burn the codicil, corrina

as i told my legal advisor/friend/administrative assistant, i’ve had no room nor time to talk about my thoughts and feelings on the whole MTV briefing simply because they dumped such a HUGE amount of info on you at such a steady stream that it was rather impossible (as i experienced it) to process any of it, you sort of had to open up and let it run through you nearly unchecked, just storing as much as you could internally. i’m really glad i recorded the legal lectures. i listened back to that the other night and it brought back the feeling of rolling dread through me again. the feeling that could not consolidate itself into remembered facts and rules, as it was so much so soon and so very opposite of most of what blogging is normally about (or even non-commercial filmmaking/youtube pieces, home shooting) but rather, instead, accumulated into a general sense of creative paralysis.

i need to remap entirely the way i conceive of various areas of this videomaking i do, so often, in different shapes. this sure is an uptight and cautious, overlycautious shape and one of my big thoughts to hit me after i got back was THANK GOD I’M NOT RICH. don’t feature this, don’t focus on that, don’t use one of these, dont say that, don’t imply this, don’t go there, don’t use one of these, do remember to sign all of these, and whatever happens, never ever do THAT. fear of litigation running like a 60 cycle hum through everything.

much of the legal directves are no big deal, in and of themselves. much of it you would not think of doing, and almost none would you even consider doing while working with such big outfits. it wasn’t that it was all uptight, hairsplitting stuff. it was that there was so MUCH of it. and a few things that really are hard to swallow. i can’t use my music. i can’t even use a drumbeat, i can’t hit three keys on a keyboard to make a swell of sound as one scene changes to the next. “its’ not about music” was the non-sequitur response i got from someone. “its about news.”

when i think about any of their concerns, i get it. as they said, they have “deep pockets.” people will sue them. okay. i have to just reroute my creative process (“news” or not, it is going to be creative, and my brain has to rewire some synapses is al) to conceive in a slightly different way. cool. a challenge. i can always dig that.

another thought i had was “thank GOD I WENT TO FILM SCHOOL.” thats at least ONE area i dont have to remember. and they tried to teach people a LOT in those days! took me years and years and lots of classes to really hone my craft. not that you can’t do what you need to for this. its not writing shooting and cutting “satyricon.” (hmmm wonder how fellini would do on the street team…)

this is what they gave us (to remember and retain and live by, not just “hear”)

• legal protocol (dos and don’ts)

• legal protocol (release forms for everything from A to Z)

• ftp/contact/supervisory/submission protocol

• interviewing protocol

• shooting protocol

• media contact protocol

• shooting technique

• new equipment to learn

• new software to learn

and then they told us to go be good reporters and begin in a week and turn a video in every week.

WOW.

a friend (the one in law school) said “they don’t really expect you to have a life while you do this, do they?”

i told her i hadn’t had time to think of anything. all my brain was working on healing my body.

i won’t comment on the money being levied for all this energy and work, i’m not supposed to and i won’t.

i’m an ambitious guy. you’ve heard my stories. some of them are pretty pie in the sky grab the brass ring and run home before sunset stories. but this is just super ambitious of my new employers (who are not, i’m made to feel, actually employers, but who just happen to be able to dictate every little thing about the work they are paying me to submit exclusively…i know. it’s confusing.) and, in turn, this is super ambitious of us, the street team, i guess! there are some good people i met on this team, i will say that. and a wide range, i have to admit. in some ways.

i feel very intimidated by all the rules. and a bit stifled by oversight and restriction. its a very new thing, yet in a similar shape to something i’ve known for a while.

because i dont remember all of the rules at once, and need to begin right away, i feel—literally—nearly paralyzed.

but i’m going to give myself time to settle. lose this cold. get used to the process…or die tryin’.

at least i have…TWO DAYS. i kid. i mean, i don’t kid. but i can at least do a blog post for my first one. i didnt want to. you know me i like (aside from OPP) to go all out. smash the ceiling of even high expectation. and even in this situation, i couldve…were it not for the damn cold thats taken me out for days. i think i may be healing now…we’ll see in the morning how the cough is and such. the first night i was bundled up in three layers of clothes i felt so strangely freezing.

a younger friend, a member of the Street Team, was a bit funny. (young and only relatively young, and then older, and old…we’re all a bit Funny and ya gotta love all parts of the spectrum for all our particular quirks. and what we all bring to the table.) he was thinking of himself as pretty idealistic i guess. i don’t blame him. as i said, when you are used to just “seeking truth” and “doing right” by people (trying) or “doing some justice,” it can be pretty daunting when you meet the ironclad precautions of a monster media company.

he said to me, implied that i was jaded. or that when you “get older, you get resigned.” and that’s usually true. there’s a lot of truth to that. and i’ve said it for years. but then i had to laugh when he spoke of his qualms but then answered them by saying “needed the laptop.”maybe developing a sense of irony happens in your 30s. or maybe he didnt really mean it.

i also had to laugh when i heard the legal part about not showing violence as a solution to anything in your videos. i mean, of course i wouldn’t do that. but i couldn’t help but think of the wars this nation wages and how much so many companies benefit from that, even if its by pumping out movies that cater to the themes or stories that spin off of military actions…i couldn’t help but think of all the movies i’ve seen that were super violent in this nation. i know many of them bore the same brand name as this company.

hypocrisy. it’s part of being part of this system, you know? i’ve struggled with it a long time. if hypocrisy were cornflakes, this nation would have a General Mills stamp on the flag. but hey. my take is that unless you are living on land somewhere away from the grid, just growing your own food and making everything and not part of the system in the slightest way, not supporting it by either consuming from it or feeding it with cash…then you have to live with your hypocrisy. see it, dont deny it. and try to do your best there. when you are younger you feel that because you see what’s wrong, then what is Right is the opposite of that. and since YOU can see it, then you can stop it. and thats good. that’s what irrational youth is for, for that very idealism. and you moralize endlessly and condemn, damn sure you will be the pure one.

you won’t. you may change the world. but i doubt you’ll be pure at the end of it. but hey! prove me wrong. i’m happy there, too.

so i had to sort of laugh at a lot of it. and i’ll see how my soul and hands deal with it. i see opportunity. and not just for me. but for…something unseen. i sense unknown things can happen. maybe i’ll find a story that actually does do someone or many people good. i’ve never had the potential of such a platform. and it is interesting and empowering to be assigned as an outlet of information for such a large area. that’s very cool. also, i see it as a year long audition. who knows who might see my stuff and like it. and its true that i would love to find people who do need a voice, and aren’t heard. i just don’t know how much time i’ll have to find them!

i’m not stressing quite as much anymore. part of it was that i was sick and yet i knew i had to be reading and planning and thinking and organzing and calling contacts and making new contacts and getting some subscriptions and meeting up with people and just walking around…and i couldn’t. that was really stressing me. finally last night i said “hell with it. you aren’t doing a video for your first one. get over it. there’s no way.”

and you know how it goes. when the acceptance washes over you, its beautiful. once again anything can happen. because your eyes are wide open again, and your spine at ease. you are no longer bending forward focusing on one tiny spot.