FILM BIZ RECYCLING

Hey everybody, check it out!  A Park Slope CSA, short for Community Supported Agriculture, is in the works this spring and summer.  This is an incredible opportunity to support independent farmers and have access to incredible, delicious, healthy - and -  organic (need I say more) foodstuffs all season long.  The deadline is fast approaching, so sign up today and take advantage!  Details below:

SIGN UP: http://bit.ly/barefootorganics - DEPOSIT DEADLINE: April 10th

What: 21 weeks of organic, local veggies grown by Farmer Phil on Barefoot Organics farm in PA. Options include veggies, fruits, cheese, eggs and meat*.

When: Weekly Tuesday evening pickups starting early June and lasting 21 weeks.

Where: Pick up happens at Triomph Gym, 540 President St. Brooklyn,  NY on the first floor. The farm, which welcomes visitors, is in Lebanon Valley in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania.

Why: Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a great way to not only support your local farmer, but also participate in an economy where community is at the core. In a CSA, you are invited to purchase a share of the farm that provides the food and in doing so, you are pledging your support of that particular farm no matter what nature has in store for us this year. In return, you receive fresh, local and organic food throughout the summer. While Farmer Phil tries to predict what food will be ready for harvest each week, much of it is up to nature, so each week is a bit of a surprise, but it’s always delicious!

Cost: Shares range from $670 - $820 (approx. $32 - $39/week for veggies all summer long!)

The contract and payment process is up online, but you can still download the old-fashioned paper contract if you want, and deliver a check to Lisa Madison.

For more information, contact Lisa Madison, 917-520-1381 or madison.lisa@gmail.com

SIGN UP: http://bit.ly/barefootorganics - DEPOSIT DEADLINE: April 10th

At FBR, we rarely get to see the finished product of our customers’ artistic endeavors.  Our props go through hundreds of different hands, but rarely do we get to see the props in action.

Recently, local photographer, filmmaker and artist Lana Tannir, rented some props from FBR to set the stage for a series of photographs that she will enter into a Belgian music festival competition.  The festival,  Tomorrowland, (hosted in Belgium July 27-29 2012) is seeking out new talent to photograph artists as they perform on stage.  The competition challenges photographers to combine music and fairytale in visual terms.  Was she successful in the challenge?  Vote here!

“Crowdsurfing”

Wanna get your hands on those…hands?  Lana made them herself and will be donating them to FBR.

“Let the Light Shine In”

Incredible disco glam in the background?  Rent it here at the SHOP!

“The Phoenix Arises”

FBR Presents! is the flip-side to the daytime Film Biz Prop Shop; Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, FBR is open to the community as a venue for booking performances, rehearsals, open mics, poetry readings, stand-up comedy, film screenings and more – the sky’s the limit!

This week, join FBR in welcoming Dale Radio for a live radio performance.  Come one, come all - only $5 at the door, get out here and spread some Gowanus love!  Check out the line-up:

THE EVENT

In celebration of spring, Dale Radio, the Gowanus Canal’s premier arts & culture podcast, moves to Film Biz Recycling for its acclaimed live show tapings. Join host Dale Seever as he welcomes this episode’s guests: Debbie Tuch, artist and creator of Glitterlimes - recently featured as part of Lady Gaga’s “Gaga Workshop” at Barney’s NYC – and rising comedian and actress Camille Harris (The Muffin Man, Gorgeous Ladies of Comedy), a very special Gowanus celebrity to be revealed. The hour-long show also features music by accordionist Matthew Fass of Brooklyn’s own Raya Brass Band and most likely a fair amount of whiskey.

THE SHOW

Dale Radio is an ongoing performance and podcast project by James Bewley. Over the last ten years, Bewley has appeared as his alter ego, Dale Seever in venues across the country including the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; and various small clubs and cabaret settings in Minneapolis, Chicago, and St. Louis. Since moving to New York he has been featured in comedy nights at Housingworks, KGB Bar, and Dixon Place. Bewley is a co-creator of the award-winning online comedy shorts Strindberg and Helium,for which he provides the depressing baritone of August Strindberg. He lives in Brooklyn, on the foul banks of the Gowanus.

Follow Dale Radio on Twitter! @daleradio

Local grad student, Minuette Le, is hosting a Community Interest Meeting at the Brooklyn Lyceum on Monday 3/26, 6-9 PMas part of her studies towards launching a Temporary Pilot Project that will enhance the livability of Gowanus’ own 4th Avenue.

