Going Rogue: A Photo Essay Culture Jamming Sarah Palin

More Important Than Sarah Palin

“This is not a [book] to be taken lightly. It should be thrown aside with great force.”

Dorothy Parker

Rod Serling answers the question: “Does Espousing a Cause Lose Character Credibility?”

“Carry with you at all times, your sense of caring and your concern. But put it into the mouths of flesh and blood people. If not, write tracts.”

This easily could be one of the more arguable sections in the Writing for Television series of talks.  One must of course remember the historical context that this discussion came from: the early 70’s and the Viet Nam era.  Serling did his most recognized work closer to the era of the HUAC hearings.

I’ll be the first one to admit the pitfalls of speaking of “causes” in any work, and perhaps that’s not the job of a writer whose job it is to “entertain”.  But in our generation, much of what we call entertainment seeks to do more than simply occupy our time, and many writers seek to move beyond the constraints of sheer entertainment.

This is not to say that speaking to controversial ideas, or dare I say it “a cause” is something new.  Dalton Trumbo was not exactly dancing a soft shoe when he wrote his novel, followed by the screenplay and directing his opus, Johnny Got His Gun. Serling himself isn’t exactly shy to tackle ideas of fascism in Seven Days in May.

But when he speaks of putting the “words into the mouths of flesh and blood people”, one could argue that he’s suggesting that better your characters carry the weight of an idea, rather than the author mounting her own soap box in a work.  After all, Serling was smart enough a producer on The Twilight Zone to know where he could take an idea, or how far he could push subject matter.

Flash forward to our modern era and we have shows like Battlestar Galactica, Six Feet Under, films like Syriana, The Constant Gardener and Milk which excel in dealing with controversial ideas in an open and thoughtful way.

So what has changed? Audiences?  The skill of the modern storyteller, or story craft itself?  To this day, there will always be some who will cry foul at films “with a message”, no matter how well or even handed a writer might deal with the material.  But I think the opportunity to tell those stories, for those who with skill enough to weave a subtle and engaging story tapestry, are present closer to today’s mainstream than ever before.

I wonder what you think about Serling’s perspective, and how things have changed since then.  How does a writer successfully speak toward a certain idea without mounting his soap box? And what ultimately makes a film successful or unsuccessful?

Rod Serling discusses “Writing to Please an Audience”

“Isn’t there a risk you run if you pre-occupy yourself with audience reaction?”

In this, the second part of Rod Serling’s Writing for Television, the conversation goes toward writing to please an audience.  What happens when we write at a certain level and with a certain expectation?

I think the question is most definitely a valid one, but I might further the question by wondering out loud, does the answer vary across artistic mediums? Is it different for a screenwriter than it is for a novelist?  A songwriter?

I think the difference between writing toward an audience today, versus Serling’s era, is the way marketing has become not only a significant aspect of how a story might be told, but whether your story is told at all.  This isn’t to say that in television and cinema in particular, there haven’t always been craftspersons who have created works with the ultimate goal of profiting from them, but now in our modern era, it has become more and more the case that “story is product”.  If story starts out as “product”, does it not by nature become derivative as stories are created for the sole purpose of creating the by-products of merchandising, sequels and other modes of commerce?

Does it not degrade the craft and art in storytelling to create a story out of a marketing concept, rather than actually figuring out ways to market great stories?

Ideas on the Source of Inspiration and Genius. . .

Starting this week, I thought I would post Rod Serling’s “Writing for Television” series of conversations which were filmed toward the end of his life.  In the first part, Rod discusses with some of his students the concept of “Where Ideas Come From”.  Serling sounds both practical and mystic in this short.  Certainly, many might be tempted to argue with his perspective, however it does give one a bit more insight about the man responsible for creating The Twilight Zone.

Part I: Where Ideas Come From

Serling’s thoughts immediately reminded me of another writer’s viewpoint on the source of ideas and the nature of genius.  Bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) gave an inspiring talk at the 2009 TED conference in Long Beach, CA.  Her “TED Talk” almost immediately became a web sensation.  If you haven’t heard Gilbert’s talk, and you count yourself as a writer, artist or creator, you owe it to yourself to consider her ideas. . .

