Brainwashed

Seth Godin - Brainwashed

Acknowledging the Lizard:

Seth Godin expressed that our deep down fear of failure and being laughed at is rooted back to this damn prehistoric “lizard brain.” Referred to by Steven Pressfield as “the resistance,” it holds us back and attempts to slow your creative steam engine for fear of social crashing, and inevitable burning. Clearly no one wants to crash, or god forbid burn, so we listen to the lizard brain and slam on the breaks. Godin goes on to say that we need to acknowledge this lizard in order to ignore it, push past it, and do work; “ignoring the voice of criticism is critical in doing work.” – Seth Godin

Ship:

Godin explains that the market demands those who can ship their creations. Due to that lizard brain, shipping can be slightly tough for fear of failure, or fear of being held accountable for whatever you have shipped. Basically, acquire the ability to get things done, and make sure those things are what people want.

On my first read, I felt Ship gave the wrong idea about the creative process; pushing you to get things done instead of taking your time on whatever creation your mind has been grinding up. Especially in combination with Acknowledging the Lizard, I kept getting the feeling that Godin wanted us to basically say “fuck it,” forget that we might get laughed at, and just start spitting your ideas out like wild fire, without paying real attention to details. I read it again, but with this particular MDIA 230 course in mind. We are being pushed on a pretty busy schedule to get creative, and fast. Keeping other classes in mind, a job, and just simple day-to-day challenges, can be tolling for both body and mind; but that’s what people need if they want to rise above. We might not be producing our masterpieces in our weekly projects and blog assignments, but that’s ok. We need to develop the ability to keep a schedule and get things done. The trick is harness that creative beast that lives in your head, so you can call on it whenever you need. Keep your head in the clouds sometimes, but be able to buckle down and spit out some magical work when the time comes. I think these assignments are molding us to be able to smack the “lizard brain” in the face when the time comes to ship, and say to it’s face “my shit rocks.”

Island Smile

Follow this link to hear my song "Island Smile"Island Smile

Fever!

 “Fever,” originally recorded in 1956 by Little Willie John, has been covered by many world renoun singer/song-writers. Peggy Lee, Elvis Presley, Madonna, and Michael Buble, are a few of the big-leaguers who have tasted the “Fever,” but Beyonce recently released her own recording that I think gives the song a whole new heat, if you will. Elvis had it pretty steamy in his 1960 cover, but Beyonce adds another level of vigor and sexuality that may have been a bit too feisty at the time of the song’s original release. Her cover shares the tweaked lyrics of Peggy Lee’s and Elvis Presley’s versions, with verses including the iconic love affairs of Romeo & Juliet, and John Smith & Pocahontas, but in no way does it take away from the song’s original message.

Little Willie John maintains a slightly quicker tempo throughout the song, and sings the lyrics with a moderate intensity and pitch. He is also accompanied by backup singers, layered saxophones, and the occasional dab of piano; providing the timbre with a little more complexity, and giving the song a bit of a noisy quality. I believe Peggy Lee was the first to strip the clutter away from LWJ’s original, to give the song more sizzle; Elvis put a little swing in to it, and Beyonce took it to bedroom.

In Beyonce’s cover, the tempo is taken down a notch, and kind of eases us through the song. She also brings the intensity of the vocals down a bit, along with the pitch, as she almost whispers you straight through to the final beat. The ride becomes ever smoother with a heavy bass line, which was not as prevalent in the original. The timbre is simplified by eliminating the saxophones, back up singers, and piano; by replacing them with finger-snaps (one beat off the bass), and slipping a quick roll of the bongo in right after she seductively exclaims “Fever! ”

The lyrics in this particular version were tweaked a bit, as I mentioned earlier, but the song’s main message stills rings through. In the text, lines like “When you put your arms around me, I get the fever that’s so hard to bare,” and  “I light up when you call my name, and you know I’m gonna treat you right, you give me fever,” when given literal meaning, sound like someone’s in love with a person who has Malaria or the West Nile Virus. Given the fact that no one would sing a hit song about the love of having a fever, an alternate meaning is probably hiding in there somewhere. Regarding Beyonce’s cover; by adding a heavy pluck of the bass, with some jazzy finger snaps, and her sultry whisper; you know the fever is that deep warm feeling, when your heart’s racing as you grab hold of that vixen with whom you’ve waited all week to do the shimmy in the sheets. At least that’s my take on the subtext. In regards to the cover once again; tension builds with each verse. The lyrics pull you along, with the help of that soulful bass, until release! As she exclaims “fever!” and it starts all over again, providing multiple releases in only a few minutes, if only.

