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trinuviel · 5 years

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Winterfell’s Daughter. On Sansa Stark (part 15)

I’ve previously written a series of essays that analyse Sansa Stark’s narrative arc in Game of Thrones - during season 1 (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6) and during season 2 (Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10) and now during season 3 (Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14).

As I’ve repeatedly stated, Sansa’s season 3 arc revolves around her political importance as Robb Stark’s heir apparent since her younger brothers Bran and Rickon are dead in the eyes of Westeros. Several major power players attempt to secure Sansa in order to control her claim to the North but it is the Lannisters who win that political game by wedding her to Tyrion after Petyr Baelish revealed the secret plan of the Tyrells to marry Sansa to Ser Loras. In this post, I’m going to take a closer look at how the wedding between Sansa and Tyrion plays out in episode 8.

BEFORE THE WEDDING

In my previous post, I criticized the manner in which the show frames Sansa’s reaction to the fact that she is forced to marry Tyrion Lannister - a marriage designed to exploit her status as Robb’s heir, a marriage predicated upon a plot to murder her brother and his pregnant wife so that Sansa will become the Key to the North in truth. It is a diabolical plan when you really think about it but the show mainly presents this whole thing from Tyrion’s perspective and when we are shown Sansa’s reactions, they are framed as shallow and intolerant (i.e. she’s not attracted to Tyrion because he’s a dwarf). The fact that she’s the victim in this scheme is effectively glossed over in episode 7 when Margaery attempts to console her.

Fortunately, the show turns out to be rather inconsistent in terms of how it frames Sansa’s reaction to this marriage in episode 8 where Tyrion comes to see her before the ceremony. The scene starts with a close-up of Sansa’s doll, the one that Ned gave her after he killed Lady. This doll may have functioned as a symbol of Ned’s guilt (x) and a reminder of Lady’s death in the beginning but after his death, it has come to mean something else for Sansa. Now it is the last tangible link to her father as well as a source of comfort to her (x). It is also a visual reminder to the audience that Sansa is still a child – and too young to get married! This is something that the show also explicitly states – both Shae and Tyrion call her a child within the context of marriage and sex, which really drives home how callous Tywin Lannister is in his exploitation of her claim to the North.

After the close-up of the doll, the camera pans up and we see that the doll is placed on Sansa’s dressing table, next to the mirror wherein we see her reflection as her maids prepare her for her wedding. There’s a knock on the door and Tyrion enters the room, his reflection joining Sansa’s in the mirror. Sansa stands up to greet her intended while Shae remains at her side.

Sansa: You look very handsome, my lord.

Tyrion (sarcastically): Oh, yes. The husband of your dreams. But you do look glorious.

Sansa fidgets, wringing her hands nervously as Tyrion asks for a moment alone with her. The conversation that follows is very awkward, mostly because Tyrion repeatedly says the wrong things, then realizing his blunders and trying to backtrack.

Tyrion: My lady, I want you to know. I didn’t ask for this.

Sansa (tonelessly): I hope I will not disappoint you, my lord.

Tyrion: No, don’t. You don’t have to speak to me as a prisoner. You won’t be a prisoner after today. You’ll be my wife.

This is a rather tactless utterance on Tyrion’s part. The fact remains that Sansa IS a prisoner – and the marriage is designed to keep her a permanent one. Tyrion may not have asked for this marriage but Sansa never gave her consent and she isn’t in a position to refuse. This is a FORCED marriage and she is not obligated to try to make the best of it or relieve Tyrion of his unease. However, she doesn’t dare to express her displeasure. Instead we see Sansa utilizing her trademark courtesy as a piece of emotional armour, keeping up a wall of icy politeness to keep Tyrion at arm’s length.

Tyrion: I suppose that is a different kind of prison.

So he does understand but then he immediately tries to forge a connection in another way, only to fail again.

Tyrion: I just wanted to say… I’m just trying to say, very badly… I just… Just want to say I know how you feel.

This is just incredibly presumptuous of him. While he didn’t ask for the marriage, his feelings cannot be compared to Sansa’s. Her hopes for freedom have been crushed and she can only look forward to a lifelong imprisonment as the Lannisters attempt to steal her home. Tyrion is trying to make himself feel better because he knows that this marriage is designed to disenfranchise her while it is set up to benefit him. Thankfully, Sansa refuses to play along here.

Sansa: I doubt that very much my lord.

Tyrion: You’re right. I have no idea how you feel. And you have no idea how I feel.

It is clear that Sansa’s impassive demeanour makes Tyrion very uncomfortable, which makes him defensive. However, he is also very much aware of how wrong it is of Tywin to force Sansa into this marriage and he’s trying to make himself feel a bit better about the role he is to play in this farce.

The camera cuts to a close-up of Tyrion taking Sansa’s hand.

Tyrion: But I promise you one thing, my lady. I won’t ever hurt you.

Finally, Tyrion strikes the right chord. He ought simply to have lead with an acknowledgement that she doesn’t want this marriage but that he’ll never hurt her. He takes her arm and they leave her chambers. Then the camera cuts to an exterior view of the Sept of Baelor where the wedding ceremony is to take place.

What is notable about this shot is the fact that the cinematographer uses a frog’s eye perspective (from below), which makes the building loom threateningly over the spectator. This is a good example of how the camera work can be invested with emotion. The prospect of the wedding and the marriage is an oppressive threat for Sansa – so one can argue that the first view of the Sept of Baelor is set within her POV and the audience is invited to share it through the visual language.

THE CEREMONY

After a barbed conversation between Margaery and Cersei, the camera cuts to an exterior view of the doors to sept, shot from the frog’s eye perspective that lends the visuals an oppressive, even threatening quality. As the doors are slowly opening, Sansa walks into frame until she is framed by the door way.

Then the camera cuts to an OTS (over the shoulder) shot with Sansa framed by the light from the open doorway and a pair of septas.

She’s the visual focal point of this scene though the OTS shot locates the camera (and thus the eye of the audience) within Tyrion’s POV - since the OTS shot is a device often used to anchor a shot within the POV of a given character.

The camera gets to peek over the shoulder of our main talent and assumes a point of view like that of our talent. The camera (and therefore the viewing audience) sees directly what the main talent sees. Granted, the face of the actor is hidden from view, so we do not know what he or she may be thinking or feeling from this angle, but since the audience is placed into the shot from the character’s point-of-view (POV), the audience is encouraged to do the thinking and feeling for the character or as the character more directly. This is sort of an objective – subjective shot type where you get a privileged point of view from what is usually a more neutral camera angle. (x)

The OTS shot is followed by a close-up of Tyrion - this reaction shot also functions to make clear that we are dealing with Tyrion’s experience as Sansa enters the sept. We are still within his POV.

