Knowledge V Flashcards
“Man should not consider his material possessions as his own, but as common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when others are in need”
Thomas Aquinas
“The strategic adversary is fascism… the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.”
Foucault
Neil Degrasse Tyson on quantum physics
The most bizarre of all branches of physics, quantum physics (sometimes
called quantum mechanics) is a collection of rules of conduct for all matter
and energy in the universe, with properties that manifest primarily on the smallest of scales (molecules,
atoms, and subatomic particles). Quantum research includes work by Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, and
several European scientists working in the 1920s and ’30s: It addresses
measurement, uncertainty, causality, the life of a cat (don’t ask), and, perhaps, multiple universes. Even
though people like Caltech legend Richard Feynman have written and spoken accessibly on the subject,
nonscientists are likely to find quantum theory tough sledding (even if completely intriguing). Michael
Frayn’s acclaimed play Copenhagen, set around a 1941 wartime meeting
between Bohr and Heisenberg in the
Danish city, helps humanize the issues a little
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
Nietzsche
Advertising -Share the Chief Marketing Officer’s Foxhole
What’s good for your CMO is good for you. You need to understand his or her problems so that you can empathize with what has to happen to solve those problems (which is what you were hired for). CMOs want to be surrounded by people they trust who are working to make their lives easier, and he or she can be an ally when new problems arise. Life is just easier when you and the person who hired you are on the same page.
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
Plato
Neil Degrasse Tyson - express yourself
Neil performed with three different dance troupes in college and graduate school, which helped him develop a sense of physicality and body awareness that he continues to use on stage as a communicator.
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
Aristotle
Advertising -
- MAKE SURE IT’S NOT ACTUALLY CRAZY
If you feel like the idea is crazy and you’re the one who came up with it, chances are
the client will definitely feel like it’s crazy, too. One way to counteract this would be to prove the idea won’t be a flop. Sometimes the proof comes from research and data, but it can also come from a persuasive pitch. When Jeff and Rich talked about their pitching process for “got milk?,” they told the story of how they filmed the real reactions of people searching for milk. They turned what was an unconventional or “crazy” idea into an undiscovered nugget of truth. Suddenly the crazy idea was just an idea that no
one had thought of yet.
- BRING IT TO LIFE
Part of taking the “crazy” out of your crazy idea is taking the mystery out of the execution. Jeff and Rich talk about creating videos that aren’t designed to replicate what the commercial might be but are rather meant to illuminate the mood and tone of the concept. The goal is to convey as much of what you believe in about the idea as possible using whatever tools are available to do so. The idea you sell is rarely the idea that gets made, so you can present most anything, as long as it communicates what you love about the idea. Rich points out that music can be a massive part of selling an idea, as can clips from famous films, memes, and relatable imagery. Don’t tell the
brand how to feel. Create something that shows them how to feel. - READ THE ROOM BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER THE PITCH
Sometimes pitches are won or lost based on nothing other than likability—aka whether the client likes you. It’s your job to be as likable as possible so that your idea has the best chance of survival. This doesn’t mean that you have to sacrifice your own authenticity in favor of contrived conversation and presentation, but it does mean that you need to be sensitive to the client’s habits and behaviors. How you dress for a meeting in Chicago might look very different from how you dress for a meeting in Los Angeles, and the more you understand the subtle culture of the company you’re pitching and
the city it calls home, the better chance you’ll have at forming a sincere relationship with the company and, ultimately, win the job.
“Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.”
Montaigne
“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”
Seneca
“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”
Descartes
Freedom and Capitalism
NAFTA was a disaster for mexico. 2 million farmers left their farms and went to city as crops got much cheaper. It helped to create conditions that produced drug cartels.
Freedom in war only applies to corporations freedom to exploit native lands and people. Democracy is only permissible if it doesn’t interfere with big business interest. Business is a cancer that grows uncontrollable and destroys.
“I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of the peace.”
Rousseau
“The measure of a man is what he does with power.”
Plato
Advertising - NIKE, “NIKE SB”
Nike has famously been with Wieden & Kennedy for most of the
brand’s lifetime, but there was a time when Jeff and Rich did some
work for the company’s skateboarding brand. Nike had to tread
lightly in the skateboarding world so that skaters didn’t feel like a
brand was overriding the rebellious nature of the sport. Nike had
to prove that it not only made high quality skate shoes but that it
deeply understood the world of skateboarding.
