Brooklyn, New York
“Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.” Groucho Marx
This is a long update. There aren’t any pictures. There are only a few funny parts. It’s primarily targeted at those of you who imagine collaborating with me someday. For the rest of you just skip it and come back when there are more pictures.
In November 2008 I realized just how much trouble I was in, how much work was left on DOG. Since then I’ve certainly been innovating and drawing upon my limitless reservoir of mad passion, but it’s still a big job.
Once again. It’s a big job. Now I know.
If the objective is to finish DOG then a new category of capability needs to manifest. The Glorious 8 Fold Protocol of creation – vision, time, organization, health, wealth, courage, collaboration and knowledge – requires a vivid upgrade.
That’s the realization that comes from smacking into a wall. It’s wonderful actually. However amazing I might be right now, I am going to become much, much more… wow.
What’s the point of making movies? To transform awareness. Our spaceship is in danger, we’ve got to bust a move. My allies and I can have lots of fun on this mission and become something unprecedented in the bargain. Good times!
If the Mystery makes you queasy, you are reading the wrong blog. This is now going to get massively weird and wonderful. You’ve been warned.
The last two weeks have been about…
1. attracting revenue
2. selling assets for immediate debt reduction
3. organizing safety archives
4. color correcting the Almonds festival screener
I am not asserting that these activities are elements in an articulated and coherent plan, hell no! Rather they are exigencies of intuition and a depleted bank account. I propose to articulate an outline for a coherent plan right here and now by elaborating on the relationship between recent activities and the G8FP.
1. Raw grain and legumes are truly the cheapest and healthiest way to eat, whether sprouted or cooked. I’ve got enough stocked up to sustain life for at least a couple more weeks. I mention this because I am living without liquidity right now. Simply stated, I’m broke.
I pull in just enough to pay utility bills and rent, with a couple hundred left to buy greens and do laundry. Income is nominal because for the last 6 months I’ve dedicated myself to DOG. I pushed away collaborations to concentrate on finishing this project. I tapered off on marketing so as not to be distracted by pesky clients. Meanwhile, the economy was tipping into a power dive. Seclusion in an urban cave combined with the global financial crisis means no work. Thus the lack of fresh fruits and vegetables in my fridge.
I’ve designed a bliss based approach for re-activating myself as freelance artist and production savant. In March I’ll sojourn to Michigan for a month of research and development with the Bear Lake fellowship. We will plan and shoot narrative fragments and VFX tests for passion projects – movies we’d like to make. The resulting vignettes combined with rare treasures from the deep archives will be montaged into several new visual manifestos, (demo reels) comprising a catalog of both competence and vision.
New demo reels form the core of a ‘magnetic’ web presence. According to fundraising guru Morrie Warshawski, the public presentation of my mission and core values ‘magnetizes the field’, attracting allies and pushing back folks who can’t help. Since my mission and core values are derived from my bliss, blissed based demo reels make sense.
As excerpts from bigger projects, the fellowship’s mini-movies can trigger conversations with collaborators and investors. They demonstrate a level of development and commitment beyond story boards and trailers.
2. As the economic meltdown progresses I think it’s very dangerous to be in debt. I’m looking at about 30k of low interest credit card balances as my 0% APR offers run out. I’m attempting to call in about $5000 worth of outstanding loans I made to trusted friends. To pay off the rest I can sell about 20k of assets, including my car! I am ready to admit that owning a car in NYC is a bit of a luxury, it’s nice but not necessary. So I’ve got everything up on craigslist – hard drives, car, a generator…
It’s a bit scary. Eager buyers have not been calling these last two weeks. Over the years it’s been easy to sell quality used gear on craigs. My studio is just blocks away from the Honda Odyssey capital of the world – Williamsburg, Brooklyn. So what’s up? Folks are scrambling to minimize their exposure and find some money to live on, same as me. What if things get worse? A better time to de-accessorize may not come for some time. Sell it now or never. Visualization could be efficacious. Holy Sheep.
