One of the more amazing things that I've found by using Twitter actively is the sheer number of nifty things that people and organizations give away regularly. A few weeks back, a friend of mine forwarded me a Twitter contest that IFP was running to garner interest in their Script 2 Screen Conference. Post your question for screenwriter Peter Hedges and the one with the best question wins a free pass to the two-day conference (valued at $200 for non-members, $150 for IFP members). I was game. I gave it some thought, and posted a three-tweet stream of questions/discussion. To my surprise and delight, I won. (My winning tweet was "How do we stay flexible as writers for screens as small as your thumb and as big as a palace?")
This past weekend, I attended the conference, hosted by the 92Y Tribeca Performance/Cinema space downtown. I braved weekend morning trains from Brooklyn to make the 9am start, brought snacks to cover the mere 1/2 in the all-day schedule of panels planned for lunch (Tribeca is a wasteland if you want to spend less than $15 on a pickle), and I settled in to watch and learn.
And since I was there because I happened to be on Twitter, I thought I'd start tweeting my thoughts and some of the great bits of advice and wisdom from the panelists (@circlesoffire handle, under #s2sifp and #ifps2s). Little did I know that I would tweet nearly 200 times over the course of the two days. I already knew that I use Twitter as a way to archive information I want to share with others and keep track of myself, but it was fascinating to be a conduit to the outside world of the panelists' thoughts, 140 characters at at time. It changed the way I processed what was happening -- I was definitely listening for tweet-nuggets by the end -- and it helped me to anchor the information, instead of letting it simply wash through me and then disappear from my consciousness. I also met a handful of wonderful folks at the conference, and happened to also gain around 20 new followers -- which I also didn't expect. To all those now reading this, welcome and I hope you stick around.
When I was looking over my tweets, and all the retweets from folks, it occurred to me that I'd love to give you my "best of show" list, with some annotation for my take-away from the conference. I hope you enjoy it.
Emily's Top Tweets from IFP's Script 2 Screen Conference, March 20-21, 2010
"We're often talking about the 47th step of filmmaking -- and we miss the 'write an original, compelling script' part." #ifps2s
~
The director of the WGA-East just opened with a quote from Marx -- that's Groucho Marx. I know, I was surprised too. #ifps2s
~
"We're not there to serve an agenda. That would kill the show. We're there to make ourselves laugh." #ifps2s [Steve Bodow, Head Writer on The Daily Show]
Piece of advice: When you're coming on the show to be interviewed by Jon, don't try to be funny. That's a contest you're gonna lose. #ifps2s
~
But the idea is to boil down your story to the 30sec pitch--for that notorious elevator ride where you're close to the one you need. #ifps2s
~
"I feel like filmmaking is always a process of figuring out what's feasible." Debra Granik #ifps2s
"Nobody can stand there and say, 'I can't do this, unless I have X.' " Debra Granik. (Amen to that!) #ifps2s
~
"The industry is a cocaine rush of eye candy, and we’re giving them tea." Terry George #ifps2s
~
"In terms of personal branding, you have to have a name that people can spell." (Ryan Koo, as he rips his name card to shorten it) #ifps2s
"Your name is the best currency you have." Zack Lieberman #ifps2s
~
"Zack and I had this project, this woodstove pepperoni pizza, and we were going to studios and pitching it..." Ryan Koo #ifps2s
"saying here it is and it’s tasty and you’ll love it. We’d get to the end of our meeting and they’d say, “We’re lactose intolerant.” #ifps2s
"You need to go in with your pizza and your non-dairy creamer and your head of broccolli and find out what they’re salivating for." #ifps2s
~
"I think it's really important to protect the work that's closest to you." Adam Brooks #ifps2s
"Some writers want to have it both ways: if you sell your script for a million dollars to a studio, you can't protect it anymore."AB #ifps2s
~
"If you tell someone that you're making a movie, people will tell you everything." Brian Koppelman #ifps2s
"They'll tell you about cheating on their wives, secret illegal shit they did. They'll give you everything." Brian Koppelman #ifps2s
~
[Special thanks to @ryanbkoo, @Kfrysztak, @RobinWalker, @YouBrandInc, @elsienw, @bookfeeder, @life_act, @thomasclifford, @marianne_00, @bellasluces and @pattyfantasia for all your RTs. I hope these and the other tweets were helpful to you and your followers!]
"We're often talking about the 47th step of filmmaking -- and we miss the 'write an original, compelling script' part." #ifps2s
There was a great simplicity to this conference. Time and again, the panelists returned to the simple truth of screenwriting: you have to love it if you're going to make it. This tweet was a quote that came early in the conference, from Gordy Hoffman of the BlueCat Screenwriting Competition. Lately, there's been a lot of hustle and bustle about independents needing to cover every aspect of the filmmaking process, from concept to script to production to branding and distribution. This DIY mentality is not to be discounted -- the opportunities are incredible if you can cover all these bases yourself and save the money you might pay someone else to do it. Not only do you save money, you also maintain creative control -- but you run the risk of burn out and forgetting why you did all of this in the first place.
We must remember that we are here to tell stories -- and not just any story, but THE story that MUST BE TOLD by us and only us (thank you, Peter Hedges). Yes, you can work for someone else's story, and you can get paid for telling someone else's story (or the stories that the studio's marketers think will sell), and there's no shame in that. But even as you take those jobs for the paycheck or the craft challenge, you have to protect yourself and the creative baby that you care most about (and we all have at least one of those, see thoughts from Adam Brooks below). You can't take your eyes off the prize. And while strategizing around branding and innovative distribution strategies and what organizations and local businesses can give you access to free resources is absolutely necessary, we must also maintain a balance. You have to love the work, otherwise it will eat you alive.
Back to Top
The director of the WGA-East just opened with a quote from Marx -- that's Groucho Marx. I know, I was surprised too. #ifps2s
I want to clarify here that I am an ardent supporter of the unions. I currently carry two union cards in my wallet (IATSE Local 52 - Studio Mechanics and Engineers / Video Dept, and IATSE USA Local 829 - Computer Artists), and I expect that, by the end of my life, I will have at least a half-dozen more to add to my stash. I believe in what collective bargaining can do for workers, and I especially understand that the *only* thing that keeps studios from eating workers alive are the unions. We came back at this conference, again and again, to the sentiment that studios only care about money. That applies to more than simply what content they will buy -- it applies to how they will treat the hundreds of thousands of people they employ. And the only thing that stands between me and 17 hour days with no overtime and crap-o-tronic food and no health and safety standards is my union. I get that.
Right now, there is a huge firestorm happening in the UK, because of some legislation to institute a mandatory minimum wage across the industry -- pitting their entertainment union BECTU against shoestring independent filmmakers who count on people working for free to make their films. While the discussion over there has been, by turns, constructive and nasty, I was very interested in the ways that working union or non-union was touched on in this conference. Representatives from the WGA-East were there to talk with people, and there was a lot of great literature from both the WGA and SAG about the low-budget agreements those unions have in place to work with folks who have no money. Basically, folks, it's manageable. It's hoops to jump through and paperwork to fill out and a bit more planning and rules to keep in mind as you grow and get bigger. And I'm telling you, it's worth it. Your people, and you, are worth the effort, especially if you ever want to make a movie for upwards of $1M. Start practicing now.
When I made my pilot Something Blue a few years ago, it was important to me to treat my cast and crew (a brave and determined 18 people) with the seriousness and respect due to them for their labor. I didn't have the money to pay them, but it was important to me to pay them something (everyone received a token $20) and to make the promise, in writing, that I *would* pay them if this pilot was ever picked up. So, I did the research and put together contracts which deferred their pay for all days worked, using union scale rates, to be paid if/when I recouped my production costs plus 10%. I also added the unusual caveat in the contract that I would not pay myself in any of my roles (director, writer, actor, editor, producer -- though I included each of those roles in the budget) until everyone on my crew was paid in full first. I was the one who fronted the money for production, so that first bit of cash plus 10 would still come to me first, but I wanted to let my cast and crew know that I recognized their labor for deferred payment as the precious commodity that it was, above my own in many ways.
So it's an interesting number to talk about, when people ask me how much I spent to make Something Blue. In terms of sheer dollars coming out of my bank account, I made an hour-long pilot for just over $15K (and that includes all the material expenses that I could not defer - roughly $7K - and the equipment investment I made - roughly $8K). But that doesn't tell the whole story, since those individuals I worked with deferred the value of their labor, and a 100% payoff of their deferrals brings the price tag to about $75K. If I also paid myself for my labor, the number jumps to $104K.
I know these numbers are stark -- and are why independents get so freaked out about using union labor. The costs add up fast. But here's the thing -- all of the unions want to work with you to make your low-budget show work, and they get that you have no money and that people are willing to work with you for deferrals. But if your work does get bought or picked up, you have an obligation to pay your cast and crew for their labor. It wasn't free. All of their labor -- and yours -- has value, and giving it away helps no one.