FBR is situated just between 4th and 3rd Avenues and the benefits of this project will be a welcome change.  This is an open call for community members to reimagine 4th Avenue.  Got a bright idea?  Details are below if you want to participate:

Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn is currently being master planned as Brooklyn’s new grand Boulevard  and members of the Park Slope Civic Council are planning a Temporary Pilot Project along a small section along 4th Avenue between Bergen and Degraw to serve as an example of how this street and public space can be better planned for the numerous families and cyclists that use the street on a daily basis.  A busy corridor that connects many of Brooklyn’s diverse neighborhoods together, 4th Avenue deserves our attention.Through a series of playful temporary interventions, the pilot project will:
1) begin the dialogue to engage residents along 4th Avenue
2) test greening strategies
3) create an socially engaged streetscape through experimental playThrough a co-design workshop, we will develop some actionable ideas in small teams to design, test, and deploy before the 4/21 launch date.Some initial questions:
How might we transform the street into a living room for the weekend?  How might we transform a few parking spaces into mini-gardens?  How might we ingrate new behaviors on the street that incorporate movement and social interaction?  How might we form a new identity along 4th Avenue that connects these interventions together?  How might we collect the wishes of other residents passing by?Workshop Details:
When: Monday 3/26, 6-9pm
Where: Brooklyn Lyceum, 227 4th Avenue, 2nd floor
What: Community Interest Meeting and Hands on Workshop
Refreshments will be served
To Bring: ideas, concepts, thoughts on material resources, and a friend or two!
Map

Launch Date:
Weekend of 4/21, which will coincide with a number of events and workshops by the Forth on Fourth Avenue committee.
A future design/build date will be scheduled, soon.

More on the future of fourth avenue

About Minuette Le:
I am an MFA Transdisciplinary Design student at Parsons and working on my thesis on how design plays a role in Community-Based Action. Through inclusive and participatory processes, I hope to show how temporary interventions help to lay the foundation for long term change. I’ll be working closely with the Fourth on Fourth Avenue Committee to organize the workshop and execute the final streetscape interventions.

Local grad student, Minuette Le, is hosting a Community Interest Meeting at the Brooklyn Lyceum on Monday 3/26, 6-9 PM as part of her studies towards launching a Temporary Pilot Project that will enhance the livability of Gowanus’ own 4th Avenue.

FBR is situated just between 4th and 3rd Avenues and the benefits of this project will be a welcome change.  This is an open call for community members to reimagine 4th Avenue.  Got a bright idea?  Details are below if you want to participate:

Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn is currently being master planned as Brooklyn’s new grand Boulevard  and members of the Park Slope Civic Council are planning a Temporary Pilot Project along a small section along 4th Avenue between Bergen and Degraw to serve as an example of how this street and public space can be better planned for the numerous families and cyclists that use the street on a daily basis.  A busy corridor that connects many of Brooklyn’s diverse neighborhoods together, 4th Avenue deserves our attention.

Through a series of playful temporary interventions, the pilot project will:

1) begin the dialogue to engage residents along 4th Avenue

2) test greening strategies

3) create an socially engaged streetscape through experimental play

Through a co-design workshop, we will develop some actionable ideas in small teams to design, test, and deploy before the 4/21 launch date.

Some initial questions: 

How might we transform the street into a living room for the weekend?  How might we transform a few parking spaces into mini-gardens?  How might we ingrate new behaviors on the street that incorporate movement and social interaction?  How might we form a new identity along 4th Avenue that connects these interventions together?  How might we collect the wishes of other residents passing by?

Workshop Details:

When: Monday 3/26, 6-9pm

Where: Brooklyn Lyceum, 227 4th Avenue, 2nd floor

What: Community Interest Meeting and Hands on Workshop

Refreshments will be served

To Bring: ideas, concepts, thoughts on material resources, and a friend or two!

Map

Launch date:

Weekend of 4/21, which will coincide with a number of events and workshops by the Forth on Fourth Avenue committee.

A future design/build date will be scheduled, soon.

More on the future of fourth avenue

About Minuette Le:

I am an MFA Transdisciplinary Design student at Parsons and working on my thesis on how design plays a role in Community-Based Action. Through inclusive and participatory processes, I hope to show how temporary interventions help to lay the foundation for long term change. I’ll be working closely with the Fourth on Fourth Avenue Committee to organize the workshop and execute the final streetscape interventions.

Go green this St. Patrick’s Day and shop our 50% off sale this Friday, Saturday, Sunday!

GOOD Inc. is a collaboration of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits pushing the world forward.  In a world where things too often don’t work, GOOD seeks a path that does:

“We are the alternative model. We care about what works—what is sustainable, prosperous, productive, creative, and just—for all of us and each of us.  We are people, businesses, moms, kids, artists, organizations, policymakers, students, teachers, and engineers. Join us, and together we’ll power what works.”