A reaction shot is one of the basic units of film grammar and it is used as part of the non-verbal story-telling in order to express the inner life of the characters:

A reaction shot usually implies the display of some sort of emotion on the face of the actor being shown, and is thus most commonly a close-up shot (although a group of actors may be shown reacting together). A reaction shot is also generally bereft of dialogue, though this is not an absolute rule. Its main purpose is to show an emotional response to the immediately preceding action or words of another character in the scene, or to an event in the immediately preceding scene which may or may not involve another actor (e.g., an explosion, monster, empty room, etc.) (x)

There are a lot of reaction shots in this scene as we see the various characters respond to what is happening - and since this is a fairly long scene with very little dialogue, these shots are quite important in order to lend the proceedings emotional intensity.

After Sansa has moved into the sept, Joffrey approaches her with a swagger and a smirk. He can hardly contain his glee because he’s using this event to torture her emotionally. He reminds her that her father is gone and since the King is the Father of the Realm, he’ll give her away to her husband-to-be. The fact that Joffrey, who is responsible for Ned Stark’s death, is going to act as proxy for Sansa’s father during the ceremony just underscores how much of a farce this wedding is.

Sansa reluctantly takes his arm and they begin to walk forward as the doors close behind them.

The walk up to the altar takes a fair bit of time - from the moment that Sansa enters the sept and until she stands at the altar - is about 1:30 min long. That is, in fact, a very very long in terms of cinema and television. The moment of her approach to the altar is dragged out to an almost uncomfortable degree - and this underscores the awkward and uncomfortable nature of the event.

Joffrey and Sansa ascend the stairs to the altar and as they come abreast with Tyrion, Joffrey takes away the little stool that Tyrion was to use for the cloaking of the bride. Because Joffrey is a little shit who likes to humiliate people, especially the two he seems to hate the most: Tyrion and Sansa.

After this little piece of assholery from Joffrey, Sansa and Tyrion face the alter and the septon. Once again we get an OTS shot, this time from the septon’s POV. This shot is angled from a bird’s eye perspective (from above), which is the opposite of the frog’s eye perspective - but the effect is the same. This angle lends the scene an oppressive quality, which helps to convey how unhappy event this wedding is for both Sansa and Tyrion.

Septon: You may now cloak the bride and bring her under your protection.

Sansa turns her back on Tyrion so that he can put the Lannister cloak on her shoulders. However, Joffrey has removed the stool that was provided for this purpose. Tyrion shakes out the cloak and approaches Sansa. A wide-shot makes it clear that it is impossible for him to cloak her when she remains standing.

Sansa remains standing for quite a bit of time while Tyrion struggles with the cloak. In fact, she remains standing for 10 whole seconds, which is a LONG time in terms of television. Long enough for the crowd to begin laughing – in fact, the scene includes a number of reaction shot of various people laughing.

In the end, Tyrion has to ask Sansa to kneel, which she eventually does.

This scene is somewhat different than the way it is portrayed in the books where Sansa refuses to kneel for the cloaking ceremony and Tyrion eventually has to resort to use Ser Dontos as a stool.

The bride's cloak he held was huge and heavy, crimson velvet richly worked with lions and bordered with gold satin and rubies. No one had thought to bring a stool, however, and Tyrion stood a foot and a half shorter than his bride. As he moved behind her, Sansa felt a sharp tug on her skirt. He wants me to kneel, she realized, blushing. She was mortified. It was not supposed to be this way. She had dreamed of her wedding a thousand times, and always she had pictured how her betrothed would stand behind her tall and strong, sweep the cloak of his protection over her shoulders, and tenderly kiss her cheek as he leaned forward to fasten the clasp. She felt another tug at her skirt, more insistent. I won't. Why should I spare his feelings, when no one cares about mine? (ASoS, Sansa III)

The question is: Why did the show make this change? I suspect that this change was made for practical reasons. Having Peter Dinklage balance on the back of another actor while putting an unwieldy piece of fabric on Sophie Turner seems a bit unsafe for him. He could easily fall and hurt himself in such a scenario. So the way the scene played out may just have been a pragmatic solution to a practical problem in order to prevent a situation where an actor could possibly be injured.

Many fans were very upset with this change and so was I at first because it seemed as if the writes removed what little agency Sansa had left in this situation. However, upon a re-watch I have changed my stance on this issue. Once again, I want to point out that Sansa remaining standing for the duration of 10 seconds is almost an eternity in terms of cinema! The fact that Tyrion literally has to beg her to kneel does highlight that she is quietly refusing to make things easy for him because she is being forced into this marriage.

Her action is a piece of quiet resistance on her part but it is very subtle – so subtle that it is very easy to overlook unless you pay attention and think critically about the way that this scene plays out.

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(The cloaking scene begins at timestamp 6:20)

After the cloaking, Tyrion and Sansa face the High Septon who proceeds with the ceremony. We get a close-up of Sansa with a downcast gaze as sighs audibly.

High Septon: We stand here in the sight of the Gods and to witness the union of man and wife. One flesh, one heart, one soul. Now and forever.

The scene ends here - and we don’t get to see the rest of the ceremony.

A CURIOUS OMISSION

Re-watching this scene, I noticed something odd. What is interesting here is the fact that the wedding ceremony doesn’t include the most important parts of the way that a wedding is conducted in the Light of the Seven:

The hand fasting.

The recitation of the wedding vows. (Father, Smith, Warrior, Mother, Maiden, Crone, Stranger. I am hers/his and she/he is mine, from this day, until the end of my days)

This omission becomes even more glaring in comparison with Edmure Tully’s wedding that takes place in the very next episode because this wedding scene includes ALL the ceremonial elements of a wedding performed in accordance with the religion of the Seven:

The cloaking of the bride.

The hand fasting where the hands of the couple is bound together.

The recitation of the traditional wedding vows.

It begs the question why the show omits these elements during the wedding of Sansa and Tyrion. One possibility is that the show didn’t want to depict two full wedding ceremonies back to back - but if that is the case, then why not show the full ceremony with Tyrion and Sansa since their wedding takes place in episode 8 and Edmure’s wedding takes place in episode 9. Yet it is Edmure’s wedding that shows all the elements of a Westerosi wedding in the Light of the Seven.