Another Perspective of Rod Serling: His Moorpark College Address

In the process of researching a new post for my newsignal: blog, I came across the following speech delivered by The Twilight Zone creator, Rod Serling.

It was December of 1968 when Serling was asked to speak at Moorpark College in Moorpark, CA.  1968 was obviously mired in the turbulence of the Civil Rights movement, the war in Viet Nam, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, the Chicago Police’s clash with anti-war protestors at the Democratic National Convention, and the political and cultural instability that was part of the social fabric in the 60’s era United States.

Rod Serling, to those who were paying attention, was as much a social critic as he was an entertainer when it came to his writings (if not more so).  His perspective was most clear in the numerous episodes of The Twilight Zone he wrote, or in films such as Seven Days in May or even in Planet of the Apes released earlier that year.

For those of us who only came to know him through the syndicated episodes of The Twilight Zone that were run in marathons during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays of our childhood, we weren’t privy to know this man outside of the caricature of American pop culture.

The following speech lends a great deal of insight into the man away from the cameras, and well represents the thoughtful, opinionated and passionate man I would have imagined him to be.  Reading this speech some 40 years later, it is interesting to consider the things that have changed since then, and those things which seem just as fresh as if he had been speaking today.

–D.

If you want to prove that God is not dead, first prove that man is alive. — Rod Serling, December 3rd, 1968

There seem to have arisen some complications relevant to my appearance here this evening that should be clarified before I begin.  Plainly and simply.  I refused to sign a loyalty oath which was submitted to me as a prerequisite both for my appearance and my pay.  I gather that your local newspaper and some of its readers read dire and menacing implications in this refusal of mine, and I broach the whole thing only by way of a kind of personal disclaimer.

Number one, I have no interest in overthrowing the government of the United States and number two, to the best of my knowledge I have not or am not now a member of a subversive organization whose aims are similar.  I know there are many of you out there who’ve put me in a genetic classification of someplace between a misanthropic kook and an ungracious dope.  Actually, I’m neither.  I did not sign the loyalty oath and I waived my normal speaking fee, only because of a principle.  I think a requirement that a man affix his signature to a document, reaffirming loyalty, in on one hand ludicrous—and on the other demeaning.

A time-honored concept of Anglo-Saxon justice declares that a man is innocent until proven guilty.  I believe that in a democratic society a man is similarly loyal until proven disloyal.  No testaments of faith, no protestations of affection for his native load, and no amount of signatures will prove a bloody thing—one way or the other as to a man’s patriotism or lack thereof.  The concept of the loyalty oath is a new one in the United States—in its present form it dates back less than twenty years.  It’s been around for a number of decades in different countries under decidedly different forms of government.  It was a requirement in Nazi Germany and in Fascist Italy, and is currently a prerequisite for the status of citizenship in the Soviet Union.

Under dictators, the so-called loyalty oath is a necessary adjunct to a relationship between man and his government.  Both the Fascists and the Communists have a pathological distrust of their own people.  To require a signature under an oath of allegiance seems to me or presume guilt and an attendant disloyalty.  I simply can’t honor that kind of premise—and I won’t honor it.  And it’s for that reason that I did not sign the oath required of me to speak here for pay.  But parenthetically it might be noted that if indeed, I were hell bent to subvert the government of the United States, I would certainly have no qualms about signing anything.

Finally, To Rest in Peace. . .

“It is now I see and feel that calling once again. To be part of a music that will not just connect but, make all feel one. One in joy, one in pain, one in love, one in service an in consciousness.”

–Michael Joseph Jackson

We should all be so lucky not only to have achieved that sort of vision, but if more of us, humans alike carried with them that sort of vision, the world would be an even better place.   I do believe however, that sort of vision lies ahead for all of us.

