The question of originality always comes up in creative forums and I think it’s something that needs to be understood clearly, as those who create understand the difference because they use this skill, while others who are spectators, simply lick their lips and take swipes at something they know nothing about. To be honest, I had to write about this because it helps me flush out certain truths I need to face as well as dealing with an issue every writer faces with those who don't write, but are simply spectators who love to whine.
Originality is understood as something that hasn’t been done before, that’s how we define it. But what specifically within a story or movie has not been done? Is it the elements, like a killer shark on a holiday weekend, creatures from outer space making contact, or going back in time to affect your own existence? Those elements are compelling and used well to tell successful stories, but they were not the impetus for their success. Those things mask the real elements that make a successful story and those very elements are what create originality, not the concept. (Stop right there, if your panties are in a bind at this point, take a moment to put your hand behind your back and gently remove it from your crevice. Concept is used to sell scripts to studios and is not the sole reason for originality).
How many westerns were told with the same moral values time and time again and people watched them? A lot; and the reason for their success was the simple fact they had different characters interacting in different circumstances, ultimately fulfilling our expectations that the good guy wins in life (our value) and standing up and fighting for what you believe in is part of what it means to be a man as well as to survive in this world. That is the impetus of westerns (I’m sure there are more) but foundationally they worked under these pretenses. Was each western unoriginal? Did they just copycat one another? On some levels they do, but that’s the point that’s missed. There is a difference between being original and fulfilling an audiences’ expectations based on genre and just plainly redoing a successful film with different names. Westerns, for example, have an expectation that you don’t need to mess with. What becomes original is how your characters interact and why, not whether there is a showdown or not. I can write a High Noon script with very similar elements, but choose to make the characters behave differently, to talk differently, to have more complex motives for their desire to stand up with the Sheriff or run away like cowards. Does that make it unoriginal? If the movie failed, you would say yes. However, if the movie was a success, if it struck a nerve, you would say, that’s original (Unforgiven). So what’s the difference then? Unforgiven executed well enough to fulfill the audiences’ expectations of a western by how the characters interacted. But lets face it, Unforgiven was just another western, how original was that? Does it matter?
Part of the problem with this critique about originality, is the critic is asking the writer to define a new genre. Well that could take a lifetime and it’s really not necessary. What creates new genres is progress within society, i.e., computer animation or our own technological advancement (The Matrix).
Now let’s take the film, The Shining. Is the spectator going to actually tell me that movie is original? Its not, it’s a very simple plotline about a man who is facing himself as failure in life, and is going to blame his family, hence his decision to taking an ax and try to chop them into pieces. Not very original, not very intriguing for me, so what made this story so compelling? A lot of things, and without putting Kubrick into the mix. The backstory; about the incident, the child talking to himself, the power of Shining, family violence, visions of children murdered, a child’s experience of these visions and can’t go to a parent to be rescued, how it’s laid out on the page, described, executed, this is what makes it original.
Another aspect that non writers don’t understand in storytelling is the writer’s impetus. As you learn to write you start to face inevitabilities; execution of a script is created by an element of the story which comes from the central core of your being, something you feel so passionate about that you must get it on paper with characters interacting about it sub textually. In addition, a writer discovers the best stories reflect a psychological need within the audience whether it is cathartic or simply a need for stimulation. What the spectator sees in these is unoriginal storytelling, which is misguided.
Originality is really relative. Lets face it, if a movie is successful its perceived as original to some extent, if it bombs, we gang up on it like lions to a deer, breathing heavily, growling, waiting to draw blood. I remember when the rumors came out about Cameron’s Titanic, the budget getting out of control; everyone was just salivating for Cameron to fail at the box office. Then, when it struck a nerve, they complained about authenticity and all the other bullshit that just wasn’t necessary, but simply a way to tell Cameron he wasn’t very original. That’s reality. Since it has a level of relativity, does that make a vague concept? No. It’s simply a minor variable, but as you can see there is more to originality than creating a new genre. Are we supposed to wait for another Pixar before we see originality? If that’s the case, then let me turn off my computer because my efforts are useless as far as originality goes under that definition.
