It's time for Community Matters. I'm Jay Feidel and we have a really special show at this block, the 3 o'clock block this afternoon on a given Monday with Kailani Kaiho who joins us from VMIX call in Waini today. Hi Kailani, are you there? Yes I am Aloha Jay, thank you for having me. Oh it's great. So we became aware of you through Cheryl Lynch who runs the Waini Library and she was putting out a newsletter for the event I guess it has to do with your big project and your big project is all about Hawaiian legend books, eight of them. And so I want to talk about that with you today. It's really special to have somebody publishing these books, not only in English but also in Hawaiian. So how did you get started in all that Kailani? I actually started as a student teacher in a Hawaiian language immersion school in Kame Ohe Puohala and at the time back then there weren't any books being published in Hawaiian. It was at a time when we had English books and we typed the Hawaiian translations and we cut and paste those Hawaiian translations over the English words and that's what we would use and that's how we would build our Hawaiian language library. And it was fine but there was one time where I read this book you might have heard it called The Giving Tree. I really loved that book growing up and I thought it was wonderful and I started to read it and it really had a different impact on me when I read it in Hawaiian. And I don't know if it's because when you speak Hawaiian you kind of look at things through a Hawaiian perspective but I felt like how could this boy just take and take and take and take from the tree and at the very end there's only a stump and he just sat on it and that was the end. From a Hawaiian perspective you would pray first, you would ask, you would think about ways that it could be sustainable. We're on an island with limited resources so every natural resource was managed to the tea. So you'd think of harvesting seeds or planting cuttings in a way that would ensure that this tree would continue on, it would grow, you'd plant baby versions of the tree and you'd always be very respectful of the tree. And so after that experience I began thinking you know why are we kind of putting our language onto these English books when we have tons of our own Hawaiian stories that are in the Hawaiian language newspapers or passed down orally from our grandparents. And so in 2011 I launched He Ohia, our non-profit organization to publish Hawaiian books that come from a Hawaiian source basically. That's a beautiful picture. I'm getting the feeling that somebody helps you with these beautiful pictures. Are you the photographer, Kailani? I'm not the photographer. I am kind of just the director, the puppet master of everything that's happening. So we did our first project with the Legends of Waianae and that series came out in 2011 and then our more recent project, the Legends of Ko'olau Loa, which is just coming out this year in a couple months. And what we do is we actually wait for an invitation from a certain district in the state of Hawaii, it could be any district. So for this project we were invited by people from the Ko'olau Loa district to come in, help research and find the stories of their district and help them to share those stories with the world. So of course it was a lot of work. I didn't do it all by myself. We go into the community and we find over a hundred Hawaiian models who live or from that district to reenact all the Legends. We get a lot of hula halau and canoe clubs to help us with costume. Oh it's more than a book then. You actually have an event going on with a halau and some hula. Yes, and so we usually do eight Legends at a time. So we look for in that community eight Hawaiian photographers who can capture the reenactments of these Legends and we try to also do them on location of where they happen traditionally. And so, you know, we reenact them. We have Hawaiian makeup artists from the district, Hawaiian seamstresses from the district, Hawaiian graphic designers, editors, language translators. Yes. To really get the people from that area to share their stories with the world. They're not my stories at all in any form. And so that's basically the type of protocol that we follow to ensure that things are done correctly here. So you don't actually go out and forage for the stories. You get the community to find the stories for you. That's a lovely idea really. Yes we do. So we have a kupuna council or a council of elders, Hawaiian elders from that district who help us to determine what stories we need to research more or which ones we might be missing and ultimately they help to choose the eight Legends that we will be publishing at the end. So the one Koho Laulua, the one that you showed the graphic a minute ago, that's your current project. That's the eight books, eight stories, eight Legends. Can you pick one and tell me what it's like? Pick one of those eight. Sure. Let's see. We have a legend about Ki'iaka, which she was a Hawaiian goddess, the younger sister of Hele, and I can go ahead and read a little excerpt from that book. That'd be great. Sure. So, if you have that image of the excerpt. So some of you might be familiar with Crouching Lion on Oahu. It's a big dog up on the top of the mountain. So this story talks about that Crouching Lion. It wasn't actually a lion, it was a dog from Tahiti. And this here in this image is Ki'iaka, and she's talking to him. So the excerpt reads, Ki'iaka's chant awakens the Eleo, and he responds, If that is you, O forest-eating woman of Puna, woman from the sunrise, I have grown weary of this long breast, and if you both so too shall I, for I have had my fill of sleep, the stone shifted as if to rise from his slumber to meet his visitor. So Ki'iaka, as she's traveling to Kaua'i to go and get her older sister's lover, Lohiao, she meets up with one of her family members, which is this dog from Tahiti, and when she greets him, he's like, you're here, can I please come with you? And, you know, ultimately, he says, I'm sorry you can't, you have to stay here and watch over everything. He's not really happy about that. But it just tells of all the things she does and the people she encounters as she's traveling through the Kaua'i Loha district. And what is it said? Is it said at a time, maybe it's a mythological, a legend time? Or is it set now or then, 19th century? I don't know exactly when in time, I know it's hundreds of years ago, but I'm not sure when exactly she actually came through Kaua'i Loha, but it is considered an ancient legend. So you have translations into the native Hawaiian language for each of these books then? So a lot of these legends were recorded in the Hawaiian language newspapers of the late 1800s, early 1900s. So the research that we do includes going into these old archived newspaper documents, finding the stories, and then what one of the issues were with that. The legends are very, a lot of the legends are being lost because unless you have access, which now we do through Ulukau.org, they've digitized hundreds of pages of the Hawaiian language newspapers. But unless you can read at a pretty high level of Hawaiian language, you can't access the legends. And so a lot of people didn't know, they don't know the stories because they don't read Hawaiian. And unfortunately, because of our history, a lot of Hawaiians are growing up not knowing how to speak the language. And so one thing we did was to translate it into Hawaiian, into English, so that all Hawaiians and everyone who loves Hawai'i or is interested in Hawaiian history would be able to read the legends that we are hoping to preserve and perpetuate them in that way. Yeah. Oh, I love the idea. So the original story comes from one of the Native Hawaiian language newspapers in the 19th century. Is that it? And you take that out of the newspaper and you make a book out of it. And