If you couldn’t tell, I am a huge fan of the latest cover by miss Beyonce. I think this really captured the entire feel of what LWJ was describing in his original version. Combining all the changes made from the original song, along with the golden voice that is Beyonce, the song gains the hot and sexy vibe it needs, as previously described with the shimmy, and the sheets.

Soundscape!

Change This: Find Your Howl

Click on this title to view the previously mentioned article.

"He Was On Fire Now, And He Was Howling"

A red wolf named Mumon, kept in captivity and living a life of orderly routine with the rest of his pack, is released back in to the wild. As the rest of the pack begins to live in fear, with their lack of survival instincts and true will to live, Mumon feels lacking of something, his howl. Refusing to live in fear and empty hope of returning to his life of captivity, Mumon sets out to find his howl. On his journey, Mumon encounters a deer that he immediately pursues. The deer asks Mumon before it is killed, how he knew to hunt, for the deer was far greater in size. Mumon states “I did not think. I simply know such things. I cannot say why.” After he spilled the deer’s blood he feels a certain shame. Mumon then encounters a raven, picking at the bones of the carcass that explains that he must not feel shame for doing what he needed to push forward. He then feels the energy of the deer within him and begins to run. After weeks without ceasing, he feels all the years of captivity begin to fall away. Mumon then encounters a farmer with a rifle, and without thinking engulfs the shell, falling down dead. He continues to fall deep in to the fires of the Earth, filled with chanting and drums. Mumon then embraces the fire, and begins to howl.

            By the end of the story Mumon has literally caught on fire, and has finaly began to howl. Flaum uses this story as a metaphor for the extremely difficult path all of us are on, to find who we truly are. Having to eventually “pass through fire,” or “die” to really reach that pinnacle. Flaum expresses that we cannot just hope for the best while we dodge around challenges in front of us, but to face them, and learn from them, even if they hurt like shit.  A person will only know their true potential once they’ve stared failure in the face.

A brief audio commentary is provided by clicking on the post title.

Mitch Ditkoff: "14 Ways to get Breakthrough Ideas"

Due to a lack of inspiration on a particular project of my own, I found “14 Ways to Get Breakthrough Ideas,” an article by Mitch Ditkoff, to give a lot of great solutions to a creative road block. He even provides some prompting questions to give a little nudge in the right direction for each approach. I think many of these ideas are used by people everyday, just not quite to extent needed to really latch on to any breakthroughs. From some being pretty complex, like tapping in to that slippery subconscious of ours, to simply taking a break to open up the mind a bit; Ditkoff breaks down some ways to grab a hold of those fleeting, shower time, day dreaming ideas. I thought all the suggestions could greatly help with the whole idea creation process, but here are a few examples that were mentioned, on which I elaborated, that I personally use.

 Listen To Your Subconscious (#7)

Most of our great breakthrough ideas come when we least expect them, but the problem is that we don’t listen to them. The trick is to be ready to record your ideas at any time. I try to do this by carrying a little pocket notebook in my jacket, so I can write down any fleeting thoughts that come to mind. Usually those fleeters turn out to that missing piece to the 1000 piece puzzle that was bugging me. Also, Ditkoff did not mention this, but because dreams are strongly influenced by the subconscious, keeping a notebook next to your bed to jot down dreams can help out a lot. On the same note, dreams usually stretch the boundaries of reality a little more than our conscious thought process, so they could provide some pretty wild ideas.

Hang Out With Diverse Groups Of People(#10)

This is one approach that could be a little difficult, but effective. My current project, being a screenplay, needs to have the diversity within the characters of the story, which it was lacking in the first draft. Being around people, regardless of whether or not you agree or disagree on certain ideas, can provide you with different outlooks on any number of issues, and lead you in a direction you wouldn’t have stumbled upon on your own. Specifically for my project, the characters lacked personality, all speaking the same, just talking to move the story along. By surrounding myself with different people every once in a while, I gathered prototypes I suppose, or blueprints for different the personalities of each character.