Furthermore, after investigating the issue further, it is worth noting that EVERY OTHER WEDDING performed in the Light of the Seven are all shown to include either the hand fasting and/or the reciting of the vows! Even in scenes where the wedding ceremony is truncated - like in the weddings of Margaery to first Joffrey and then to Tommen. Whether it is Robb/Talisa, Edmure/Roslin, Margaery/Joffrey, Margaery/Tommen or Rhaegar/Lyanna - the weddings always feature the hand fasting and/or the recitation of the wedding vows.

So I cannot help but conclude that the rather conspicuous omission of the two most binding elements of the wedding ceremony in Sansa and Tyrion’s wedding is not only by design but that it is also meaningful. Since their marriage is never consummated, its validity remains open to doubt and I wonder whether the omission of the crucial elements of a Westerosi wedding ceremony is a subtle hint that the marriage is a sham.

To be continued...

(GIFs not mine)

#game of thrones #sansa stark #winterfell's daughter #character analysis #tyrion lannister #joffrey baratheon

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uomo-accattivante · 5 years

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Oscar Isaac in the role of painter Paul Gauguin is trouble you see coming from a mile away—the kind you live to regret falling for anyway.

He’s a holier-than-thou painting bro with a “slightly misanthropic” streak (Isaac’s generous wording), eyes glinting with disgust in his first close-up. Pipe in one hand, book in another, dressed all black save for an elegant red scarf, he slams a table and shames the Impressionists gathered around him: “They call themselves artists but behave like bureaucrats,” he huffs after a theatrical exit. “Each of them is a little tyrant.”

From a few tables away, another painter, Vincent van Gogh, watches in awe. He runs into the street after Gauguin like a puppy dog.

Within a year, a reluctant Gauguin would move in with van Gogh in a small town in the south of France, in the hope of fostering an artists’ retreat away from stifling Paris. Eight emotionally turbulent weeks later, van Gogh would lop off his left ear with a razor, distraught that his dearest friend planned to leave him for good. He enclosed the bloody cartilage in wrapping marked “remember me,” intending to have it delivered to Gauguin by a frightened brothel madam as a bizarre mea culpa. The two never spoke again.

Or so the last two years of Vincent van Gogh’s life unspool in Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate, itself a kind of lush, post-Impressionistic memoir of the Dutchman’s tormented time in Arles, France. (Not to mention artistically fruitful time: Van Gogh churned out 200 paintings and 100 watercolors and sketches before the ear fiasco landed him in an insane asylum.)

Isaac plays Gauguin like an irresistibly bad boyfriend, a bemused air of condescension at times wafting straight into the audience: “Why’re you being so dramatic?” he scoffs directly into the camera, inflicting a first-person sensation of van Gogh’s insult and pain.

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Yet in the painter’s artistic restlessness, Isaac, 37, sees himself: “That desire to want to do something new, to want to push the boundaries, to not just settle for the same old thing and get so caught up with the minutia of what everyone thinks is fashionable in the moment.” He talks about “staying true to your own idea of what’s great.” He talks about “finding something honest.”

From another actor, the sentiment might border on banal. But Oscar Isaac—Guatemalan-born, Juilliard-trained and, in his four years since breaking through as film’s most promising new leading man, christened superlatives from “this generation’s Al Pacino” to the “best dang actor of his generation”—might really have reason to mean what he says. He’s crawling out the other end of a life-altering two years, one that’s encompassed personal highs, like getting married and becoming a father, and an acutely painful low: losing a parent.

He basked in another Star Wars premiere, mined Hamlet for every dimension of human experience, and weathered the worst notices of his career with Life Itself. Through it all, he says, he’s spent a lot of time in his head—reevaluating who he is, what he wants, and what matters most.

Right now, he’s aiming for a year-long break from work, his first in a decade, after wrapping next December’s Star Wars: Episode IX. “I’m excited to, like Gauguin, kind of step away from the whole thing for a bit and focus on things that are a bit more real and that matter to me,” he says.

Until then, he’s just trying “to keep moving forward as positively as I can,” easing into an altered reality. “You’re just never the same,” he says quietly. “On a cellular level, you’re a completely different person.”

When we talk, Isaac is in New York for one day to promote and attend the New York Film Festival premiere of At Eternity’s Gate. Then it’s back on a plane to London, where Pinewood Studios and Star Wars await.

Episode IX, the last of Disney’s new Skywalker trilogy, will see Isaac reprise the role of dashing Resistance pilot Poe Dameron, whose close relationship with Carrie Fisher’s General Leia evokes joy but also melancholy after Fisher’s untimely passing.

Each film was planned in part as a celebration and send-off to each of the original trilogy’s most beloved heroes: in The Force Awakens, Han Solo (Harrison Ford); in The Last Jedi, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill); Fisher, meanwhile, had hoped to save Leia’s spotlight for last but passed unexpectedly long before filming began. Director J.J. Abrams, returning to close the trilogy he opened with Episode VII, has since said that unseen footage of Fisher from that previous film will ensure the General appears, however briefly.

For his part, Isaac promises the still-untitled ninth film will pay appropriate homage to Leia—and to Fisher’s sense of fun. “The story deals with that quite a bit,” he says. “It’s a strange thing to be on the set and to be speaking of Leia and having Carrie not be around. There’s definitely some pain in that.” Still, he says, compared to the first two installments, “there’s a looseness and an energy to the way that we’re shooting this that feels very different.”

“It’s been really fun being back with J.J., with all of us working in a really close way. I just feel like there’s an element of almost senioritis, you know?” he laughs. “Since everything just feels way looser and people aren’t taking it quite as seriously, but still just having a lot of fun. I think that that energy is gonna translate to a really great movie.”

Fisher’s absence is felt keenly on set, Isaac says. As if to reassure us both, however, he reiterates: “It deals with the amazing character that Carrie created in a really beautiful way.”

Two months after Fisher’s death, Isaac’s mother, Eugenia, passed away after an illness. A month after that, the actor married his girlfriend, the Danish documentarian Elvira Lind. Another month later, the couple welcomed their first son, named Eugene to honor the little boy’s grandmother. Work offered a way for a reeling Isaac to process.

There was his earth-shaking run at Hamlet, in which Isaac starred as the titular prince in mourning at New York’s Public Theater. And then there was writer-director Dan Fogelman’s Life Itself, a film met with reviews that near-unanimously recoiled from its “cheesy,” “overwrought” structure, filled with what one critic called the genuine emotion of “a damage-control ExxonMobil commercial.”