what's interesting, did you ever go to the Mission House Museum program called Pupu, I think it's called Pupu Dinner at the Oahu Cemetery? And they have, they examine the cemetery. They examine all the people who have buried in the cemetery. And they give you a history lesson of the 19th century. And one of the interesting threads that run through this whole program is the Native Hawaiian newspapers. There were some very literate people in Native Hawaiian in the 19th century throughout, well, the latter part of the century anyway, who were people of letters who could write the language and publish the language and do newspapers. So you find a treasure trove of this kind of material in those newspapers. Too bad we don't have that now, but maybe we'll have it in the future, I suppose. It really is a treasure trove. There is so much information there. And you're right. I'm a descendant of one of the missionaries, Edward Bailey from Massachusetts. And just earlier this week, I was looking up stories about farming for a book that I'm putting together on farming. And he had written a whole series of pieces on farming and he published them in the Kauai Hawaii newspaper. And it was just amazing to me because he came from Massachusetts, came here to Hawaii. He really learned the language. He learned it very well. And he opened a school for girls to educate them. And he was nearly excommunicated from the mission because he was teaching women how to read and write. So that's part of my family. So what about the translation? I get that you did the translation for this book. You start out with the Native Hawaiian legend story and then you write it up into English. And what you were reading before really struck me as very well written. So you must have A, experience in reading Native Hawaiian. I want to know how you got that. And B, you must have some experience in writing English too. So what's the story, Kailani? Well, I'm from a family of educators. I always knew I would be a teacher. So all throughout high school at the Kamehameha schools, I did take Hawaiian language. And then I went on to do a bachelor's degree in Hawaiian language. And following that, I did a master's degree in education. And so for quite a long while, I was a teacher in the Hawaiian language immersion schools. And so, you know, because of those two degrees and my background, I really am able to read the Hawaiian language and translate it. But I'm not the only translator. I do work with a number of other Hawaiian language teachers who help with translations and a number of English, I guess professors and majors and different writers who do help with the English translations and editing.  If I'm me, just take me. Nice, holy guy, right? With a great sense of appreciation and all. I have to go buy two books. I have to buy the book in native Hawaiian and I have to buy the book in English. And if I lay them down side by side so I can make the comparison and try to figure out what means what. Maybe you're thinking of this for the future, but why not make one book where the pages, the opposite pages will show the opposite languages? What do you think? I get that question a lot more than you probably realized. And we have considered it. But being a teacher in the Hawaiian language immersion school, the kids are not just Hawaiian language readers, speakers at home. They learn English usually as their first language. We're starting to get into a generation where the parents are now able to speak Hawaiian at home. So there are kids who can read Hawaiian and who speak Hawaiian at the home, but most of them come into the immersion schools already being able to read and write and speak in English. Now, because of that, that makes Hawaiian language their second language. And because of that, whenever there's a bilingual book, they will read the English instead of reading the Hawaiian English. Oh, so you want to make sure they have the Hawaiian so make them go out and get it. You know, it reminds me of a high school I am familiar with on the Big Island, where they have a lot of Pacific Islanders there. And the principal of the high school decided that, you know, it's important that the kids get an education, but he thought the parents needed one too. So he started organizing classes. I don't know if TOE knew about this. He started organizing classes for the parents too. So it strikes me that you not only want the kids to learn native Hawaiian, you want the parents to learn it too because they missed it in their education. How do we do that? How do we get the parents involved? Well, I know for a lot of the Hawaiian language schools, they do offer parent classes for their students. I heard recently the University of Hawaii has opened up free Hawaiian language courses on campus. So if anyone is interested, they should go. And there's also a number of different programs that offer free Hawaiian language courses online. So the resources are really growing for people who are interested in learning the language. So do you ever get stories from outside the newspaper? I mean, just talk story stories. Stories that are passed down through the generations that are just that are pure legend, never having been reduced to any language before, or is it too late for that? No, we do. We do get stories that are passed down from families. So the three main ways that we get legends are either reported in the Hawaiian language newspapers, either from a Hawaiian or a non-Hawaiian author. And we also get, you know, there were non-Hawaiians during that time also who are recording all of our legends. And so we get legends that their only source that we can find is an English source from someone who is just recording. And then our third source is from families who have kept these legends and have been passing them down orally in their family, usually because one of the characters in the legend is one of their ancestors. And so those are really... That's personal. Yeah. That's personal. Yes, it is. So it strikes me also that all the stories have a takeaway. They have a moral point to make, a lesson to give. You spoke of some of that, but I wonder if you can give me sort of an array of the kinds of lessons that I would take away from these stories in the eight books. Okay. So the Hii'iaka story, the one that we read, it is such a small snippet of the entire Hii'iaka Pele saga. There's a really long book. Kuaikea Nobomair actually compiled every newspaper entry that one of the writers did over... I think it was a span of two years. Every newspaper entry, he added a little bit more of the legend, a little bit more. And what we took out for this book is really just maybe two weeks of entries. And the title that we have is Respecting Hii'iaka because she was a goddess and the people who were respectful to her, who welcomed her and followed proper protocols for meeting a deity, they were rewarded, they were blessed. And then there were people who were very disrespectful to her. They ended up losing their lives or losing their lands or losing something. And so just talking about how we respect one another, how we treat people. And that's just one of the books.  