Back to Top
"We're not there to serve an agenda. That would kill the show. We're there to make ourselves laugh." #ifps2s [Steve Bodow, Head Writer on The Daily Show]
Piece of advice: When you're coming on the show to be interviewed by Jon, don't try to be funny. That's a contest you're gonna lose. #ifps2s
Steve Bodow was the first "conversation" of the conference, where it was only him and and moderator Jason Guerrasio on the stage, and he was fantastic. These are just two gems that I pulled, during a conversation that spanned the conceptual to the practical. I've never thought about what writing for a comedy news show would be like, and had no idea how a person would even go about doing it. Bodow broke down both The Daily Show's writing process and how they accept new writers (via packets of material for the show, personal recommendations, and the rare opening on the team). It was very impressive, and left me with a lot to think about in terms of the benefits of a strict and demanding writing practice (they write their shows collaboratively on a daily basis).
3/23/2010 Edited to Add: For an excellent write-up of the Conversation with Steve Bodow, check out Ryan Koo's notes at NoFilmSchool.com.
Back to Top
But the idea is to boil down your story to the 30sec pitch--for that notorious elevator ride where you're close to the one you need. #ifps2s
The pitch session was my favorite from the conference, in terms of down-and-dirty, real-world helpful information. The bottom line? Figure out how to tell your story quickly, and then remember that you're selling your idea to people who have money to spend. Talk briefly about genre, or how your story will be marketed. Talk about where you are in the process -- do you have anyone attached? Who's on your team so far? Who's championing your work? Don't worry about box office stats for movies like yours -- the suits already know those numbers. But above all, remember to tell the story. It's what you're there for.
Folks also pointed out that pitches are rarely, if ever, 30 seconds long. The pitches that we got to witness at the conference (five brave souls pitched their movies to the panelists, and then received feedback) weren't 30 seconds long either. Pitches tend to be anywhere from 10-30 minutes. That's just reality, but the thing that I would say is that it's worth it to you to hook your audience within the first 30 seconds. All the background stuff -- your genre, what films your movie is like, who's attached -- is what you get into when you've already got them interested. Unless of course, Oprah is interested in your movie, and then you get that in those first 30 seconds, along with the logline of your flick.
People also like to say that the 30 second pitch is unreasonable, that those elevator stories aren't realistic. When are you going to be in an elevator with Harvey Weinstein? Now, I live in NY, so I have a slightly skewed perspective, but I have to tell you that those chance meetings DO happen. And if you're not ready for them, you'll be kicking yourself for days afterward. You have to be bold, and you have to be ready. It's like an audition -- All that you've got in those 30 seconds or a minute is to light a spark in the person you're talking to, and then press a business card into their hands. That's it. And then, maybe that spark will stay in their consciousness and you'll get a call a few days or a few weeks or a few months later. That's the chance you have to take. So be ready, and make the leap when it comes.
Back to Top
"I feel like filmmaking is always a process of figuring out what's feasible." Debra Granik #ifps2s
"Nobody can stand there and say, 'I can't do this, unless I have X.' " Debra Granik. (Amen to that!) #ifps2s
I was really impressed by Debra Grenik (Down to the Bone, Winter's Bone). She's the only one who talked explicitly about struggling with being union, and being good with her labor politics -- and I really appreciated that. It's something that no one here in NY talks about very much, in a good faith way, and I wish there was more dialogue about it. I wish the unions did more to educate people about what they're there to do, and how they are up for working with low-budget producers.
She also spoke quite eloquently about the immensity of producing a feature, and I especially appreciated the sentiments named above. It's not about the technology that you're using, or the name actors you want to work with, or anything specific like that. Filmmaking is about the gestalt of all that work, and in many ways, is the product of the numerous times that people say No to you, and you and your crew come up with new solutions. That constant problem-solving is one of the great alchemies of the business. It's never easy, and never straight forward. Nothing ever turns out how you think it will. And that is one of the great beauties of this business. If you can't enjoy that, then, my goodness, get out now.
Back to Top
"The industry is a cocaine rush of eye candy, and we’re giving them tea." Terry George #ifps2s
Probably one of the top moments of the entire conference. George went on to say, "We say it's good for you -- it's warm and nutritious. It's tea. But we can't do the cocaine because we don't have the money, right?" It was an intriguing coda to me.
On the one hand, the mainstream industry *is* an amusement park, as George also repeated. It's interested in the adrenaline (or cocaine) high, because that's what it can get an audience addicted to and start charging mondo-bucks for. And referring to that as a cocaine-induced high has a moral ring to it -- they're serving the bad drugs and we're serving the high art. But if we could, we totally would be serving the junk too.
This idea that independent cinema is a stepping-stone to the big leagues of mainstream cinema seemed pretty entrenched at this conference, and I was sorry to see that. Many times people used language about "getting to the next level" or "moving up" in their careers to refer to the difference between independent, low-budget cinema and mainstream, studio-driven big-budget cinema. It's worth saying out loud that this is not an inevitable assumption, especially in today's market, technology and distribution-wise. If you just want to make movies, tell your stories, and get it out into the world for people to see -- you can do ALL of that without ever having to shake the hand of any studio marketer. And that would be a good life and a good career. It's not like independents are the farm league and it's illegitimate to think of your work as having worth if it doesn't have a studios emblem at the front of it.
But then again, it really depends on what you want, and it's worth thinking very seriously about how much fame and ubiquity and sheer gobs of money factor in to that. Making enough money to make your next film is very different from dying a rich man. It's a paradigm shift worth considering.
Back to Top
"In terms of personal branding, you have to have a name that people can spell." (Ryan Koo, as he rips his name card to shorten it) #ifps2s
"Your name is the best currency you have." Zack Lieberman #ifps2s
When Ryan Koo picked up his name card on the panel and ripped it into smaller chunks, it was one of my favorite moments of the entire conference. We have to make our own way in the world as indies and we have to choose the compromises we're willing to make. There is a cult of personality that is forming around filmmakers -- the brand of me, if you will -- and I have some concerns about it as a strategy. But I do agree with both Ryan and Zack that, at the end of the day, your particular charisma and hustle is a major way that films get made and put together. People give you money because they believe in the story, and people give you money because they believe in *you.* Think very carefully about the qualities that you want associated with your name, and then cultivate them.
Back to Top
"Zack and I had this project, this woodstove pepperoni pizza, and we were going to studios and pitching it..." Ryan Koo #ifps2s
"saying here it is and it’s tasty and you’ll love it. We’d get to the end of our meeting and they’d say, “We’re lactose intolerant.” #ifps2s
"You need to go in with your pizza and your non-dairy creamer and your head of broccolli and find out what they’re salivating for." #ifps2s
Again, I loved this. It's incredibly important to have a portfolio of projects on hand that you can turn to when you're in those pitch meetings, or even as you're looking at your next year and figuring out what you're going to do next to get you closer to your dream project(s). What no one ever says, as we're being dazzled by the next pretty young thing to flash in the pan, is this industry is fundamentally about longevity -- stubborn longevity. Stay in the game long enough, and keep pushing steadily towards your goals, and you will make progress. I can't say, "You'll succeed," because I don't know what success means to you. But will you work? Will you make things? Absolutely.
Personally, I want motion pictures, in one form or medium or another, to be my career for the rest of my life. It's the thing that I am the best at in the whole world, and that I bring the very best of who I am to bear to do. So, of course, I'm biased towards long-term strategies. But I also think it's a question worth asking yourself when it comes to filmmaking -- do you want to do this over the long haul (because a long haul, of at least ten years, is probably what it's going to take)? Do you want to tell this one story and walk away? There's no right or wrong answer, but having those answers will help you sort out what you're willing to do, and what you're willing to compromise on, to get yourself closer to your goals.
Back to Top
"I think it's really important to protect the work that's closest to you." Adam Brooks #ifps2s
"Some writers want to have it both ways: if you sell your script for a million dollars to a studio, you can't protect it anymore."AB #ifps2s
When I lived in Los Angeles for a few months in the summer of 2001, prior to moving to New York, the way that this was described to me by the industry folks I knew was "cashing the check." As soon as you cash the studio's check, you relinquish control of your property. It's not yours anymore. What you have is *money,* not the property (that is, your darling story). If you can't bear to lose ownership of that story, then do NOT cash that check. Figure out a different way. But if what you want is money, and you can live with giving up that story -- and let's face it, not every project is your darling dream baby -- then take that money and run. Use it to get your dream project made. Or use it to pay off your debts. But do not be surprised when creative control over the property you signed away disappears (unless, of course, you also signed back in some form of creative control through your very expensive and very skillful lawyer when you took that money). Be savvy, folks.
Back to Top
"If you tell someone that you're making a movie, people will tell you everything." Brian Koppelman #ifps2s
"They'll tell you about cheating on their wives, secret illegal shit they did. They'll give you everything." Brian Koppelman #ifps2s
The last two conversations of the conference were between screenwriters Peter Hedges (Pieces of April, What's Eating Gilbert Grape?) and moderator Adam Brooks, and then Brian Koppelman (The Rounders, The Girlfriend Experience, The Solitary Man) and moderator Elvic Mitchell. Now, I'm a junkie for storytelling, and I'm a meta-junkie for folks talking *about* storytelling and their processes and how they do what they do. Especially when they are as kind, open-hearted and generous as Peter Hedges and Brian Koppelmann were.