The reaction surprised Isaac. “I thought it was some of my strongest work,” he says. “Especially at that moment in my life. This guy is dealing with grief and, for me, it was a really honest way of trying to understand those emotions and to create a character who was also going through just incomprehensible grief.” He’s proud of the performance—and, in a strange way, heartened by the sour critical response.

“To be honest,” he says brightly, “there was something really comforting about it.” That the work “for me, meant something and for others, didn’t at all, it just made the whole thing not matter so much in a great way.”

“I was able to explore something and come out the other end and feel like I grew as an actor,” he explains. “That matters to me a lot. And the response to that, you know, it’s interesting of course, but it was a great example for me of how it really doesn’t dictate how I then feel about what I did.”

He thinks for a moment of performances and projects that, conversely, embarrassed him—ones that to his shock, boasted “really great notices” in the end. “You just never know, you know? It’s completely out of my control.”

Isaac is an encouraging listener in conversation, doling out interested yeahs and uh-huhs, and often warm, self-deprecating laughter. When I broach a particularly personal subject, he seems to sit up—somehow, suddenly more present. It’s about his last name.

Óscar Isaac Hernández Estrada dropped both surnames before enrolling at Juilliard in 2001. He’d run into several Óscar Hernándezes at auditions by that point, and taken note of the stereotypes casting directors seemed to have in mind for them—gangsters, drug dealers, the works. So he made a change, not unlike many actors do.

Whether Óscar Hernández might have had a crack at the astonishingly diverse roles Oscar Isaac has inhabited, we’ll never know. But given Hollywood’s limiting tendencies, it’s less likely he might have played an English king for Ridley Scott in 2010’s Robin Hood, three years before his breakthrough role as a cantankerous folk singer in Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis. He was an Armenian genocide survivor in last year’s The Promise, an Israeli secret agent in August’s Operation Finale, and now, he’s the Frenchman Paul Gauguin.

Star Wars’ Poe Dameron, meanwhile, or the mysterious tech billionaire in Alex Garland’s Ex Machina, or the army commando in his second Garland mind-twist, Annihilation, specify no ethnicities at all. It’s the dream: to be hailed as a great actor, period, and not a “great Latino actor” first. To be appreciated for your talent, and seen as “other” rarely at all.

There’s a crawl space between those distinctions, though, where another anxiety lives. The one that makes you wonder: Am I “representing” as loudly as I should? Am I obligated to do so in my work? If I don’t, what does that make me? Questions for when you grew up in Miami, or another Latino-dominant place, reckoning with how you’re perceived in a spotlight outside of it. Isaac listens attentively. Then for several unbroken minutes, talks it out with himself.

He rewinds to yesterday, when he boarded a plane from London on which an air steward addressed him repeatedly as “señor,” unbidden. “It was just a little weird. So I started calling him ‘señor’ as well. I was like, thank you, señor!” Isaac recalls, cracking up. “But then at the same time, I had that thought. I was like, but no, I should really, you know, be proud of being a señor, I guess?”

“I think for a lot of immigrants, the idea is that you don’t always just want to be thought of as other. Like, I don’t want him to be just calling me ‘señor.’ Why?” he asks, more of the steward than himself. “Because I look like I do, so I’m not a mystery anymore? It did bring up all those kinds of questions.”

He grew up in the United States, he explains; his family came over from Guatemala City when Isaac was 5 months old. “I’m most definitely Latino. That’s who I am. But at the same time, for an actor it’s like, I want to be hired not because of what I can represent, but because of what I can create, how I can transform, and the power of what I create.”

Still, Isaac has eyes and ears and exists in the year 2018 with the rest of us. “I’m not an idiot,” he adds. “And I know that we live in a politically charged time. There’s so much terrible language, particularly right now, being used against Latinos as a kind of political weapon.” He recognizes, too, the necessity “for people to see people that look like them, because that’s a very inspiring thing.”

As a kid, Isaac looked up to Raúl Juliá, the Puerto Rican-born actor and Broadway star whose breakthrough movie role came as Gomez Addams of the ’90s Addams Family films. “But I looked up to him particularly because he was a Latino that wasn’t being pigeonholed just in Latino parts,” Isaac adds.

“I do think there is a separation between the artist and the art form, between a craftsperson and the craft,” he says, applying the difference in this context to himself. He calls it “that double thing,” as apt a term as any for that peculiar, precise tension: “Like yes, I am who I am, I came from where I come from. But my interest isn’t just in showing people stuff about myself, because I don’t find me to be all that interesting.”

“What is more interesting to me is the work that I’m able to do, and all that time that I spent learning how to do Shakespeare and how to break down plays and try to create a character and do accents,” he says. “That, for me, is what’s fun.”

But it’s always that “double thing”—reconciling two pulls and finding a way not to get torn up. He wants American Latinos “to know, to be proud that there is someone from there that is out and doing work and being recognized not just for being a Latino that’s been able to do that.” On the other hand, he’s “just like any artist who’s out there doing something. I feel like that’s…” He pauses. “That’s also something to be proud of, you know?”

Isaac’s focus lands on me again. “And I think for you too, you’re a writer and that’s what you do. Your identity is also part of that, but I think that you want the work to stand on its own, too.” His sister is “an incredible scientist. She’s at the forefront of climate change and particularly how it affects Latino communities and low-income areas. And she is a Latina scientist, but she’s a scientist, you know? She’s a great scientist without the qualifier of where she’s from. And that’s also very important.”

Paul Gauguin’s life after van Gogh’s death by gunshot at 37 revealed more repugnant depths than his dick-ish insensitivity.

He defected from Paris again, this time to the South Pacific, determined to break from the staid art scene once and for all. He “married” three adolescent brides, two of them 14 years old and the other 13, infecting each girl with syphilis and settling into a private compound he dubbed Maison de Jouir, or “House of Orgasms.” “Pretty gnarly, nasty stuff,” Isaac concedes, though he withholds judgment of the man in his performance onscreen.

To do so might have made his Gauguin—alluring, haughty, insufferable, brilliant—“not quite as complex.” Opposite Willem Dafoe’s divinely wounded depiction of van Gogh, however, he found room to play. “It was interesting to ask, well, what’s the kind of person that would feel that he’s entitled to do those kinds of things?” The man onscreen is an asshole, to be sure, but hardly paints the word “sociopath” onto a canvas. He’s simply human: “I think that anyone has at least the capacity to do” what Gauguin did, Isaac reasons.