Suspend Logic(#14)

I really enjoyed this one, but I tend to do it more than I probably should. Ditkoff mentions how, as adults, we are constantly abating our innate creative state of mind in saying, “kids live in this place.” Though you’ll get the stink eye or the occasional finger-point, but doing things that don’t particularly fall in to the logical realm can be quite liberating, no matter how simple. One thing I like to do is to climb trees. If I see a real gangly monster from The Lord of the Rings on my way to class, I’ll swing by afterwards to conquer it. It might not be the most important thing on my agenda, but it lets me get away for a bit and not think about work, class, papers, or my history mid-term tomorrow morning.  Ditkoff also said that this is why we go to the movies; in search of an altered state of mind, away from our normal everyday occurrences. One of my biggest pet peeves is when that beefcake in the front row of the theater yells, “yeah right!” when the person on screen does a back flip from one moving car to the next, then kicks the driver out the passenger door. If both cars stopped and had a nice conversation about their rough childhoods, and apologized for the whole misunderstanding, it would be boring, and no one would go see the movie.

            This next approach, for which I completed the prompt, I found very interesting. Ditkoff explains how a lot of people struggle with finding the answer to the wrong questions instead of asking the right ones.

Define the Right Challenge(#6)

State your most inspired challenge or opportunity as a question beginning with the words “How can I?”

            How can I expand on a screenplay with a flat storyline and characters?”

Then write it five different ways.

1)   How can I give the characters more depth and personality?

2)   How can I make the dialogue more provocative and realistic?

3)   How can I make the story and characters relatable to the audience?

4)   How can I get more ideas for powerful scenes in which the plot-line is thickened?

5)   How can I relieve the story of certain details that may drag it down?

Which is the real question?

            I think the first question really gets to the core of my current problem. If I add more realistic personality traits to the characters, I believe more ideas and events will come more naturally. Also, by adding to the characters personality, while also keeping them diverse in their traits, the audience will be more likely to engage themselves to the story. 

The following link will take to this particular article.14 Ways 

Music Behind The Movies

Find more artists like Thomas Newman [Artist] at Myspace Music

When I study, write, or simply sit and let my mind to take a walk; I listen the wordless poignance of film scores. Many people listen to Bach or Mozart while cooking their brain soup,  but for me it's not enough. Granted, I will stumble upon a quality piano solo, or violin quartet on Pandora, but film scores contain a certain emotion they want to evoke in the audience, an emotion they want you to feel and react to for that specific part of the film. For me, when I mix an intense piece like "Molossus," from The Dark Knight; with a calmer piece like " The Inside Out,” from Cinderella Man, it stirs thoughts around in my mind up. I think a film can afford to be slightly shitty, as long as the score makes up for what the visuals cannot do. Some of my favorite films have caught my interest and kept hold simply because I could feel the film to a much higher degree thanks to a well-made score. So, when I am writing I will listen to a score or collection of songs that act as a satellite; relaying an emotion from their particular film to my mind. This emotion then pin-balls around my mind until finally splashing in to my writing. (I provided the two previously mentioned examples  in the top right gadget.)

Dialogue: Nobody Talks Like That

As a fan of screenplay -writing, I tend to find inspiration in intelligent, fast paced-dialogue. When I hear people conversing, using witty phrases or atypical and peculiar references, it gets mind thinking outside the square.  This particular clip depicts my interest in dialogue and happens to be from my favorite film, Lucky Number Slevin. This film gets a lot of ridicule due to its bizarre dialogue, saying that it doesn’t really allow you to connect with any of the characters because no one really talks the way they do. Honestly, I wish people did talk like that, it would be more fun, and those awkward little conversations you have on the street with people you could really live without talking to for two minutes, might be worth it. This film also feeds you a story from the main character Slevin Kelevra, providing a pretty easily followed text, but we soon find Slevin to be  quite the unreliable narrator, revealing a certain subtext by the en; but I don’t want to toss out another spoiler.

Chris Nolan: Tension and Release

I think my strongest creative inspiration would be film director, Christopher Nolan; who has directed films such as Memento, The Prestige, and Batman Begins. His two latest works, The Dark Knight, and Inception, really sent my mind to another place though. With Inception, the atmosphere and world that Nolan created took the audience to a place they had never been before, which is no easy task. I believe I share this particular aspiration with Nolan. Being in video production and minoring in film, I want to create a completely original idea, or character, that will take my audience to a place they have never been or introduce them to a character they’ve never met. Nolan is a master of tension and release, as well. He knows exactly how to grab the audience and shake them until they can’t stand it, then brings them screeching back to reality. This particular link I have posted is the final scene of Inception, (spoiler alert). This particular scene provides a release both for the intense action sequence that precedes it, and for the entire film. Accompanied by a poignant score by my  favorite composer, Hans Zimmer; it really embodies the entire drive of the film. I would show the entire scene, but it is rather long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UR0J8cNrxc