This video is making the rounds yesterday and today so please forgive me if you have already seen it…
A great story about a super cool kid and the power of inspiration, imagination and pure unadulterated joy. Well worth 11 minutes of your time and a great reminder about priorities that I can admit I needed.
http://vimeo.com/40000072
http://cainesarcade.com/
About Caine’s Arcade
Caine’s Arcade is a short film about a 9 year old boy’s cardboard arcade, located in his dad’s used auto parts store in East LA.
Backstory
Caine Monroy is a 9-year old boy who spent his summer vacation building an elaborate DIY cardboard arcade in his dad’s used auto parts store.
Caine dreamed of the day he would have lots of customers visit his arcade, and he spent months preparing everything, perfecting the game design, making displays for the prizes, designing elaborate security systems, and hand labeling paper-lunch-gift-bags. However, his dad’s autoparts store (located in an industrial part of East LA) gets almost zero foot traffic, so Caine’s chances of getting a customer were very small, and the few walk in customers that came through were always in too much of a hurry to get their auto part to play Caine’s Arcade. But Caine never gave up.
One day, by chance, I walked into Smart Parts Auto looking for a used door handle for my ’96 Corolla. What I found was an elaborate handmade cardboard arcade manned by a young boy who asked if I would like to play. I asked Caine how it worked and he told me that for $1 I could get two turns, or for $2 I could get a Fun Pass with 500 turns. I got the Fun Pass.
This short film tells the story of Caine’s Arcade, and of our attempt to make Caine’s day.