On the GOOD website, you can sign up to receive your daily dose of GOOD: inspiring stories and happenings from around the world.  This week GOOD has posted several way-super-cool stories and we wanted to spread, well, what’s good…

[caption id=”attachment_843518” align=”aligncenter” width=”450” caption=“‘The Rot Riders’ Bike For Compost”]

[caption id=”attachment_843518” align=”aligncenter” width=”450” caption=”Cause.It Unites Volunteers, Local Business and Nonprofits in One App”]

[caption id=”attachment_843518” align=”aligncenter” width=”450” caption=”A ‘Vertical Greenhouse’ Could Make A Swedish City Self-Sufficient”]

On Thursday, March 29 FBR Presents! Dale Radio,the Gowanus Canal’s premier arts & culture podcast featuring interviews with some of the most interesting emerging cultural voices from Brooklyn and beyond.  Recent guests include… Mary Lou Metzger (The Lawrence Welk Show); Stephanie Pereira (Kickstarter); Marc Horowitz (ineedtostopsoon.com); Emily Elsen (4 & 20 Blackbirds); Joanna Ebenstein (Morbid Anatomy Library); Jessi Klein (SNL, Comedy Central Presents); and many others including FBR Founder & President Eva Radke (listen to Eva’s interview here).

Dale will be recording a live show so make sure to swing by and join the fun or catch his podcast after the fact.  8 PM, $5 at the door, stay tuned for details…   See you there!

MakeSense Hold-Up @ FBR: Improv-Night from Marion Desmaz on Vimeo.

Last week MakeSense, an international project that challenges people for social business, visited FBR and hosted a voluntary brainstorming workshop.  Volunteers and MakeSense “gangsters” were designated a challenge by FBR to which they brainstormed possible solutions.  Several brainstorm ideas were flushed out and made into video prototypes that have been uploaded to the MakeSense compendium of “Hold-Ups” online (see above for example).  This way, creative communities around the world can share great ideas with one another.  The Hold-Up was incredibly fun and generated a lot of great ideas…Thanks everybody!

Check out the rest of FBR’s video prototypes here!

Check out these upcycled vintage folding chairs new in the GALA-RE, $35/ea.

Refinished & reupholstered, they’re perfect for a summer in the city!

FBR was recently donated a motorized wheelchair from The Magic of Belle Isle , an upcoming film directed by Rob Reiner, starring Morgan Freeman as a wheelchair-bound author.

The Magic of Belle Isle has been making magic here in NYC.  Unused after wrap, Freeman’s prop wheelchair has found a new home with NYC resident RueZalia Watkins: “This chair is coming home to a family that knows it’s value, where it will be loved, treasured, repaired and used as I fulfill my mission and purpose on this planet.  Thank you so very much.”  RueZalia stopped by yesterday morning to pick up her new wheelchair; teary-eyed, we were all so happy to see the second-life that this wheelchair will have and the benefit that it will be to someone who can really use it.

Tomorrow, Thursday March 7 at 2PM, FBR will be hosting a voluntary brainstorming session through MakeSense.  MakeSense is an international, open project which challenges people for social business.  MakeSense approached FBR with the idea of hosting a “Hold-Up,” a brainstorming session where volunteers are designated a challenge, in this case, “Increase revenue for Film Big Recycling” along with 3 objectives and 3 constraints.  The brainstorming process is filmed and uploaded to the MakeSense compendium of “Hold-Ups” online with the intent that creative communities around the world can learn from and share with one another.

Get your thinking caps on…this is an open invitation for members of the FBR community to participate and brainstorm with us!  You can sign up online here.  See you at the SHOP!

1. Social Mission: Our main objective is to boost the impact of social entrepreneurs by connecting them with supercool individuals and enabling them to take up the challenges. In addition, and in order to sustain their social impact, we promote the concept of social business.
2. Global Community: Anywhere there is an issue in our society, we will be! We are a global community of happy activists with an impact on a local scale.
3. Open Project: MakeSense is not a startup, it is a movement! It is defined as an open project, meaning it is not owned by anyone, but open to everyone.
4. Upload: Stop downloading, start uploading! Contribute, collaborate, share! The most we share and with the most people, the better off we are as a whole.
5. Innovation: Only by combining people, technology and creative thinking, we will find the most innovative solutions to the world problems. Only by experimenting, trying and failing, we will solve them.
6. Independent: Out bureaucracy and politics! In order to keep our flexibility and agility, we will stay as independent as possible. With constraints and limited resources we will just have to be more innovative everyday, and look for opportunities everywhere. However, we are always open to partnerships with organizations committed to make a real difference.
7. Scale: We will keep expending our reach so long that there are more social issues to be solved. In the world we imagine, MakeSense will be completely irrelevant.
8. Impact: We want to have the greatest impact possible. To achieve that we will keep asking ourselves the right questions, keep measuring our impact, analyze and improve the way we work. It is a never-ending journey, a continuous learning experience.
9. Self-sustainable: We will find a viable economic model (working on ways to make the project cost nothing to run)
10. Fun: And last but not least, we do all the above with a big smile and lots of fun!