What they both reminded us, as aspiring screenwriters, is that movies change people, and they change you in the making of them. There is something incredible about the power that movies have -- like Brian mentions above, the mere mention of a movie often makes folks giddy with excitement to tell all their secrets. This is less true, perhaps, among us who actually work in the movies, because we've already seen the man behind the curtain, and have learned to protect ourselves. But that wonder, that excitement, that drunken sense of possibility -- that's a huge part of the allure of movie-making.
I can still remember what it felt like to be five, sitting in the movie theater with the red velvet chairs, my feet underneath me so I would be tall enough to see the screen, watching a movie in the dark with a few hundred other people. That's how my love for motion pictures began. Now my love is multiplicitous -- taking the shape of sharing a short movie I made on my iPod with friends at a dance club, watching them both hold the small screen together, one ear bud to each of them, and seeing their grins of excitement as they hit the moment I knew would matter most. And thinking about online distros -- and the evenings I've spent with friends in our living rooms, trading YouTube videos, Googling and clicking and finding the right versions, then one-upping each other. The possibilities are so vast. Of course I still dream of the palace theater, and what it feels like to witness a crowd experiencing my film. But I'm not closing my eyes to other roads, other forms, and other experiences. As was also said, time and time again, it does come back to the story. And that, no matter what the form, is the thing that matters most.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Dream Bigger: Thoughts on Katherine Bigelow's Academy Awards
The day after Katherine Bigelow won the Academy Award for Best Director, and her film Hurt Locker took home Best Picture too (among others), I read a compilation of responses from women filmmakers on the blog Women and Hollywood. It's a diverse series of reactions, ranging from the celebratory to the yearning to the skeptical, and it's worth the read.
I had also read, weeks before, the marvelous New York Magazine article "The Red Carpet Campaign: Inside the singular hysteria of the Academy Awards race." by Mark Harris, which begins and ends with Katherine Bigelow. "It's time," Harris states plainly. "It's her turn." Harris' article enumerates the many Oscar narratives that people tell about the nominees -- The Cinderella Story, The Come Back, The Long Shot, and so on. I haven't even seen Hurt Locker, but I found Harris' article so compelling -- and with such a nuanced understanding of the politics of Hollywood and the Academy -- that it felt like a foregone conclusion that Bigelow would win. It's the right story at the right time, especially with the added subplot of indie ex-wife snubs blockbuster ex-husband.
But as I sat in the living room with some of my best friends in the world, in an Oscar party that rides the line between scathing critique and deep cinephilia (and I wouldn't have it any other way), I watched as my friend burst into tears when Bigelow won for Best Director. And this is no Pollyanna we're talking about, but a tough, sharp as a tack, New York Jew. She warned us all ahead of time that she would probably cry if Bigelow won. I just didn't think she was serious.
My friend's sister said, "You know I will still hate her if she wins and doesn't say anything anti-war." Bigelow didn't. She trembled and held Oscars in both hands and kept her eyes down like she couldn't believe what was happening. She soft-pedaled her relationship to the armed forces, with the generally palatable appeal to "come home safe." She spoke of collaboration as the secret to directing -- which I think is true, but also makes me think about the complexities of female socialization, and how hard it is for a woman to hold the spotlight and say, "Yes, that was me. This is mine. I did it" and not mention anyone else, but especially men, who "made it possible." She then made an even odder dedication to "all of the people in uniform" around the world, who serve a greater good. EMTs, firemen, cops, catholic school children...
I don't mean to be a jerk. And I don't hate Katherine Bigelow, like my friend's sister might. But neither did I cry when she won because I felt some meaningful glass ceiling break around me. When Bigelow won, I saw a woman draped in privilege who had worked really hard for decades catch the brass ring. That's great, but I did not see an icon of the feminist movement walk off that stage, despite the Academy's memorable choice of "I am Woman (Hear Me Roar)" as background music. Bigelow is a woman who carries privilege across nearly every spectrum (she's white, heterosexual, thin, able-bodied, owning class, native English speaker, conventionally gendered and beautiful) except that she's female, and has made movie after movie which showcase men and community among men (bikers, surfers, cops, soldiers, etc.). It's not that women are wholly absent from her films -- they do make notable appearances, and are often fairly well-nuanced as characters. But it is definitely a "man's world" in Bigelow's films.
That focus on masculinity makes her win as Best Director a bit hollow for me. I've read commentary about how it's not important that Bigelow is a woman -- she's a filmmaker first, and this is Hollywood's way of recognizing that. But at the same time, she's held up as the first woman to do it, to win the big prize and run with the big boys, two-fisting her Oscars and making a "real" action movie. Not a soft "woman's film," like Campion does, or Nair, or even Streisand. It's that conflict that makes me ambivalent about her win, and irked by her acceptance speech. As a woman, she can't get away from it being political -- because she IS the first woman to win the award, and how is that possible, honestly, given the depth of women's contributions to Hollywood and the film industry across the globe since the very invention of cinema? Why did it take 83 years for a woman to win Best Director? And why *this* woman now? We have to ask ourselves these questions. And Bigelow should ask herself these questions, too.
The Academy Awards are a game, a contest. Like any pageant, they are about more than just who is the best. The people who should win don't always win. The people who should win don't even always get nominated -- for their entire careers. The Academy Awards are not a meritocracy. This is actually the implication behind the "It's time" Oscar narrative -- the Academy gets it wrong, they show incredible bias and unexamined privilege, and they do it year after year. "It's time," as a satisfying story, is about the very possibility of breaking through prejudice and going against the odds of the dominant paradigm. But in Bigelow's case, the only/primary dominant paradigm she flouted was being female. Don't misunderstand me -- that's not insignificant. But it's certainly not enough for this woman filmmaker either.
If you knew that you had the chance to be the first woman to "make history" by becoming the first female Best Director, why wouldn't you name the women directors who inspired you? The women whose work is a direct (or indirect, or even distant) influence on yours? The women whose names are so rarely spoken today outside of specialized women's studies/cinema studies interdepartmental classes in expensive grad schools? Alice Guy-Blache. Dorothy Arzner. Maya Deren. Su Friedrich. Lizzie Borden. Vera Chytilova. Ida Lupino. Kinuyo Tanaka. Monika Treut. And more and more. You have a rare opportunity -- among the rarest pedestals that exist at this time -- to say something transformative. To acknowledge, with gratitude and humility, all those who came before you, and open someone's eyes to the invisibility of their labor, their perseverence and their vision. And all it would take is to say their names. Once.
Instead, Bigelow thanked the Academy, thanked her collaborators, and dedicated the statue to soldiers -- "may they come home safe." She may have given her speech just like any male filmmaker would have, neatly and inoffensively confined to this project and this narrow historical and cultural moment, but it's in such "equality" that I find myself the most grieved. I want more. I want better than that. Breaking a glass ceiling is not an invisible, unspoken event. It happens with a crash, and you'll probably get cut doing it. And so we work hard, for decades, and reach for that brass ring, and reach further, reach harder each time we miss. The moments when you do catch the prize are precious, but we must not lose sight of the ultimate aim -- a more just and liberated world. So keep reaching, friends. Reach further. Dream bigger than tiny ol' Oscar. The prize was never really the statue. The prize is the chance to tell the story.
I had also read, weeks before, the marvelous New York Magazine article "The Red Carpet Campaign: Inside the singular hysteria of the Academy Awards race." by Mark Harris, which begins and ends with Katherine Bigelow. "It's time," Harris states plainly. "It's her turn." Harris' article enumerates the many Oscar narratives that people tell about the nominees -- The Cinderella Story, The Come Back, The Long Shot, and so on. I haven't even seen Hurt Locker, but I found Harris' article so compelling -- and with such a nuanced understanding of the politics of Hollywood and the Academy -- that it felt like a foregone conclusion that Bigelow would win. It's the right story at the right time, especially with the added subplot of indie ex-wife snubs blockbuster ex-husband.
But as I sat in the living room with some of my best friends in the world, in an Oscar party that rides the line between scathing critique and deep cinephilia (and I wouldn't have it any other way), I watched as my friend burst into tears when Bigelow won for Best Director. And this is no Pollyanna we're talking about, but a tough, sharp as a tack, New York Jew. She warned us all ahead of time that she would probably cry if Bigelow won. I just didn't think she was serious.
My friend's sister said, "You know I will still hate her if she wins and doesn't say anything anti-war." Bigelow didn't. She trembled and held Oscars in both hands and kept her eyes down like she couldn't believe what was happening. She soft-pedaled her relationship to the armed forces, with the generally palatable appeal to "come home safe." She spoke of collaboration as the secret to directing -- which I think is true, but also makes me think about the complexities of female socialization, and how hard it is for a woman to hold the spotlight and say, "Yes, that was me. This is mine. I did it" and not mention anyone else, but especially men, who "made it possible." She then made an even odder dedication to "all of the people in uniform" around the world, who serve a greater good. EMTs, firemen, cops, catholic school children...