Also, it strikes me that you have a limited, defined body of knowledge here. It's those newspapers and it's what's handed down by people who are still alive. But the question I ask, is there going to come a time, Kailani, when you actually run out of stories? Or are there enough stories to keep you busy forever and ever? There are millions of pages that were digitized from the newspaper and there are so many more that were not. We can't even begin to touch the tip of the iceberg. Really, I wish I had a long enough life. I'm trying to feel my company so other districts can just go and do it for themselves. Stay healthy. Yeah, I don't think we will be running out anytime soon. Even for that Hiyaka example, I could probably create 100 books just out of that one person. Well, let's look at some of the graphics that you showed us so we can make sure to include everything that you wanted to talk about. So let's take a look. Okay, Hiyaka, you mentioned. So this is beautiful. You have an artist in the company that makes these beautiful graphics. Yeah, so we have our two models here, Kelsey, Maui, and Tareti Grace and our photographer, Poolea Keena. They're all from Poolea Loa. And then we do have a Hawaiian graphic artist, Matthew Kaubam, who did a lot of our graphic work. And I can look for these books and graphics for that matter on your website. What's the name of the website? Hihia? Hihia. H-I-O-H-I-A.org. Okay. And .org. .org. Okay, all right. Let's see some more graphics. Okay. So this is another story about the two Hilo fish and how they traveled around to the Poolea Loa District. I don't even want to talk about this story. I might spoil it, but it's about two brothers. And one brother kind of gets lost and the other brother comes searching for him. They're not just fish, are they? They have much more than fish. Okay, what's the next one? Kylie Tizani? Kylie Tizani is a fun surfing legend about the North Shore and how he fell in love with this woman. And, you know, he vowed that he would be, you know, he would just, he would be hers basically. But one day he went surfing and when he landed on the beach, this another girl came and gave him some Ilimales. And his first wahine, his first woman was not very happy about that. So he first him and I will let you find out what that curse was. Okay, don't be sure. You weren't the model in that, in that graphic, were you? That was not me. That was a distant of mine, Umi Jensen from Poolea Loa. Okay, how about another one? What we got? Oh, this is one of my favorite pictures. This fabulous, this picture. What is it? This is such a fun, this was a fun, fun photo shoot about the legend of the floating island of Kahuku. So, anciently it was believed that the Ahupua'a of Kahuku was not connected to the rest of Oahu. It was actually separate from Oahu. And there were these Menehune or these little people who lived on that island. And they would kind of paddle their little island. It was a floating island. They paddled their little island to Oahu to get water. And so, one day, the famed demigod, Maui, what's his name, he used his magical fish hook to kind of catch that island and connect it to Oahu. And the little Menehune were not very happy about it. And the fish hook was, you know, a symbol for the super ferry. I'm only kidding. Oh, that's great stuff. What else? Let's see another picture. Oh, yeah, this is another one of my favorites. This is, and we have here in the center, the chief Olopana, and he was from the Ko'olau Popo District.   And, you know, they tried to capture him. So if you're familiar with the area of Ko'olau or I think it's sacred falls, it's now closed, but that area, that valley and a lot of the geographic features of it were believed to be created by the pig god Kamapua'a at the time. And what I love about that picture is seeing these young men wearing mallows. Let's see it again, yeah. One of the best parts of doing the project is having these really squirmy teenage boys, young men, older men, you know, saying, I have to wear what? A model and, you know, not knowing how to put it on, not knowing, you know, it's basically a very long, skinny strip of material. And they say, what do I do with this? Is this for my head? What is this for? And teaching them how to do that and then seeing them really embrace wearing the mallow and holding the weapons and not wanting to take it off. And even after the photo shoot is done, they're wearing their mallow to food land and to the beach and, you know, and sharing with me that it was one of the first times that they really felt like a Hawaiian, not just knowing that they're Hawaiian or that they have Hawaiian ancestry, but really feeling like they are Hawaiian and grateful to be a part of something that is perpetuating the culture. It's a beautiful photograph, as the other. You have a photographer who takes pictures like this, it's very good. So each legend has a different photographer. That photo was taken by Korean Thai hook. Ah, okay. Okay, got any more graphics? Let's take a look at them. Okay, what's this? Is this something else you want to read to us? I can. I can definitely read it. This comes from the legend of Laie Ikabai. And so we have here Iwohi Kupua, who is a chief from Kaua'i and Koli Agu, who is the snow goddess of Mauna Kea. So this excerpt reads, Iwohi Kupua immediately sails back to Kohala, hoping to distract himself from his broken heart while still holding on to the pride he acquired from his victory as the new boxing champion. He meets Koli Agu, the goddess of the snow, along the slopes of her Mauna Kea home. They spend time together and Iwohi Kupua exchanges his yellow O-O feather cloak for Koli Agu's white snow mantle. Yet his mind wanders back to the mysterious woman in the O-O feather house, Laie Ikabai. And O-O is the name of a yellow bird, a native Hawaiian bird that was used, you know, we would catch the bird and pluck a couple of its feathers and over years and years and years, you know, build a feather cloak. So Iwohi Kupua was trying to win the heart of this young woman and he brought this feather cloak to give to her, Laie Ikabai while she was on the island of Kaua'i. But she rejected him and he felt rejected after he saw that she was living in a whole house covered in those yellow feathers. So he felt like, oh, this gift isn't really enough for her. And then he went on and he met with Koli Agu and he gave the cloak to her and he stayed there for a while with her. Great, great stories, great love stories, great, great sort of humorous and fun and friendly. But I thought an O-O was a tool. I thought an O-O was what you put in the ground to plant things. Now you say that it's a little bird too, a bird and a tool with the same word. Can you tell me the difference? I need to look it up on the dictionary. I don't have to deal with, you know, the grammatical markings. I think it might have the exact same grammatical markings actually, but would you like me to look it up right now? Well, I want to know the future of the company. Sure. And you guys, you know, it's such, it's profound actually and it's so fun and it's so heartwarming is what it is. And it reminds me of some of the Disney movies that have been made. So have they called you?  Because some of this could be great movie stuff, cartoon or otherwise, you know. Is that the future? Is that what you're ultimately hoping for? I have been thinking about it. I think with the right partnership, it's definitely something we would consider. Currently, we have about five other districts that would like us to come into their district to do this project. We are also going to be putting these books online so that people can download the iBook format. Our first series, which was the Legends of White Night, we have already translated into Japanese and Chinese for our foreign friends. And we'll be putting those up. But ultimately, our goal is to continue to get as many legends out, help as many districts who want to do this project. And like I said, if we find the right partners to kind of take it even further, Disney or any other company that, you know, would want to do that, we're definitely open and interested in that. I think a lot of people would be. Aloha, ko-o-la-o-la. That's your latest, but there'll be much more, won't there? Kalani, thank you so much for telling us about this and showing us about this. We wish you all the best. And I think this will be very popular, successful. And I can't wait to buy stuff online from you. I may buy both, you know, English and Hawaiian language copies. Thank you, Kalani. Thank you for having me. It was an honor, Jay. Yeah, great to talk to you. Aloha.


