KEEPING YOUR COOL

"Cry havoc!"

Or, at least, sound the alarm.

One of the great challenges in creative pursuits is the seemingly simple act of getting to the next day intact. Doodles on cocktail napkins, to cite cliché, all look full of promise and potential. But when they're reduced to real work--to physical labor, to spreadsheets and invoices and deadlines--those darling doodles rapidly fade from memory. Big ideas fully enjoined can suck up every last moment of the day and every ounce of strength on a team.

But as anyone knows who makes his or her life about bringing new ideas into being, creative pursuits rarely take place when convenient. They tend to pile up, forcing Solomon-esque decisions about limited resources, dwindling energies, and shifting priorities.

Havoc indeed.

In Upton Sinclair's great novel "The Jungle", the protagonist Jurgis Rudkus repeatedly declares, "I will work harder" when confronted with unrelenting challenges. By the middle of the book he's worn down, beaten up, dismissed and dispirited. It's sad, but it's honest. In the story Jurgis suffers the depredations of a corrupt political and corporate ecosystem. It's not exactly the same as trying to keep the wheels on the car in a successful artistic enterprise. (That's us.) But the parallels obtain. Sometimes the reckless momentum of the world, the relentless spin and swirl in an effort to get to some undefined next level can simply knock you out. Some days it's hard to keep going.

It would be reductionist bromide to declare that one ought to just work harder to push through challenging demands. It just so happens, however, that it's the truth. The trick is to find sympathetic vibrations in competing demands on time and energy. Do subtle observations made while pursuing one project shed light on some intractable problem dogging another? Does a conversation with one client spark a moment of invention to solve a dilemma elsewhere? Can you shoot B-roll on one location for two unrelated stories?

Not always. But when the volume gets turned up to 11––and it doesn't matter what you do because it always gets turned up to 11 once in a while––it's essential that the din of battle does not overwhelm your nerves. You need to see the forest and the trees simultaneously. If you survive the journey, the calm of morning may afford a strength and clarity that makes it all worthwhile. Managing chaos is not out of the ordinary; it's to be expected if your heart is set on living a life that matters.

RESETTING

Our chief technologist and master editor Vicky Weeks has a knack for getting right to the center of the coconut. When we're deep into production or out on the road and everyone needs to take a few hours to go over plans, break down, clean up, or otherwise find their brains, she says it's time for us to "reset".

Clearly the term draws cultural connections to the ubiquitous ghost in the collective machine. We're all so tethered to our myriad devices; the very idea of resetting ourselves seems to be an extension of the machines we use. By investing our identities with this mechanical process, it's almost as if we've capitulated free will to some sort of Borg collective, as if "resetting" ourselves is simply a standard procedure for living as part of a larger hive mind.

But I fear I'm heading down a digressive path.

Beyond a cultural analysis of machines-versus-humanity, Vicky's expression always makes me smile for it's perfection. In elegantly simple language it suggests an awareness that big actions and important decisions are often made best when someone is stable, solid, and whole. To "reset" is to find a center point, a moment of equilibrium in what may have been roiling seas. It is to have a moment's clarity, or at least a moment's peace amid the jangle of reality.

If you know anything about media production, reality jangles. It rips and snorts and bucks like a bee-stung bronco. To hope for anything different is to be a fool in a warrior's game. But even samurai understand the value of sitting quietly. Sometimes the very act of quiet breathing, of carefully coiling the extension cords and repacking the equipment bags can make all the different in the world for successfully completing tough shooting days.

Some people fall into the trap of thinking they need to reset too often. It's one thing to be organized, but to reset too often is to give yourself an excuse for not actually getting anything done. Real engagement with creative work--with life, really--requires us to stay in the game and figure out how to find balance through movement. In the fast-moving obstacles and challenges of a busy day, balance is less a stable position than it is a confident sequence of footfalls that resist panic as they lightly hop from position to position. In aggregate, those hops should be moving you forward.

Resetting is different. It's a system downshift, a reboot, an intentional pull of the power plug. It can be something designated for a few hours, or it can be something designated for many, many days. You don't do it when you're tired; for that you should just get some rest. Resetting is for finding your center again, with the specific goal of heading out for unknown horizons. It's not something to take lightly, even as it can dramatically lessen the force of gravity for a precious period of time. In some ways it's a sacred thing, and like all powerful techniques, something that should be intensely respected, infrequently employed, and done with mindful intention.

It's okay if you enjoy it, too. I know I do.

--MS

PS -- To our regular readers, please take 20 seconds (or thereabouts) and retweet, cross post, or otherwise pass the link for this blog--and its 1AU Global Media home--onto your own readers and friends! Call it karma, call it kismet: we'll just call it cool! Cool?

Storm!

There's always a storm ahead. The question is when. Then the next question is, "What are you going to do when it comes?"

History rarely celebrates The Couch Potato. Crowds never gather to cheer the timid, the sedentary, the boring. Sing it, Virgil: "Audaces Fortuna iuvat."

But you know what? A day or two after a natural calamity, everyone's wishing for a little prosaic ordinariness.

The mid-Atlantic states got clobbered by a colossal storm on summer night in 2014, knocking out power, felling massive trees, ripping power lines from their poles like spider webs ripped from backyard porch railings. It came on a Friday and by Sunday morning more than 1 million people were still without power. Substantial water restrictions were imposed due to a suddenly darkened water pumping station in the region. And may I add parenthetically, that this all sent a particular pang of fear into my heart, because triple digit temperatures dangerously threatened to desiccate my thriving tomato crop. But perhaps I shouldn't jest about such widespread woe.