I don't mean to be a jerk. And I don't hate Katherine Bigelow, like my friend's sister might. But neither did I cry when she won because I felt some meaningful glass ceiling break around me. When Bigelow won, I saw a woman draped in privilege who had worked really hard for decades catch the brass ring. That's great, but I did not see an icon of the feminist movement walk off that stage, despite the Academy's memorable choice of "I am Woman (Hear Me Roar)" as background music. Bigelow is a woman who carries privilege across nearly every spectrum (she's white, heterosexual, thin, able-bodied, owning class, native English speaker, conventionally gendered and beautiful) except that she's female, and has made movie after movie which showcase men and community among men (bikers, surfers, cops, soldiers, etc.). It's not that women are wholly absent from her films -- they do make notable appearances, and are often fairly well-nuanced as characters. But it is definitely a "man's world" in Bigelow's films.
That focus on masculinity makes her win as Best Director a bit hollow for me. I've read commentary about how it's not important that Bigelow is a woman -- she's a filmmaker first, and this is Hollywood's way of recognizing that. But at the same time, she's held up as the first woman to do it, to win the big prize and run with the big boys, two-fisting her Oscars and making a "real" action movie. Not a soft "woman's film," like Campion does, or Nair, or even Streisand. It's that conflict that makes me ambivalent about her win, and irked by her acceptance speech. As a woman, she can't get away from it being political -- because she IS the first woman to win the award, and how is that possible, honestly, given the depth of women's contributions to Hollywood and the film industry across the globe since the very invention of cinema? Why did it take 83 years for a woman to win Best Director? And why *this* woman now? We have to ask ourselves these questions. And Bigelow should ask herself these questions, too.
The Academy Awards are a game, a contest. Like any pageant, they are about more than just who is the best. The people who should win don't always win. The people who should win don't even always get nominated -- for their entire careers. The Academy Awards are not a meritocracy. This is actually the implication behind the "It's time" Oscar narrative -- the Academy gets it wrong, they show incredible bias and unexamined privilege, and they do it year after year. "It's time," as a satisfying story, is about the very possibility of breaking through prejudice and going against the odds of the dominant paradigm. But in Bigelow's case, the only/primary dominant paradigm she flouted was being female. Don't misunderstand me -- that's not insignificant. But it's certainly not enough for this woman filmmaker either.
If you knew that you had the chance to be the first woman to "make history" by becoming the first female Best Director, why wouldn't you name the women directors who inspired you? The women whose work is a direct (or indirect, or even distant) influence on yours? The women whose names are so rarely spoken today outside of specialized women's studies/cinema studies interdepartmental classes in expensive grad schools? Alice Guy-Blache. Dorothy Arzner. Maya Deren. Su Friedrich. Lizzie Borden. Vera Chytilova. Ida Lupino. Kinuyo Tanaka. Monika Treut. And more and more. You have a rare opportunity -- among the rarest pedestals that exist at this time -- to say something transformative. To acknowledge, with gratitude and humility, all those who came before you, and open someone's eyes to the invisibility of their labor, their perseverence and their vision. And all it would take is to say their names. Once.
Instead, Bigelow thanked the Academy, thanked her collaborators, and dedicated the statue to soldiers -- "may they come home safe." She may have given her speech just like any male filmmaker would have, neatly and inoffensively confined to this project and this narrow historical and cultural moment, but it's in such "equality" that I find myself the most grieved. I want more. I want better than that. Breaking a glass ceiling is not an invisible, unspoken event. It happens with a crash, and you'll probably get cut doing it. And so we work hard, for decades, and reach for that brass ring, and reach further, reach harder each time we miss. The moments when you do catch the prize are precious, but we must not lose sight of the ultimate aim -- a more just and liberated world. So keep reaching, friends. Reach further. Dream bigger than tiny ol' Oscar. The prize was never really the statue. The prize is the chance to tell the story.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Collaboration is the Name of the Game
A Response to David Branin's Film Courage blog entry "Kickstarter is a Game Changer" and his previous "Build the Audience, and the Movie will Come"
In the last week, it's been my pleasure to witness the conversation happening on Twitter and in blogs about the search for the new distribution model that will work for independent filmmakers working outside of the Hollywood studio/distribution system. Much of this discussion has seemed to come on the heels of the Sundance Film Festival, where so many watched films mostly to see who would be bought and for how much. After Toronto's dismal showings last year, or so I'm told, everyone has been up in arms ever since. To my ear, there's been a lot of talk about the sky falling.
Like David Branin says in his blog Film Courage, the game has changed. We all know this, and feel this, and witness it in the market. The dream of being able to make a film, solitary and pure, know it's incredible genius in an instant, and then sell it for a gazillion dollars to some understanding papa bear of a studio, who will then take it off your hands and put it out into the world, where it will then win an Academy Award on its merits alone ... well, that dream -- if it was ever a reality in the first place -- has certainly gone the way of the dodo. It's quaint and a little ridiculous.
Now, some say, the "clear-eyed" indie filmmaker must wear more hats than ever before -- sometimes the writer, sometimes the editor, nearly always the director, sometimes the talent, nearly always the producer, sometimes the DP and the Key Grip *and* the PA, but now -- dum, dum, duuhhhhmmm -- we must also be the social networking maven marketer. And DIY distributor. And have a good relationship with a DVD replicator. And be tech savvy enough to build bit torrent files, YouTube- and Vimeo-ready nuggets, a snazzy standards-compliant website, and so on and so on, into worlds of media distribution no one has even thought of yet. What I'm hearing, over and over again, is that you have to do everything, and know everyone, and never sleep.
But here's something I think is really important -- making a film is a multi-phase collaborative event. You can't know everything, or know everyone, or never sleep. But you can know almost enough, and know the people to ask who'd know someone who knows more, who then could ask the people they know on how to do this incredibly complex, nearly impossible thing -- which is commit a story to a medium, have it makes sense, share it with others, and then figure out how to do it again. (I'm not sure I can really change much about the sleeping, except to remind folks that insanity beckons if you deprive yourself for too long, and constant sleep deprivation is certainly not a way to make a career.)
There's a world of thinking which locates filmmaking on the shoulders of one person -- the multi-hyphenate writer/director/takeyourpick. If you want to get fancy, it's called the auteur theory. There's a lot to be said about how a single individual puts their recognizable stamp onto the final product of so many hundreds of hands -- and there's a lot to be said for how hierarchies (like many film crews) operate with a strong visionary leader at the helm. But there's also a lot to be said for the ways that auteur theory solidifies a certain costly illusion about how films are made (that one [usually white] man's vision is the driving force and deciding factor behind everything that makes it on screen). As indies, and as people of good conscience, I think we must question that illusion. We must question it for ourselves, and resist the narrative that we must do and be everything in our craft (and burn out trying), and we must be plain with one another in the stories we tell about our collaborations.
I hear a lot in this conversation about how some filmmakers despise the marketing process, and wish they could just ignore it all -- and immediately others of us pounce on how archaic and suicidal such thinking is. But what if the same filmmaker said they despised editing? Or scoring a soundtrack? Or wardrobe and hair styling? Other people specialize in those crafts, and develop some mastery of those skills, so that we can collaborate and bring all of our skills to this gargantuan task. There are people who've thought a LOT about marketing, and social networking, and the internet, and viral campaigns -- and they have some skill at doing all of those things. It's worth talking to them. It's worth asking if they'll come on board your project, in much the same way that we ask any craftsman to come on board our project and help us get the job done. I think taking marketing and distribution seriously means not only planning for it in the budget lines of our projects, not only brainstorming our vision for how this project is going to get out into the world and who our ideal audiences are, but also thinking of it as a legitimate trade that involves a learning curve that might not be worth it to you to learn -- and asking for help accordingly. Sure, you can just do it. You can just muddle your way through figuring it out all by yourself. But, if you hate this stuff, wouldn't you rather be making more films?
This is really a thought for those who say they hate marketing. In a nutshell, you don't have to do it alone! But if you love it -- if you love the speed and comraderie of Twitter, if you love the labor of a well-designed logo and postcard and poster campaign (and I'm specifically talking about graphic design here, not even strategy), if you love mail merges and a well-maintained database, if you love shmoozing at film festivals or local screenings, if you love writing press releases and contacting media outlets, if you love writing content for websites -- if you love it, then love it well and still go out and talk to people about how they do it. Then talk to your fellow filmmakers, maybe fall in love with their projects, and work with them to bring that marketing magic alive. They'll be around for your next project, and who knows what skills they could bring to the table when you need it most.
Again, I feel it's so important to say that we each do not have to be all things to all people -- and that's the beauty of this work. It's not about knowing everything. It's about knowing where your knowledge ends and another's begins. I believe we must stop kidding ourselves about the director-as-God ideas that run through our communities, and dig in deep with each other to collaborate and get our dreams off the ground.