This video is sponsored by Squarespace, helping you to make pretty websites fast. Sonic Frontiers certainly looks familiar. A first proper look at the new game, shown off at the Game Awards, bears a striking resemblance to the Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. Sonic stands on a cliff edge overlooking a lush open world. He's pursued by a big, glowy robot. He takes a trip through some ancient ruins. None of these elements are distinctly unsonic, but the presentation does feel very familiar to Zelda fans. So why is Sonic Team leaning in this direction? Besides, of course, the fact that every game studio wants to make the next Breath of the Wild right now. Looking at the past few decades of Sonic titles, it's clear that the developers at Sonic Team have a special love for Zelda. Whether he's turning into a werewolf, swinging a magic sword, or literally dressing up in Link cosplay and collecting rupees, Sonic always seems keen to emulate the hero of Hyrule. Part of this is due to Sega's philosophy with Sonic, beat Nintendo. Catch up to what they're doing, do it better, win the console war. At least, that was the old strategy. In 2001, Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka was candid in an interview when he said, Since the beginning, Sega has been saying, We need to beat Nintendo. But my intention wasn't really to beat Nintendo, but to make games that could stand shoulder to shoulder with theirs. If you try to make the exact same thing, you'll never win. You've got to pursue a different path. That was our thinking when we made Sonic. But of course, when Miyamoto showed me new games like Mario 64, I realised we were lagging behind again. Just when I thought we were on par, he goes and puts out an amazing game like that. So when approaching Sonic games with a beat Nintendo mindset, Sega has often been on the back foot, responding to what new innovations Nintendo introduces and, ironically, for Sonic. Always being a bit too slow. In fact, the fallout from Super Mario 64 is an excellent example of Sega choosing to follow Nintendo's lead rather than try their own thing. Here, we can see definitively how Sega would rather copy Nintendo than embrace their own original ideas and how the entire modern Sonic era has been shaped by a desire to keep pace with Mario and Zelda in particular. Before we get into that, though, let's talk about Squarespace. With Squarespace, you can create websites for any purpose using a variety of sleek and stylish templates. With a few simple clicks, you can start putting together something that matches your unique vision no matter what you have in mind. We messed around with it for a while and were quickly able to make a site showing off some of our videos. The result looks very cool. Squarespace is offering 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. All you have to do is head over to squarespace.com forward slash video game story time or use the offer code video game story time at the point of purchase. Now, let's talk about how copying Nintendo has shaped the entire modern Sonic era. Prior to the game's release, Sega Technical Institute had been working on a brand new 3D game called Sonic Xtreme, which involved Sonic exploring floating shapes with shifting gravity. Sonic Xtreme was cancelled for various reasons which we won't go into here, and the next main series Sonic game, Sonic Adventure, instead borrows from Mario 64's approach to 3D platforming, albeit with a far greater focus on cinematic storytelling. Years later, Nintendo released Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii, in which Mario explores a variety of spherical planets floating in space. A few years later, Sega released Sonic Lost World, a game about exploring cylinders floating in space. When asked about the similarities between these two titles, Sonic Lost World brand manager Derek Peel said, There is a lot of visual similarities, but I think what's different, what sets Sonic Lost World apart from Mario Galaxy, is that Sonic has his super-fast speed, and actually, if you go back to 1995, there was a game that didn't come out, but that had similar ties to the Mario type of exploration, and it's called Sonic Xtreme. So if you look further back, actually, Sonic had that same idea way back when. It's a great gameplay experience, and I think it's great that both Mario and Sonic are experiencing the same thing. While we are massively over-simplifying things here, it is interesting to note that Sega didn't consider the core concept within Sonic Xtreme as viable until Nintendo proved that it was possible to make it work. As if this wasn't enough, Lost World also features DLC in which Sonic literally runs through a pair of Nintendo games, Yoshi's Woolly World, and the Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword. Speaking of the decision to throw Sonic into Zelda and Yoshi games, longtime series producer Takashi Izuka said, The idea was there around half a year before the original game was completed. As Lost World was releasing on a Nintendo console, we wondered if we could collaborate on something together. Originally, we thought of putting the levels in the main game, but there wasn't time in the schedule they had to be distributed as additional DLC after the game's release. According to Izuka, the decision to merge Sonic and Zelda came specifically because these two franchises felt so incongruous. The game characteristics of The Legend of Zelda and Sonic are completely different, and I think it's a surprising collaboration in terms of different combinations. Plus, he says, he wanted to be able to use that iconic Zelda puzzle jingle. You know the one I mean. So the Sonic developers are clearly fans of Nintendo, and Sega is clearly watching Nintendo carefully to create a blueprint for the Sonic brand. Alas, though, in trying to keep up with Nintendo, there's one thing that Sonic Team can't emulate, Nintendo's quality control. When speaking with Shigeru Miyamoto all the way back in 2001, Yujinaka said, At Sega, as soon as we finished a game, it was kind of like, Alright, we're done, now let's release it. We would only spend a scant few weeks on balancing and fine-tuning. Later, I looked back on it and really wished we had spent more time on that. Had we been more careful and thoughtful there, we might have made better games, I think. I get the feeling your approach to that, Miyamoto, was different. Certainly the prospect of making a Breath of the Wild-inspired open-world Sonic game is daunting. Studios such as Game Freak have proven that if you aim for Breath of the Wild in terms of scope, but don't give the game more than a single year's development time, the result may not meet fan expectations. Indeed, even as recently as this year, Sega was accused of rushing out an unfinished game. In this case, a port of Sonic Colours. Although, for what it's worth, we were provided with a review copy of the Switch game by Sega, and it ran perfectly well for us a few months after launch. The good news is