I am not the first person that one might imagine waxing poetic on the night of Michael Jackson‘s death.  In fact, in the past I have joked about, derided, and thought and heard heavily critical things of the man.  But I found myself really hit by Michael’s passing today.  The only other passing that I have similar remembrances of, was that of Jim Henson.

I’ve never idolized the man. Nor have I ever looked at him through rose-colored glasses. I have never believed that he was anything more or less than human.  Whether he was responsible for any of the things that he was accused of, I can only say that he, like any of us as fragile humans had the same capacity to fall down.  Hard. . . And yes, to hurt others.

These past few years, as the media has fueled the sick fire of fascination in all of us, I came to feel sad for the man.  Not pity, because that somehow brings a thought of being somehow above this man. We have all been damaged in this life, and as the coming days will show, there will be both soft and kind thoughts of this man, and there will be hard, angry and hate-filled words that will emerge.  The energy from both of those sentiments prove our damaged-nature as individuals and as a collective.  It is not our original nature, but to this day we suffer as a result of this damage.

I chose today, led by the sense in my heart, that the right thing to do is to look on him, and the legacy of his art, craft and philanthropy, with a soft heart.  Not simply for the promise of cleansing his memory (and ours), but to help begin the healing of everyone’s hearts.  For if not now, when? And for whom shall we decide that it’s the right time to start healing our own hearts and memories?  Shall we do it for ourselves upon our own passing?  It doesn’t take a lot to see the conundrum in that idea.

Like so many ugly and hurtful things in this world, whether it be child molestation actual or alleged, the downing of planes, buildings or a single home, we as humans have come to a place where we react with anger and fury, notions of justice only thinly veiled vengeance.  We do know in our hearts how to forgive.  How to soften our hearts.  Many figures and teachers from different faiths have not taught us, but reminded us of the divinity of forgiveness.  Archbishop Desmond Tutu, called for truth and reconciliation after Apartheid;  Martin Luther King, Gandhi, believed in forgiveness. Even the often unfairly demonized Malcolm X found softness in his heart toward all after he made his pilgrimage to Mecca. And no differently, each of these figures suffered their own significant human frailties.

Michael through his art called for healing, and cried not simply for himself, but for us all and this planet we live upon. Can we take a moment of peace if not to find softness in our hearts for him, but for ourselves who lost a unique and consummate entertainer?

I hope we can.

Review: The Mars Volta’s Octahedron Rises Above The Bedlam in Goliath

What The Mars Volta have achieved as a band in roughly seven years, five studio albums, one live recording and an EP has been to create a body of work of significant magnitude.  To do so before either Omar Rodríguez-López or front man Cedric Bixler-Zavala thirty-fifth year of age, is nothing short of remarkable, especially in an era of manufactured musicianship and a world of ill-informed listenership.  In all seriousness, how much of contemporary and popular music has a point of reference going farther back than The Beatles?

June 23rd, 2009 marks the U.S. release of The Mars Volta’s fifth studio release, Octahedron, an album which lead guitarist and album producer, Omar Rodríguez-López has called the band’s “acoustic album”.  Every serious TMV fan should know to take these words with a certain grain of salt, as just about everything the band does is not what it seems.

The sense that this is the band’s most accessible album since the band’s definitive album Frances the Mute, is not without merit.  Many fans over the years have been divided over the artistic success of Amputechture as an album.  While a significant amount of their fans stand by the album as one of their masterworks, few will argue that appreciation of its Zappa-esque and heavily Jazz-inspired riffs take some work to appreciate.  Its follow-up, 2008’s The Bedlam in Goliath is likely to stir even more controversy amongst listeners.  Hardcore fans alike will call it everything from garbage to genius.  In my opinion, Bedlam lacks a cohesion certainly over Frances, but even the at times disparate  Amputechture.  Bedlam is much more academic in nature.  It’s the album you put on realizing that you should, and upon re-listening you rediscover why you should listen to it.

Octahedron comes in at an economical 50 minutes, and one might complain it does so in short bursts averaging in five minute lengths.  It does so however, with an artistic cohesion much more akin to the all-around brilliant Frances. While songs like “With Twilight as My Guide” and “Copernicus” are amongst the album’s most mellow, songs such as “Halo of Nembutals” bridge the divide nicely to create an overall engaging song-scape.