The magic of collaboration is at the very heart of KickStarter. Branin describes his enthusiasm for KickStarter as a workable means of not only doing the incredible (raising thousands of dollars that don't need to be paid back to anyone, except through tiered level patron gifts) but also for gauging the strength of your audience's interest in your project, and the strength of your network in general. The idea I would add to his analysis of KickStarter is that it's a paradigm shift for thinking about audiences and fans. KickStarter is a tool which harnesses the power of the current social networking reality -- that audiences can no longer be treated as passive recipients of media at the end of a creation process. This also is a new collaboration. We work with our audiences and share with them the steps of our creative process, with some artists even seeking audience input on where to go next or how to solve various problems, and we ask our audiences to contribute monetarily in exchange for the experience of being a part of something more. It's not a top-down approach -- i.e., I make this, you take it and like it. Through our/these networks, we can access grassroots-level funding and find out what happens when a 1,000 people contribute $10, instead of 10 people contributing $1000 each, or 1 person contributing $10,000. It's more than just money -- it's about what happens to ideas, and to individuals, when you're participating in something larger than one person's vision, one person's experience, one "ideal" outcome.
It is extraordinary, and profoundly precious -- and I can't wait to see what happens next.
In the last week, it's been my pleasure to witness the conversation happening on Twitter and in blogs about the search for the new distribution model that will work for independent filmmakers working outside of the Hollywood studio/distribution system. Much of this discussion has seemed to come on the heels of the Sundance Film Festival, where so many watched films mostly to see who would be bought and for how much. After Toronto's dismal showings last year, or so I'm told, everyone has been up in arms ever since. To my ear, there's been a lot of talk about the sky falling.
Like David Branin says in his blog Film Courage, the game has changed. We all know this, and feel this, and witness it in the market. The dream of being able to make a film, solitary and pure, know it's incredible genius in an instant, and then sell it for a gazillion dollars to some understanding papa bear of a studio, who will then take it off your hands and put it out into the world, where it will then win an Academy Award on its merits alone ... well, that dream -- if it was ever a reality in the first place -- has certainly gone the way of the dodo. It's quaint and a little ridiculous.
Now, some say, the "clear-eyed" indie filmmaker must wear more hats than ever before -- sometimes the writer, sometimes the editor, nearly always the director, sometimes the talent, nearly always the producer, sometimes the DP and the Key Grip *and* the PA, but now -- dum, dum, duuhhhhmmm -- we must also be the social networking maven marketer. And DIY distributor. And have a good relationship with a DVD replicator. And be tech savvy enough to build bit torrent files, YouTube- and Vimeo-ready nuggets, a snazzy standards-compliant website, and so on and so on, into worlds of media distribution no one has even thought of yet. What I'm hearing, over and over again, is that you have to do everything, and know everyone, and never sleep.
But here's something I think is really important -- making a film is a multi-phase collaborative event. You can't know everything, or know everyone, or never sleep. But you can know almost enough, and know the people to ask who'd know someone who knows more, who then could ask the people they know on how to do this incredibly complex, nearly impossible thing -- which is commit a story to a medium, have it makes sense, share it with others, and then figure out how to do it again. (I'm not sure I can really change much about the sleeping, except to remind folks that insanity beckons if you deprive yourself for too long, and constant sleep deprivation is certainly not a way to make a career.)
There's a world of thinking which locates filmmaking on the shoulders of one person -- the multi-hyphenate writer/director/takeyourpick. If you want to get fancy, it's called the auteur theory. There's a lot to be said about how a single individual puts their recognizable stamp onto the final product of so many hundreds of hands -- and there's a lot to be said for how hierarchies (like many film crews) operate with a strong visionary leader at the helm. But there's also a lot to be said for the ways that auteur theory solidifies a certain costly illusion about how films are made (that one [usually white] man's vision is the driving force and deciding factor behind everything that makes it on screen). As indies, and as people of good conscience, I think we must question that illusion. We must question it for ourselves, and resist the narrative that we must do and be everything in our craft (and burn out trying), and we must be plain with one another in the stories we tell about our collaborations.
I hear a lot in this conversation about how some filmmakers despise the marketing process, and wish they could just ignore it all -- and immediately others of us pounce on how archaic and suicidal such thinking is. But what if the same filmmaker said they despised editing? Or scoring a soundtrack? Or wardrobe and hair styling? Other people specialize in those crafts, and develop some mastery of those skills, so that we can collaborate and bring all of our skills to this gargantuan task. There are people who've thought a LOT about marketing, and social networking, and the internet, and viral campaigns -- and they have some skill at doing all of those things. It's worth talking to them. It's worth asking if they'll come on board your project, in much the same way that we ask any craftsman to come on board our project and help us get the job done. I think taking marketing and distribution seriously means not only planning for it in the budget lines of our projects, not only brainstorming our vision for how this project is going to get out into the world and who our ideal audiences are, but also thinking of it as a legitimate trade that involves a learning curve that might not be worth it to you to learn -- and asking for help accordingly. Sure, you can just do it. You can just muddle your way through figuring it out all by yourself. But, if you hate this stuff, wouldn't you rather be making more films?
This is really a thought for those who say they hate marketing. In a nutshell, you don't have to do it alone! But if you love it -- if you love the speed and comraderie of Twitter, if you love the labor of a well-designed logo and postcard and poster campaign (and I'm specifically talking about graphic design here, not even strategy), if you love mail merges and a well-maintained database, if you love shmoozing at film festivals or local screenings, if you love writing press releases and contacting media outlets, if you love writing content for websites -- if you love it, then love it well and still go out and talk to people about how they do it. Then talk to your fellow filmmakers, maybe fall in love with their projects, and work with them to bring that marketing magic alive. They'll be around for your next project, and who knows what skills they could bring to the table when you need it most.
Again, I feel it's so important to say that we each do not have to be all things to all people -- and that's the beauty of this work. It's not about knowing everything. It's about knowing where your knowledge ends and another's begins. I believe we must stop kidding ourselves about the director-as-God ideas that run through our communities, and dig in deep with each other to collaborate and get our dreams off the ground.
The magic of collaboration is at the very heart of KickStarter. Branin describes his enthusiasm for KickStarter as a workable means of not only doing the incredible (raising thousands of dollars that don't need to be paid back to anyone, except through tiered level patron gifts) but also for gauging the strength of your audience's interest in your project, and the strength of your network in general. The idea I would add to his analysis of KickStarter is that it's a paradigm shift for thinking about audiences and fans. KickStarter is a tool which harnesses the power of the current social networking reality -- that audiences can no longer be treated as passive recipients of media at the end of a creation process. This also is a new collaboration. We work with our audiences and share with them the steps of our creative process, with some artists even seeking audience input on where to go next or how to solve various problems, and we ask our audiences to contribute monetarily in exchange for the experience of being a part of something more. It's not a top-down approach -- i.e., I make this, you take it and like it. Through our/these networks, we can access grassroots-level funding and find out what happens when a 1,000 people contribute $10, instead of 10 people contributing $1000 each, or 1 person contributing $10,000. It's more than just money -- it's about what happens to ideas, and to individuals, when you're participating in something larger than one person's vision, one person's experience, one "ideal" outcome.
It is extraordinary, and profoundly precious -- and I can't wait to see what happens next.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Someday I Want to Do This for Nothing
"Someday I Want to Do This for Nothing"
A Response to Amanda Palmer's "Why I Am Not Afraid To Take Your Money"
A friend of mine forwarded me Amanda Palmer's recent posting on the relationship between artists and money, and was extremely curious about my take on it. There's almost nothing that I disagree with in what she says -- I just want her, and all of us working artists, to take it one step (or perhaps a dozen steps) further.
Her basic thesis can be summed up by this quote:
What she's remarking upon is the way that, for the first time in a very long time, independent artists are able to appeal en masse to their audiences directly for money and potentially receive that money with minimal intervention by any other entity (taxes and PayPal fees notwithstanding). Palmer references a recent webcast that she did where she made $10,000 (through a direct appeal to her listeners and auction of her belongings -- I haven't heard the webcast, nor have I given Palmer any money). For a while now, the way that artists received money to continue/create their work was through 1) selling a discrete product or experience to an audience (i.e. a CD, a painting, a chapbook, a single night's performance of a show or movie), or 2) receiving advances (sums of money) from a gatekeeper to those audiences (like a record label or theatrical distributor or publisher), or 3) individual patronage (wealthy individual supporters -- parents, lovers, would-be lovers, angels and madmen) that often comes with many, many strings attached. Now, if you have an email address and a bank account, you can sign up with PayPal (who will take 2.9% or less off the top -- a pittance compared to other gatekeepers) and have a direct funnel for your audience to send money to you. No managers, no agents, no labels, no overhead... just you and PayPal and your bank (and the State -- can't forget taxes).
