Penguin April 13th, 2008
If you haven’t seen Johnny Lee’s hacks to the Wii remote, this is a great summary of what he’s accomplished. Johnny Lee is a PhD grad student at Carnegie Mellon University. He’s also the one who came up with the poorman’s steady cam. He’s around 30 and he’s already presented at TED. How cool is that?
-Penguin
Related postsNinja March 31st, 2008
It’s Ze Frank’s 36th birthday, so I thought I’d take this day to post his TED talk.
Related postsPenguin March 5th, 2008
Even though he doesn’t come right out and say it, Lessig makes a great argument for Creative Commons License. In a world where distribution is implicit, copyright law seems like such an incredible failure.
As budding filmmakers, artists, musicians, you will need to understand the dimensional shift that has happened. You can try all you want to hold on to the past, but you will eventually die. Change is coming and the only hope is to embrace it.
How? Find something that’s better than free.
- Penguin
Related postsPenguin February 4th, 2008
Isabel Allende talks about truth. “What is truer than truth? The story.” As writers and filmmakers, our task is entwined with story and story telling. If we want to convince someone, if we want to convey some truth that we believe, what better way than through the art of the story? Jesus understood this when he used parables to expound on Kingdom truths.
In each story, there are characters. Each one of your characters needs to have passion. They have to have a heart to drive them. That desire, that want that propels them forward through your story. No one wants to see a story about a boring person. Unless that boring person becomes extraordinary through their circumstances.
As with your characters, you, as the creator, need passion too. More than training and luck, is your passion. The passion for your characters. Your passion for your stories. The passion for your art.
Where do your passions lie?
-Penguin
Related postsPenguin January 31st, 2008
If you’re not familiar with Theo Jansen, he’s the one responsible for those beautiful walking sculptures powered by wind. Jansen introduces some new features to his creatures, such as the ability to remember, detect water, and hammer nails into the ground. I can’t wait for these things to show up on my beach.
-Penguin
Related postsPenguin January 28th, 2008
Ken Robinson has an amazing speech about creativity. As artists, writers, designers, photographers, filmmakers, our essential job is being creative. Sure there’s the technical aspects of our craft. But those are merely a way to express our creativity. He goes on to talk about children and their capacity for creativity. The core of their creativity is their willingness to take a chance. They’re not frightened of being wrong. “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never create anything original.”
Most of us are products of universal education. We’re trained to be productive and good workers and to fit in. For some places and some countries, that’s what they need. We’re privileged. We have the freedom to create. We may not be able to make a ton of money doing it. But there is that off chance that we can and will. As an artist, we don’t care about the money. We care about our art. Sometimes people get that art. But that’s not important either.
Picasso said, “All children are artists, we just grow out of it.” Robinson proposes that we’re educated out of it. This is not to say that science and math shouldn’t be taught. These are definitely vital too. But the arts are woefully under represented. Instead of required as part of the curriculum, they’re offered as electives instead. But intelligence is multifaceted.
Intelligence is diverse. It’s visual, audial, kinesthetic, abstract, moving. Film encompasses all of that. Fundamentally, I believe that the best films, those that touch your soul, those that are entertaining, those that are timeless, embody all these aspects. You have the visual aspect of the film. You have movement in your actors or in the camera. You have the audial in dialgoue, music, and sound effects. You have the kinesthetic of your characters dealing with a situation or conflict. And then you have the abstract in symbolism and themes.
Intelligence is also dynamic. When you collaborate with other artists, there’s this synergy that creates something spectacular. Filmmaking is the essence of collaboration. As a director, you’re working with others to see your screenplay come alive. You have actors, your cinematographer, your sound engineer, your crew, and then you have your audience. Without any of these people and their input, you’d be hard pressed to make anything at all.
Intelligence is also distinct. We all have this heart, this passion that drives us to create. We’re drawn towards communities that foster this. Whether you’re a designer or a filmmaker, you do it because it makes you come alive. When I talk about my new screenplay idea with Ninja, my eyes light up. I get excited and I just want to share.