Perhaps more than any other band, The Mars Volta are a band that records different albums certainly when they are in the studio, but as anyone who is familiar with their live repertoire, performances of even their most signature of songs can vary greatly.  From album to album, lead singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala uses his voice differently, often having more in common with a shredding guitar or percussion instrument (very much to his credit), than a finely honed vocal instrument.  Octohedron presents in Cedric’s voice, an instrument of greater precision and for some, accessibility.  Just as much as this album deserves a certain level of attention to really pick up on it’s finest moments, it’s also most likely to be the album easiest to play in the background.

Lead guitarist and once again producer, Omar Rodríguez-López offers up a rock solid foundation of guitar work and dense production value.  The production value, and to a certain extent the contemporary taste for digital clarity and compression, leaves me wishing that I could hear an analog master.  If I had any complaint about the sound of this album, it’s a lack of warmth and space even within the most wide open sounding of pieces.  Despite that, there continues to be a level of melodiousness that can be found in the most chaotic cuts such as Cotopaxi and Teflon.

Octahedron, nor TMV are not likely to start show up in the easy listening bin, nor have they started to put out offerings which diverge from their sound, or worse yet, feel like they are selling out.  And while continuing to chart their own territory, listeners will find sounds and themes reminiscent of bands such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd or even the guitar work of Mike Oldfield.

The music and work of The Mars Volta will likely continue to challenge it’s most ardent fans, or confound it’s biggest critics, but the most serious of music listeners will continue to find a level of musicianship well above average, leaning into flashes of genius.  The Mars Volta to their credit, still have better albums in them.  What is often most promising about them as musicians and performers is that they don’t simply go in to the studio to record the next album, but instead to focus on the next piece of a larger body of work.  It’s for that reason that I defy deriding any of their work even when it has been less satisfying; their least successful work is still better than the average mainstream release today.  There are albums which are more successful than others, some more accessible to an audience unaccustomed to listening beyond a superficial level.  And as polarizing as their work and sound can be, they continue to produce work that matters.

Octahedron feels to me like work on the verge of something bigger, and even more epic.  Not just the next Frances the Mute, but an even more challenging and thrilling level of sound and performance.  This is what defines them as one of the few truly progressive bands to be called “Progressive Rock”.

The lion’s share of bands carrying the “Prog” label continue to be of a singular sound which has not progressed one iota in thirty years.  Staid, safe and exceedingly similar.  This is largely due to TMV playing well-outside the genre, and venturing well into the realms of progressive forms of Jazz, Psychedelic Rock and Latin music.  They expand the genre by shattering it.  The day that they come to record an album that fans will expect, is the day that their music becomes safe and the thought of “selling out” becomes a possibility.

Cedric Bixler-Zavala has said in reference to the album: “We know how people can be so linear in their way of thinking, so when they hear the new album, they’re going to say, ‘This is not an acoustic album! There’s electricity throughout it!’ But it’s our version. That’s what our band does — celebrate mutations. It’s our version of what we consider an acoustic album’.”  It’s those mutations of genre expectations, sounds and performance landscape that listeners to continue to expect.  I don’t pretend to imagine that all fans of The Mars Volta will like Octahedron, but perhaps it will introduce new listeners to the band.  And as long as the band continues to push themselves and their listeners, they will have ardent fans, and the fans will have something to look forward to.

From the New York Times – Saving the Story (the Film Version)

From the New York Times:

November 18, 2008

By MICHAEL CIEPLY

LOS ANGELES — The movie world has been fretting for years about the collapse of stardom. Now there are growing fears that another chunk of film architecture is looking wobbly: the story.

In league with a handful of former Hollywood executives, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory plans to do something about that on Tuesday, with the creation of a new Center for Future Storytelling.

The center is envisioned as a “labette,” a little laboratory, that will examine whether the old way of telling stories — particularly those delivered to the millions on screen, with a beginning, a middle and an end — is in serious trouble.