This, frankly, is fucking awesome for the artist -- who commonly has received in the realm of 5-10% of the total money brought in by their art when handled by the major players. (And that's if they're lucky and extremely savvy and were able to afford good lawyers up front, which most are not...at least the first time around. Most artists get fucked to the tune of 0-2% returns, if they break even at all.) But what Palmer also references in her breakdown of the current situation is that people feel ashamed to ask for money for their art. They feel ashamed of being viewed as a beggar, impoverished and desperate for money. They feel ashamed of being desperate for money. They feel ashamed of having the line between selling their labor or the produce of that labor (via some item or event) and selling themselves blurred. Palmer names herself as shameless and fearless and brazen -- willing to stand on her soapbox naked asking for a few pennies. She describes a stint working as a living statue for five years:
It fascinates me that in her description of her time as a living statue Palmer locates people's hostility towards her as being about the fact that she was begging for money -- and not more directly in that she was an artist, performing, in sometimes strange and incomprehensible and sublime ways, and asking for money in exchange. Everything that Palmer describes as experiencing, I locate for myself in being an artist who creates and puts work out in the world. My art and me personally via my art will be (and have been) harassed, jeered at, mocked, ignored, insulted, spit at, hated, applauded, appreciated, protected, loved. To my thinking, that paradox, that collision of response, defines the position of the artist in culture.
Now, yes, Palmer is also speaking to the ways that art is not valued as labor in much of modern society. The work of the artist is not valued -- and that is, in no small part, due to the fact that our hours of work are not easily quantifiable. How to make discrete the time I spend dreaming about my next movie? How to put a wage per hour on the time spent picking out the melody for a new song? The "value" and "worth" -- as it relates to money, the universal quantifier of our age -- of an object, or an action, or an experience is never concrete. But nowhere is that arbitrary evaluation made more clear than on the valuing of art.
Joni Mitchell sings a song about this very problem, and it comes from her perspective of her music after she became famous and moneyed. She describes standing on a noisy street corner, and hearing a street performer playing his clarinet "real good, for free."
The problem is more than just the slippery non-quantifiable nature of the labor that goes in to the making of (much, perhaps most) art. It is that art, I believe, defies monetary value and worth at it's core. Tell me about the first time you heard a song that brought you to tears. Tell me about the side-splitting laughter you've guffawed in your chair watching a movie. Tell me about the art that passed through your senses in some way and suddenly, unexpectedly, made the world clearer, in a crystalline instant, to you. You were changed forever. Now put a price tag on those experiences. Put a price tag on the item/event that gave those experiences to you.
It can be done. But if ever there was something that felt like ramming a square peg in a round hole, this is it. I could place a monetary value on my laughter, my tears, my arousal, my exhilaration, my catharsis, my inspiration, my desire. (And wouldn't late capitalism love it if I did?) But what we need, and need quite desperately I think, is a sense of value that is not quantifiable by money. It's a complex, sticky, idiosyncratic process -- what breaks my heart open is not necessarily what will break yours. It's unclear what profit a person could make off such a shift in the paradigm of value -- or if "profit" by its very nature would become meaningless without a value system based on money. Perhaps what would become valued is an ineffable sense of excellence. Wouldn't that be something? Labor valued for its excellence -- for its flow, its ease, its beauty, its extraordinary simple perfection, its superlative nature, perhaps even its joyful ordinariness -- not for its forced corrolary to pieces of paper or bits of pressed metal we agree have value, or to be more honest and contemporary, these rectangles of plastic that transmit electrical signals that we agree have value.
You see, I'm an artist. I dream big. I test the edges. I question the foundations. I want to see behind the funhouse mirrors of this illusory world -- and what I dream of, what I glimpse, I want to share with you. The yearning of my heart for a more just, liberated world calls me to these dreams, these theories, this push to see the world differently.
But let's talk turkey, too. My art (and the art of others) provides my heart with comfort, provides my head with solace and inspiration, but it does not generally put food on my table. And all my grand words and dreams and artistic labor infrequently translate into money for my landlord at the end of the month. I perform other labor to make that happen, and I am enmeshed in a system where that labor is translated into paper and electric signals that have a monetary value, and I trade those bits and pieces for food, for clothing, for shelter, for the fines on my library books, for the yarn I knit into this winter's shawl, for the electricity I use to power my computer to edit new films and write new scripts. All of that, and more, comprises my reality. And the hunger in my belly I've felt when I did not have enough of those pieces of paper or electrical signals to consume more than Ramen noodles and tap water, and I was considering calories not as a restriction but as a goal to meet for the day -- that has played it's part in my reality, too. The holes in my shoes; the worn out clothing; the cutting anxiety of standing in a department store wondering what I could afford and leaving empty-handed; the neurotic pride of never buying clothing from the Good Will; the kept tally in my head of how much the groceries are costing against what I know is in my bank account, done so that I can avoid the embarrassment of having to put something back; the realization that until recently I've (probably) never partnered with a person "worth" less than a quarter of a million dollars, and that I'd managed to do that unconsciously; the fact that in order to make the art that I envision in this historical moment and this economy, I'm looking at raising something on the order of several million dollars to do it... and the only things that I know who have that kind of cash are multinational banks and corporations investing in movie studios, the same institutions that bleed us all dry...
I'm talking about putting a price tag on my passion. It happens every day, in every cost, in every dollar of rent (dear god) that I pay to live in one of the most expensive cities in the world, in every calorie I burn worrying about making ends meet, in every compounded dollar of interest I owe at the end of every month on the debts I took on to get where I am now. If I were to only look at my life as a cost/benefit analysis, nothing would make sense. By any account, at least until recently, I would have been deemed a fool. But that is what we are, us artists. We are fools. We are the jesters, the ones turning these codes of protocols on their ear, reversing the assumptions, sticking our tongues out at the king. And sometimes we're killed for it. But sometimes, something sublime happens instead of the endless miserable debasement that is work for hire.
Recently, I started working on a major television series doing an extremely specialized niche trade. I am paid a startling amount of money for this quirky expertise of mine, and my union (I.A.T.S.E Local 52) makes sure that I enjoy innumerable benefits and guarantees that I have never experienced under any other working circumstances ever. I projected my income for this production season, and it breaks six figures. I am the first person in my family to ever make this kind of money. Contrast this to two years ago when I barely broke $20,000 in income, and last year when I made a respectable $38,000 on my own freelance and union labor. Contrast this shift to the rest of my life, where I've never made more than about $42,000 (and that was working full-time for a non-profit and approaching a nervous breakdown of unhappiness). This year, I will make around three or four times that. However, my years of stringent poverty stay with me. I am wrestling lately with how much of my life has been determined by poverty, and how much of my life I would not change for all the riches in the world. It is a surreal process, but it is one that has shed a great deal of light on the machinations of finance, and particularly the cruelty of usury.
Which brings me back to what's extraordinary about an artist's direct appeal to an audience for financial support. Palmer exclaims that this is the way that the system works now and we should all just get used to it, but I would appeal to her and to all of us to take her thinking further. Palmer auctioned off her possessions, and monetized her celebrity status onto the value of those possessions. In addition to that sale of self (if celebrity can be described as a sale of self, which I believe it can -- what makes it fascinating is that the self is, ostensibly, limitless) and object, Palmer also sells her art and labor via her CDs, her DVDs, tickets to her shows and so forth. But beyond that, in a note at the bottom of her post, she offers the opportunity for people to just give her money directly. It could be argued (and she makes this argument) that that money is a payment towards the potential of future work, and if you like her work, then you should support her monetarily. But Palmer could decide, tomorrow, that she will never make another object of worth for sale ever, and all of the money she's received would still be hers. It is not, in the strictest sense, a trade -- rather, in many ways, it is a gift. (It's certainly the only thing in the U.S. tax system a person could record it as, and if someone were to give her more than $12,000 in a single tax year -- without receiving anything in return or showing it to be a loan with reasonable interest -- it would have to be reported as a gift.)
In the gift, there is a critical subversion of the very system that fucks artists and laborers and everyone else. As McKenzie Wark writes in his astonishing "A Hacker Manifesto" (and please bear with me through the abstract density of his language):
The value of information, freely circulated, is much like the value of art as I've argued it here -- only taken to an even further abstract extreme. While Palmer asks us to accept the direct monetization of art, labor, and item, and to support artists by submitting to such a system because of the possibilities of unmediated exchange, I argue that there is even greater possibility in viewing this money as a gift. Yes, we currently live in a society that is run by money, where means of existence and qualities of desire are quantified by money, and where survival in many, many cases and "quality of life" in all cases (while a subjective scale) is still predetermined by the availability of money. That's a reality that we live with, even those of us who dream of other worlds and work towards those worlds. In that regard, yes, without question, artists still must submit to their artistic labor and their products being monetized (or to the selling of their bodies and energy to perform other labor to continue to create their art) and, while that continues, there must still be an exchange between the recipients/owners/experiencers of their art in the form of money or other items of value. Until this system is overthrown, we will starve without that exchange. And if we're starving, regardless of Hemingway's rejoinder that hunger is good discipline, we will only be able to create so much, dream so much, think so much of new and better worlds, before our bellies and our pain will interrupt us or preclude us from the work entirely. To that end, yes, you, our audiences, must continue to send your money to us. You must value our art the way you value your phone bill or your coffee or your debt payments. You must be willing to send us money so that we can pay our phone bills and buy coffee and pay off our debts. And in the same vein that you do not shame the operator or the barista (I believe you probably should shame the collectors), it is important to not shame the artist for asking for money. We already feel it -- the square peg of commerce raping the round hole of our creativity -- enough. Our art was not meant for your dollars and interest. Our art was meant for your heart. We compromise to a point, yes, but the moment it becomes solely for the money, you feel it and we feel it too. And all is degraded to cheap, hard cash. But there is the possibility that you can beat all of that, you can avoid the measure and the crassness of exchange, with the profound and elegant sidestep of the gift.