The actor has had more than one reason to think on a person’s capacity to do terrible things in the last year. Two men he’s worked with—his Show Me a Hero director, Paul Haggis, and X-Men: Apocalypse helmer Bryan Singer—were both accused of sexual assault in the last year, part of a torrent of unmasked misconduct Hollywood’s Me Too movement brought to national attention.

“It’s a tricky thing,” Isaac says, “because you get offered jobs all the time and, I guess, what’s required now? What kind of background checks can someone do beforehand? There isn’t a ton.” (Just ask Olivia Munn.) “Especially as an actor, to make sure that the people you’re working with, surrounding yourself with, haven’t done something in their past that I guess will make you seem somehow like you’re propping up bad behavior.”

Carefully, he expresses reservations about the phenomenon of the last year. “People don’t feel like they’re getting justice through any kind of legal system, so they take it to the streets,” he ventures. “It’s basically street justice. You have no other option. And what happens when you take it to the streets is that damage occurs, and sometimes people get taken down, things get destroyed that you feel like maybe shouldn’t have.”

“But some of it had to happen, and hopefully now there’ll be more of a system in place to take these things seriously,” he says. “It seems like it is starting to happen more, but then you see things like, how can this person get away with it? How can that person? It just boggles the mind.”

He pulls back again, remembering what’s out of his control.

Tomorrow, he’ll be back in an X-Wing suit, as Poe struggles to accept the same truth. In a year, he’ll be home in New York with his wife and young son, focusing on matters more “real” than Hollywood, its artists, and its art. Whatever he chooses whenever he returns, he’ll be ready—for the critics, the questions, for this new reality.

“All I can do is just do what means something to me,” he says. “You just have to find something honest.” One expects he will.

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#oscar isaac #paul gauguin #at eternity's gate #poe dameron #star wars #carrie fisher #episode ix #episode 9 #operation finale #life itself #inside llewyn davis #hamlet #robin hood #the promise #ex machina #annihilation #show me a hero #x men: apocalypse #interview

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searbao · 6 years

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(The Sunday Times article for those of you unable to read it)

Last Sunday, just days after being nominated for an Oscar, Timothée Chalamet bounded into a busy London bar like a man who still believes nobody knows who he is. Heads turned. Autograph hunters were in the yard outside. At one point during our interview, he shouted “Boom!” so loudly that tables of drinkers turned, stared, turned back, then turned around again. “It’s, it’s...” one said, slightly uncertain as to who he was or, more likely, how to pronounce his first name.

It’s plain old “Timothy”; and what filmgoers recognise him for is his breakthrough role in Call Me by Your Name, a gay coming-of-age story that has grown from cult hit to mainstream contender. He is smart and sensitive as Elio, who falls for his family’s American hunk of a guest, Oliver (Armie Hammer), during a picturesque Italian summer.

In person, Chalamet’s hair bounces, as does the rest of him. He is thin and wiry; as graceful as a ballerina and as energetic as the Duracell bunny; fond of light physical affection. He talks at the motormouth clip typical of Hell’s Kitchen, New York, where he grew up.

I have never met anyone as delighted to be alive as he is right now. Who can blame him? At 22, he is, for Elio, the youngest best actor nominee since 1944. He would be the youngest ever winner: not bad, considering he was previously best known for a bit part in Homeland and quit Columbia University to audition for, but not be cast in, Manchester by the Sea and the latest Spider-Man. In a fortnight, he will be at the Baftas for both lead actor and the coveted rising-star prize. But everyone knows it’s the Academy Awards that matter most. How does all that feel?

“This is how it matters to me,” he says. “Call Me by Your Name has gone beyond my wildest dreams. People came out because of that film. But I don’t want to be known for something that happened when I was young. So [the nomination] comes with tremendous gratitude and is something I’ll humblebrag about to my friends and family, yet this is hopefully just the start. There’d better be more.”

The good news, I say, is that he is unlikely to win, as voters seem unable to look past Gary Oldman’s prosthetics in Darkest Hour. So the accolade might be a millstone, but not as heavy as it could be. He laughs at my cheek.

“The truth is, you want to prepare a speech, but — I don’t know,” he says, frozen. “These ceremonies are overwhelming enough, independent of having to get up in front of legends and have your mouth move.” A fellow nominee, Daniel Kaluuya, the young British star of Get Out, is equally excited. “When we lock eyes,” he says of Kaluuya, “we give each other a look of ‘What the f*** is happening?’”

The crazy thing is that Call Me by Your Name is only the second best film starring Chalamet nominated for best picture this year. The best is Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig’s exquisite straight coming-of-age story, in which Saoirse Ronan’s titular teen struggles with men and her studies. It’s an astonishingly astute film, with Chalamet playing Ronan’s second boyfriend. He sits by the pool reading literature, looking brooding — which is exactly what Elio does. Chalamet claps along loudly when I bring up typecasting. He’s too hot now to sweat the small stuff.

Gerwig has been nominated for best director at the Oscars, which makes her the story of the night. Although other awards have found room for Lady Bird in several categories, they have overlooked the one that counts: best director. Some thought her film was simple compared to, say, Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, with its crew of hundreds moving a boat off a beach, and that such traditionally male-made projects are simply harder to do. Size matters, it seems, to panels of predominantly male voters. Or perhaps they just don’t like women to direct.

“There’s no difference in being directed by a woman,” Chalamet says sharply. “But in the public representation, there is a huge difference, and that’s why it’s so important Greta was nominated, and so shocking she is just the fifth woman to be so.”

He looks bemused as I float the idea it might be easier to make a film that is character-driven, as is Lady Bird, than something on a grander scale. “And it’s interesting,” he adds, “that the conversation is framed in relation to production of the movie, because it’s clear that it’s way harder to get an audience for smaller films. Budgets are significantly less.” He sounds irked, clearly finding questions about the battle of the sexes dated and odd.

Yet Chalamet should be used to this by now. He has come into the industry in the era of Time’s Up, which strives for better treatment for all, especially women. It’s hard being in the middle of a storm that’s still raging. There was a late caveat to this interview, namely that I couldn’t ask Chalamet about Woody Allen. The actor recently donated his salary for the director’s forthcoming movie, A Rainy Day in New York, which he filmed last summer, to funds including Time’s Up. He had made a statement about it a couple of weeks ago, and that was that.

I pushed back. Journalists have been accused of dodging difficult questions, but if the interviewee refuses to be asked, that leaves us in limbo. I was then allowed one specific question about Allen, by email. I asked three. Chalamet answered this one: “You were the first lead to donate your salary for a Woody Allen film. What has been the reaction to your statement?”

