Late last week, I received an email from an artist I met last year when I gave an in-person lecture at NYFA, with a link to a spoken-word piece she had recorded recently. Ironically, it was a speech recorded for NYFA as well, for their 2020 Fellows celebration, and it’s titled "Dear Artist: The Lost Career Guide (Early, Emerging, Mid-Career, Established, Not Established But Still Kicking, Post-Humous, Alien, Etc. Etc.)" and it was given by artist Kelly Tsai. Now, I’m a skeptic when it comes to random emails of spoken-word pieces, but it was just what I needed at the end of a tough, busy week/year. It made my day, and it inspired me, and I hope it will do the same for you.
I think it captures so much about what it’s like to be an artist – the ups, the downs, the self-doubt, the envy, the FOMO, the drive, the ambition, and as she addresses at the end of the piece – why we do what we do. And if you do consider yourself an artist – whether your work is seen by millions, or just a few people, or just yourself – it’s a good reminder to keep making work. Even in stressful times like these – and yes, even if you aren’t on the front-lines of Covid-19, or out of work because of it, or working in a job made more dangerous because of it – your work is still important.
But don’t just make it. Make a lot of it. Be prolific. That’s the advice I’ve been giving lately, as I’ve been joining calls and Zooms with filmmakers. Make your art. Lots of it. Use whatever you have at hand, but keep making. The artists I know and love who are successful seem to be the most prolific, always making, always experimenting and always changing.
Do the work. It’s hard sometimes. You just don’t feel inspired, or during Covid, all of your energy has been drained. I didn’t want to write this piece this week, I wasn’t feeling inspired. But you have to do the work. Sit in front of the screen, the page, the canvas - until you make the work. I could quote many famous authors here, but I like this quote from Chuck Close: “Amateurs look for inspiration; the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
Of course, the end of the year is a time of relaxation and reflection. It’s a time to disconnect and recharge. But the reason we take that time to recharge (if we are so lucky) is to get back to the work. So as we head into the end of the year, if you need some inspiration to get back to work – to make, to make, to make (as Kelly says) – then watch the video and get to work.
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Film
How to Deliver a Film to "Virtual" Fests in 2020: Filmmaker magazine published this piece by Sergio Andrés Lobo-Navia in print back in October, and I sent a copy to every filmmaker I know. They've now opened it up on their website, and I highly recommend that anyone delivering a film to a fest reads it, as it explains all the hard to understand stuff about file formats and compression, etc. that we need to know in 2020. Every festival should send it to filmmakers when they're accepted as well.
Hollywood's Streaming Pivot will be Bad For Indies: What will the move to faster streaming mean for indies? Ted Mundorff, the president of Arclight Cinemas and formerly CEO of Landmark (meaning he knows a thing or three about films), says it's gonna be detrimental, as they have a harder time sustaining longer, platform releases, that earn strong revenue and build word of mouth. I think he's correct when it comes to the Parasite's of the world, but the reality is, many smaller indies don't get held past the first week anyways. That said, Ted is one of the smarter people in the biz, so it's worth a read. (Hollywood Reporter)
Al Milgrom, Godfather of Twin Cities Film Scene Dies at 98 - Sad news, as the Star-Tribune reports on the passing of arthouse film legend Al Milgrom. I was only able to actually meet Al a few times, but he was ever-present on the film scene, and known to most people in the business. And his passing seems impossible, as he had lived through so much that he seemed unstoppable. He was an inspiration to many, and another loss to 2020.
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Branded Content
The Elevate Reports are Here: BrandStorytelling commissions a series of reports as part of their Elevate Conference each year, and they're available online now, here. These are a series of reports on different aspects of brand funded content, and this year, they take a deep dive into things like the state of the field, but also - how to work with filmmakers and get started in this space; how the marketplace works, especially the distribution side; and purpose-driven media (among other topics). The reports aren't free, but they're worth the cost, and the organizers will give discounts for those who need them.
Facebook Sucks: What else can you say. Their practices are a good argument for everyone to abandon ship on them and move into branded content (thus my putting this here), but as we all know - it works, and we're stuck using the f-ers against our will. That said, we don't have to like it, and we can call out their bullshit, such as their campaign against Apple's privacy moves. I will leave that to the good folks at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who have an excellent post breaking down how FB's campaign against Apple is actually "against users and small business" contrary to their ads. But before I go on this one - WTF is up with the NYT running the FB ad in their article about the FB campaign against Apple??!! Seriously, the NYT re-printed the entire FB ad, for free, in an article about the controversy (in the print and digital editions). As if they needed more earned media for their paid media here?
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Miscellany:
Laura Poitras on the Justice Department's Attack on Journalism: Laura Poitras's NYT Op-Ed on her ordeals with the Justice Department - she could go to prison for life for reporting on the Snowden documents - is a must read on the perils facing journalists and the precedents this sets. From her piece:
"It is impossible to overstate the dangerous precedent Mr. Assange’s indictment under the Espionage Act and possible extradition sets: Every national security journalist who reports on classified information now faces possible Espionage Act charges. It paves the way for the United States government to indict other international journalists and publishers. And it normalizes other countries’ prosecution of journalists from the United States as spies."
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