THE INSIGHT
Skating might be an Olympic sport now, but it wasn’t always so highly respected across athletic communities. But the fact of the matter is that skaters spend as much time practicing and
perfecting the nuances of their sport as other athletes do. So why, then, do we treat skaters different from any other athlete?
THE IDEA
What if every athlete were treated the way skateboarders are treated?
THE EXECUTION
A series of surreal commercials starred athletes, including runners, golfers, and tennis players, who were treated like delinquents for practicing their sport (as skaters often are). In one of the most
pointed 30-second commercials, tennis players on a tennis court are approached by a cop as the camera pans to a number of “No Tennis” signs posted at the
very place tennis is meant to be played. In another, a cop gives a ticket to two runners out for a jog.
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
Seneca
“I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.”
Camus
“To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man.”
Aristotle
“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.
Marx
Martin Scorsese
Martin believes a director should know what it is like to hit your mark, interact with another actor, and get a sense of how one
walks across a room when being filmed. He has appeared in many of his own films, including Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy (1982), and he has acted in other people’s films, including Quiz Show (1994) by Robert Redford and The Muse (1999) by Albert Brooks, and he has played himself on the Larry David series Curb
Your Enthusiasm. Becoming familiar with the self-consciousness that comes from being in front of the camera will serve you well in your directorial pursuits.
Whenever possible, a director should
try acting in another director’s film, even if that means playing themselves. Learning to be directed by other people will offer you new techniques and a better understanding of how actors think
and respond.
One important role you will take on as director is orienting your actors, because you will likely be shooting out of sequence. Actors will look to you to tell them where they are in the story and where they are emotionally. One method Martin has adopted is to tell the actors to try anything, giving them the space to fail. Allow the actors to explore their instincts, especially in the rehearsal period, and then shape their performances from there.
Ultimately, you work with the performances you get. You may
want one thing and wind up with another. Sometimes you feel something is dreadfully wrong, but later—when you see it in the context of a cut—you realize it might work. There are things
Martin immediately knows won’t work but he shoots them anyway. His advice is to just shoot them because it’s part of the
process for the actors.
Martin has learned from experience that telling an actor he or she can’t do something often throws them
off. Remember, by the time you finish debating whether you’ll shoot something or not, you could’ve already shot it. Decide later on whether to use it or not.
“If money is the bond binding me to human life, binding society to me, connecting me with nature and man, is not money the bond of all bonds? Can it not dissolve and bind all ties? Is it not, therefore, also the universal agent of separation?”
Marx
The Real
The real cannot really be captured in language. That’s Leads people people to experience through religion
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
The heart/mind is pure spirit compacted into thoughts and feelings.
Tantra
Earthseed is adulthood, leaving our mother , testing our wings. Becoming men and women. Its both sweet and sad. It terrorizes, it empowers. We are men and women now. We our earthseed and the destiny is to take root among the stars.
Parable of the talents - if you buy you talents…. (parable of the talents)
Advertising - Plan Everything Down to the Second
Jeff diagrams his 30-second and 60-second commercials, a habit he picked up from his mentor, Hal Riney. As Jeff says, Riney had impeccable timing when it came to writing commercials. Part of this had to do with his methodology of creating a diagram that shows exactly where dialogue and action will be, how long each individual moment will last, and, ultimately, how the story arc will deliver on the brand message in the perfect time.
Preparation is crucial, and keeping things compelling in their most minimal form will really help the director, producer, editor, and creatives understand how the end product should ultimately feel.
“Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.”
Aristotle
“But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.”
Marx
“Love is a serious mental disease.”
Plato
“I rebel; therefore I exist.”
Camus
“To know what life is worth you have to risk it once in a while.”
Satre
“To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.”
St. Augustine
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
Marx
Martin Scorsese - annotation pass
Try doing a second annotation pass, but this time writing your comments, ideas, and notes down as if they were being
delivered to the screenwriter and producer. This will be good
practice for communicating your vision when you begin to enlist others in the process of making your short.