He replied: “I’m just focusing on the work as much as possible. I mean, I literally get to have this conversation with you in relation to Lady Bird, which freshly presents a female coming-of-age story, independent of a male romance being the catalyst; and to Call Me by Your Name, which similarly presents male coming-of-age with a new lens… Thanks to these films, I’m getting new opportunities. But I’ve also learnt that, along with the opportunities, I have new responsibilities, and none of this is lost on me.”

I have sympathy for him. Allegations against Allen have been public for years, and it’s not as if established A-listers such as Cate Blanchett or Javier Bardem are quizzed about their decision to work for the director. Chalamet’s feeling, I imagine, is that his salary statement was enough, and such a move has probably helped end Allen’s career anyway. I’d be stunned if anyone sees A Rainy Day in New York, and gobsmacked if a leading actor signs up for his scripts again.

Still, although we can’t talk about Allen, we can discuss Time’s Up. Chalamet is in a business going through a great upheaval. He calls it a “really important moment in Hollywood”, and there’s a sense that, like every new generation, he looks at those above him with suspicion, at times even disdain. “I’m in a new wave of actors that doesn’t stand for stuff like this and is part of that change,” he says proudly. “It’s actually been a lesson for me to learn what the — well, prejudices isn’t the right way to put it — the old-school way of thinking was. How they used to talk about these things.”

Does he expect the change Time’s Up seeks will be organic? “It would be a little passive to say it’s going to be totally organic,” he says bluntly. “But we’ve seen in the last months that there is real momentum.”

I can’t shift from my head some theatre I saw him do online from five years ago. The monologue was from White People by JT Rogers. After a largely satirical diatribe, he ended with a furious — and heartfelt — “What right does any human being have to be hateful?” before storming off stage.

Call Me by Your Name’s fandom is now at such a pitch that it already has its own nerds. They have noticed that the opening line of Love My Way, the track Armie Hammer does an elaborate dance to, is: “There’s an army on the dancefloor.” Cute. “OK, I did not know that,” Chalamet admits. Just that morning, they were discussing a possible film in which “he plays a president and I play a KGB spy”. They are the Brangelina we need right now.

Yet leave any film in the sun for long enough and it will get burnt. First, there has been press and online comment that it’s a story about grooming, which is weird, given that Elio is 17, Oliver is 24 and the age of consent in most American states is 16; in Italy, it’s 14. Still, that criticism persists. As does one about straight actors — which Chalamet and Hammer are — playing gay men. It can’t have been for box office, given that the former was unknown, but critics have questioned why out actors couldn’t be cast instead.

Chalamet pauses, which is rare, and answers carefully, as if they teach actors how to make a statement in the age of the hashtag along with the Stanislavski method.

“Well, first, it’s important for actors of all identifications to be represented, so any propulsion to bring that movement forward is good,” he begins. “But as relates to Call Me by Your Name, this is a story that presents love, sexuality, identification and orientation in a definitionless way. That’s one of the beautiful things about the movie. Ultimately, Luca [Guadagnino] is the best person to talk to, because this is his film and he does what he wants.”

“I don’t know anything about the sexuality of Armie or Timothée,” the director said huffily when I interviewed him last year, before adding that he didn’t think Elio would necessarily be a gay man later in life. Maybe the amount you care about the sexuality of the cast in Call Me by Your Name is directly related to how binary you consider sexuality. The film’s youngest actor, like most of his millennial peers, simply doesn’t care.

What about a sequel? “F***, yeah,” Chalamet says. “It’d be a dream. And the great thing about being an actor is that the storytelling would have nothing to do with me.”

I wish him luck with “those awards” as he leaves for another ceremony. He laughs. I meant the Oscars. “Oh, those awards?” He laughs louder, as if it hasn’t sunk in, and disappears into the lift. Up, up he goes, and, hours later, is named actor of the year by the London Critics’ Circle, beating that Oldman.

#timothee chalamet #call me by your name #lady bird #i hate paywalls #putting under read more so i dont get a dmca for this lol

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filmstruck · 6 years

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Time to Play FUNNY GAMES by Nathaniel Thompson

Something a lot of moviegoers have to struggle with is deciding how they feel about a film that absolutely, positively doesn’t want to be loved. The term “feel bad movie” was even coined to describe films that are deliberately alienating, infuriating, depressing or even boring. Of course, everyone’s mileage will vary; for example, some people felt an elevated transcendence watching REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (‘00), while others hated it with every fiber of their being. There’s no right or wrong response here; it’s all part of the complicated and fascinating process of how we consume art.

For me, I can’t think of a director who gives me a tougher time than Michael Haneke. The German-born filmmaker has built his career out of regarding humanity like specimens under glass, including his audience. He finds a stimulus, gets a response and then finds a way to jab deeper to get a more intense reaction from his characters and his audience, often pushing them to the breaking point. Sometimes I love the results he gets from this approach, especially his post-2000 work like THE PIANO TEACHER (‘01), THE WHITE RIBBON (‘09) and AMOUR (‘12). Others leave me feeling annoyed or scratching my head, though that isn’t to say that a repeated viewing might not change things.

And then there’s FUNNY GAMES (‘97). Oh, FUNNY GAMES. Is it possible to greatly admire a film, find it fascinating and have it linger in your memory for years, and yet deeply resent it at the same time? If so, this one is at the top of the heap for me. Here Haneke takes aim at the way people watch and process violent entertainment, with an unspoken but very clear allusion to horror movies. The film feels like a reaction against films like HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (‘86), STRAW DOGS (‘71) and LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (‘72) with its harrowing chronicle of a nice, normal nuclear family invaded and gradually torn apart by a couple of sadistic sickos in tennis clothes. Haneke has no interest in generating pulpy thrills here, but then again, the film’s predecessors had more on their mind as well than just torturing their characters. It’s the torture part, both physical and emotional, that Haneke is really examining here with his two villains addressing the camera directly and trying to implicate the viewer by questioning why they would watch something like this… and why they won’t do something to help the victims. It’s an interesting gambit, or a stunt if you want to view it that way, that clearly means to flatter the more critically-oriented people out there in the theater seats, but it also makes assumptions about genre cinema that become a huge problem if you’re more than passingly familiar with horror films.