3. In my last posting I waxed poetic about cloning my life. I’ve been putting it off for a while, just backing up the critical projects and trying not to worry about the rest. Then a little voice started whispering in my ear, “make it happen – now.”
Buying new drives and selling the old ones started out as a scheme for cash flow but after additional research I realized that a full blown clone was not only affordable but essential. I could secure a lifetime of inspiration while enabling rapid access to it.
I am well on my way to creating the master archive, copying 1000s of terabytes of data at night and organizing during the day. Through an enigmatic process of SATA based mitosis, another Venus T5 enclosure appeared next to the first. That means I can now see a whopping 10 tb of data on my desktop via SATA. I can view another 8 TB via firewire, at least until I sell the external drives. Baby!
Once the master is organized, $2000 will buy 20 more 1000 tb SATA drives. Still shooting for end of February to make this happen, 4 days from now. C’mon craigslist people, ring my phone – I’ve got a world to save here!
Another key benefit of having 10 TBs of organized data on the desktop is the opportunity for media collage. Having access to all my paintings, writings and movies will make demo reel development a blast.
I’ve also been doing some research on the stock footage business. That’s where I license my imagery to other filmmakers. Having everything accessible is the first step.
4. DOG and Almonds can be seen as supercharged demo reels. Taking a finished project on the festival circuit and maybe winning an award or getting distribution – that’s huge. On the basis of either of these, a director could attract investors for her next project. She could also widen her options and earning power for freelance work. This is another reason why launching a festival project ASAP is important, why I can’t wait 6 or even 3 months to finish DOG.
Almonds is moving through the color correction process. I’m testing the workflow of Colorista which has nice integration with After Effects. My other option as mentioned back in July is Apple’s Color, which I’ll probably investigate after the Almonds screener is out.
A Plan
Maybe that doesn’t exactly add up to a plan but the Glorious 8 Fold Protocol of creation is inherent in every action and informs every sequence of actions… because it’s fun! It’s possible to create super cool outcomes with a 6 fold or even 3 fold path, but fusing super cool outcomes with an ecstatic process is what makes the 8 fold path glorious.
So what is the G8FP? Do you have to drink Kool-aid® to find out?
By the way – If you read this entire post, send me an email and I’ll respond with a pop quiz. If you get all the answers right you’ll be automatically entered in a drawing to win an exciting prize.
The Glorious Eight Fold Protocol of Creation
as whispered to the author during a nap
Vision
Vision is the convergence of imagination and prescience. Vision is the happy dream I have for myself and the world. I dream of awakened human beings enjoying an experience of themselves as stewards of the spaceship and adventurers in the cosmos.
This is both what I imagine and predict, my idea of an introduction to the terraist era of human history. The alternative is planetary death, game over.
So it’s easy enough to convert the dream into a mission, recognize it as my life’s work and participate in it’s coming to pass. Core values are the necessary ingredients for baking that particular cake. A plan is the recipe.
Time
We experience time as a sequence of actions. Flowing actions into sequences either makes or takes time. For most of us, time flows from the past to the future because we sequence actions to produce that experience. Making time takes practice. If we make enough time, we eventually start growing younger, undoing history and generally inviting retribution from the oppressor. Moving backward in time is essentially illegal as far as the established authorities are concerned, but the brain is built for time travel! How do you think batters hit a baseball traveling at 90 mph, especially when a pitcher denies them cognitive cues? Their brains slip into the future, find out where the ball is gonna be and smack it there.
If you haven’t mastered making time, the “three qualities pick two” theorem becomes relevant. Good, cheap and quick are the three qualities and a project can have only two. If you don’t have money and you want the outcome to be good, then a project takes lots of time. If you have very little time and you want goodness, then it’s going to be expensive. If you don’t care about good, a project can be cheap and quick – and maybe that’s good enough.
Planning and efficiency are methods of slowing down time. A plan is a rehearsal or a test run of a sequence. Planning attempts to optimize the arrangement of actions before they are sequenced. Efficiency optimizes the action itself, how it is performed.