that Sega seems to be saying all the right things with Sonic Frontiers. In 2019, Aaron Weber said, Back in the day, it used to be, every year was a new Sonic game. And as a result of that, there were a number of times that because of that rushed production schedule, the quality of the games wasn't where it needed to be. So a couple of years ago, we said that's actually going to change going forward. We're going to put more time into things. That's going to mean that you need to wait longer between trailers and announcements and stuff like that. At around the same time, Takashi Yuzuka said that 2021 would be a big year for Sonic, hinting that the then-unannounced Sonic Frontiers would release to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the original Sonic the Hedgehog. Sega appears to have wisely chosen to delay the game further. Of course, Sonic Forces also had a relatively lengthy development cycle, but due to a number of factors, this extra time didn't necessarily lead to a well-received game. It seems that Sonic Team is hoping to learn from this experience. Said Yuzuka, Ever since the release of Sonic Forces, Sonic Team in Japan was trying many different approaches to deliver a next-gen Sonic experience. Celebrating 30 years of Sonic titles and thinking about what the modern gameplay experience should be for a Sonic title, we also needed to think about what path forward we should plan to take for the next decade. He is hoping then that with the extra time to work on this new game, Sonic Frontiers will live up to expectations. Even if it ends up being very derivative of Breath of the Wild, so long as it's actually good, that's no bad thing. As for the moral of the story, well, it would be nice if, instead of chasing whatever Nintendo is currently doing, Sega could instead embrace what makes Sonic unique. But maybe that's just wishful thinking from some of us who really only actually want Sonic Mania 2. Thanks for watching.


where we discuss reading, writing, and everything in between and beyond. I'm your host, Dr. Rita Forsythe, coming to you from Maui on the Think Tech live streaming network series broadcasting from our studio at the core of Downtown Honolulu. The title of today's episode is From History to Fiction. Joining me today is Jill Ingledau, author of nonfiction books and other publications about Hawaii. She's launching a new career and a new endeavor, writing fiction based on Maui. Welcome, Jill. Hi, hi Rita, it's nice to be here. So happy to have you. Yeah. Jill, you were born in England and grew up in Texas and Guam. And then you moved with your family to Hawaii in 1959. Your dad was a newspaper man who covered events like the volcano eruptions in a major tsunami on the big island. Could you tell us how your move to Hawaii transformed your life? Oh, it transformed it amazingly. I had been living, we had lived in a suburb in El Paso, Texas, which is in the desert. And it was a very flat new suburb, not that interesting a place. We used to take hikes in the desert. That was our big adventure. And to move to a place like Hilo, which is just, you know, green jungle. I always remember going in the ocean in Keokaha where there's lots of lava rocks and reefs and opening my eyes into the water and being absolutely amazed. Anyway, I also made friends with a lot of Hawaiian kids in Keokaha and was able to spend a lot of time with them and fell in love with Hawaiian music, bought myself a little Hawaiian dictionary and tried to translate songs from the King's song books. And just, I just really made a difference in my life. I had a really wonderful time because I'd been really kind of a bookworm living in a boring desert. And then I went to this wonderful place. And then of course we had things like record breaking, eruption, Kilauea Ikki and the tsunami, which was tragic, but incredibly exciting. The whole thing was just amazing. It was great. So I imagine those things inspired you to begin to write and tell me about what inspired you specifically to begin writing about Maui. Well, I had always liked to write and I'm actually a third generation newspaper person. My grandfather had newspapers in little towns in East Texas and then my dad was a newspaper man. So it kind of came with the genes maybe, I don't know, or just the way I was raised. And so I always enjoyed writing. And when I got to Maui in 1968, I was living out in the country. I was raising chickens and bulls and I was trying to make money making like crochet bathing suits and homemade bread, stuff like that. I know how to make things other people don't know how to make. I know how to make a story because I just had learned it as a child. My father always sort of coached me, you know? So, and there were so many stories to be told on Maui. It was just amazing. I could just as my news person's eye constantly looked around seeing stories everywhere. And I first wrote something and approached a little weekly on Maui called the Maui Sun. And lo and behold, they bought this story that I wrote. And then they called me and said, do you want to write another one? And so pretty soon I was working for them part time. Then eventually in 1980, I went to work for the Maui News, which of course I was the newspaper record on Maui and was in its golden days then before the internet when newspapers were still a really big deal. And it was there that, well, of course I covered all kinds of things as a reporter. I went all over the island. I got to know all kinds of people. And then I met Ines Ashton and started writing history. Have you ever heard of her? No. Tell me more about her. Yeah, she was born in 1900 on the mainland. Her father was a rancher and he won the world championship roping contest and this is right before Equipurty and the other Hawaii cowboys went and they beat his record. But he came to Hawaii as this big celebrity cowboy and got a job at Ula-Palacua Ranch. And she grew up there and in various other places on Maui. And by the time I met her, she was 80 because she was a century and it was about 1980. And she asked me to help her write her memoirs. You can imagine. That was amazing what I learned. Yes. Just from hearing her stories and trying to help her with her memoir which never will be published unfortunately. Yeah. I learned to just have a sense of Maui history that I don't think you can get any other way than by listening to somebody tell their stories. Best way, right? Yeah. Well, now the first book of yours that I read was The Island Decides. Yeah. And I believe in fact that Maui does decide whether a person is right for islands living. In my novel Under the Monkey Pottery, I wrote about that how the island decides. And I think that was the first conversation you and I even had that connected my work to your work. Yeah. Yeah, it's something that people used to say a lot when I first came to the island. And I don't know if it's as true now as it used to be then because there are so many people coming and money means so much now. I mean, if you don't have a lot of