I’ll try to avoid spoilers here for those who haven’t seen the film, but it’s difficult to discuss without at least hinting at two of the most infamous moments in this film. The first is a tragic, brutal event that occurs at the end of the second act, with Haneke’s camera lingering on the static aftermath in excruciatingly long detail, making Tarkovsky seem like a case of A.D.D. by comparison. My interpretation is that we’re supposed to be parsing out our feelings in what amounts to a very dark sort of meditation; as the characters try to process what’s happened with the camera refusing to move and the actors staying in the same spot, it turns into a Rorschach test where we’re meant to project our own responses onto the screen. It’s an interesting concept, but it also treads that fine line between artistic exploration and viewer exploitation as it essentially batters our emotions for a reaction; if you don’t respond like the event clearly wants you to, the effect can be distancing and somewhat distasteful. Then again, maybe that’s what he was going for. Haneke’s a tricky fellow sometimes. A similar tactic is used near the end of the notorious French horror film MARTYRS (‘08), which locks the camera down for a pitiless wide view of a central character being tortured at length, basically beating the viewer down as well until we’re pulverized enough to accept the truly daring and, for me at least, remarkable terrain the story treads into for its final stretch. If you tried to watch both films back to back, you might need to go into therapy for months just to get over it.

Then there’s the fact that the two psychopaths are all too aware that they’re in a film, repeatedly breaking the fourth wall and referencing things like genre conventions and running time. This hits a highpoint during an action at the climax that’s become something of a make or break moment for many viewers, a deliberate sabotaging of what the audience wants and expects done in the most sadistic way possible. (Hint: it involves a piece of TV equipment.) I’ve seen people actually give a middle finger to the film at this point, and with good reason. Whether this statement (or nose tweak, depending on your perspective) on how we root on violence under certain circumstances is a valid one is a tantalizing idea. However, if it’s supposed to be a scolding against people who watch violent horror and action films, that’s where things get sticky. Any sane viewer knows the difference between simulated and real violence; no one watching a slasher film or a shoot ‘em up wants real people to feel pain, let alone die, and the thrill of seeing a bad guy dispatched at the end of a story is something that goes back to the very dawn of storytelling. If this film deliberately sets itself up to be as naturalistic as possible and sets up its evildoers to be as reprehensible as possible, it’s pretty disingenuous to wag your finger at the viewer for wanting to see some payback.

So, did Haneke’s experiment achieve anything in the long run? I still honestly don’t know. The shot-for-shot English remake with Naomi Watts from 2007 was fine, albeit completely unnecessary apart from the way it showed how much its shock value had diminished in the ensuing decade of home invasion and European extreme horror films. Haneke’s film was considered shocking and even dangerous when it opened, though now in the wake of some of his thematically related films (especially 2005’s CACHÉ, a significant entry in between his two versions of the story), it’s easier to assess as a key entry in his cinematic looks at how society can twist and distort what we think of as the secure family unit and normal behavior. The violence may not be quite as harrowing now, but the central thesis of this film is still an uncomfortable one. So all that said, this movie still makes me a bit angry. And that’s not only a good thing, but probably a necessary one.

#Michael Haneke #FilmStruck #Funny Games #StreamLine Blog #Nathaniel Thompson

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spilledreality · 4 years

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Return-maximizing criticism

One thing predictive processing stresses is that our perception, at all times, is constituted by the conjunction of our environment, our sensory organs, and, crucially, our cognitive “interpretive” schema, which processes and encodes sensory input in a hierarchical fashion, higher levels predicting, top-down, the flow of sense data, bottom-up. In part, the schema contributes to the constitution of experienced reality by narrowing and stabilizing as “dominant” a few aspects of reality from many possible options, in other words, fabrication through subtraction, isolating deemed-relevant signal from deemed-irrelevant noise. But it also constitutes this reality more directly, something closer to hallucination: in the case of minor conflicts between bottom-up and top-down error, sense data can be overwritten by the predisposed prediction. We may leave out a doubled, redundant word in a sentence (e.g. an extra “and”) or interpret a friend’s utterance in a way concordant with our broad impression of them (attribution error). This hallucination is always constrained by reality, and will frequently be corrected, as later details contradict and retroactively “rewrite” interpretation. But it adds a subjective fuzziness to the world that is always present.

This is also a core insight of the phenomenology tradition (which influences to structuralism and poststructuralism; the contention that our reality is “culturally constituted” becomes more clear, since these interpretive schemas are of course largely the products of our environments). To Husserl, and many after him such as Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, there are the “sensual” and then the “intentive” components of sensory experience, the latter making sense of (i.e. making intelligible) the former. The intentive component both opens up (draws attention to) and closes down (filters out) reality as experience, and indeed can even “hallucinate” it.

ii.

Since it is the interaction between schema and world, narrative and reality, which determines our experience, the schema gains most influence in situations where reality is vague or hard-to-discern, and the same is true vice-versa. Coffee tasting, as Ken Liberman describes it in More Studies in Ethnomethodology, is a high-stakes and socially constituted craft where tasters go back and forth (oscillate dialectically) between frame and experience, reconciling labels with sensory inputs (or else reconciling their own discovered descriptors with those of other tasters)—testing one against the other and finding an individuated “truth” through the correspondence between the levels. One taster, for instance, might suggest a hint of cinnamon; another will then taste his cup, and either node in agreement or contradict the first—that, in fact, the flavor seems closer to chocolate, in which case the first taster now returns to his cup, testing the contradiction against his (newly re-schematized) experience and remarking that, yes, it is somewhere in that range. The utterance or discovery of a label (sign) enables, by “focusing” the experience, the taster to “pick out” and experience the signified flavor from a varied, changing, and vague sensory experience—it stabilizes the instability of being, while at the same time even creating a reality, as the hierarchical prediction system will “round up” its inputs to the top-down descriptor (for instance, a taster might experience a coffee that is somewhere approximately between cinnamon and chocolate as either flavor, depending on his initial anchor). At last, as the coffee beans are rolled out to market, these descriptors will help consumers further “pick out” and simultaneously “create” an experience of chocolate.

