I’m not a hard core environmentalist. And before you get all bent out of shape, I love the world we live in and I’m a sucker for balance, so I think that everything should live in balance. Yin and Yang, you know? So while I’m not out there fighting for the trees or anything like that, I care about the world we live in. Just because I’m not being all hard core for the environment, doesn’t mean I don’t care about it. Just saying.
And every now and then, I stumble across a cause that deserves a little PSA. The guys who are fighting for trees and such, except in this case it’s bees. Yep, bees!
Ever watched Bee Movie? It’s a CG movie starring the voice of Jerry Seinfeld, who was also one of the writers, and directed by Steve Hickner and Simon J. Smith. It came out in 2007 and I can’t remember what made me watch it, but I know I enjoyed it. Barry Benson (Seinfeld) is a honey bee who befriends a human who is a florist. He finds out that humans actually eat honey and is outraged and decides to sue humans. He wins the case and since they won bees don’t need to do what their made to do so they simply don’t. And the results are phenomenal. Things start to die, the world begins to die! The whole world shifts out of balance.
Now, I never really gave bees much thought, but I know I thought of them more after the movie. And you have something like The Happening. Written and produced by M. Night Shyamalan (and I know this one didn’t get rave reviews, but I liked it, okay? And guess what? I also like this YouTube Video from QuantumJoker who discusses The Happening and its anti-intellectualism so there, balance), the movie isn’t about bees per se, but there’s a scene where Mark Wahlberg (Elliott Moore) is giving a lecture to his class (he’s a science teacher) about disappearing bees. I can’t remember the dialogue word for word, but I remember thinking “Wow, that’s a pretty good point. I mean, it’s just like Bee Movie only more serious. And a little more than just cartoon bees suing humans.”
Which brings me to this project: The Honey Bees Project. I was called by a mutual friend to see if I wanted help these guys out with a low-budge music video production. How cool is that? A music video production. Anyway, when I met with them they told me what their project was about and all I could think of was these two movies because that’s when I first learned about the importance of bees. Their project is local, meaning from Hawaii!, and their mission is to educate people about the importance of these pollinators. It’s pretty cool, especially since it’s a local organization trying to bring global awareness. So, go check them out. They’re also fundraising for their music video through IndieGoGo here, so if you can help out the bees a little … that’d be awesome. From what I know, the song was recorded here in Hawaii by local musicians and the music video will be shot here with a local crew as well. Oh, if you do stop by, and only if you want to, tell them you found them through 411Junkie.com. I’m not getting anything out of this name drop, just that they’re trying to gauge who’s visiting their website from where.
And yep, those two movies helped me become aware of bees and their importance in the ecological system (okay, that and a course on human ecology that I took almost four years after watching these two movies). And I know it’s not scientifically accurate, but it’s fiction. If movies got too scientifically accurate, it wouldn’t be fun to watch, you know?
So, bees. They’re important you know. Just thought I’d let you know that 😉 .