Hugh Garry

Let them play

One of the saddest things about our educational system is that schools are too keen to turn moments of 'play' into moments of 'learning'. The crayon becomes the pencil then a pen. The lego becomes the exercise book then the ruler and protractor. As Ken Robinson said in The Element"

“Imagination is the source of every form of human achievement. And it's the one thing that I believe we are systematically jeopardising in the way we educate our children and ourselves.” 

When I watched Caine's story I struggled to hold back the tears as it reached it's conclusion. In part they were tears of joy for such a remarkable story, but also tears of sadness that his days of play may soon be behind him with his creative spirit dampened by an industrial model of education the sees work and play as polar opposites.

He who seeks beauty will find it

Last night I went to see Bill Cunningham New York, one of the best films I've seen in such a long time. Bill lives a life of simplicity in a world of excess and glamour. He shuns the limo lifestyle getting around New York on his bicycle. He has few clothes and gaffa tapes them together when they fall apart. And he refuses meals at the celebrity dinners he attends most evenings in favour of a $3 diner sandwich.

Throughout the entire film you're constantly questioning how such a man survives in an industry that is so at odds with his own values. In a film sprinkled with touching moments the one that stood out for me was when it was revealed that BIll parted company with Women's Wear Daily because they had changed the copy of an article to poke fun at how people were dressed in some of his pictures. For Bill there was no 'In' or 'Out', just 'In'. There was no 'Cool' or 'Uncool', just cool. Why be derogatory about something that should just slip by unnoticed. Socialite Annette de la Renta later notes, “I don’t think we’ve ever seen a cruel picture done by Bill.” It's a cruel business, with questionable morals, which is why it will never be see in light as other art forms. If only it had Bill's values.

Here's a few moments of brilliance from the great man:  

"Everyone has taste, but they don’t have the daring to be creative."

"I let the street speak to me."

"If you don’t take money, they can’t tell you what to do, kid. That’s the key to the whole thing."

"Money is the cheapest thing. Freedom is the most expensive thing."

"It’s as true today as it ever was, he who seeks beauty will find it."

"The wider world perceives fashion sometimes as a frivolity that should be done away with in the face of social upheavals and problems that are enormous. The point is, in fact, that it’s the armor to survive the reality of everyday life."

4 lessons in creativity from 'The Artist'

 

I went to dinner on Sunday with a friend who told me that people in Liverpool were walking out of the cinema when they discovered that The Artist was a silent film. I shouldn't be surprised though. I'm sure there were couples choking into their popcorn in multiplexes all over the country when the realised that a silent movie actually means no speaking and no colour. Not even 3D!!! What was Hollywood thinking?

I was delighted to see it scoop a handful of Oscars last month. It's a brilliant and engaging film packed with lessons in how to be creative in whatever it is you do. Here are 4 to be getting on with:

1. What is not constrained is not creative. If you are faced with a blank sheet of paper to fill try add some restrictions of your own. 

2. Creativity is about subtraction. What you remove is as import as what you add. If you're making a blockbuster like Transformers and you add more robots, you simply have a film with more robots. If you're making a film like The Artist and you take away the voices you have something 'remarkable'.   

3. Talent imitates, genius steals. Borrowing from what has gone before is no bad thing. Singing the Rain was a brilliant movie.

4. Rethink deadness. Just because technology moves forward doesn't mean old ideas are bad ideas. 

 

Woody Allen, Physical Email and the Proverbial Wallet.

I went to see Woody Allen's new film 'Midnight in Paris' today and couldn't help smile when the main character Gil, who is fascinated by 1920s Paris, gets into a debate with Adriana about when was the best time to live.

Gil meets Adriana (a beautiful Parisian who is having an affair with Picasso) after travelling back in time to his favourite era. The conversation takes place when pair travel further back in time to the 1890s, which is Adriana's favourite period in history. Gil wants to return to the 1920s but she wants to stay in the 1890s forever because the era in which she belongs holds no excitement for her. Whilst they are there they bump into Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gaugin and Edgar Degas who all believe that the golden age was the Renaissance and not the 1890s, the era in which they were living. 

