Monday, 23 May 2011

Radio

I was 14 and I'd lay on my bed with my eyes and ears as close to the speakers as I could get. And I'd have the cassette ready on 'record' and 'pause', all I had to do was click pause to begin recording.

Back then it was no career path, I wasn't a blogger ranting about art or a filmmaker desperate to capture life in a jar: I was just a kid by the radio.

And within a split second of a song starting I knew if I should be recording or not. I wanted to record everything that was great. I probably taped hundreds of hours of radio.

It wasn't crystal clear digital then, the music sounded like it was from somewhere far away (literally, I had interference that sounded like aliens). But at the same time it was right there in my room.

When you lay there in the dark, at fourteen, hearing Sam Cooke for the first time, and remembering the names of every Beatles track they play; you can't help but have it shape who you are.

The music was so authentic.

I didn't know what I was doing. There was no set task, no job to win. I just recorded anything I loved. And I loved so much of it. And this was in the days when DJ's who actually decided what to play were dying out, the last few remained.

Without doubt, a good DJ is an artist. Even deciding what track follows "What's Going On", that's an art. Not many get it right.

Night after night, I was a kid who loved to hear the voices of the world. I loved music that described how I felt. And that was enough, just to be there, engaged in the night and the music beamed across invisible radio waves.

A few nights back I listened to "Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay" at 2am. And tonight it's "Vincent (Starry Starry Night)" and wow, they don't make them like this any more, they don't even try.

Music in headphones whilst heading to work is just a distraction, or an energy boost, but there's something deeper on offer. The history of music is filled with tracks that will change how you see the world. They'll make you understand yourself and the people you love better.

Radio is something else now. It doesn't mean anything. But the music lives on. Find it, listen to it, and get those cassettes ready.

Care to share?

Sunday, 22 May 2011

Art Not Bullshit

Charlie Chaplin was so good it was impossible he wouldn't make it. He'd seen people on stage practically from birth, and he was on stage himself from the age of five.

Tupac was such a powerhouse of ideas and anger and poetry that he was never going to be anything apart from the greatest rapper of all time.

Steve Martin was funny but he couldn't make the whole room laugh. He did comedy gigs in empty clubs for eight years before he broke. It took him that long, night after night, to figure out what he was doing. Woody Allen has the same story, his manager's sent him out to clubs every night in New York and he'd bomb. The audience didn't get the jokes and Woody thought he was a failure.

Steve Martin became the biggest stand up comedian ever and Woody Allen changed cinema.

We can be bystanders and critics, but we won't be artists. If you want to be one of them you have to be sweating it on stage every night. You've got to be drawing storyboards when you're in bed with flu.

I interviewed Scott Rosenberg on here a few years back and he said it takes fifteen scripts to get good. How many have you written? Maybe you've written thirty-four and they all suck. But you're still writing, good.

Needless sequels, glorified violence, pop stars with their breasts hanging out-- these things bring people and projects attention immediately. But it disintegrates. They might get noticed and make heaps of money for a brief time, but nothing else lasts. You won't be showing these films to your soulmate or playing their songs at your funeral.

So I'm going to assume if you're a creative person reading this here, you're interested in the art, not the bullshit.

Art takes time. Talent takes time. You just have to keep working. The films you acted in five years ago showed some promise but were mostly awful. The screenplay's you wrote were all over the place.

Even bloggers will feel this. The more we write, the better we get. My first ever article was some generic bullshit about how music is important in movies. It meant nothing, no-one was reading. But I'm getting better at figuring out who I am and what I love about movies. Sure, some posts suck, but that's creativity. We take the risk. The point is, post-for-post, I nail it more often than I did two years ago. Why? Because rather than sleep, I stay up writing blog posts. It's 2am and I have to be up in five hours.

I'm fine with that.

It takes time and discipline. I like how Will Smith put it. He says he'll die on the treadmill, no way is he getting off. He works at it. No wonder he's a millionaire movie star and producer with a beautiful wife and talented kids.. he shows up for work. He could have been remembered as that kid on that Bel Air show, but he's so much more, because he's dedicated to learning and practicing and hustling and trying.

There are no shortcuts. The myths make it sound like Spielberg woke up one day and directed 'Jaws', but the truth is he dedicated all his time, from childhood onwards, to believing in his mad visions, and demanding his Dad get his friends to let him film scenes in the cockpits of their planes.

Don't wait around to be discovered by an agent or producer or magazine, just keep doing the work. You're not powerless. Even if they're not hiring you, not financing you, not liking your sound.

It means you keep working at it. Because Spielberg was just too determined, and Tupac was just too revolutionary, and Chaplin was just too funny. I'm not saying we can be as successful as them-- because they are once in a lifetime geniuses, but we can learn a lot from their work ethic, from their perserverance. They had rejection and self-doubt just like me and you. But the work always came first. No time for excuses.

Nothing can replace experience. We get better.

Care to share?

DVD CHALLENGE: The Films We Avoid

We all have them. DVD's we buy or borrow, then take six years to watch because we're just not interested. Our reasons are usually ignorant and stupid, but they keep us away from watching.

This week I will be battling past my presumptions and watching the films I've been hiding from. I challenge you to do the same and tell us all about it.


Below are the films I've been avoiding, along with my ignorant assumptions:


Gandhi

Ignorant Assumptions: It's three hours long and is going to be boring and preachy!! I am going to struggle to get taken in by it.. although paradoxically I believe it may be my favourite film ever once I watch it.



The Grapes Of Wrath

Ignorant Assumptions: It's going to be old and slow and boring and simple.