Originality for a writer is the mixture of plot, characterization, pace, drama, emotion and resolve all mixed together with a chemistry that forms a melody that strikes a chord. If it’s done properly its original, if its not, it’s just another western. If Jaws had poor execution it would have been unoriginal, same goes with Back to the Future or Close Encounters. That's the perception of originality, and it's the reality writers must face.
Now you spectators can take your pot shots about what YOU think originality is, while writers sit back and concentrate on the melody, because what's most important to those of us who spend hours upon hours, not getting paid, drinking gallons of our favorite beverage, is that we have a deep seeded desire to interact with something that hasn't been created, and execute it in a way that's satisfying, that fulfills an audiences' expectations as well as ours. And that my dear spectators, is what is defined by a writer’s point of view as originality, and it happens to be the truth.
Get it now?
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Friday, July 21, 2006
Why We've Lost The Battle For Our Minds
In the evolution of our society, as seen in history, our minds change, priorities change. Most of what causes our change isn't our evolutionary process as humans, but our economic and cultural changes led by the media and technology. Because of this our sense of ideals, creativity, spirit, and desire to be someone beyond ourselves is crushed. Most importantly is we don't even know it.
Our cultural ideals really aren't established by religion or by the origins of our country. They oboviously affect us in ways, but ultimately the power lies in one arena; economics. Economics has a power that none other has; the ability the preoccupy the individual with survival. With that preoccupation, your ideals change as you strive to follow something, that after time goes by, you're not sure why you're following it.
Take for example, the Industrial Age. It was a wonderful historical period of transforming how we lived and what our progress could be by using steel to build our infrastructure and of course cars and motorcycles. During that age was an immigration process unlike anything we have seen today. Immigration back then was needed and desired for these huge steel companies, Ford Motor Company and of course the railroads. We eventually became a society built on blue collar labor, all preoccupied with making those couple of bucks to feed their families. My grandfather worked thirty years for Ford Motor Company. As an immigrant around 1910, he came over as a teen, got married, found the job and starting his new life. Do you really think he had time or the inclination to discover his creative side?
The Depression obviously didn't help matters either. We know from history this even was well known to happen, and the rich, such as Kennedy swooped in after wards to buy cheap. Regardless, most of society spent most of its time preoccupied with survival and couldn't bother with any type of creativity or wonder about the world they lived in.
World War II didn't help matters, as survival then was based on women working in the American economy. People were more concerned about not speaking German in the next decade, and if their loved one was going to make it home okay to bother with inane ventures like "ideas".
Post WW II brought us an ideal, seeming to be established by the propaganda of our government, that we are safe, that our fight against evil won and now we can build safe societies and get back to innocence. The picket fence became the symbol of safety. Survival was less of a labor and opportunity for men to make an honest educated living was now available. With the so called advancement, was the concept we must have taken from the military, that everyone was be the same; same house, haircut, clothes, schools and taste in music. Well that didn't last long as creating robots of our children, eventually turns them into rebellious young adults. Elvis and James Dean didn't help either. Most importantly, this time in our history, we weren't preoccupied with survival as much as keeping up a face that we were a normal American family. That preoccupation, again took away any sense of creativity from the individual.
The 60's was a direct reaction to the 50's; screw the haircut and the sameness, I'm going to smoke dope and wear awful clothes. Do we really understand why this happened? Do we really understand why our society evolves the way it does? The 60's was a wake up call for our government's desire to control the masses. Music was getting into our children's minds and filling it with thoughts about suicide, anti-American ideals, not following the rules, etc, etc. Our minds really weren't preoccupied with how are we going to survive, we were thriving as an economy, however in our comfort we negated why we had the 60's in the first place. Did we understand that we can't program our children, make them into everyone else as if they are foolish enough to not understand why the feel such anger toward their parents and society? Their sense of future was in jeopardy as a war in which no one really knew why were were fighting, gave teenagers no sense of future or optimism in their world. Anger, depression, despondency and apathy preoccupied their minds.