Widening the metaphorical lens, I can't help but be aware of the tragic fires this year in Colorado. Homes and lives have suffered terribly, and major portions of vital national wilderness have turned to ash.

Pulling back even further, it's inevitable that perditions elsewhere in the global village should immediately come into focus. Debt crisis, Syrian upheaval, African strife, environmental decay, abrasion of the American social fabric: trapped in an art gallery a hungry person hardly notices the  paintings all around.

Of the many lessons a life in the arts teaches, the two most essential are fortitude and perseverance. No kidding: "the show must go on" means so much more than simply a rallying call for nervous high school students at the spring play. But the real world often requires us to drop philosophy for practicality. Philosophy informs how we will act; that's why it's essential to develop deep philosophical skills early on. The actions we make in life are choices shaped by a life of philosophical training--good choices if we've trained ourselves well, not so good choices if we've missed the forest for the lumber mill.  Surrounded locally by a calamity that merely hints microcosmically at the substantially larger challenges elsewhere around the world, I'm aware of the discontinuity between philosophy and practicality.

In the past few days, we've been working hard to develop a number of new, substantial projects. New treatment pages and reference art are starting to add up, starting to gather exciting critical mass. We're aiming high, looking far, and running the engines at high revs. Nobody cheers for the complacent, and these days we've been pretty busy.

Then the storm hit.

As I turn in my chair to look out the window, it's a lovely morning, now two days after a gusty wind and rain have stopped. The air is almost still, the sunlight golden yellow, the few singing winter birds giving no indication of the rough night they weathered just recently. But the storm also forced momentum to come to a crashing halt on those new projects, as practical realities and the emotions and energy necessary to propel them got siphoned elsewhere.

That perseverance thing, that thing about the show going on? It's not about dumb, donkey-headed stubbornness. It's about taking the day in stride, come what may, no matter what winds or rain may lash fragile flesh. It's about a sense of humor, grim sometimes, but a sense of humor fundamentally. It's also about a determination to be undaunted, even as the unexpected knocks you for a loop. Because the unexpected is always gonna knock you for a loop.

Of course, you can't think these things when you're wondering where your family is going to sleep now that your home is a pile of rubble, or your nation in tatters from political unrest. But later, later, later… long after the smoke has cleared and democratic elections held, and people you love are together again telling stories, the artists of the world will have led the way in making sense of events that really had little to do with ordinary reason and rhyme. Acts of creation matter most when the world runs down. The perseverance inherent in those who have something to say puts a frame around the otherwise Brownian chaos of unpredictability. By framing the world, we make sense of the world. By making sense of the world, we find our fortune.

In case you're wondering, by the way, we're back to being full speed ahead getting those new projects off the ground. Stay tuned.  Go farther.

@michaelstarobin

facebook.com/1auglobalmedia

PS -- To our regular readers, please take 20 seconds (or thereabouts) and retweet, cross post, or otherwise pass the link for this blog--and its 1AU Global Media home--onto your own readers and friends! Call it karma, call it kismet: we'll just call it cool! Cool?

LIVE!

Live performance is the ultimate Turing test. What happens on stage is what happens for the audience. There are no re-dos, no edits, no clean-it-up-in-post. Live lives.

But "live" doesn't just happen. In broad terms, a good live performer describes someone with an acute sensitivity to the world around him or herself. More specifically, a compelling live performer is somebody who knows how to rehearse.

Deeper still, rehearsal is not enough. It's possible to be well rehearsed and yet to have rehearsed poorly. Ultimately this is where skilled direction and production come to bear. Message, motivation, mechanics: you've got to have the tools to make a live event come alive for an audience.

A few days ago I went to the opening night performance for Diana Krall's 2012 world tour.  Playing at Meyerhoff Hall in Baltimore with her stunning quartet, she made it look easy. Chatting with the audience, turning casually on the piano bench to regard her fellow musicians, clearly enjoying the night, the music radiated out across the packed hall into the summer air. There's nothing like a live event.

But even though she commented several times how she wasn't sure what they might play next, and even though the group clearly left room for improvisation and on-the-fly set changes, nothing was left to chance. To say they were well rehearsed is to understate the obvious. But what they really expressed were lifetimes of craftsmanship, and deeply felt affinities for playing music.

Simple statement: I like music. But here's the question, at least for regular readers of this blog: what's the direct relevance to what we do at 1AU Global Media?

As a production facility specializing in real world images and CGI and carefully crafted storytelling, one may think the more specifically human aspects of live performance might not resonate as intensely for for us. Not true. We pride ourselves in extensive live performance backgrounds. Superb production in a traditional sense should appear effortless. That's why Krall's performance sounded so good. To the audience, it just sounded like they were playing. Playing: that is, the act of having fun. Serious things done well can still invest audiences in a sense of fun, particularly if you broaden your acceptance of the word to mean enjoyable satisfaction in what you're doing. At 1AU, we care intensely about making it look easy, even as the craft of doing so requires lifetimes of practice. More to the point, doing a job well, especially a creative one, is precisely what defines fun.

Our clients know they can turn to us for highly sophisticated media. But if you're new to 1AU, consider us next time you're planning a live demonstration, or your executive staff needs to make a public statement, or speak on camera. Preparation for a live event divides the merely enthusiastic from the pros. Sometimes the line is wide; sometimes it's narrow. But there's always a line. Cross over… and go farther.

-MS

PS -- To our regular readers, please take 20 seconds (or thereabouts) and retweet, cross post, or otherwise pass the link for this blog and it's home at 1AU onto your readers and friends! Call it karma, call it kismet: we'll just call it cool! Cool?