Kung Fu Hustle

Ignorant Assumptions:
It's a pile of bullshit.



39th Battalion

Ignorant Assumptions: This film was recommended to me. But my assumption is its going to look cheaply made and have a terrible story.


Casino

Ignorant Assumptions: That it'll be too long and 'cool' and it won't hold my interest.


Slacker

Ignorant Assumptions: Now that its been copied and inspired so many others, it'll be hard to see its magic. It'll just be twentysomething white people talking about dating and weed and I'll get so bored i'll give up film viewing forever.


Ice Cold In Alex

Ignorant Assumptions: Will be too British. Unrealistic and lame, and I'll feel guilty for thinking a supposed masterpiece is boring and silly.


So that's me... Will you be fighting the resistance and watch the films you've been resisting? What are your ignorant assumptions?

Care to share?

Friday, 20 May 2011

Nothing To Live For: Say What You Need To Say

It's 2.43am, Saturday morning, and I'm listening to 'Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay' by Otis Redding. And I'm thinking - how the fuck did he do this? Why is it SO perfect? Is it his voice? Is it the guy who co-wrote the song? Is it a fluke?

Film Director's tell people the one they're currently filming will be their best ever, and they mean it. But you never know. There's a scene in one of my films that makes me cringe, because me and the actor fucked it up. But no-one notices, they love the scene. Meanwhile other scenes I think I got close to perfect, and they mean nothing to people.

When you create a body of work, you look back to some pieces with affection, and some make you cringe. But when you're creating them, you never know.

Why is the Otis Redding song so good? And why does Elton John's "Your Song" resonate with EVERYBODY? Elton wrote the music for that track in thirty minutes. People spend five years writing crap.

I guess the only thing to do is create.

The rest is out of our control.Anne Frank didn't realise the context her diary would be in. Otis didn't plan to represent an era, and Elton didn't know It'd still be a concert favourite all those years later. 

Some pieces of art are just heartbreakingly perfect. Make your best friend put down the Blackberry and watch "The Apartment", get the DJ at the party to play "Build Me Up Buttercup", and lay down in your bed when the world is sleeping and listen to "Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay".

Most of what we make is drivel. Our best attempts make everyone snore. But something else is possible.

If we just create.

Anne Frank knew her time was up. So did Warren Zevon. So did Tupac. And in a different way, so do Woody Allen and Clint Eastwood. Maybe being reminded of what lurks around the corner gives us the drive we need.

Otis died at TWENTY SIX. Fuck. Maybe he knew too.

"Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay" wasn't even released yet. Otis didn't get to see the impact he'd have on the world. I mean, some guy is writing about him at 3am on a Friday, 44 years later, that's pretty special.

Anne Frank's diary is still a big seller. The world needed it. The world needs it. And Tupac still has hit records, people need the message.

Art truly lives forever.

This stuff is so important that I want to wake everyone up and scream it at them.

Simplicity is best. Be truthful. Anne said "I'm Jewish and I'm trapped." Tupac said "I'm black and we're being mistreated and we're mistreating ourselves." Elton said "This is your song," and Otis said "This loneliness won't leave me alone."

Think about that for a minute. Saying "I'm trapped because of who I am" is hard, even in a modern, non life-threatening situation. And when you say "This song is for you," you're vulnerable like crazy. And nobody ever admits "this loneliness won't leave me alone".

They dared to make their art about who they were as human beings. The things we struggle to say.

Come to think of it, when Elton made that masterpiece, he was trapped too. Wow, that's a 3.15am revelation if ever there was one. "I'm trapped because of who I am" precisely explains a huge part of Elton John's life back then. It's not just a love song, it's him singing a song that society didn't want him singing to the person he loved.

We can't obstruct ourselves or rule anything out if we want to make great art. We have to lay it all out on the table -- show people who we really are.

It's not a masterpiece, but I'm now listening to a John Mayer song now. The lyrics are fitting:

"You'd better know that in the end,
It's better to say too much,
Than never to say what you need to say again.

Even if your hands are shaking,
And your faith is broken,
Even as the eyes are closing,
Do it with a heart wide open.
Say what you need to say."

SAY WHAT YOU NEED TO SAY. You might die at 26. Leave a legacy. Don't guess at what a legacy is, or what's cool. Just create.

Care to share?

Thursday, 19 May 2011

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

I want to find an island somewhere, where the creative people can go. Where dreaming is a way of life and a writer can spend three years, if inclined, just to find the perfect word.

It's a place where no-one is interrupted. Where the lingering creative idea gets to be fully dreamed up and held onto, without being stopped by the phone ringing, or person shouting or appliance breaking.

There are no egos in this land. Nobody is marketing themselves or selling their work, they're just creating. They're turning up and working. Some people hide in the mountains for days, others pace up and down in the sand, looking for a clue that will lead to the perfect sentence or insight or twist.

And the work is enough. They can have the red carpets and press conferences back on the mainland, but here everyone is too busy working on something new.

And if you think you need a five mile walk in order to think of an idea, you can do it. If you need to sit in a group and meditate for five days in order to truly get into the head of your character, you can. No-one will judge you here, because everyone knows you're working. Working on what's really important. The dreaming life. The fantasies. The problems in your head that trouble you. On the mainland they deal with them by medicating, and sleeping with the secretary, here on the island we delve deeply into who we are as humans, and we take as long as we need to figure out whatever it is we need in order to tell our stories.

And everyone is there for you, and everyone is listening. Because they're all dreamers and writers and rock stars. And life will take on new meaning because we took the time to get down to what it's really all about.

I want to find an island somewhere.

Care to share?