The 70's brought about a new kind of preoccupation for American's; opportunity. Technology was developing to the point that new kinds of jobs were being created, and all the hippies put down their picket signs to study programming so they could live a normal life. All that protesting does get old after a while as you get sick of eating organic food. This decade was on the cusp of our problem today; computers running our lives.
One note about the evolution of computers in the corporate world. Big business by this time was pooring huge sums of money into mainframes and dumb terminals, all for one basic reason, to eventually eliminate jobs. Anyone who thinks its only about storing data is a bit naive.
As the 80's came about, our preoccupation was the Andy Warhol principle; getting our fifteen minutes. MTV provided a resource for individuals to become instantly famous and showed us how powerful it can be to not only provide such a tunnel into fame, but what opportunities it brought to the individual who had it. Billy Idol created the "I want my MTV slogan" and his career took off, not just because of that, but admitting, it had a large part in whole process of him becoming another image of the American dream, rebellious, rich and sexual.
Operating systems were being created at this time. Apple computer was flourishing in our school systems and inticing certain demographics to buy an Apple computer for home use. Occupying hours upon hours on figuring out how to create things and store information on a personal computer helped form what we have today. All those geeks you know reside at Apple and Microsoft were those same people back in the eighties working with the first versions. What people failed to understand or at least take seriously, was the effect of computers on us as individuals as well as our opportunities in the workforce.
At this time you could see the beginnings of a new kind of pressure placed upon the average american; live the good life, get a credit card, buy a VCR and big screen TV and get into a mortgage. All those things are well and good, but the credit card was the real demon of the bunch, as banks found a new way to squeeze money out of you with social engineering on their side; "give people the illusion of power by purchasing on credit, as the ability to rationalize the payments will ultimately be our greatest reward." Again when the credit card bills came and over a period of time, people realized they couldn't pay their bills efficiently and soon that turns into denial. Survival once again becomes the preoccupation in our lives.
Inflation, immigration, the avid growth of technology in the workplace as well as communications, all swarmed us in the 90's till now. Things have changed drastically with our government's shoulder turned to our immigration issue. I was aware of it as a problem when I as a kid, and yet the government didn't seemed concerned? That's more than a disconnect. Immigration was changing the climate of what opportunities there were for the average american trying to work from nothing (now competing with immigrants for those entry level jobs) and working their way up to being able to save money and provide for some sort of future. Not only that, but immigration has caused tremendous housing problems, crime, human rights issues, as well as attitudes towards those who are different from us, all because of mismanagement.
At the same time, banks were coming up new ways to get the average American qualified for a mortgage and boy did they get creative. Your mortgage used to be 25% of your net monthly income or you wouldn't qualify, now at 50% you can qualify. Even further are the interest only loans, which are the devil disguised. These loans are just like credit cards, you get something today, and rationalize tomorrow, because when rates go up, your mortgage payment doubles, at least eventually. So you refinance and spend another 15 thousand on a new loan that gets you out of that initial loan and the only one's you're making rich are the banks and the broker. This all boils down to preoccupation with our minds. We spend more time worrying about money, how to move it, invest it, modify loans, get out of debt, live for today by cashing out of equity to pay off credit cards, that we lose sight of our time and what we should be thinking about.
Another side note about technology. One of the effects of growing ways people converse is the use of the cell phone and computer to connect with others. His has been a real issue in how we learn to become social beings. As the next generations are born into using text messaging and the like, they never learn how to sit down with someone and just talk. I find more people preoccupied with the next scheduled event for the day, that you can't even get into a conversation with them deep enough to make the relationship grow any farther. Our minds today are so preoccupied with the next fix, who is going to make me rich with the next opportunity, that we never seem to focus on each other. Text messaging and cell phones have all preoccupied our minds with dialogue that has nothing to do with where we are going.
It would appear that the individuals who have the time for ideas are the people who don't face these issues; they aren't in debt, their family money holds them together, they are well connected, and are completely disconnected from the average American.
Ideas take time, but our society has been designed so you don't have the time to think of an idea, as you're too busy worrying about finances and your next job. At the same time, our minds become softened into thinking those things called "ideas" are foolish and unrealistic; make money now, for tomorrow may never come.