We all have a romantised vision of the past, a golden age that we long to return to for some rose tinted reason or other. We're great at ignoring the present and appreciating it for all its brilliance. Personally, I've never been like that, much to the disappointment of my friends as my enthusiasm for reminiscing falls short of theirs. I can be such a stick in the mud sometimes. 

I've said it before. The greatest time to be alive is now. Teetering on the edge of tomorrow. I do forget sometimes, but then brilliant people share brilliant things using brilliant technologies and I get incredibly excited about the here and now again. 

So. If like me you get excited by current thinking around the intersection of the real and digital world then you may just love the work of former MIT student John Kestner (thanks to the lovely Tom Uglow for bringing him to my attention).

Here are a few interesting things he has done. Please do check out the rest.

Tableau

 

"Tableau acts as a bridge between users of physical and digital media, taking the best parts of both. It's a nightstand that quietly drops photos it sees on its Twitter feed into its drawer, for the owner to discover. Images of things placed in the drawer are posted to its account as well".

Proverbial Wallets

"The Proverbial Wallet gives us that financial sense at the point of purchase by un-abstracting virtual assets. Tactile feedback reflecting our personal balances and transactions helps us develop a subconscious financial sense that guides responsible decisions. In addition to providing a visceral connection to our virtual money, tactile output keeps personal information private and ambient".

Charlie Kaufman on Storytelling

There's this theory in fashion that once you spot something three times in quick succession then it's officially 'a trend'. There's also that thing that once you start thinking about something more than usual you simply notice it more. Either way, I agree with Matt, conversation around storytelling seems to be everywhere at the moment.  

I love this from Charlie Kaufman in The Guardian on why he wrote 'Being John Malkovich'. A great example of the combinatoral nature of the creative process:

"I wrote Being John Malkovich while I was waiting for hiring season. My idea was that I would write a script and use it to get work. I had this idea that someone finds a portal into someone's head, and I had another idea that somebody has a story about someone having an affair with a co-worker. And neither one was going anywhere, so I just decided to combine them".

But what I really like about the article is this great anecdote about running. It's goes back to what Ira Glass has to say in 'Part 1' of this post.

"I'll tell you this little story. There's something inherently cinematic about it. I run in my neighbourhood, and one day I ran past this guy running in the other direction: an older guy, a big hulky guy. He was struggling, huffing and puffing. I was going down a slight hill and he was coming up. So he passes me and he says: "Well, sure, it's all downhill that way." I loved that joke. We made a connection. So I had it in my head that this is a cool guy, and he's my friend now.

A few weeks later, I'm passing him again, and I'm thinking: "There's the guy that's cool." As we pass each other, he says: "Well, sure, it's all downhill that way." So I think: "Oh, OK. He's got a repertoire. I'm not that special. He's probably said it to other people, maybe he doesn't remember me ... but OK." I laughed, but this time my laugh was a little forced.

Then I pass him another time, and he says it again. And this time he's going downhill and I'm going uphill, so it doesn't even make sense. And I started to feel pain about this, because I'm embarrassed for him and I think maybe there's something wrong with him. And then it just keeps happening. I probably heard it seven or eight more times. I started to avoid him.

I like the idea that the story changes over time even though nothing has changed on the outside. What's changed is all in my head and has to do with a realisation on my character's part. And the story can only be told in a particular form. It can't be told in a painting. The point is: it's very important that what you do is specific to the medium in which you're doing it, and that you utilise what is specific about that medium to do the work. And if you can't think about why it should be done this way, then it doesn't need to be done".

It has the first building block, the sequence of actions - I went running and met this man and he told a joke and I met him again and he told the same joke. That's followed by a moment of reflection - he says this to everyone and it kinda makes me feel uncomfortable. Then the big point - It's very important that what you do is specific to the medium in which you're doing it.

A very simple story, built with basic building blocks creating something wonderful in a few paragraphs. 

Read the full article here.

 

Eat, Learn and Move

Wonderful...

Reassuringly Wonderful

After seeing this on Russell's blog I felt compelled to share it. I suggest you watch it in full screen, it really deserves it.

