Writing about life and arts
You know when you’re going over a waterfall and there’s no way to avoid it? Life throws challenges at you.
That’s why this tutorial on diving from a waterfall — a real one, not the metaphor for life’s hurdles — will come handy.
Oddly enough, the figure in the how-to image looks exactly like Harrison Ford and this epic dive from The Fugitive.
Below is the classic scene I’m referencing. PS. If you’re curious about how to treat a black eye, check out this diagram.
Sometimes it’s the written word. Other times, it’s a still photo. If the camera is too revealing, we can communicate via video or sound. Said filmmaker Robert Bresson’s in his 1975 book Notes on the Cinematograph: “A locomotive’s whistle imprints in us a whole railroad station.”
Communication is a game of elements. Film is the art of combining images and sounds; it excludes what overexplains or impresses.
“One should not use the camera as if it were a broom.”
Robert Bresson, Notes on the Cinematograph
A good filmmaker lets the mind dance with imagination. A movie is both a creative and viewing experience. It can be dull and instantly lively, like the pendulum of our everyday lives.
“My movie is born first in my head, dies on paper; is resuscitated by the living persons and real objects I use, which are killed on film but, placed in a certain order and projected on to a screen, come to life again like flowers in water.”
Robert Bresson, Notes on the Cinematograph
The Verge interviewed legendary director Werner Herzog about his online class where both aspiring filmmakers and professionals can learn his tips and secrets on moviemaking.
Not surprisingly, Herzog practices an unusual style of teaching too. He encourages his students to break the rules of storytelling and make up their assignments.
“don’t wait for the system to accept you. You create your own system, create your own [budget] and make your own first feature film or your first own documentary.”
For all the affordable technology today though comes our self-inflicted barriers of Internet addictiveness. To avoid the pitfalls of a “parallel surrogate life,” filmmakers need to get offline and touch things. Herzog only owns a cell phone for emergencies.
On the contrary, he reveals a fascination with technology, particularly Bitcoin, as it relates to news ways of storytelling.
“I’m interested how can I commit a bank robbery holding up the bank and getting away with loot of something that you cannot even touch”
The funniest part of the interview is when Herzog needs an explainer on Pokemon Go. He does not think the game is moronic, only that it is not for him, at least not as real as the human connection. Talking about virtual reality, he still prefers it when you get on your two feet and encounter the world and others face to face.
OK guys. Since you asked. Here is audio of Herzog saying the word “Pokemon.” Good night. pic.twitter.com/mUCz1Sj2Jy
— Emily Yoshida (@emilyyoshida) July 29, 2016
The conversation over Pokemon leads to some of his deeper thoughts on the role of technology in our lives. At the end of the day, humans are morally responsible for their tools.
“Sure, and the question — is this technology good or bad? — is an incompetent question. It’s humans who are good or bad.”
Read the entire interview here.
Video editor Jaume R. Lloret compiled some of the vehicles from Wes Anderson movies including The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and Grand Budapest Hotel.
What aesthetic eye candy!
When asked how screenwriter and film director Paul Schrader came up with some of his scripts for the movie First Reformed, he responded like all remix artists:
PS: The secret of theft, which is also called “creativity,” is you have to steal a bit from a lot of different places. You can’t go to the same 7/11 every time because they’ll catch you. So you go to the photo shop, and you go to the gas station, and you go to that little hot dog stand that nobody goes to and by the end you’ve stolen enough stuff from enough places that people think its yours.
The internet can be the largest copy-paste machine. But it also offers a chance to pluck from a diversity of sources. Just be sure to recast, remix, and redistribute them in your own voice. To put it another way, Steal Like An Artist.
Read First Reformed – Q&A with Ethan Hawke and Paul Schrader
We all start out with a dream, a goal of someone or something we want to emulate. We keep that dream close, putting up bedroom posters and memorizing phrases that propel us to keep pushing toward our goal.
But then something else happens along the way? The creative gods tell us to do something else instead.
Casey Neistat wanted to be a filmmaker, another Spielberg that entertained the masses. But he didn’t have enough money nor resources. So he chased the dream for ten years and succeeded: he entered Cannes and won some awards etc. until one day he realized he was pursuing the wrong end. “Fuck it,” he said. “I just want to make internet videos.”
See, when we hunt down goals, we usually get redirected to something else that’s more personal. Technology broke down all the barriers to traditional creativity, production, and distribution. YouTube is Neistat’s movie theater.
Sure, imitate at first and get really good — everything is practice. But we shouldn’t forget to reflect and dive deeper into a passion that excites us the most. As Jim Carrey said, ‘your vocation chooses you.’
Don’t fight what’s natural even if no one else is doing it yet. Give in to the original inclinations and push onward.
Decisions are multi-faceted. They can be manifested as desires, little bets about how you want things to go. After all, all believing is betting.
However, you can also decide against your best wishes. No one wants to put a sick dog to sleep. Difficult decisions paralyze people’s judgment. “Sometimes it’s not what I want to do but what I ought to do,” admits the elder woman in the video from Andrew Norton.
Decisions can be murky too. In Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, is the ‘right thing’ to cause a ruckus or sit back and preach non-violence? Mookie the protagonist postpones his own anxiety, feeling action is necessary despite breaking the law. He deals with the consequences.
Sometimes the right answer comes about through experience–a mere function of your mistakes. That is, first you decide and then you deduce, analyzing the call after the fact. Decision-making is a skill, growing stronger with more deliberate practice.
“There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation.
William James
In the words of Seth Godin: “You don’t need more time, you just need to decide.” You cannot afford to hesitate in a sea of doubt. Dance with fear or risk of living with regret. Indecision is still a decision or rather suspend doubt, DECIDE, and bear the responsibility.