money, you can't just like rent an old house for 75 bucks a month anymore. And people who have money sort of want to have things their way. And the way things work best on Maui is if you don't try to change the island, you let the island change you. Yeah. So when people struggle with that and they can't get what they're used to living on the mainland or whatever, a lot of times even money doesn't keep them there. Oh. I have a lot of traffic stories that really drill that home lately. Yeah, goodness. So here's a question from our viewer. Where did you find information about Hawaii when you researched your books? Well, this goes back, well, first of all, I had that. Like I said, I had a sense of the history from Inez and also I had a sense of the history from the people I met because when I got there, it was sort of a turning over time, a change time where Maui was just starting to switch to tourism-based. Kahlua had just been populated. So I've heard a lot of stories. But then when I left the Maui News, I left the Maui News in 1998 because I wanted to go write things. I wanted to write long things, not little short news stories. My first freelance job was with the Maui News. They hired me to write a history of Maui in the 21st or the 20th century and because the Maui News was founded in the year 1900 and we were coming right up on the year 2000 and it was gonna be a hundred years old. So through the pages of the Maui News, you could see the history of Maui in the 20th century. So I spent hours and hours and hours at probably my main source of information, which is the Maui News. Unfortunately, it's just not accessible anymore for reasons having to do with dead microfilm machines, hours and hours and hours reading through stories of Maui News. And fortunately, I printed a lot of them because I used them to create this thing that ran in the Maui News for almost a full year every couple of weeks. And I kept them because... I'm glad because it would have been lost forever. So I'm glad you did all this. Yeah, and I'm hoping that eventually the company that owns the paper will get the entire paper digitized. It is digitized. You can get it on newspapers.com up to 1923, I think. And then after that, it's kind of spotty. I just found some stuff from the war years online. Oh my gosh, here's the pages of those newspapers. It was amazing, but newspapers are a great source of information if you wanna know. Yeah, there's books, interviews, there's websites, so. Well, here's another question. Your award-winning book, Haleakala, A History of the Maui Mountain contains vintage photos and contemporary pictures. So some viewers want to know how you got all of those. Is that again a newspaper source or what's your secret on their photos? Well, photos, unfortunately, back in the day, the Maui News did not value it's not the high news, but certain people who were in charge didn't value things like having a clipping file, what they call a morgue in the newspaper business, or keeping old photos. And so it's, again, very, very iffy where you can get photos, but I have learned, we talked about, when we were speaking earlier, we talked about exploring historic upcountry. And here's, this is the book that it has become. This one, can you see that? And it started out exploring historic Wailuku, Lahaina, and upcountry, and I did the upcountry one. That's when I began to learn where do you find old pictures? So the museums, the Bailey House, Holi Holi, A&B Museum, Lahaina Restoration Foundation. Those all have photo collections. And then, of course, on the upcountry one, I got a lot of private photos also. Well, I bet, and that kind of leads to my next question because I bet the Sugar Cane Museum, which we're gonna talk about next, has some interesting photos. And your book, Sugar Cane Days, Remembering Maui's Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company, will be of interest to anybody who lived in Hawaii over in the past, I don't know, maybe 100 years or more. Can you talk a little bit about this book? Does anybody, there before that, they wouldn't be here, no, I appreciate it. Hopefully not. Well, actually, that one, I mean, there was a woman who lived on Maui until a few years ago named Roz Lightfoot. And she first ran the Bailey House Museum, and then she moved over to the A&B Sugar Museum. And I was, I needed some pictures, a picture, I need a specific picture. And I couldn't find this image that I knew had to be out there somewhere. And I called her and said, do you have it? And she said, yeah, we do, why don't you come on down? So I went to the museum and she found me the picture and then she started showing me on her computer a bunch of other pictures that had been scanned. And they are black and white photos that were taken for mostly, probably other reasons too, but mostly for a little in-house newspaper that the museum or the plantation ran between 1948, 1968. They are gorgeous. That was like before sugar, I mean, before a color film and the photographers were masters of the art. And here were hundreds of fabulous photos. Well, you remember when the sugar came, when HCNS closed? Right. This was six months before it closed. Oh, wow. And I saw these pictures and I went, oh my God. She says, yeah, I've been thinking you should do some books with these. And I looked at them and knowing the economics of books, I knew that no, I couldn't do more than one. But I thought I've got to do one about the great, this really were the golden days of plantation life, the golden age. Yes, yes. Yeah. Well, and two of your books, Maui 101 and Island Life 101, they're just full of suggestions for people that are moving here, people that are just visiting. Can you share your reasons? And I'm sure they're good for writing these books. Yes, and we didn't get graphics for everything. So here's Island Life 101. Well, right below your chin. There you go. So we're talking about how the island decides and how so many people are coming now and it's kind of, you know, the island has lost its localness in so many ways and overwhelmed by multitudes of newcomers. And I was working, after I left the Maui News, I worked at Hawaii Community Foundation. We talked a lot about social capital, which is the bonds within a community, everything from public meetings to knowing your neighbors and going on a picnic together to playing bridge on a Saturday night, all kinds of informal connections that are what make a healthy community. And the fact that having so many people come in that didn't know the history, didn't know the culture, didn't know the customs, was putting a strain on it. So I got the idea to write this, first I wrote Maui 101 and then I sold that out and then I thought, well, there's so many more people in the state, I'll write it for the whole state. So I expanded it and made that Island Life 101. You know, it would be great if they took tidbits from your book and shared them with people on planes coming here because it would be lovely if people understood a little bit more before