As he suggests it makes a decent analogy for what the future of TV advertising could be.

'A few craft practitioners, in a few markets, making highly visible but ambient stuff for a decent, realistic wage'.

There is something wonderful about watching stuffing being made. It's always fascinated me. I remember sitting cross legged on the carpet at Bishop Billsborrow, my eyes fixated on the TV as Derek Griffiths introduced a film about glass blowing via the Play School round window. I was five years old. Why would that be interesting to a five year old? For me it suggested a future of possibility; perhaps one day I would blow glass, make pottery or put the letters in Blackpool rock. These were new things I was discovering about the world I was living in. It was enlightening and very exciting.

We shouldn't question why that was interesting to a five year old though. The question we should be asking is at what point did we stop making interesting children's TV featuring craftsmen at work and start making terrible TV shows for adults about airlines/driving instructors/traffic cops/cleaners/ambulance drivers/bailiffs at work?

Since turning into a grumpy old man I've found myself turning off the TV and tutting loudly more and more. I no longer subscribe to Sky and have recently been using my cognitive surplus to do more interesting things. I really am beginning to dislike the stuff being shoved before my eyes by the people who have the power of the push. All I can say is 'Thank God for the off button'.

My consumption method of we used to call TV is rapidly changing. What used to be pushed at me is now being pulled by me. My viewing is no longer exclusively chosen by Sky, BBC or Chanel 4 (ITV never had a look in) but curated for me by people who I trust like Russell, Maria, Iain, Graham and Zefrank, not forgetting the most excellent Bill and Ted, plus home of a different kind of witty banter Dave who does the DO. And that is to name just a few. There are many more finding me brilliant stuff that I can watch, rate, comment on, review, share, remix and blog about. 

As Clay Shirky points out in his excellent new book when someone buys a TV the number of consumers goes up by one, but the number of producers remains the same. However, when someone purchases a computer the number of consumers goes up by one and the number of producers goes up by one too. We are all co-producing together. We too are making 'stuff'. Kinda 'TV stuff'. It might only be a comment or a blog post, it could be a remix or homage of some sort, but it's 'stuff' and we are making because we are interested and engaged. And thankfully it's taking eyeballs away from TV shows about airlines. 

If there was a TV channel totally dedicated to watching films about 'things being made' I might be drawn back to the big black box in the corner. Even if the shows were paid for and were about 'products'. So what? If they're as good as this then great. Giving us a hashtag to tweet about shows is useless if the shows being made aren't worthy of commenting on. That's not pregress. Neither is making a console for us to tweet in that is glued to your destination site. I think that might be called 'taking progress backwards'. Becoming interesting again would be progress and we know what that takes - 'new balls please'. 

Whilst I'm waiting for that to happen I'll keep looking through my laptop shaped window at stuff being made by my co-creators, as happy as a cross-legged five year old. Perhaps if the pushers of what we used to call TV looked out through their round window they too might discover some new things in the world they're living in. They may not know it but these are exciting times to be enlightened by if they just looked a little closer at what is being made.

Speaking of new perspectives...

Loving some of these mash-ups making great use of Microsoft's Songsmith.

Songsmith will add an musical accompaniment to any vocal you supply. It analyses your vocal tone and tempo then adds a backing style of your choice. I'd like to call it clever software but to be honest I can't really think of a good use for it other than other than scoffing at its naffness.

If the whole idea of Songsmith isn't weird enough then check out this promo video for it. After watching I had to check the date to be sure it wasn't part of some kind of April fool gag.

Old story - new perspective

Worth watching every second of this brilliant 7 minute footage which offers an incredible view from a new perspective.

A short film by Nancho Vigalondo

Courtesy of the superb http://whythatsdelightful.wordpress.com which I found through the also rather decent http://www.crackunit.com

Don't know much about the filmmaker or the film but I'll make it my business to do so in the coming weeks - superb stuff.

If you're liking the darkness of the storyline then I suggest you go out and find this underrated gem by Scorsese called 'After Hours'. It's the stuff nightmares are made of, and sadly for me I've had far too many nights like this in my life.