Why have we lost the battle? Because we refuse to understand the importance of our time, and using ideas to help create a better life for ourselves. Not only that, but to realize that ideas help us reflect on who we are as a society, what values we have, and preparing for what we will care about in the future.
I don't think we will win the battle for our minds. I'm not a pessimist, but I don't see Americans putting up much of a fight about anything, to care about the simple value of creating time for ideas, much less anything else.
The price for losing our ideas are great, for once you lose that right to create and think, you've lost the right to use your mind as an individual.
I guess the war is still on even though the battle has been lost.
Our cultural ideals really aren't established by religion or by the origins of our country. They oboviously affect us in ways, but ultimately the power lies in one arena; economics. Economics has a power that none other has; the ability the preoccupy the individual with survival. With that preoccupation, your ideals change as you strive to follow something, that after time goes by, you're not sure why you're following it.
Take for example, the Industrial Age. It was a wonderful historical period of transforming how we lived and what our progress could be by using steel to build our infrastructure and of course cars and motorcycles. During that age was an immigration process unlike anything we have seen today. Immigration back then was needed and desired for these huge steel companies, Ford Motor Company and of course the railroads. We eventually became a society built on blue collar labor, all preoccupied with making those couple of bucks to feed their families. My grandfather worked thirty years for Ford Motor Company. As an immigrant around 1910, he came over as a teen, got married, found the job and starting his new life. Do you really think he had time or the inclination to discover his creative side?
The Depression obviously didn't help matters either. We know from history this even was well known to happen, and the rich, such as Kennedy swooped in after wards to buy cheap. Regardless, most of society spent most of its time preoccupied with survival and couldn't bother with any type of creativity or wonder about the world they lived in.
World War II didn't help matters, as survival then was based on women working in the American economy. People were more concerned about not speaking German in the next decade, and if their loved one was going to make it home okay to bother with inane ventures like "ideas".
Post WW II brought us an ideal, seeming to be established by the propaganda of our government, that we are safe, that our fight against evil won and now we can build safe societies and get back to innocence. The picket fence became the symbol of safety. Survival was less of a labor and opportunity for men to make an honest educated living was now available. With the so called advancement, was the concept we must have taken from the military, that everyone was be the same; same house, haircut, clothes, schools and taste in music. Well that didn't last long as creating robots of our children, eventually turns them into rebellious young adults. Elvis and James Dean didn't help either. Most importantly, this time in our history, we weren't preoccupied with survival as much as keeping up a face that we were a normal American family. That preoccupation, again took away any sense of creativity from the individual.
The 60's was a direct reaction to the 50's; screw the haircut and the sameness, I'm going to smoke dope and wear awful clothes. Do we really understand why this happened? Do we really understand why our society evolves the way it does? The 60's was a wake up call for our government's desire to control the masses. Music was getting into our children's minds and filling it with thoughts about suicide, anti-American ideals, not following the rules, etc, etc. Our minds really weren't preoccupied with how are we going to survive, we were thriving as an economy, however in our comfort we negated why we had the 60's in the first place. Did we understand that we can't program our children, make them into everyone else as if they are foolish enough to not understand why the feel such anger toward their parents and society? Their sense of future was in jeopardy as a war in which no one really knew why were were fighting, gave teenagers no sense of future or optimism in their world. Anger, depression, despondency and apathy preoccupied their minds.
The 70's brought about a new kind of preoccupation for American's; opportunity. Technology was developing to the point that new kinds of jobs were being created, and all the hippies put down their picket signs to study programming so they could live a normal life. All that protesting does get old after a while as you get sick of eating organic food. This decade was on the cusp of our problem today; computers running our lives.
One note about the evolution of computers in the corporate world. Big business by this time was pooring huge sums of money into mainframes and dumb terminals, all for one basic reason, to eventually eliminate jobs. Anyone who thinks its only about storing data is a bit naive.