they landed. So my husband and I were in Lahaina today and we were having lunch at the paella fish market and we thought about you. We talked about you and your work and I was thinking that many people that visit Lahaina really don't know a lot about its rich history. So your book, The Story of Lahaina made me see the town in a whole new light. Oh, good. Well, you know, I got to tell you that that, Inaz Ashton, who I mentioned previously, she wrote the original The Story of Lahaina booklet. She helped with the renovation of the Baldwin home right there on Fred's name. And then she wrote this book but it was really, really outdated and so I wrote a new one and to honor her, I kept the name. But, you know, we were talking about the La Laie Fishpond where you live, essentially. I live right on the banks of that. I'm trying to figure out how I can make this work. Right against your face. Yeah. There it is. It works and I really wanted you to see this. I don't know if it's, well, you have seen it because you've seen the book, right? This is, this picture that is on the cover of this book is a watercolor by, what is his name, Gilman. Anyway, he visited Maui in like 1852 and he did this wonderful picture and it shows that wetland that was Moko'ula or Mokohinia around the island of Moko'ula, which... And the myth that that has a mo'o, a Hawaiian mermaid slash lizard creature, that's the same mo'o that lives in our pond here when I wrote my novel under the monkey pond tree. And I think that same mo'o lives in Hana too, right? I'm not sure, but there's, it's a pretty strong story and there's even stories in Lahaina. I don't know about, you know, in Kei, but in Lahaina there are even stories about people seeing something in the water in historic times where it was, you know, people could write and record it. I got chicken skin, just thinking about it. Yeah, in your book there's all these strange things that keep happening and you get the feeling there's somebody here that's like, whoa, it's... Watching you. So I was also thinking about, because I was in upcountry a couple of days ago and it's a bit of a drive there for me and I bet you put a lot of miles on your car when you were researching your book exploring historic upcountry. I did indeed and because we, I would go upcountry, well, for example, we're talking about where to get, where did I find pictures and stuff? For example, churches upcountry often have pictures and I would go there and visit a church and look at their pictures and then beg them, please, could I borrow these pictures? I'll bring them back, I promise. And for a family or who else should I get them from? Ranches, just all kinds of places upcountry.  Driving going on in those days. Oh my gosh. So I'm fascinated by your book. The Spirit Lives On and that's the history of the old Maui High School. Well, in my research, they say the beautiful ruins are haunted. What do you say? I say if they're haunted, they're haunted with good times because they had to climb it. I got that one too, let's see if people can see this. There's a beautiful structure up there. Yeah, it is. And I just saw a picture somebody posted on Facebook that showed what it looked like before they cleaned it up because it was so overgrown and there'd been a fire and everything. But the structure, the basic bones of that building are still there and someday they'll find a way to do something with it. But it was designed by C.W. Dickey who was a very famous Hawaii architect. And it was just this beautiful oasis for plantation kids to come to and learn and study, play and they did the most amazing things. They took classes and things like French and Latin. I've heard a story, I don't know where I heard the story but when the Nisei soldiers of World War II went to Italy they were able to get around fairly well because they had learned Latin at Maui High. No kidding. They could kind of work their way through Italian just basic stuff because it was quite a story. That's destiny. Yeah. So what accolades have you received for your writing? Some of your awards? You know, I don't, there's somewhere I have a list of them. When I was at the Maui News I covered health and human services, all the nonprofits and the health care associations and stuff. I got a lot of awards then partly because those are people that like to say thank you a lot. Social work people. I did receive an IPI for, which is the Independent Publishers Award for the Haleakala book. And then the Sugar Cane Days won an award from the Historic Hawaii Foundation. Well, congratulations on that. And I know you collaborated with other authors in writing some of your books. Yes, a lot. Going all the way back to the 1980s. I don't know if you've heard of this book, Magic Maui, The Best of the Island. Oh, no. No, this was, my friend, MJ Hardin, had been a travel writer. And I first met her when she came to Maui because she had a new boyfriend on Maui. And she said that in all her traveling, there was always a certain kind of travel guide that she looked for when she went to a new place. And there was no such book about Maui. And since I had local knowledge and she knew what to write in a travel book, we got together and really I helped her. It was her book and I helped her with this book. And this was early in self-publishing days, MJ went to San Francisco and literally ran around town learning how to publish books. And we published it and it was very successful, but by the time we got done, other guidebooks had turned up. So it didn't, we couldn't retire on our earnings, unfortunately. Now, the Spirit List on the one about Maui High, that was a collaboration because Barbara Long, who was the president of that organization, the friends of all Maui High, which commissioned this book, she helped a lot. She did a lot of writing and research. She had a lot of ideas. Oh, here's another one. This is one I collaborated on. Oh, beautiful. I know, I saw that one. The Book of Lavender, it's an unfortunately, is that a print? It's about the Ali'i Kula Lavender Farm. Oh, that's such a beautiful place. Yeah, it was written with Ali'i, the founder and with Lonnie Weigert, who was the marketing director at the time. So we put that one together. And then I've helped people with memoirs and stuff along the way. So. Excellent. Well, my final question, a little off the topic of your books is, what are you reading? What's on your best side table? Well, you know, as I said, I don't read nonfiction very much, but because I'm up to my ears in research for Rose's war, which is about World War II on Maui, and believe me, there's a lot to say about that.  