This is why I do not join Palmer in her vision of a future of "cheap art," where the wealthy can come to our dinner parties and not leave a tip or a donation. I envision a future of free art -- free as in liberated, free as in beyond the cheapening and concretizing of money, free as in able to achieve excellence without the illusion of scarcity. I work in the movies and in television, and I long to and aim to do my own work on a grand scale. But what I know, and know for certain, is that were it not for this exploitative system and the protection and prevarication of my union, I would do this work for free. I do not perform this labor for my television show -- I do not work for 12 or 14 or 16 hours straight before the subway commute and maintain my concentration and my energy for them -- solely for a paycheck. I do not dream of making my movies for the money that will be collected by them. I do all of this because I have the extraordinary luck of having ignored all the naysayers and brutalized ones, and found the thing that I am the best at in all the world. I have found the labor that makes me excellent, and out of which my excellence becomes manifest. And dear god but I want to give that to you, my comrades, my friends, my lovers, my strangers... and, yes, my audience, present and future. And someday, someday if we work very hard and dream with clarity and boldness, I will do this for nothing and give it to you freely and we will all have dinner to go home to.
Until then, when it causes you no harm, buy the CD even though you downloaded it, go to the theaters and see the movie even though you torrented it, tip the bartender and buy a drink (even water) when you see a show in the local dive bar, put cash in the can passed around when you go to hear someone read... We're changing this world, all of us, but until then... your money still counts. When it does you no harm, give it away.
A Response to Amanda Palmer's "Why I Am Not Afraid To Take Your Money"
A friend of mine forwarded me Amanda Palmer's recent posting on the relationship between artists and money, and was extremely curious about my take on it. There's almost nothing that I disagree with in what she says -- I just want her, and all of us working artists, to take it one step (or perhaps a dozen steps) further.
Her basic thesis can be summed up by this quote:
- "artists will now be coming straight to you (yes YOU, you who want their music, their films, their books) for their paychecks.
please welcome them. please help them. please do not make them feel badly about asking you directly for money.
dead serious: this is the way shit is going to work from now on and it will work best if we all embrace it and don't fight it."
What she's remarking upon is the way that, for the first time in a very long time, independent artists are able to appeal en masse to their audiences directly for money and potentially receive that money with minimal intervention by any other entity (taxes and PayPal fees notwithstanding). Palmer references a recent webcast that she did where she made $10,000 (through a direct appeal to her listeners and auction of her belongings -- I haven't heard the webcast, nor have I given Palmer any money). For a while now, the way that artists received money to continue/create their work was through 1) selling a discrete product or experience to an audience (i.e. a CD, a painting, a chapbook, a single night's performance of a show or movie), or 2) receiving advances (sums of money) from a gatekeeper to those audiences (like a record label or theatrical distributor or publisher), or 3) individual patronage (wealthy individual supporters -- parents, lovers, would-be lovers, angels and madmen) that often comes with many, many strings attached. Now, if you have an email address and a bank account, you can sign up with PayPal (who will take 2.9% or less off the top -- a pittance compared to other gatekeepers) and have a direct funnel for your audience to send money to you. No managers, no agents, no labels, no overhead... just you and PayPal and your bank (and the State -- can't forget taxes).
This, frankly, is fucking awesome for the artist -- who commonly has received in the realm of 5-10% of the total money brought in by their art when handled by the major players. (And that's if they're lucky and extremely savvy and were able to afford good lawyers up front, which most are not...at least the first time around. Most artists get fucked to the tune of 0-2% returns, if they break even at all.) But what Palmer also references in her breakdown of the current situation is that people feel ashamed to ask for money for their art. They feel ashamed of being viewed as a beggar, impoverished and desperate for money. They feel ashamed of being desperate for money. They feel ashamed of having the line between selling their labor or the produce of that labor (via some item or event) and selling themselves blurred. Palmer names herself as shameless and fearless and brazen -- willing to stand on her soapbox naked asking for a few pennies. She describes a stint working as a living statue for five years:
- "i stood almost motionless on a box in harvard square, painted white, relinquishing my fate and my income to the goodwill and honor of the passers-by.
i spent years gradually building up a tolerance to the inbuilt shame that society puts on laying out your hat/tipjar on the ground and asking the public to support your art.
i was harrassed, jeered at, mocked, ignored, insulted, spit at, hated.
i was also applauded, appreciated, protected, loved... all by strangers passing me in the street. people threw shit at me. people also came up to me and told me that i'd changed their lives, brightened their day, made them cry.
some people used to yell "GET A FUCKING JOB" from their cars when they drove by me.
i, of course, could not yell back. i was a fucking statue, statues do not yell."
It fascinates me that in her description of her time as a living statue Palmer locates people's hostility towards her as being about the fact that she was begging for money -- and not more directly in that she was an artist, performing, in sometimes strange and incomprehensible and sublime ways, and asking for money in exchange. Everything that Palmer describes as experiencing, I locate for myself in being an artist who creates and puts work out in the world. My art and me personally via my art will be (and have been) harassed, jeered at, mocked, ignored, insulted, spit at, hated, applauded, appreciated, protected, loved. To my thinking, that paradox, that collision of response, defines the position of the artist in culture.
Now, yes, Palmer is also speaking to the ways that art is not valued as labor in much of modern society. The work of the artist is not valued -- and that is, in no small part, due to the fact that our hours of work are not easily quantifiable. How to make discrete the time I spend dreaming about my next movie? How to put a wage per hour on the time spent picking out the melody for a new song? The "value" and "worth" -- as it relates to money, the universal quantifier of our age -- of an object, or an action, or an experience is never concrete. But nowhere is that arbitrary evaluation made more clear than on the valuing of art.
Joni Mitchell sings a song about this very problem, and it comes from her perspective of her music after she became famous and moneyed. She describes standing on a noisy street corner, and hearing a street performer playing his clarinet "real good, for free."
- "Now me, I play for fortune
and those velvet curtain calls
I have a black limousine
and sixteen gentlemen
escorting me to these halls
And I'll play if you have the money
or if you're some kind of friend to me
But the one man band
by the quick lunch stand
He was playing real good, for free"
*lyrics from Mitchell's live album Miles of Aisles, when she was even more famous and moneyed than when she first wrote this song (notably, the number of bodyguards goes up and up over the years. Compare this from 1983 when she stops naming a number at all with this (probably early 1970s).
The problem is more than just the slippery non-quantifiable nature of the labor that goes in to the making of (much, perhaps most) art. It is that art, I believe, defies monetary value and worth at it's core. Tell me about the first time you heard a song that brought you to tears. Tell me about the side-splitting laughter you've guffawed in your chair watching a movie. Tell me about the art that passed through your senses in some way and suddenly, unexpectedly, made the world clearer, in a crystalline instant, to you. You were changed forever. Now put a price tag on those experiences. Put a price tag on the item/event that gave those experiences to you.
It can be done. But if ever there was something that felt like ramming a square peg in a round hole, this is it. I could place a monetary value on my laughter, my tears, my arousal, my exhilaration, my catharsis, my inspiration, my desire. (And wouldn't late capitalism love it if I did?) But what we need, and need quite desperately I think, is a sense of value that is not quantifiable by money. It's a complex, sticky, idiosyncratic process -- what breaks my heart open is not necessarily what will break yours. It's unclear what profit a person could make off such a shift in the paradigm of value -- or if "profit" by its very nature would become meaningless without a value system based on money. Perhaps what would become valued is an ineffable sense of excellence. Wouldn't that be something? Labor valued for its excellence -- for its flow, its ease, its beauty, its extraordinary simple perfection, its superlative nature, perhaps even its joyful ordinariness -- not for its forced corrolary to pieces of paper or bits of pressed metal we agree have value, or to be more honest and contemporary, these rectangles of plastic that transmit electrical signals that we agree have value.
You see, I'm an artist. I dream big. I test the edges. I question the foundations. I want to see behind the funhouse mirrors of this illusory world -- and what I dream of, what I glimpse, I want to share with you. The yearning of my heart for a more just, liberated world calls me to these dreams, these theories, this push to see the world differently.
