Harvard Magazine has a transcript of J.K. Rowling’s commencement speech where she talks about benefits of failure and the importance of imagination. Her speech is elegant, humorous, very inspiring and a must read. Here are a few quotes from her speech:
“So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”
“…You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.”
“Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.”
“One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.”
Scientific American has an incredible article based on a discussion with three experts on creativity. Here are some quotes from the article which resounded with me:
“There’s so much power in a new idea taking shape and changing the way people live and act. Often the rest of us are in awe, or we are even afraid of a new idea, and sometimes our fears spur us to learn more about it.”
“There are four different skill sets, or competencies, that I’ve found are essential for creative expression. The first and most important competency is “capturing”-preserving new ideas as they occur to you and doing so without judging them. ”
“The second competency is called “challenging”-giving ourselves tough problems to solve. In tough situations, multiple behaviors compete with one another, and their interconnections create new behaviors and ideas. The third area is “broadening.” The more diverse your knowledge, the more interesting the interconnections-so you can boost your creativity simply by learning interesting new things. And the last competency is “surrounding,” which has to do with how you manage your physical and social environments. The more interesting and diverse the things and the people around you, the more interesting your own ideas become.”
“You have to put up with dry spells and keep creating in the face of them.”
“You have to learn not to fear failure and even to rejoice in it. ”
“The creative individual thinks of failure as a new opportunity.”
“…failure actually stimulates creativity directly. It really is valuable.”
“I think that creativity is contagious and that the best thing we can do for children is to model for them what it’s like to be a creative individual.”
Published on Wednesday June 4, 2008 · Filed under: Entertainment .
Youtube videos can now contain links to other Youtube videos and can also contain annotations (think VH1’s pop-up video). This news is MAJOR! Think about all the possibilities!!!!!
You gotta check it out RIGHT NOW!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw6YPh-fAko
People just don’t want to sleep.
Or so it may seem. I’ve stumbled upon several articles about the use of Provigil by healthy individuals to enhance cognitive functions. All of the articles say that the drug does have very positive effects on cognitive functions, but what is the downside? The possibility of a serious skin reaction.
Men’s Health also has an article on polyphasic sleep patterns (referred to as the uberman sleep pattern) and how it may allow you to spend more time awake rather than sleeping by taking multiple short power naps instead of sleeping for a straight period of time.
What is this obsession with working?
It’s a problem that I also have. My problem is that I feel like it’s a race to achieve all of my dreams. But what kind of quality of life can you expect to have if you don’t take some time for a siesta, to meditate, to reflect, to just spend time with friends and family?
These are questions I struggle with everyday.
(BTW the title of this article refers to a famous research paper dealing with the limits of working cognitive memory.)
This movie poster for “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” caught my eye over at Quicktime.com. I saw Jet Li’s name attached to it and I instantly knew that the movie probably had something to do with the Qin Dynasty and the Terra Cotta Warriors. What a coincidence since Heather and I just visited the Terra Cotta Warriors exhibit at the Bowers Museum last weekend. The trailer looks pretty cool but of course the movie takes liberties with the historical account of the Qin emperor. If it wasn’t for the Qin storyline and Jet Li I’d probably wait to see it on video, but now I might actually see it in the theater.
I might have to go watch “Hero” again since it’s another Jet Li movie that deals with the Qin Dynasty.
Slashdot reports:
“The New York Times reports today about Michael Hollick, the actor who provided the voice of Niko Bellic in Grand Theft Auto IV. Although the game has made more than $600 million in sales for Rockstar Games, Hollick earns nothing beyond the original $100K he was paid. If this was television, film, or radio, Hollick and the other GTA actors could have made millions by now. Hollick says, ‘I don’t blame Rockstar. I blame our union for not having the agreements in place to protect the creative people who drive the sales of these games. Yes, the technology is important, but it’s the human performances within them that people really connect to, and I hope actors will get more respect for the work they do within those technologies.’ Is it time for video game actors to be treated as well as those in other mediums?”
First let me set the record straight. There should be no distinction between “video game” actors and actors in general - other than the fact that most video game work is non-union voiceover work. There are plenty of actors here in Hollywood that do video game work. But the problem is that SAG and AFTRA have not set up a residual contract for video games. But they should. Right now SAG and AFTRA are negotiating residual contracts for online video and they should do the same for video games.
I was sitting there in Studio DNA perusing through this month’s GQ magazine noticing all the stylish short haircuts and decided it’s time to try a new look. In the past this would have been a big deal and my agents would look at me with disapproval telling me that I would now need to go get new headshots. But now that I no longer have commercial representation and I’m concentrating on producing my own shows it doesn’t matter as much anymore.
Hmmm. It is about time to get some new headshots…
Another sign of the times - a new indie film site called The Auteurs is promoting itself at the Cannes Film Festival with a video competition sponsored by HP, Facebook and Flip. 250 people will get the chance to grab a Flip camera and shoot a 3 minute short film. The winner, as determined by a jury receives $10,000 cash and a HP workstation with a 30 inch display - plus you get to keep the camera. Don’t expect the resulting videos to be Cannes-worthy though since the Flip video camera is a small solid state consumer device that only shoots 640×480 video. It will be interesting to see how many people actually participate in this competition. I think this sort of stunt/promotion would be better suited to another film festival such as Slamdance .
I just received an email directed to all SAG members giving an updated report to contract negotiations with the AMPTP. The top headline is:
The AMPTP Wants to Use Excerpts From TV Shows and Motion Pictures Without Actor’s Consent on the Internet….And Beyond
New Media is one of the biggest issues in contract negotiations. The studios still don’t know how to monetize video on the internet and are still experimenting with ventures such as Hulu at the same time making deals with various online video distribution companies including Apple/iTunes/AppleTV. I know of these issues first hand as a web developer who used to manage FX Networks and helped to establish their online video distribution of their shows using Brightcove. The key question that needs to be answered before royalties can be paid to actors for “internet use” is how do you track and control video views and distribution? This can get pretty tricky. Using Brightcove, there are built in metrics but other distribution services may not have these tools. And who will keep the studios honest? In my experience I’ve seen metric numbers be “adjusted” in order for a studio marketing team to sell more ad space or get bigger budgets for their group, so who’s to watch the studios and keep them honest as to how much royalties to pay back to the artist based on internet “views”?
For the savvy actor, this is actually an exciting time. Forget the bickering between SAG, AFTRA and AMPTP. This is the age of opportunity and empowerment. It has never been easier or cheaper for actors to be seen by larger audiences other than the 99-seat theater. If you’ve paid any attention to the video revolution on the internet you will know of the publicity and opportunities non-actors have received from stupid videos on YouTube. Entrepreneurial actors are already online creating brands - monetizing their creative work and creating bigger opportunities. Just read this article:
Rise of the internet star…
So what are you doing to take charge of your acting career? Why are you sitting around waiting for your agent to call? Go out and create your opportunities.
Published on Thursday April 24, 2008 .
It’s been a long time since I’ve gone to a commercial print audition but tomorrow I will be going out for an IBM print job. I considered turning it down, but $1,500 for a 10 hour work day is actually more than I usually make doing freelance - so I figured why not?