What makes you come alive? Go and do that.
-Penguin
Related postsPenguin January 23rd, 2008
One of the key points that Frank Gehry makes is to approach every project with insecurity. Remember that first film that you shot? Remember the first story you wrote? Remember the first time you ever asked that guy or girl you liked out? There was that sense of fear and inadequacy. That sense of, I don’t know what the heck I’m doing. And sometimes, it didn’t work. But through it, you learned. So the next film, the next story, the next guy or girl, you had a little bit more experience so you weren’t as afraid.
But I think there’s something to be said about having a that same sort of insecurity or fear going into every project. Not because of your skills or your experience, but because of the project itself. As an artist, I want to push myself. Tell new stories that I’ve never told before. Broach new genres that I’ve never tried. Do something that I’ve never done before. In a sense, every new project will be like the first project. Different, challenging, but most important of all, new.
Inevitably, you’ll fail. Gehry recounts how he tried putting out a tea pot and the TED host commented, “Did it leak?” and to know that even one of the greatest legends or our time has failed should give us relieve and permission to fail as well. This doesn’t mean to slack off and just throw something together. Rather, it should give you permission to try that crazy project.
You look at some of the great works of our time, they were all because failure wasn’t an option. Failure would’ve meant desolation. Failure would’ve meant people losing their jobs. Final Fantasy, which spawned a movie and 13 sequels and other spin-offs. Evangelion, which revolutionized anime and the mecha genre. Reservoir Dogs, which launched one of the greatest and influential filmmakers of our time. But these works were great because the creator and their willingness to go for broke. Instead of playing it safe, they decided that if they could only do 1 more game, 1 more anime, 1 movie, this is what they would do.
And when you’re finished, you’ll see things that you would’ve changed. A scene here, a line there. But as with Love Angle, even with all the things I would’ve changed, I still watch it and enjoy it. Even Gehry’s buildings, although beautiful and artistic, leaked. But you look past all that because of the whole.
So, make every project a new project. And with every project, go for broke.
-Penguin
Related postsPenguin January 22nd, 2008
JJ Abrams, creator of Alias, Lost, and Cloverfield gave a talk at TED. It’s a great talk and inspiration to budding filmmakers.
He started filmmaking when he was 10, when he got a Super8 camera. When he was 12, he bought a magic box which said it had $50 worth of magic for $15 dollars. He has never opened that box. The box represents potential and infinite possibility. Until that box is opened, it could be anything and your mind runs wild. That mystery is the catalyst for imagination. And sometimes, mystery is more important than knowledge. In a similar manner, the blank page is a magic box.
Stories are mystery boxes. They have that infinite potential of being anything and everything. Until you write it down, anything can happen. Even in the story, there are tons of mystery boxes. Abrams uses Star Wars as an example. We see a space ship. What’s it being shot by? Star Destroyer! Soldiers are lining up to protect a door. What’s going to come through? Stormtroopers! Darth Vader! Who’s that girl with the droid? It was a hologram! It’s Princess Leia! Who’s Obi Wan Kenobi? Ben Kenobi! And it goes on. In the first 10 to 20 minutes of Star Wars, we’re inexplicably drawn into that universe. We want to know more and more until we’re hooked. Intentionally withholding information generates that hook and spurs the imagination. We keep watching in hopes of having our questions answered.
It’s a great little presentation.
-Penguin
Related postsNinja January 16th, 2008
This is one of my favorite parts of the presentation:
Via Swiss Miss
Penguin October 25th, 2007
Photosynth is a technology that looks at any dataset and can reorganize it in any other way. The only limitation is the size of your monitor. You can zoom in and out as deep as you need. But that’s not the coolest thing about Photosynth. It can actually analyze pictures and build a representative model based on the data contained purely in the pictures. Check out the video demo.
Links:
Try Photosynth
Photosynth on Wiki
-Penguin
Limited edition lithograph prints. Signed + numbered.
