the Foxconn corporation – had to keep up with demand. Those customers couldn’t be kept waiting. But the hours and working conditions that the people making these iPads in Foxconn’s factory had to endure were too much for some. Reports started to emerge of extreme levels of stress driving some workers to make their way to the roof of the factory to jump to their deaths. One of these workers was Ma Xiangqian, whose family carried a photo portrait of their son to a protest outside the factory that was broadcast on international news. Juxtaposing a photo of this new device and photo of a worker who committed suicide with the perfect double-meaning title ‘A gadget to die for’ contributed to the sullying of Apple’s marketing plans. More importantly, it was just one example of the sustained attention to the working conditions in the company’s Foxconn factories in China that was building at this time (e.g. see the factory worker suicide prevention level on the Phone Story game here). On followthethings.com, we tend to choose individual examples of trade justice activism and find out where they came from, and what impacts they have had on, for example, the pay and conditions of supply chain workers. But in this case, it’s not just this one story that made a difference. This page outlines a different story. The Independent story is copied in full, and is followed – like a standard followthethings.com page – by everything we could find about how it was discussed and what impact it had (not much). Then, below this, we try to place this news story in context, starting with the launch of the iPad by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, then following iPad news stories as they were published over the following months, then finding when and how the ‘iPad suicide’ story came to public attention (in the Independent and elsewhere), and then tracking this scandal and Apple’s reactions to it. This larger context had an important impact, forcing corporate change and – arguably – improving pay and conditions in Foxconn factories. More than anything, this page tries to show how trade justice activism works when its bubbles up in multiple places and formats, not necessarily in a wholly coordinated way. For this example, it shows the importance of on-the-ground student activists – in this case the Hong Kong based Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM) – investigating, protesting, creating and promoting media content that others – like Independent journalists Martin Hickman – can pick up and run with.

Article reference: Martin Hickman (2010) A gadget to die for? Concern over human cost overshadows iPad launch. The Independent 27 May (www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/concern-over-human-cost-overshadows-ipad-launch-1983888.html last accessed 4 August 2010)

Page reference: Ian Cook et al (2024) A gadget to die for? followthethings.com/a-gadget-to-die-for.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 42 minutes.

Posted on December 19, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

A Decent Factory

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Electronics

SHOW WHAT’S IMPOSSIBLE

TARGET THE RIGHT BRAND

SPEND SOME TIME

CULTIVATE RELATIONSHIPS

HOLD ‘EM ACCOUNTABLE

MAKE IT A MYSTERY

“A Decent Factory (alternative title Made in China)“
A documentary film directed by Thomas Balmès for Margot Films, Making Movies Oy, France 2, BBC Storyville & YLE
Film clip embedded above. Search online to stream the whole film here.

In the mid 2000s, the Finnish company Nokia was the world’s largest producer of mobile phones. French film-maker Thomas Balmès works moves to Finland and spends 18 months in the country before getting permission to follow its executive Hanna Kosinen and business ethics consultant Louise Jamison as they undertake the company’s first ‘ethical audit’ of a mobile phone factory in China. Hanna and Louise have been tasked by Nokia to see for themselves if and how the company can exercise its ‘corporate social responsibilities’ both to its shareholders and to its factory workers. After a detailed tour of the plant, and some challenging and moving interviews with some of its managers and young female factory floor staff (in their cramped dorm rooms), they have to write a report for Nokia about its CSR in practice. It’s not flattering. The factory isn’t reaching even the low Chinese government expectations about minimum wages and working conditions. In the early days of a technology which later became synonymous with appalling labour conditions (see our page on the 2010 iPad factory suicides here), there was a company, and some company executives, who wanted the people making their branded products to enjoy a decent standard of living. But when they visit – as Balmès’ film shows – they get a shock and start to wonder why their principles don’t seem to be possible in practice. Nokia’s managers are ‘walking a tightrope between profits and law’. They are disarmingly frank in front of the camera, until they find out that this isn’t a films solely for internal Nokia consumption. The film that Balmès produces is darkly funny and tragic, It ends with Hanna leaving the company to pursue a more ethical career, where she can make a difference. This is an important, insightful film. It brings corporate managers into view in vivid and candid ways. It’s not only the factory workers who are ‘humanised’. In this film, its corporate managers and their consultants whom audiences are invited to empathise with. The people employed, internally, to hold a company accountable. These executives are not just being interviewed for a ‘talking head’ perspectives and/or briefly followed around a production site (see our page on the BBC Mangetout documentary for comparison here). These executives are not being deliberately embarrassed or demonised. Audience members can see what they are tasked to do. The ethical principles they would like to see in practice. Where they go. Who they talk to. How this affects them emotionally. How their personal and company principles work out in practice. What this makes them think about their job, the company they work for, and its stated corporate values. And whether they can stomach the disappointment when reality bites, and the change that’s needed doesn’t seem possible?