“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
Marcus Aurelius
Advertising - Refining Brand Perception by Creating a New Narrative
In the same way that people experience personality shifts over the course of their lives, company brands also go through phases of personality. As the world changes and people decide what they do or do not want from that brand, it’s important for the company to adjust its messaging. On a philosophical level, that’s the whole point of advertising: knowing how and when to change the public perception of a brand by reestablishing the brand’s value systems.
One way to do this is through heritage, which can be valuable or disadvantageous for a company. Jeff and Rich talk about how the “got milk?” campaign was partly aboutditching milk’s most popular selling point—its health benefits—because it was no longer an effective part of the brand message. As new health crazes started entering the culture, the simple message that “it’s healthy” felt dated, which is why the “got milk?” campaign pursued new avenues rather than relying on old ideas.
“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”
Camus
“If you don’t get physically ill seeing your first assembly or rough cut, something’s wrong. You always think, by the way, you’re not gonna get physically ill, but you do.” —Martin Scorsese
As you have learned, Martin envisions a great deal of the editing of any film on paper in drawings, and Thelma Schoonmaker, his trusted editor, knows how to translate those
original ideas and concepts into edited sequences. She is also able to decipher the feedback Martin’s films receive from
advance screenings and won’t argue with Martin about what feedback to listen to and what to disregard. Her loyalties lie with Martin and his vision, and Martin values her like-mindedness.
You will always have to kill some of your darlings, as Martin learned when making After Hours.
While there were many funny
scenes, Martin realized that much of the humor was lost because the film was so long. Though cutting some of his favorite
scenes was painful, it improved the movie and made it funnier.
The experience taught Martin about script construction—he began shooting without a satisfactory ending—and that the
length of scenes might feel vastly different on paper than on screen.
Once the first cut is done, Martin screens the film for himself and
a few trusted members of his team
Budgeting for a short
• Start thinking about how much money you are comfortable
spending to make your short film. Once you have a number in
mind, answer the questions below:
• How many actors does your short require?
• How much are you able to pay them? (If you’re working
with amateur actors or friends and family, you might
be able to get them to work for free, especially if you
feed them.)
• How many crew members do you anticipate using,
and what are you willing to pay them? (Again if you’re
working with friends or family, you may not need to
pay them, especially if you are willing to help them on
their own projects.)
• What and how many times a day will you feed your
actors and crew? (This will, of course, depend on how
many hours you plan to shoot each day.)
• Does your short film require costumes for actors?
• Does your film require any specific props or production
design elements?
• Do you need any equipment? (Ideally your low-budget
film is shot with a camera you already own or with
your smartphone, but you might require extra
equipment like an external microphone or lighting
gear. To the best of your ability, take into account the
things you’d need to buy for production.)
• Where will you be shooting? Lay out a complete list of
locations at which you hope to shoot. (If you’re
planning on shooting in a public location for your
short, keep in mind that there may be costs related to
location fees and permits. Even if you’re able to film for
free in a given location, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able
to prevent outside people from walking through your
shot or talking over your actors. If you’re set on using a
specific location, look into any associated fees and add
that to your calculations.)
• Finally, total the amount you’ve calculated so far and
compare it to the number you came up with before
going through this list of questions. If the cost is too
high, start paring it down, item by item, until you’ve
reached a number that is affordable or reasonable for
you. This process might seem difficult, overwhelming,
or even impossible, but remember, Martin started with
no outside funding and minimal help.
“What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something which is related only to objects and not to individuals, or to life. That art is something which is specialized or which is done by experts who are artists. But couldn’t everyone’s life become a work of art? Why should the lamp or the house be an art object, but not our life?”
Foucault
“The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had some one pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: “Do not listen to this impostor. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!”
Rousseau
“Excellence” is not a gift, but a skill that takes practice.
Plato
Everyone even the very rich needs a purpose (earthseed) find people and connect them. Adopt people into organization to fulfill the destiny. Get powerful friends and friends who are willing to be versatile.
earthseed
“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of past centuries.”
Descartes
And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.”
Camus
All knowledge is just a craving for Devine knowledge in tantra. A craving for fullness.