And so in order to understand what that would have been like, he's a Nisei, Japanese American. I've read a lot of books and a couple that I would highly recommend. Anybody's all interested in learning what it was like to be a Japanese American during World War II. One is called Facing the Mountain, and it's by Daniel James Brown. It's amazing and it's got people from Maui in it. So that makes it even more interesting to me. And it tells about internment and about the Nisei soldiers going off to war and what they had to go through. Oh my gosh. And then the other one is called Remembering Our Grandfather's Exile, and it's by a woman named Gail Y. Okawa. And this is about her tracing the journey of her grandfather, who was a Christian minister, Japanese of course, who was interned and sent to the mainland. And she follows in great detail his journey and that of other of the men who were sent off to the mainland, the community leaders who were arrested at the time. Both of those books are just amazing pieces of work. They're heartbreaking, they're inspiring, and I just really recommend both of them. I think I'll order them on Amazon. And by the way, where can we find your books? They're on Amazon, or you can look on my website, which is just JillIngleBow.com. And the novels will be available in a lot of other places, but this is a slow process of getting the proofreading done and getting them distributed and everything. But at this moment, they're both available as eBooks on Amazon, and soon other forms will be available. Excellent. Well, that's all the time we have today. I'm gonna repeat my goodbye speech. I want to thank Jill for being my special guest, our broadcast engineer, our floor manager, and Jay Fidel, our executive producer. A special mahalo to our sponsors, and thank you for joining us. Books, books, books will be back in two weeks with my friend and host, Elaine Galant. I'll see you next month. Until then, read, write, and create your world. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.


In this video I'm about to share with you guys some tips on how you can get some crispy clean footage of your next dance battle of all your friends and yourself. What's up you guys this is Kai from Vertigo Vision and I'm bringing you this video today because recently I've been seeing a lot more posts of dance footage online with social media and Instagram and YouTube being such a big part and bigger part of our lives every single day. We tend to record ourselves and post that footage online for people to see. So what I'm going to do today is I'm going to share with you a few tips I've learned over the last four or five years working on your dance elements and by myself that can help you guys up your dance footage game. So a few days ago I was shooting an open-styles event. What I like to do for these events is I like to get there a little bit earlier before preliminary starts and see the floor. See the stage where the event is going to be taking place where the battles are going to be held so that I can find the best angle around the perimeter. If you're looking to get high quality nice looking footage of your subject the most important thing you can do is find a great spot in the background to pick. When I pick a background I like to ask myself these questions. What are the dancers wearing? What is the lighting like and what is the background like? So in order to get a clear image of the dancer you're going to want to make sure that they distinguish well from the background. If someone's wearing black in a poorly lit venue and it's a black background then you're not going to be able to see the dancer very well. What I like to do to avoid this is to take a look at what everybody's wearing. Find an area or nice angle whether they're being lit or find a good background that is pretty light and make sure that I'm placing the dancer against that background. So you'll see in this last event that I shot that I previously took one angle and I tried to shoot the dancers from it but I felt the lighting was not that great and the background was okay but it felt a little bit messy and was kind of distracting away from the dancer. So I tried switching sides the next round and I found that when I was facing the mirror that the presentation of the venue looked really nice. So I ended up going with that. So once you've established your spot based off of the tips I gave you you're going to figure out how you're going to shoot for the rest of the event. If you're just shooting one battle then posture isn't too big of a deal but if you want to be stable and you're shooting an entire bracket or multiple battles I'd recommend sitting down in a crisscross position like I'm showing on screen and making sure that you're holding your camera supported by points of contact and I'd put my elbows on my legs so that my camera has two points of contact to stabilize itself and instead of using my arms to kind of turn with the battle I'm trying to look at the screen right so instead I'm going to use my upper body and torso to turn with my camera so that I can track the dancer and the way stance like to shoot its battles is we like to keep our dancer centered so that when we cut it to Instagram format or vertical format it can easily be done so and your dancer is still centered but you can do whatever you want if you want to make the compositions look a little bit more pretty then you can go for that because I've done that a few times and there's no rules to this besides making sure that the dancer is clearly seen I would say that's the priority. The last tip I have to share with you guys is a little bonus and this tip probably has helped me the most in capturing good battle footage is follow the action and it aligns very well with what I was talking about with keeping the dancer centered because the dancer is the action you want to follow him or her but keep in mind that this is just a rule and you can break the rule if you feel like something else is going on in the scene it does not hurt to capture the people who are also part of this communication because a battle is a conversation and when you're telling a story which is essentially what you're doing with every video you want to capture the story and follow the action so that would be my biggest tip for you guys if you take away anything from this video follow the action this has been my very brief tutorial video on how to capture battles if you would like to see more videos and tutorials on battles and dancing leave a comment below and I will deliver thank you guys for watching follow me on tiktok on instagram at vertigo vision and I'll see you guys in the next one take care


We're going to use collision detection to find out when sprites have touched each other so that we can later apply rules like increasing or decreasing your score when sprites collide. Using the provided line length function, you will complete a function distance that uses the distance formula to calculate the distance between the center points of two sprites. Next, you'll update the collide function to use the distance function. If the distance between two sprites is less than 100 pixels, the sprites are close enough to be touching, and the collide function should return true. If everything works, you'll see that when the player collides with a target, your score increases, and when the player collides with a danger, your score decreases.