Its mission is not small. “The idea, as we move forward with 21st-century storytelling, is to try to keep meaning alive,” said David Kirkpatrick, a founder of the new venture.

Once president of the Paramount Pictures motion picture group, Mr. Kirkpatrick last year joined some former colleagues in starting Plymouth Rock Studios, a planned Massachusetts film production center that will provide a home for M.I.T.’s storytelling lab while supporting it with $25 million over seven years.

Arguably, the movies are as entertaining as ever. With a little help from holiday comedies like “Yes Man” with Jim Carrey and “Bedtime Stories” with Adam Sandler, the domestic motion picture box office appears poised to match last year’s gross revenues of $9.7 billion, a record.

But Mr. Kirkpatrick and company are not alone in their belief that Hollywood’s ability to tell a meaningful story has been nibbled at by text messages, interrupted by cellphone calls and supplanted by everything from Twitter to Guitar Hero.

“I even saw a plasma screen above a urinal,” said Peter Guber, the longtime film producer and former chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment who contends that traditional narrative — the kind with unexpected twists and satisfying conclusions — has been drowned out by noise and visual clutter.

A common gripe is that gamelike, open-ended series like “Pirates of the Caribbean” or “Spider-Man” have eroded filmmakers’ ability to wrap up their movies in the third act. Another is that a preference for proven, outside stories like the Harry Potter books is killing Hollywood’s appetite for original storytelling.

Mr. Guber, who teaches a course at the University of California, Los Angeles, called “Navigating in a Narrative World,” is singularly devoted to story. Almost 20 years ago Mr. Guber made a colossal hit of Warner Brothers’ “Batman” after joining others in laboring over the story for the better part of a decade.

Ted Hope: Hopeful Thinking for the Future of Filmmaking

Posted from IndieWire.com, just recently filmmaker and blogger Ted Hope posted a comprehensive perspective on the future direction of filmmakers and filmmaking, the methods of distributing content, and ideas for innovating and thriving in the future.   Here’s a hint: Collaboration is king.  Totally New Era Thinking!

Hope’s piece takes a different tone and perspective from Mark Gill‘s 2008 key note speech at the Los Angeles Film Festival‘s Financing Conference, that Yes, The Sky Really is Falling, but both should be mandatory reading for anyone now or aspiring to a career in filmmaking and media. And while Hope’s piece is definitely the most upbeat, both pieces I believe are reasons for optimism.

The future for all of us means expanding our fields of expertise, and depending on each other for their input and expertise.  As filmmakers, many of us tend to laud “The Auteur“.  I know when I was in school I thought about “what Stanley Kubrick would do”.  But as I moved into the field professionally, I soon realized how far from a solitary art filmmaking is, and that even the lauded auteurs were seldom truly alone.  This is the wave of the future for our industry, and really, our society.

Optimistically,

–Stefan Rhys

In case you haven’t heard, our business is in the midst of a transformation from a limited supply gatekeeper entertainment economy based on impulse buys to a new paradigm based on creator-controlled content and an ongoing dialogue with the audience. This affects all of us: filmmakers, exhibitors, distributors, and film lovers.

It once was that distributors generally only made available films that fit their pre-existing marketing model. Their marketing spend was not based on the film’s content – but their acquisition or production of a film was based on justifying that pre-set marketing spend. We (both the filmmaking and film exhibiting community) are now just learning how to determine, and to access, what an appropriate marketing spend—based on the film that was actually made – is, and in the process, we are learning how to prepare for, access, and exploit what have far too long been under-utilized tools and practices: community, collaboration, and appreciation.

Community, collaboration, and appreciation. These tools are the new tools. These are the good old tools. These tools are where our marketing money also now needs to be spent.

But let’s ALL step out of The Hell Of Now, and instead let’s imagine the future. Let’s imagine next year. Let’s imagine what the production/distribution/marketing/exhibition alliance could be like in a very short time. Let’s imagine what it would be like if we established a “Best Practices” for filmmakers and exhibitors alike and thus clarify what audiences can expect. These three entities—filmmakers, exhibitors, audiences—that want to create, exhibit and appreciate diverse high quality specialized work to the fullest.