Tantra
“Doubt is the origin of wisdom”
Descartes
Neil Degrasse Tyson on the power of the written word
Language and writing are hugely important to Neil, partly because he uses his
books and essays to work out ideas he’ll use elsewhere. “Ninety percent of the sentences that come out of my mouth [are ones that] I have previously written down,” he says.
Writing allows you to organize and rework ideas, to play with structure in a
way that spoken language doesn’t.
If you’re unfamiliar with the practice of
writing, start by creating a habit you can stick to. Maybe that means keeping
a daily journal in which you jot down your personal observations of the
world; maybe it means starting a blog where you can practice the actual craft
of writing (syntax, grammar, word choice). However you pursue the written
word, keep at it—writing will only serve you well when speaking.
“Once you label me you negate me.”
Kierkegaard
“Capitalism: Teach a man to fish, but the fish he catches aren’t his. They belong to the person paying him to fish, and if he’s lucky, he might get paid enough to buy a few fish for himself.”
Marx
“Beware the man of a single book.”
Thomas Aquinas
“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.”
Seneca
Advertising - Creative Direction: Attention, Deduction, and Empathy
Honing your craft as a creative director means taking all of your observations of design, language, and the world around you and using them to understand and take care of people you work with. Because of this, the craft of creative direction is hard to develop (and, honestly, even harder to explain). Just as great writers become great by reading voraciously, great creative directors become great by studying their contemporaries.
The more you learn about the field, the better equipped you’ll be to live it out.
That being said, creative direction isn’t a skill that can be entirely taught. The role is
an amalgam of many skills, including leadership and management: The best creative directors listen to people, interpret their behavior, then help them progress in their creative careers.
Your biggest concern should be empowering the creative you’re
leading to do the work by himself or herself. Good creative directors know what has and has not worked on previous projects, but they also recognize that all projects present unique issues.
Like most facets of advertising, creative direction is about communicating with other people in the way you would like to be communicated with.
As a creative director, youshould talk to a junior- or mid-level copywriter in the way that you would have wanted to be spoken to at that point in your career. Try to remember what you didn’t know and how you eventually learned, then help creatives get to that point on their own by
mentoring them.
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
Plato
“I always find that the use of sound in some of the films that had very low-budgets was interesting. Because they had no choice but to use certain sounds or to use it imaginatively...to suggest things.” —Martin Scorsese
Sound design has to come from one vision—yours. You can
combine your vision with those working in concert with you to
achieve it, but you must stand by what you want as a director.
Sometimes simple sound design is best. Martin contends that
though choices in sound design have multiplied because of
technological advances, this doesn’t mean you should use every
sound effect possible.
In fact, Martin prefers to go into the mixing
room with the express objective of stripping sounds away instead
of adding them.
Some sound designers, enamored of the many tools at their
disposal, add layers of effects that sound good but get in
the way of the storytelling. In the pre-digital era, Martin was
often warned against making the sound too loud and thus
pushing it into the “red” (i.e. past the threshhold of distortion).
At such times, Martin has had to insist on his own instincts and
impulses: while he has known that the designers and mixers are
technically correct, he has insisted on pushing the sound as far as
it will go before it distorts.
Creating mood and atmosphere should be a main goal of your
sound design.
Martin received criticism from the sound
technicians about the quality of Taxi Driver’s dialogue tracks
because they contained city noise—sirens, horns, people
screaming in the streets. However, this effect was precisely what
Martin wanted: the sounds under and around the dialogue were
part of the character of the film.
Martin and his sound editor on Raging Bull, Frank Warner, got
imaginative with sound design. Warner used a variety of sounds—
elephant trumpets and wild animal sounds, for example—to mix
into the punches in the ring.
“When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character.
Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms, and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.
Marx
“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.”
Plato
“Civilization is a hopeless race to discover remedies for the evils it produces.”
Rousseau
“We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.”
Locke
We need cultural evolution. We need to evolve purposely.
We need cultural evolution. We need to evolve purposely.
“Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.”
Nietzsche
“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”
Kierkegaard
“Grant me, O Lord my God, a mind to know you, a heart to seek you, wisdom to find you, conduct pleasing to you, faithful perseverance in waiting for you, and a hope of finally embracing you. Amen.”