Page reference: Thirii Myint & Chris Lee (2011) A Decent Factory. followthethings.com/a-decent-factory.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 29 minutes.

Posted on December 11, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Maquilapolis (City Of Factories)

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Home & Auto | Health & Beauty

MULTIPLE OTHER BRANDS

MANY OTHER COMMODITIES

START SOMEWHERE DIFFERENT

TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

EDUCATE WORKERS

WORKERS TAKE THE MIC!

BRING POLITICIANS INTO VIEW

SHOW THE VIOLENCE

INCLUDE SUFFERING KIDS

SHOW HOW TO WIN

FIND & GIVE INSPIRATION

ENCOURAGE FEMINIST SOLIDARITIES

“Maquilapolis (City Of Factories)“
A participatory documentary film in Spanish with Spanish or English subtitles directed by Vicky Funari & Sergio de la Torre, with music by Pauline Oliveros with the Nortec Collective & John Blue for the Independent Television Service & CineMamás Film.
Trailer and pay-per-view stream embedded above. Search online for other streaming options here. Read the film transcript in English & Spanish here.

Carmen Duràn and Lourdes Lujàn work in Tijuana, the ‘city of factories’, on the Mexico-US border. They work in factories on the hill making televisions and other COMMODITIES for brands like Panasonic and Sony. These multinationals treat this city as a garbage can that their workers have to live in. How can they fight back, claim their rights, their humanity? They take part in a participatory filmmaking project with directors Vicky Funari and Sergio de la Torre. The directors have been working with a local collective of ‘promontoras’ including Carmen and Lourdes for years. They have planned this project together for years. There’s been some filmmaking training and the promontoras take camcorders into the places where they live and work. The films they make are full of personality and a close attachment to place. They document life from these factory workers’ perspective. They document the ways in which these multinationals treat them as workers – especially when they leave – and how they treat the place where they live – as a dump for industrial waste that ruins their environment and threatens their health. They document their campaigns to clean up toxic industrial waste. In the process audiences get to know Carmen and Lourdes, to empathise with them. But the film also contains some surprising and beautiful creative scenes – often made in place of the footage that’s impossible to take inside the factory – that look like performance art. They want to show the intimate, bodily connection between the labour they perform, the commodities you buy (or are treated with in hospital) and the brands that you may be familiar with. And there’s some specially commissioned film music, made with a local music collective and featuring sounds from the factories. This is a gem of a film for anyone interested in trade justice activism. This is the film – with caveats – that these Mexican factory workers wanted to make and to show to the world. It’s one of the most intimate place-based examples featured on our site. And it was shown, deliberately, to audiences of workers either side of the US-Mexico border. Seeing empowered women like themselves struggling, resisting was an inspiration to many other women. And when the film hit the film festival circle, and there were panel screenings, the promontoras were there, answering questions alongside the directors.