But let's talk turkey, too. My art (and the art of others) provides my heart with comfort, provides my head with solace and inspiration, but it does not generally put food on my table. And all my grand words and dreams and artistic labor infrequently translate into money for my landlord at the end of the month. I perform other labor to make that happen, and I am enmeshed in a system where that labor is translated into paper and electric signals that have a monetary value, and I trade those bits and pieces for food, for clothing, for shelter, for the fines on my library books, for the yarn I knit into this winter's shawl, for the electricity I use to power my computer to edit new films and write new scripts. All of that, and more, comprises my reality. And the hunger in my belly I've felt when I did not have enough of those pieces of paper or electrical signals to consume more than Ramen noodles and tap water, and I was considering calories not as a restriction but as a goal to meet for the day -- that has played it's part in my reality, too. The holes in my shoes; the worn out clothing; the cutting anxiety of standing in a department store wondering what I could afford and leaving empty-handed; the neurotic pride of never buying clothing from the Good Will; the kept tally in my head of how much the groceries are costing against what I know is in my bank account, done so that I can avoid the embarrassment of having to put something back; the realization that until recently I've (probably) never partnered with a person "worth" less than a quarter of a million dollars, and that I'd managed to do that unconsciously; the fact that in order to make the art that I envision in this historical moment and this economy, I'm looking at raising something on the order of several million dollars to do it... and the only things that I know who have that kind of cash are multinational banks and corporations investing in movie studios, the same institutions that bleed us all dry...
I'm talking about putting a price tag on my passion. It happens every day, in every cost, in every dollar of rent (dear god) that I pay to live in one of the most expensive cities in the world, in every calorie I burn worrying about making ends meet, in every compounded dollar of interest I owe at the end of every month on the debts I took on to get where I am now. If I were to only look at my life as a cost/benefit analysis, nothing would make sense. By any account, at least until recently, I would have been deemed a fool. But that is what we are, us artists. We are fools. We are the jesters, the ones turning these codes of protocols on their ear, reversing the assumptions, sticking our tongues out at the king. And sometimes we're killed for it. But sometimes, something sublime happens instead of the endless miserable debasement that is work for hire.
Recently, I started working on a major television series doing an extremely specialized niche trade. I am paid a startling amount of money for this quirky expertise of mine, and my union (I.A.T.S.E Local 52) makes sure that I enjoy innumerable benefits and guarantees that I have never experienced under any other working circumstances ever. I projected my income for this production season, and it breaks six figures. I am the first person in my family to ever make this kind of money. Contrast this to two years ago when I barely broke $20,000 in income, and last year when I made a respectable $38,000 on my own freelance and union labor. Contrast this shift to the rest of my life, where I've never made more than about $42,000 (and that was working full-time for a non-profit and approaching a nervous breakdown of unhappiness). This year, I will make around three or four times that. However, my years of stringent poverty stay with me. I am wrestling lately with how much of my life has been determined by poverty, and how much of my life I would not change for all the riches in the world. It is a surreal process, but it is one that has shed a great deal of light on the machinations of finance, and particularly the cruelty of usury.
Which brings me back to what's extraordinary about an artist's direct appeal to an audience for financial support. Palmer exclaims that this is the way that the system works now and we should all just get used to it, but I would appeal to her and to all of us to take her thinking further. Palmer auctioned off her possessions, and monetized her celebrity status onto the value of those possessions. In addition to that sale of self (if celebrity can be described as a sale of self, which I believe it can -- what makes it fascinating is that the self is, ostensibly, limitless) and object, Palmer also sells her art and labor via her CDs, her DVDs, tickets to her shows and so forth. But beyond that, in a note at the bottom of her post, she offers the opportunity for people to just give her money directly. It could be argued (and she makes this argument) that that money is a payment towards the potential of future work, and if you like her work, then you should support her monetarily. But Palmer could decide, tomorrow, that she will never make another object of worth for sale ever, and all of the money she's received would still be hers. It is not, in the strictest sense, a trade -- rather, in many ways, it is a gift. (It's certainly the only thing in the U.S. tax system a person could record it as, and if someone were to give her more than $12,000 in a single tax year -- without receiving anything in return or showing it to be a loan with reasonable interest -- it would have to be reported as a gift.)
In the gift, there is a critical subversion of the very system that fucks artists and laborers and everyone else. As McKenzie Wark writes in his astonishing "A Hacker Manifesto" (and please bear with me through the abstract density of his language):
- "20. Private property arose in opposition not only to feudal property, but also to traditional forms of the gift economy, which were a fetter to the increased productivity of the commodity economy. Qualitative, gift exchange was superseded by quantified, monetised exchange. Money is the medium through which land, capital, information and labour all confront each other as abstract entities, reduced to an abstract plane of measurement. The gift becomes a marginal form of property, everywhere invaded by the commodity, and turned towards mere consumption. The gift is marginal, but nevertheless plays a vital role in cementing reciprocal and communal relations among people who otherwise can only confront each other as buyer and sellers of commodities. As vectoral production develops, the means appear for the renewal of the gift economy. Everywhere that the vector reaches, it brings into the orbit of the commodity. But everywhere the vector reaches, it also brings with it the possibility of the gift relation.
21. The hacker class has a close affinity with the gift economy. The hacker struggles to produce a subjectivity that is qualitative and singular, in part through the act of the hack itself. The gift, as a qualitative exchange between singular parties allows each party to be recognised as a singular producer, as a subject of production, rather than as a commodified and quantified object. The gift expresses in a social and collective way the subjectivity of the production of production, whereas commodified property represents the producer as an object, a quantifiable commodity like any other, of relative value only. The gift of information need not give rise to conflict over information as property, for information need not suffer the artifice of scarcity once freed from commodification."
(my emphasis)
The value of information, freely circulated, is much like the value of art as I've argued it here -- only taken to an even further abstract extreme. While Palmer asks us to accept the direct monetization of art, labor, and item, and to support artists by submitting to such a system because of the possibilities of unmediated exchange, I argue that there is even greater possibility in viewing this money as a gift. Yes, we currently live in a society that is run by money, where means of existence and qualities of desire are quantified by money, and where survival in many, many cases and "quality of life" in all cases (while a subjective scale) is still predetermined by the availability of money. That's a reality that we live with, even those of us who dream of other worlds and work towards those worlds. In that regard, yes, without question, artists still must submit to their artistic labor and their products being monetized (or to the selling of their bodies and energy to perform other labor to continue to create their art) and, while that continues, there must still be an exchange between the recipients/owners/experiencers of their art in the form of money or other items of value. Until this system is overthrown, we will starve without that exchange. And if we're starving, regardless of Hemingway's rejoinder that hunger is good discipline, we will only be able to create so much, dream so much, think so much of new and better worlds, before our bellies and our pain will interrupt us or preclude us from the work entirely. To that end, yes, you, our audiences, must continue to send your money to us. You must value our art the way you value your phone bill or your coffee or your debt payments. You must be willing to send us money so that we can pay our phone bills and buy coffee and pay off our debts. And in the same vein that you do not shame the operator or the barista (I believe you probably should shame the collectors), it is important to not shame the artist for asking for money. We already feel it -- the square peg of commerce raping the round hole of our creativity -- enough. Our art was not meant for your dollars and interest. Our art was meant for your heart. We compromise to a point, yes, but the moment it becomes solely for the money, you feel it and we feel it too. And all is degraded to cheap, hard cash. But there is the possibility that you can beat all of that, you can avoid the measure and the crassness of exchange, with the profound and elegant sidestep of the gift.
This is why I do not join Palmer in her vision of a future of "cheap art," where the wealthy can come to our dinner parties and not leave a tip or a donation. I envision a future of free art -- free as in liberated, free as in beyond the cheapening and concretizing of money, free as in able to achieve excellence without the illusion of scarcity. I work in the movies and in television, and I long to and aim to do my own work on a grand scale. But what I know, and know for certain, is that were it not for this exploitative system and the protection and prevarication of my union, I would do this work for free. I do not perform this labor for my television show -- I do not work for 12 or 14 or 16 hours straight before the subway commute and maintain my concentration and my energy for them -- solely for a paycheck. I do not dream of making my movies for the money that will be collected by them. I do all of this because I have the extraordinary luck of having ignored all the naysayers and brutalized ones, and found the thing that I am the best at in all the world. I have found the labor that makes me excellent, and out of which my excellence becomes manifest. And dear god but I want to give that to you, my comrades, my friends, my lovers, my strangers... and, yes, my audience, present and future. And someday, someday if we work very hard and dream with clarity and boldness, I will do this for nothing and give it to you freely and we will all have dinner to go home to.
Until then, when it causes you no harm, buy the CD even though you downloaded it, go to the theaters and see the movie even though you torrented it, tip the bartender and buy a drink (even water) when you see a show in the local dive bar, put cash in the can passed around when you go to hear someone read... We're changing this world, all of us, but until then... your money still counts. When it does you no harm, give it away.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)