Let’s imagine that next year is actually right now. So what does this present (formerly the future) look like?

• Each side recognizes each other as a partner – a critical partner – a partner that wants to inspire the other to the highest level of work and experience.
• Filmmakers recognize that completing their film is only half the work.
• They recognize that the other half of the job is both marketing their film and maintaining a dialogue with their audience.
• The filmmaker is taking responsibility for their work through the end (aka forever).
• They no longer entertain dreams of riches exchanged for rights.
• They no longer anticipate surrendering control of their film to distributors.
• The filmmaker now thinks of their ultimate creation as what will be their body of work. They no longer look at each movie as a stand-alone entity. They recognize it is all a continuum.
• They no longer see themselves contained with a single form of medium. They make long and short form work for different platforms and different audiences.
• They look at all their work as an ongoing dialogue with an evolving audience.
• The filmmaker has already established at least one platform from which to maintain an ongoing dialogue with their audience(s). This platform will be: Blogs and/or Social Networks. They maintain regular – daily or weekly – contact with their audience. They reward them, and visa versa.
• The filmmaker is no longer an isolated individual who only looks out for his or her own singular work. The filmmaker is a curator, championing others’ work. And others champion their work in return
• The filmmaker is an “expanded” collaborator who encourages audiences/fans participation, both or a richer dialogue and to mine their desires. She considers exhibitors’ needs in terms of reaching an audience.
• The filmmaker thinks for the long tail and they ask how their film will be discovered in ten years. They ask how will their film be relevant in ten years.
• The filmmaker recognizes that their action affects others, and they will either build on success or be burdened by others’ failure. They recognize that financial outcome is one measure of success but that audience and infrastructure building is another. Mostly they want to encourage good behavior in others.
• The filmmaker knows that power is a collective experience not a private one. They believe in an “open source” culture. They share information with others who share information.

How does this filmmaker work? Before the filmmaker shoots a frame, before she raises any money, this filmmaker identifies the audiences for the film and where those audiences can be reached. This filmmaker finds where the discussion of the issues within the film are taking place, identifies possible promotional partners for the film, be they brands or advocacy organizations.

Rest in Peace, Uncle Forry

One of my most cherished memories of childhood, and perhaps one of those golden threads in my life that connects my earliest memories and dreams to the man I am today, was a visit to this man’s home.

Forrest J. Ackerman inspired a lot of people who love movies, movie monsters and the Science Fiction genre.  The editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, he was friend and influence to many.  Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi (he’s wearing one of Bela’s Dracula rings in this picture, and will likely be buried with it, as I remember him saying) Rick Baker, Ray Bradbury, and Vincent Price.  He was also friend and advisor to Sci-Fi (Ackerman was widely credited with coining the term, Sci-Fi) writers such as Robert Heinlein, Charles Beaumont and Marion Zimmer Bradley.  A look at his wikipedia page will show the wide impact this man had on many generations of creators and dreamers.

When I was a fifth grader at Triunfo Elementary School, I had Alan Grossman for my teacher.  Mr. Grossman was definitely one of my favorite teachers.  One of the things our class did as a group was to do a large mural of E.T. The Extraterrestrial which we ended up sending to Steven Spielberg.  One lucky kid later that year got that mural back autographed and dedicated by Spielberg himself.  Grossman did a lot of things like that to capture our imagination.

Mr. Grossman himself was a friend of Ackerman’s.  In fact, both of them were in John Landis’s movie, Schlock (Ackerman had a cameo, Grossman was an extra in a movie theatre).  He also had an open invitation to the Ackermansion in the Griffith Park/Los Feliz area of Los Angeles for all of his students.  I remember hearing about the trips even in 3rd and 4th grade.  So when I was finally lucky enough to have Mr. Grossman as a teacher, I couldn’t have been more excited.