Thomas Aquinas
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
Marcus Aurelius
God is a Designer
God is a Designer
Pitching the Whole Package
When you’re pitching for new business, you aren’t just pitching ideas. You’re pitching a long-term relationship. Because of this, a big part of the pitching experience is taking a look in the mirror and deciding how you and your agency want to be perceived throughout the course of the pitch.
Every agency has its own personality and its own message for what it is and how it wants to function. You don’t always have the chance to focus on this part of the business, so when these big pitches come up, you suddenly get to consider your own brand perception and whether that will work for the business
you are trying to get.
“So that, in effect, religion, which should most distinguish us from beasts, and ought most peculiarly to elevate us, as rational creatures, above brutes, is that wherein men often appear most irrational, and more senseless than beasts themselves.”
Locke
“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
Camus
Martin Scorsese - a process of discovery
Working with a script is a process of discovery. Martin reads the draft and reacts to it in terms of what he sees in his mind, working with the writer to build on or alter anything that sparks an image or idea.
The next draft sparks something else and so on and so on. This discovery process is particularly true of documentary films in which the script, such as it is, is truly just
the beginning, especially if one doesn’t have a visual, structural concept already in place.
Advertising -Start With the Ending
In order to make the road map for a compelling commercial, you need to know where
you’re ultimately going to end up. Jeff and Rich suggest starting with the ending so that
you know what the commercial’s payoff will be. Then you can build everything around
delivering on that payoff. You have a finite amount of time, which means that the
development of the narrative is entirely built to serve the conclusion
Martin Scorsese - “You rewrite it, and you rewrite it again, and you rewrite it again, and then you rewrite it sometimes in the final mix.” —Martin Scorsese
Martin’s scripts continue to evolve in the rehearsal process, as was the case during the making of The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). The goal was to find truth for the characters, so that if something
developed that diverged from the script, the actors would know how to adapt and remain in character. However, at a certain point, Martin had to grab the reins and tell the actors to save it for the
cameras.
Even with strongly scripted projects, there is always room to open up scenes, as illustrated in the famous mirror scene in Taxi Driver.
The production was over schedule, so filming these moments in
front of the mirror was tense. The script instructed Travis, played by Robert De Niro, to practice with guns and devices in front of the mirror, but it didn’t include any dialogue. Martin wanted Travis to say something, but didn’t have specific direction to give De Niro, so what you see on screen is De Niro finding the
character in the moment. These scenes were shot within two hours, pushing against the end of the day.
“If you find that you made a film that you feel strongly about...you get as truthful as possible in it, there might be an audience out there for it. Now, you gotta go out and present it to an audience.” —Martin Scorsese
Martin encourages you to take an active role in your film’s promotion. When Martin made his first films, he did his best to promote them himself, doing interviews and a few television appearances. Once his films were picked up for distribution, their promotional campaigns were designed by others.
Strong images and an open mindset are essential to film promotion. Several posters were designed for Taxi Driver, but the one that most effectively sold the film featured a simple still from
the movie—a shot of Robert De Niro walking up Eighth Avenue.
The poster’s text reads, “On every street in every city of this country there’s a nobody who dreams of being somebody. He’s a lonely forgotten man desperate to prove that he’s alive.” Martin
had no idea that this would be the poster that would really sell
the film.
“Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.”
Camus
Advertising -
Even Rich finds it tough to explain how a designer might hone his or her craft. It’s
complicated because, as he says, the best thing you can do is look at the world around you and observe how good things are already designed.
But what exactly is “good design?” Well, first of all, that’s subjective. But if there was one word to sum up Rich’s take on what makes for good design skills, or at least refined design craft, it would be informed. That doesn’t mean your only skill should be making typefaces, concert posters, and billboard ads look nice with the Adobe Suite. While it’s important to know how to do those things in the same way that it’s important for a writer to have a handle on grammar, what Jeff means when he says you need to be “informed” is that you should be able to recognize and understand how visual cues and representation are used to explain something’s identity.
Everything in the world was designed to look the way it looks, whether it was for
tactical reasons, creative reasons, or, in many cases, neither. When Rich says “design is everything,” he isn’t only trying to pitch his craft in a friendly competition against his fellow chairman. Design informs the relationship that the world’s objects have with one another (and yes, people, too). So Rich’s advice to “observe the world around you”means to see it as a constant expression of design.
