52 CREATIONS

CREATION 1 - The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Thornton Wilder's "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" is a favorite book. It so closely aligns with a story I covered years ago near Washington, D.C. that it gave me a measure of peace just knowing my response to an amazingly unfortunate confluence of events was not unique. More on that story another time. I put together this short Instagram creation on my iPhone in a coffee shop using the Adobe Rush app utilizing a couple of quotes from the novel and imagining what the fictional scene could look like. Music was pulled from Artlist, image creation and video from Runway.

Wilder writes, "there are a hundred ways to wonder at circumstance." True. The most beautiful events and the most tragic events often have elements that make us as humans wonder if they occurred by accident or by some kind of cosmic intention. My experience tells me that there's value in pursuing answers to such questions and - at the same time - it's unlikely I'll find the entire answer. Search with all your might... yet know a sufficient answer will likely elude you.

On a purely creative level, I wasn't altogether happy with this snippet. I didn't capture what I'd hoped. It feels too "Lord of the Rings"... that's fine if that's what you meant to create. But it led me to another conclusion - The Bridge of San Luis Rey needs a modern re-telling... teens on a bridge in New York maybe. The themes of the book will never grow old but the characters, place and time are not relatable. Which leads me back to the story I reported which was so similar... it involved real people in real life, and as such, would need to be treated with extreme care if the loved one's families wanted the story re-told at all. Mulling this and the proper approach. 

CREATION 2 - 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."

CREATION 3 - The Reorienting Question


This creation has multiple layers of backstory. A good friend sent me Alfred Lansing's Endurance after telling me I'd appreciate the introduction. He was right. The introduction by Nathaniel Philbrick detailed author Alfred Lansing's fascination with the voyage of Ernest Shackelton's Endurance. It had been 45 years since the Endurance voyage... about the same amount of time that separated me from the deaths of Jim and Martha Tyrer who I was creating a documentary about. Lansing died in his 50's (I was in my 50's... yikes) and Lansing desperately wanted the story to resonate with the public in a way that the voyage deserved. Again, a parallel. 

Enter another good friend a couple years later. (Yes, I'm blessed with good friends.) This friend and I had been talking about our aspirations. I'd shared that I was thoroughly loving my work, was grateful for it, and yet wanted a higher level of success. He humbly posed the question that this creation is about. It truly provided a fresh peace of mind. I say "truly" because it's not a trite or hoped for peace of mind... the conclusion I reached after asking myself his question is 100 percent, to my bones, honest and validating. I can happily live with the conclusion I reached. I can and will still aspire but aspiring is different than needing. Likewise, financial success in one's career does have its benefits. During the times I've had it I've felt the freedom it can provide. And - perhaps the focus of a different creation - I've come to believe that many of the people who espouse the notion that money can't buy happiness are the same people who haven't felt the strain that a lack of money brings... it's all about matters of degree. But this creation... this realization... is that identity itself does not lie in the public success of one's work. 

Thanks to Russ Florence and Dean Stelow for being the good friends referenced above.

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