Page reference: Rosie Buller, Melanie Bonner, Rebecca Lyons, Georgie Little, Tilman Schulzklinger & Jennifer Hart (2020) Maquilapolis (City Of Factories). followthethings.com/maquilapolis-city-of-factories.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 86 minutes.

Posted on December 11, 2024January 28, 2025 by Ian Cook

Inside Job

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Money & Finance

EXPERIENCED WORLDWIDE

DOCUMENTARY FILM

TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

FOLLOW THE MONEY

FIND THE CHARACTERS

INCLUDE EMOTION

BRING REGULATORS INTO VIEW

BRING ACADEMICS INTO VIEW

JOIN THE DOTS

JUXTAPOSE EXTREMES

INVOLVE A CELEBRITY

BLAME, SHAME & GUILT

“Inside Job“
A documentary film directed by Charles Ferguson, produced by Charles Ferguson, Audrey Marrs & Jeffrey Lurie & narrated by Matt Damon for Mongrel Media & Sony Pictures Classic.
Official trailer embedded above. Search online to watch the full movie here.

In the wake of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, filmmaker Charles Ferguson sets out to find out how and by whom it was caused. This involves understanding and explaining complex financial instruments (like sub-prime mortgages and collateralised debt obligations), the governance of international finance and its deregulation (and its consequences), eye-watering banking losses (over $20 trillion), the organisations and individuals responsible for this happening (in financial services, government, academia) and the people plunged into poverty and homelessness after defaulting on their mortgages. The complexity is explained clearly in the film by narrator Matt Damon. And by the talking heads who Ferguson recruits to talk about what happened, their role in it, how they see their responsibilities, why so much public money was spent bailing them out, and why none of them went to jail. For many audience members, it’s shocking to see executives explaining how business works on camera. The logics and passions that drive their work, and the values that they express, can seem removed from the world, callous and dehumanising. But the experts who come out of this film looking worst are the academic economists. One of the biggest impacts of this film is the way that it encourages university business schools to look more closely at their ethics. Who are economists working for, and how responsible is their education of new generations of economists if their ideas remain unchanged after the Crisis? This is another example showing how important and how difficult it is to ‘follow the money’. But like any following study, it’s also about the ways that responsibility – in this case, for a colossal economic injustice – is understood, shared, taken. And where it isn’t. The solution sees obvious to many – regulation! But it’s not happening. If one film was going to cause a revolution, one commentor states, it would be this one. And this is just a taster page for this film. We’ll add much more detail later…

Page reference: Dom Ebbetts, Dave Simpson, Michael Brent, Mickey Franklin, Tommy Sadler & Charlie Timms (2024) Inside Job (taster). followthethings.com/inside-job.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes.

Posted on December 4, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Those With Justice: A Disney Factory In China (+ Looking For Mickey Mouse’s Conscience – A Survey Of The Working Conditions Of Disney’s Supplier Factories in China)

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Gifts & Seasonal

CHANGE CORPORATE BEHAVIOUR

END VIOLENCE & EXPLOITATION

IMPROVE PAY & CONDITIONS

START SOMEWHERE DIFFERENT

FLIP THE SCRIPT!

TARGET THE RIGHT BRAND

HUMANISE THINGS

SHOW THE VIOLENCE

INCLUDE HAUNTING & HORROR

PUT YOUR BODIES IN THE WAY

REAL HUMAN HAIR EXTENSION

PROMPT GOOD CITIZENSHOP

BARGAIN & NEGOTIATE

“Those With Justice: A Disney Factory In China (+ Looking For Mickey Mouse’s Conscience – A Survey Of The Working Conditions Of Disney’s Supplier Factories in China)“
A short film directed by Karin Mak and translated by Jessie Wang for, and an NGO Report published by, Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM) & Sweatshop Watch.
Watch the film in full above. Read the report – here.