Organization
Organization is a pattern that implies action. Take an auto mechanic’s toolbox. If all the metric sockets are arranged from smallest to largest, that implies easy and hassle free acquisition of the correct size socket. We can imagine a mechanic reaching in, moving to the exact size needed and pulling it out. The arrangement implies action. If the sockets are jumbled in a pile, then we imagine her sorting through the pile to find the right one, picking it up and checking the size, putting the wrong size aside and reaching in for another.
Patterns in the world create analogs in the brain. The pattern of sockets is replicated in the mechanic’s brain and then analyzed or indexed by background processing. A jumbled pile may require more processing time and more storage. Patterns determine what will be processed in the background. Our brain might be analyzing a jumbled pile of sockets instead of developing a solution for some complicated shot.
This by the way is how ‘reality’ works. The brain manufactures reality by maintaining mental analogs – symbols – of everything. We can only see what’s directly in front of us, yet we know what’s on our side because the brain is maintaining a ‘side’ symbol and injecting reality juice into it. Voila, the side exists!
Organization implies actions and influences background processing for the individual AND her collaborators. How well a shared pattern can be acquired by people of diverse talent and approach determines the quality of collaboration.
Health
My friend Kathleen makes great money as a personal trainer in the city. I dragged her to a filmmaker’s meeting the other night and afterwards she said, “This community needs me!” Sadly she’s right. Folks who make movies are often fat and pasty because they sit in the dark staring at computer screens for hours and hours. Too bad she is relocating to North Carolina.
The body is designed to move. Movement is needed for health. Health is needed for sustaining the epic attention and effort of filmmaking. It’s also a big part of attracting and keeping sexy friends. Nuff said.
Wealth
Wealth is more than money, it’s potential energy. The ability to borrow money at a low interest rate is wealth. Having assets that can be easily liquidated is wealth. Having trust worthy and competent friends who owe you favors is wealth. Being able to do something really well is wealth. Wealth is people who love and believe in you. Health is wealth because health is the optimal state for performance and for making great decisions.
With wealth I could recruit help to finish DOG, either by hiring experienced artists or training inexperienced ones. Without wealth I am certainly working alone and I can’t work alone forever because eventually the fridge empties.
Courage
Courage is emotional fuel that can be acquired and spent. Courage drives action after catastrophic failure. By failure I mean total crash and burn, humiliation, utter and abject defeat. Courage is trying again. Any questions?
Collaboration
There’s power in going solo and having total creative control, but creation is always collaboration. The subject and the audience participate in art, even if the subject is a tree and an audience only sees the work 50 years after the artist is dead. Does a painting hidden in a dark closet influence the world? That’s the question the Valley sisters and I contemplated in New Haven around 1983.
Collaboration as a given applies to both the mechanistic and divine views of human nature. In the mechanistic view, the artist is a bundle of symbols and prior recordings made throughout her life. Everything she does is a mish mash of what’s come before, of her interactions with people and her environment. She is a walking collaboration, a fusion enfleshed. In the divine view all are connected, separation is an illusion and the duality of self and other is an artifact of life in the space time continuum. However you cook the tofu, it never turns into broccoli.
So the question is not should I collaborate, but who am I collaborating with? Is their personal hygiene adequate?
Knowledge
First – I take responsibility for my own education. Second – there are two methods of acquiring knowledge – indirect experience (eg books) and direct experience (eg mistakes). I like them both and try to strike a fortunate balance. Third – as I acquire knowledge, I check in with my bliss frequently to be sure there is synchromesh. I am also ready to push beyond my bliss to discover new bliss. Fourth – since I often go to a lot of trouble to gain knowledge, I like to use it. Keep it handy. Take it for a walk. Fifth – you can never finish knowing, you can only run out of curiosity. If this happens, kill your cable feed immediately.
And so…
That’s an overview of the G8FP. I gave it to you with as much poetry as possible, so the essence would leak through. It’s not something you can get by listening to on a Tony Robbins CD. Better to listen to the spring wind in blossoming boughs or the gurgle of an icy brook.
Have a nice day.