As the 80's came about, our preoccupation was the Andy Warhol principle; getting our fifteen minutes. MTV provided a resource for individuals to become instantly famous and showed us how powerful it can be to not only provide such a tunnel into fame, but what opportunities it brought to the individual who had it. Billy Idol created the "I want my MTV slogan" and his career took off, not just because of that, but admitting, it had a large part in whole process of him becoming another image of the American dream, rebellious, rich and sexual.
Operating systems were being created at this time. Apple computer was flourishing in our school systems and inticing certain demographics to buy an Apple computer for home use. Occupying hours upon hours on figuring out how to create things and store information on a personal computer helped form what we have today. All those geeks you know reside at Apple and Microsoft were those same people back in the eighties working with the first versions. What people failed to understand or at least take seriously, was the effect of computers on us as individuals as well as our opportunities in the workforce.
At this time you could see the beginnings of a new kind of pressure placed upon the average american; live the good life, get a credit card, buy a VCR and big screen TV and get into a mortgage. All those things are well and good, but the credit card was the real demon of the bunch, as banks found a new way to squeeze money out of you with social engineering on their side; "give people the illusion of power by purchasing on credit, as the ability to rationalize the payments will ultimately be our greatest reward." Again when the credit card bills came and over a period of time, people realized they couldn't pay their bills efficiently and soon that turns into denial. Survival once again becomes the preoccupation in our lives.
Inflation, immigration, the avid growth of technology in the workplace as well as communications, all swarmed us in the 90's till now. Things have changed drastically with our government's shoulder turned to our immigration issue. I was aware of it as a problem when I as a kid, and yet the government didn't seemed concerned? That's more than a disconnect. Immigration was changing the climate of what opportunities there were for the average american trying to work from nothing (now competing with immigrants for those entry level jobs) and working their way up to being able to save money and provide for some sort of future. Not only that, but immigration has caused tremendous housing problems, crime, human rights issues, as well as attitudes towards those who are different from us, all because of mismanagement.
At the same time, banks were coming up new ways to get the average American qualified for a mortgage and boy did they get creative. Your mortgage used to be 25% of your net monthly income or you wouldn't qualify, now at 50% you can qualify. Even further are the interest only loans, which are the devil disguised. These loans are just like credit cards, you get something today, and rationalize tomorrow, because when rates go up, your mortgage payment doubles, at least eventually. So you refinance and spend another 15 thousand on a new loan that gets you out of that initial loan and the only one's you're making rich are the banks and the broker. This all boils down to preoccupation with our minds. We spend more time worrying about money, how to move it, invest it, modify loans, get out of debt, live for today by cashing out of equity to pay off credit cards, that we lose sight of our time and what we should be thinking about.
Another side note about technology. One of the effects of growing ways people converse is the use of the cell phone and computer to connect with others. His has been a real issue in how we learn to become social beings. As the next generations are born into using text messaging and the like, they never learn how to sit down with someone and just talk. I find more people preoccupied with the next scheduled event for the day, that you can't even get into a conversation with them deep enough to make the relationship grow any farther. Our minds today are so preoccupied with the next fix, who is going to make me rich with the next opportunity, that we never seem to focus on each other. Text messaging and cell phones have all preoccupied our minds with dialogue that has nothing to do with where we are going.
It would appear that the individuals who have the time for ideas are the people who don't face these issues; they aren't in debt, their family money holds them together, they are well connected, and are completely disconnected from the average American.
Ideas take time, but our society has been designed so you don't have the time to think of an idea, as you're too busy worrying about finances and your next job. At the same time, our minds become softened into thinking those things called "ideas" are foolish and unrealistic; make money now, for tomorrow may never come.
Why have we lost the battle? Because we refuse to understand the importance of our time, and using ideas to help create a better life for ourselves. Not only that, but to realize that ideas help us reflect on who we are as a society, what values we have, and preparing for what we will care about in the future.
I don't think we will win the battle for our minds. I'm not a pessimist, but I don't see Americans putting up much of a fight about anything, to care about the simple value of creating time for ideas, much less anything else.
The price for losing our ideas are great, for once you lose that right to create and think, you've lost the right to use your mind as an individual.
I guess the war is still on even though the battle has been lost.
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