Inspired by student anti-sweatshop activism in the USA, students in Hong Kong come together to protest the opening of Hong Kong’s Disneyland. They visit the factories where the Disney merch that is going to be sold there is made. They talk to the factory workers, and are horrified by what they learn. There are dangerous and exploitative labour practices behind the happy smiling image of Mickey Mouse and Friends. One group of students – who call themselves Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (or SACOM) – write a report about the working conditions in four of Disney’s hundreds of Chinese supplier factories. It’s called Looking for Mickey Mouse’s Conscience – A Survey of the Working Conditions of Disney’s Supplier Factories in China. They do this with the help of a California-based NGO called Sweatshop Watch, who send a delegation to China which includes University of California Santa Cruz film studies student Karin Mak. Mak films the factory workers talking about these working conditions, and produces an 11 minute documentary called Those With Justice: A Disney Factory In China. This focuses on one of the four factories – Hung Hing Printing & Packaging – which makes children’s books for Disney. Here, she finds, the workers are constantly reminded about the delicate fingers of Western children. They mustn’t be harmed by paper cuts. That’s why they have to use dangerous hot glue presses to stick the paper covers to hardback copies of a Mickey Mouse’s Haunted Halloween book, for example. The film and the report show images of their burned, crushed and mangled fingers. These injuries are caused by equipment and the speed at which they have to work to meet their targets. Mak’s film is used by SACOM and Sweatshop Watch (and other labour rights NGOs) to launch the report. It helps this Disney sweatshop story to get traction in the international new media. Now Disney is under pressure to respond. What follows is a fascinating to-and-fro between a huge multinational corporation and a small, determined, skilful and well-connected group of Hong Kong students. This is a fascinating and important example of successful trade justice activism. Piecing the story together below, we have found a variety of factors that have contributed to this success – some planned, some not – and a fascinating discussion about what counts as ‘success’.

Page reference: Ian Cook et al (2011) Those With Justice: A Disney Factory In China (+ Looking For Mickey Mouse’s Conscience – A Survey Of The Working Conditions Of Disney’s Supplier Factories in China). followthethings.com/those-with-justice.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 56 minutes.

Posted on December 3, 2024January 26, 2025 by Ian Cook

Jamelia: Whose Hair Is It Anyway?

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Fashion | Health & Beauty

2008

UNBRANDED

CHOOSE THE RIGHT THING

INCLUDE SUFFERING KIDS

INCLUDE EMOTION

ENCOURAGE EMPATHY

LET THE TEARS FLOW

ENCOURAGE FEMINIST SOLIDARITIES

FIND LOST RELATIONS

FIND THE LOVE

ENCOURAGE THANKFULNESS

END HAPPY

“Jamelia: Whose Hair Is It Anyway?“
A TV documentary film fronted by Jamelia, directed by Jo Hughes, produced by Morgan Matthews for Minnow Films.
Slideshow of documentary stills embedded above. BBC iPlayer page here. Watch on Box of Broadcasts (with institutional login) here.

This is the example that inspired the first version of followthethings.com – an online list of ‘follow the things’ resources. In this TV documentary, legendary Birmingham pop singer Jamelia – best known for her 2010 song ‘Superstar’ – wants to find out about a hair extension that she wore on TV to present a National Lottery draw. It’s real human hair. Straight, long and black. But whose hair was it originally? Whose hair was she wearing? She asks some young women at a local school about where their extensions come from. They don’t know. Dead people? With the help of hair traders and a forensic scientist, she travels along human hair’s supply chains to find out if that’s true. First, she travels to Russia with a Russian hair trader. They drive to a village to buy the long and untreated hair of teenage girls (like Tatiana in the photo above). Their hair is worth a lot of money. Next, getting her hair forensically analysed in a lab provides some clues about its geographical origin. So, she travels to India, to the city of Chennai, and finds a woman whose hair she is convinced it originally was. But she hadn’t sold it. It had been shaved off at a temple, and the temple had sold it on. The money they made was used to feed the poor. So this isn’t a story of exploitation along supply chains that you might expect to find. Jamelia and the woman whose hair she probably wore bond over being mothers of daughters. The documentary turns into a kind of a reunion of long lost relations. This story has a happy ending and many of the people who comment on the film are suspicious of that. What have Jamelia and the film company brushed under the carpet? Do these following films always have to end up with depressing conclusions and appeals to consumers to do something for poor and powerless producers? A lot of the commentary is also about Jamelia and whether she is boycotting real hair now (like she allegedly said, or didn’t) or is a ‘hypocrite’ (that’s a criticism to expect of every example on this site). But there’s a final twist in this tale, that comes to the surface many years later. It’s a shocking example of a film like this making an impact. An important customer-base for Indian temple-sourced hair stops buying it. Because of a BBC documentary about the hair trade. It seems to be this one. Read on.