So how do you become a better designer (other than learning how to use the hot
keys in Photoshop)? A big part of it is understanding how you express your own design sensibilities and creating a personal environment that nurtures that perspective (i.e., the way in which you choose to decorate your desk, studio, or office).
You should also be constantly consuming design inspiration, whether that means following incredible visual artists on Instagram, holing up in a library with a stack of design tomes, or sitting on a street corner and committing the architecture there to memory. Adopt a posture of curiosity, and allow yourself to use that curiosity in ways that make you feel good
Advertising -The Best Solution Isn’t Always Complicated
The genesis of the tagline “got milk?”—now one of the most famous taglines of all
time—is pretty unremarkable. Jeff suggested it as a placeholder for the pitch presentation, and it just stuck. The first lesson here is that the best solution isn’t always the most complicated one. The tagline’s success stems from its colloquial nature.
And because it was rife with so much punchy personality, it was clear to Jeff and Rich that it needed an equally punchy aesthetic sensibility. That’s where Rich came in with the typographic
treatment. This campaign is one example of a very successful relationship between
copy and art direction.
“To know what people really think, pay attention to what they do, rather than what they say.”
Descartes
He was free, free in every way, free to behave like a fool or a machine, free to accept, free to refuse, free to equivocate; to marry, to give up the game, to drag this death weight about with him for years to come. He could do what he liked, no one had the right to advise him, there would be for him no Good or Evil unless he thought them into being.”
Satre
“The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.”
Marx
“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality”
Seneca
Martin Scorsese- Casting
Practice how you would audition actors. Make a list of qualities that define each major character in your short and
the character traits the actor will need to embody in order to make the film come to life. Do you know there’s going to be
a feisty protagonist or a down-on-his-luck supporting actor?
Once you have this list for each major character, find monologues for actors to use to audition. Either pull from
your rough script or, if you’re not that far along yet, use existing monologues. If your short film is dramatic and
unhappy, try looking for a monologue from a tragedy. If it’s upbeat and light, pull a humorous monologue from a comedy
you enjoy.
Share the monologues you’ve selected, as well as character descriptions, with your classmates in The Hub. Provide insight into why you wrote or chose these specific passages as future audition pieces
Advertising - SEGA, “SEGA!”
At the time Jeff and Rich made this spot, SEGA was a massive
gaming powerhouse looking for a way to highlight the
rebellious, youthful nature of its brand and distinguish itself
from family-friendly Nintendo.
THE INSIGHT
What says recklessness, overabundant energy, and youth? Loud sounds, fast movement, and indiscernibility.
THE IDEA
What can SEGA say and do to articulate its entire brand in five seconds or less?
THE EXECUTION
Rich tasked an animation house with making the most expressive three- to five-second commercial possible, which resulted in a funny visual ad and
snippet of audio that features one of the most iconic screams (“SEGA!”) in pop culture history
“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”
Aristotle
“Character is simply habit long continued.”
Plato
“It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.”
Aristotle
“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”
Rousseau
“Revolt is the right of the people”
Locke
Advertising -Part of Your Job Is to Not Do Your Job
If you, like Jeff, are a writer, you’re going to do a lot of writing. But if you don’t have a boots-on-the-ground mentality—meaning you don’t get out of your cubicle, experience the world, and take the time to refuel your cultural curiosity—you’re going to run out of things to write about.
So it’s important to take the time to surf the internet, see movies, travel to foreign lands, and get beat up at punk shows. It may sound crazy, and good luck ever explaining it to your parents, but living your life is as much of your job as your craft.
“There is truth in wine and children”
Plato
Advertising -You Are a Brand
As you explore how to create a clear brand identity for companies, particularly as you’re trying to create a portfolio of work that might land you a career at an advertising agency, it’s important to remember that you yourself are a brand, too. Whether you have tattoos, wear thick black glasses, or rep that Death Cab for Cutie 2003 tour shirt, you’re telling people something about your value system. For other people who spent their high school years listening to Transatlanticism, they see your brand and immediately feel like you’re speaking to them.
You’re relatable on an intimate level that feels inviting and kindred. You present yourself as someone worth investing in to those specific people who share that brand identity. The more you can think about your own brand as a communication device, the easier it will be to consider a company’s brand
in the same way.
“Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings – always darker, emptier and simpler.”
Nietzsche
Costume Design
Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver, and After Hours (1985) required costume design that was less theatrical and more in touch with the worlds the characters inhabited. In these kinds of productions, you need a costume designer that has a deep understanding of character. He or she needs to know where a character would shop for clothes and what kind of clothes a character might inherit.
A costume designer must know which
colors look right on a character, and then reconcile this with the colors suited to the actor playing the part and the color palette
of the production design. Martin says that costume designers of modern film need a thorough comprehension of contemporary
expression in dress.
Martin took his actors along to search for costumes for Mean Streets. Because he grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in a neighborhood near Martin’s, Robert De Niro already had an
understanding of the people and culture of the area. His personal experience informed Johnny Boy’s look.
Neil Degrasse Tyson - move around
Rather than stand behind a podium, Neil prefers to communicate on stage with a handheld mic so that he can roam the room and use his whole body for effect. The mic can also do double duty as a prop if need be.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, that each time ended, either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.”
Marx
Show Who You Are, Not Just What You’ve Made
If you’ve been in the industry for a long time, you might be tempted to let your work speak for itself. But the creative field is deeply competitive, not to mention filled with people who would commit more than a few crimes for the chance to work at a place like Goodby Silverstein & Partners. Your work alone might not be enough to get you an interview, particularly if you’re just starting out.
So use your portfolio as a piece of work itself to advertise the brand that is you. When Jeff tells the story of how he got his first job in advertising, he talks about how he created a fake autobiography. Don’t be
afraid to do something similar—as long as it’s a sincere expression of the way you look at the world
“Man is the cruelest animal.”
Nietzsche
“Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.”
Thomas Aquinas
If cinematography is not your area of expertise, don’t be intimidated
If cinematography is not your area of expertise, don’t be intimidated—it’s something you can learn. Martin encourages you to have the passion and bravery to tackle the vision you
see for your film. Martin identifies lighting as one of his weaknesses. He thinks this might have to do with where he grew
up—the tenements on Elizabeth Street—where, other than lightbulbs in a hallway, day and night were his only compass.
Though these forms of light had their own beauty, they didn’t teach Martin much about the logic of light. Moreover, his
impulse to make movies came from New York independent filmmakers like John Cassavetes and Shirley Clarke, who would
very often use only available light, drawing from the aesthetic of the French New Wave.
Martin has learned to work very closely with his directors of photography over the years. The two work together to modify
and rework the shots he has designed. Through this collaborative process, Martin has gained a better understanding of lighting and cinematography. He advocates the importance of asking questions; don’t be afraid to ask your DP about something you don’t know.
Try everything, learn as much as you can on each production, and work with your DP to realize the image and story
you want on the screen.
Neil Degrasse Tyson
One of the things you need to know as a science communicator—or any
communicator—is how to generate curiosity in your audience. Sometimes this
means giving your audience less instead of more.
Take the shape of the Earth, for example, which Neil can describe with varying
degrees of nuance and specificity. How he describes it, though, is dictated
by the audience to whom he is speaking. Earth is not just a sphere, as Neil
explains, unless it is. “In a first pass, the shape of the Earth is a sphere,”
he says. “Do you want to know more? Okay. Earth is not actually a perfect
sphere—it’s slightly flattened pole to pole, a little wider at the equator. We have
a word for this in mathematics. It’s called an oblate spheroid.” (He could go on
and on.)
So you need to ask yourself: What is the interest level of my audience and what
topics matter most in my conversation with them? Neil calls this a “pedagogical approximation.” He says: “Where is my pedagogical approximation going
to be? If [the audience doesn’t] know anything about an established subject, you don’t give them the full hammer of details. They’re likely to get lost in
the complexity.”
On the other hand, if your audience contains specialists or people who are well educated on the subject, give them more. But heed Neil’s wisdom: “Being
as effective as you possibly can doesn’t mean telling someone everything you
could possibly know about something.”
“The things that we love tell us what we are.”
Thomas Aquinas
“Those who tell the stories rule society.”
Plato
“There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.”
