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Promises
The stories behind stories fascinate me. Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is one such story. You know the poem:
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
-
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
-
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
-
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Care to guess how long it took him to
write those lines? The answer is com-
forting, especially if you understand
what it's like to create something
and feel a bit exposed and vulnerable. The artistic process, it's been said, goes like this:
This is going to be awesome
This is tricky
This is trash
I am trash
This might be all right
This is awesome.
Steps No. 3 and No. 4 threaten to
make you overly cautious and perfectionistic - spending far too much time on little details and fretting over complexities. It doesn't help.
Frost was in that very position. He had
toiled through the night on a poem that he was determined to make into a masterpiece. Frustrated and exhausted, he is said to have gotten up from his desk and walked outside. As the sun began to rise he pictured a snowy scene in his imagination and words began to coalesce in his mind around an entirely new poem. It took him 20 minutes to write it. Not only is the imagery beautiful, the story behind it is a reminder to just be... just let it flow... maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. Let it happen.
The short video above utilized Runway ML, ChatGPT, Motion Array, Adobe Premiere and the haunting chords of Portishead and their song, "Roads."