Page reference: Ian Cook et al (2020) Jamelia: Whose Hair Is It Anyway? followthethings.com/jamelia-who-hair-is-it-anyway.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 47 minutes.

Posted on November 29, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Made in Dagenham

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Home & Auto

FIND & GIVE INSPIRATION

HUMANISE WORKERS

FIND SOME CHARACTERS

CREATE SOME CHARACTERS

TELL A STORY

SHOW FEMINIST SOLIDARITIES

MAKE THE HIDDEN VISIBLE

SHOW BAD & GOOD

FIND THE UNIONS

BRING POLITICIANS INTO VIEW

SHOW HOW TO WIN

END HAPPY

“Made In Dagenham“
A docu-drama directed by Nigel Cole and produced by Stephen Wooley & Elizabeth Karlsen for HanWay Films & Lipsync Productions.
Trailer embedded above. Available to watch in full on Box of Broadcasts (with institutional login) here. Search online for streaming options here.

In 1968, a group of 187 women sewing car seat covers at a Ford factory in the UK go on strike for equal pay. The work they do isn’t considered by the company to be ‘skilled’. So they get paid less than their officially ‘skilled’ male colleagues doing the same kind of work. Their strike action leads to the passing of equal pay legislation in the UK and overseas. In 2003, film producer Stephen Woolley is in his car listening to a radio show called The Reunion. It brings together people who lived through important historical events to talk about them. The episode that’s on brings together the women involved in this strike action forty years after it took place. Now in their 70s and 80s, he finds the way that they tell their story irreverent, hilarious, colourful and inspiring. He laughs his head off and is hooked. He’s never heard this story before. And they’re such characters! He wants to make a film about their struggle. But is it possible to make a mainstream movie that celebrates women’s involvement in successful strike action and legislative change? Despite a lack of industry interest in funding a movie about such serious topics, the answer is yes. The timing is right in the wake of the 2008 banking crisis and with the UK’s new Equality Act passing into law. The filmmaking team meets and interview the women, and create a central character who sums up the spirit of them all. Made in Dagenham is a hit. It brings an important turning point in the UK’s labour rights history to public attention. Audiences are moved to tears. This strike ‘was the spark that lit a flame that burns to this day’ says one commentator. Another calls it ‘a political movie that’s full on fun’. Some complain that it waters down the politics and overemphasises the fun. But it inspires some women who watch it to make their own claims for equal pay. There’s still along way to go on this issue. The strikers appear in the film’s credits. The fact that it’s based on real events is very clear. But what can a docu-drama do that a documentary cannot? For one thing, it has unhindered ‘access’ to all of the people involved in the story. In real life, some may refuse to take part.

Page reference: Sarah Brown, Izzy Brunswick, Julia Nientiedt, Alistair Wheeler, Camilla Windham & Becky Woolford (2013) Made in Dagenham. followthethings.com/made-in-dagenham.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 40 minutes.

Posted on November 22, 2024January 7, 2025 by Ian Cook

Darwin’s Nightmare

followthethings.com
Grocery | Security

DISTRIBUTED FROM TANZANIA

SHOT IN AFRICA

DOCUMENTARY FILM