Plato
The best advice Martin can give is to prepare, get everyone aligned with your vision, and then simply jump in and
begin. Each filmmaker has to find his or her own process, which can only be done by actually making films.
Part of Martin’s process involves letting his films take on lives of their own. This is the only way that special, serendipitous things can happen
with the actors, the camera, or the lighting. While you will design much of your film in your head—planning in advance the lenses, cuts, and camera moves you want to use, and working with costume and production designers to make your visions a reality—you still must remain open to unexpected events that
may add new value to the scene.
—Martin Scorsese
“One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
Plato
“In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill… we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one.”
Plato
“You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.
Marx
“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self.”
Aristotle
“I’m no prophet. My job is making windows where there were once walls.”
Foucault
Visual literacy -Martin Scorsese
Visual literacy is an important skill for filmmakers, but for Martin, it all boils down to simple literacy, regardless of whether
one is dealing with words or images.
Martin cites Socrates as an example of someone who took issue with the importance of verbal literacy. Socrates worried that writing and reading would actually lead to not truly knowing. If people were to stop memorizing and start writing and reading, Socrates thought, they’d be in
danger of cultivating the appearance of wisdom as opposed to developing the real thing. Martin draws a parallel between
Socrates’s argument and contemporary criticism of television or
the internet.
Martin reminds you that as a filmmaker, you should be able to distinguish between images created to sell something,
to merely entertain, to inform, or to tell a story. These skills might appear abstract to you right now, but remember that Martin was once in your position. Lacking the
equipment to make a movie but possessing ideas and a dream, Martin drew scenes from his imaginary films on paper. He attempted to tell his stories frame by frame, explaining to
friends that they had to imagine the movement between frames.
Using the techniques he had seen at the movie theater and on television, Martin selected medium shots, close-ups, wide shots, and indicated cuts and aspect ratios, sketching his aesthetic decisions on paper. This visual orientation served Martin well when he started to make films.
Advertising -Run Toward Fire
“The worst thing you can do is to do the right thing and have no one
notice that you did it.” —JEFF GOODBY
When Jeff talks about the vandalistic spirit that shapes his perspective on advertising,
part of what he’s saying is that disruption and chaos are exciting. They encourage
new thinking, experimentation, and, most importantly, emotional reactions. If you’re
not trying to make advertising that elicits an emotional reaction out of your audience, then you’re adding to the stream of interruptions that consumers hate. If you explore the things that most people are too afraid to explore, you’re going to find insights and
ideas that could be both novel and transformative. Don’t be boring. Be dangerous
Neil Degrasse Tyson - utilizing humor
Neil watches a lot of stand-up comedy—not just because he likes to laugh, but because he considers comedians to be engaging performers who hold their
audiences in the palms of their hands. From watching stand-up,
Neil has learned a lot about riffing on news headlines and pop culture, not to mention
spotting things the rest of us normally miss. Using rhythm, tone, and powers
of observation, comics are excellent communicators, and Neil thinks you can learn a lot from them, too—particularly when it comes to humor.
“Humor matters,” Neil says. “If you can get people to laugh while they’re learning, you’ve got ’em. You can feed ’em everything. And that’s why humor is a fundamental part of how I communicate.”
“Here’s the thing: you have to stay open. You have to stay open to what’s happening right in front of you, around you, at every single moment as you envision a scene, as you work on the scene with the crew and with the cast.” —Martin Scorsese
—Martin Scorsese
“Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge. ”
Plato
“I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am”
Descartes
“We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.”
George F. Kennan, Vietnam strategist
“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”
Nietzsche
“I quote others only in order the better to express myself.”
Montaigne
Martin Scorsese - Research is the bedrock of a film
Research is the bedrock of a film; it lends richness and informs the rules of the film’s world. However, you mustn’t let research
lead you away from the original idea or concept that sparked the film in the first place. Martin experienced this when researching The Age of Innocence, Gangs of New York, and Silence (2016). The
research led him in many fascinating directions, but at times, these directions threatened to overwhelm the entire picture.
Martin mentions another important caveat regarding research: there’s nothing more boring than 100 percent accuracy in a film.
The question should always be: How does historical accuracy serve the film and the story?
“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love …”
Marcus Aurelius
“If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.”
Seneca