The relevance of phenomenology and predictive processing to experiences of art should be clear. Like the taste of coffee, a literary or artistic experience is a high-dimensional, complex, vague, and polysemous occurrence. There are impossibly many things to be attended to in a 90-minute movie, and given the size and scale of discourse now, there are many traditions and conversations which the artistic choices of any given scene might be related to, and yet upon reading a critic, or dredging in one’s own long-assembled frame of previous experience made intelligible, one is able to pick out what are arguably the most salient details from the vast spread of possibles. Many people talk of reading reviews after seeing a performance, or reading a book, or watching a film, because this process helps clarify for them their own thoughts, but it is equally the case that ex-ante information (the reputation of the work among one’s social group, or the marketing campaign leading up to its release, or even the reputation of its author or genre) becomes an anchoring point-of-departure for future interpretation, even at unconscious levels. Let’s walk quickly through the process of schematic “projection” which Liberman discusses (it is more in the continental tradition than CogSci’s) and then we can return to the implications of this “priming”:

The notion of projection can be conveyed schematically by means of this diagram, which depicts a person actively projecting “→” his or her structure of understanding “(- - -)” upon an object “∆”. The structure of understanding is the lens through which she or he comes to know the object, and according to the phenomenological idea of projection this structure of understanding actively participates in organizing the object’s intelligibility:

Since the tasting is inevitably infected by what is being projected, one might consider such tasting to be unfairly prejudiced, except that no tasting exists that does not involve this structure of thinking—i.e., the projection of some sense—and so this situation might as well be considered to be ultimate. What is extraordinarily interesting is that most persons quickly forget the responsibility they have had in producing what they know. It is as if their model was something more like this, which is a very different matter:

Everything that is true of coffee tasting is equally or more true of experience in the visual arts. It is already well-known in the VizArts, where creative work is perhaps (along with poetry) at its least accessible, its most opaque and conceptual, that the role of curator “completes” the work. I would add that, in many cases, great critical treatments have similarly “completed” mosthistoric works, providing defenses through framing which allowed audiences to suddenly see the work as glorious rather than insipid, stupid, or febrile. It is more or less uncontroversial in the field that one’s interpretive frame has an enormous role in determining the understood meaning (and subjective experience) of the work.

iii.

The pr(e)(o)mise of what I’ll term a “return-maximizing”[1] mindset of art criticism is improving outcomes, in enriching (in a biased way) rather than coldly “evaluating” (in a pretend-neutral way), and we might as well call the quality of improving outcomes “value.” Value is not experiential pleasure. Experiential pleasure (the prioritization of hedonistic consumption) is one dimension of value but far from all of it.

In chemistry, there’s a process called reagent testing. One adds a reagent — Chemical A—to a reactant—Chemical B—and watches to see if a reaction takes place. If B is an unknown chemical, and we are trying to figure out whether it’s chlorine, we must add the correct reagent. If it is, in fact, chlorine, Chemical B will turn (let’s say) bright green. If it isn’t chlorine, it might turn a host of different colors, or no color at all. If one adds the incorrect reagent (Chemical A) to the reactant chlorine, Chemical B might be perfectly good and high quality, pure chlorine, but it still won’t turn the desired bright green. Similarly, if one applies the improper values hierarchy when judging a text, it will not come back with a proper reading. The assessment will be flawed; it will yield either bad results, misleading/opposite results, or no results at all. This is a large reason why works which broke into new genres, or are now seen as highly original (”setting their own terms for evaluation”), are historically panned by critics. They did not properly “fit” into the genres or interpretive schemas which contemporaneous reviewers wished them too. Rather, the proper interpretive schema needed to be discovered to “unlock” the work.

Return-maximizing criticism would seek to make itself a reagent that transforms the original work into the prettiest turquoise blue. Much of historical debate in hermeneutics has been over what interpretive frames are “proper” or “supreme”; there is obviously, firstly, no answer to this question unless a teleological end is specified, but secondly, it is equally silly to suppose that there is “one frame to rule them all,” that all texts yield equally to the same frame, etc. Rather it seems clear that the best frame for a work is dependent on the work; it would be self-defeating to judge a detective novel on the values hierarchy of so-called literary fiction, and vice-versa. So there are many meanings, and many potential interpretive frames, and if none can claim supremacy in an inherent sense, we can make recourse to either best “fit,” or best consequence, and I would argue that these two more or less are the same thing in the case of great works: that the frame(s) which unlock them most appropriately are also those of best outcome, are “return maximizing.”

But not all works are great, indeed most aren’t. David Cooper Moore’s “The Scary, Misunderstood Power of a ‘Teen Mom’ Star’s Album” discusses Farrah Abraham’s infamous (infamously bad) pop record My Teenage Dream Ended:

It’s tempting to consider My Teenage Dream Ended alongside other reality TV star vanity albums, like Paris Hilton’s excellent (and unfairly derided) dance-pop album Paris from 2006 or projects by Heidi Montag, Brooke Hogan, and Kim Kardashian that range from uneven to inept.

But the album also begs comparisons to a different set of niche celebrities— “outsider” artists.

On the I Love Music message board, music obsessives imagined the album as outsider art in the mold of cult favorite Jandek or indie press darling Ariel Pink. Other curious listeners noted similarities to briefly trendy “witch house” music, a self-consciously lo-fi subgenre of electronic dance music. In the Village Voice, music editor Maura Johnston compared Abraham to witch-house group Salem:

”If [‘Rock Bottom’] had been serviced to certain music outlets under a different artist name and by a particularly influential publicist, you’d probably be reading bland praise of its ‘electro influences’ right now.”

Phil Freeman wrote about the album as a “brilliantly baffling and alienating” experimental work in his io9 review. Freeman hedged his references to Peaches, Laurie Anderson, and Le Tigre with a disclaimer that his loftiest claim was sarcastic: “Abraham has taken a form — the therapeutic/confessional pop song-seemingly inextricably bound by cliché and, through the imaginative use of technology, broken it free and dragged it into the future.”

Freeman & Johnston’s bits cuts to the heart of it. It is the reagent applied to the reactant which determines the chemical outcome. The two work in conjunction; a work’s success is determined by what it is setting out to do, and what it is setting out to do is determined by it’s self-definition and self-positioning within the signification landscape.

Some in the rationalist community, like Julia Galef and Gwern, have mentioned patching plot holes as satisfying “apologetics” (aka “fanwanking”), a para-artistic practice that increases the sophistication of unsophisticated media and which more critics ought strive toward. This isn’t necessarily wrong, but I’m wary of rationalist utilitizing of art: prior attempts have prioritized ease over complexity or rigor, have acquiesced to low and middlebrow sensibilities, have understood the maximization of good as the maximization of pleasure, and used this understanding as a defense of sloppy artistry, short-term thinking, or else an attack on the avant-garde.

iv.

In the world of literary theory, return maximization has no room, time, or patience for questions like, “What is the meaning of the text?” “What did the author intend?” or “Is it a good work?” Such an “absolute” or “eternal” grounding may be instrumentally necessary but only in a noble lie of convenience kind of way. Interpretation and its angles—formal, experimental, empirical, reader-response, traditional—are means to ends in the return-maximizing framework, ways of getting value out of a literary work, ways of making a text do work. There are no truths, only instruments, echoing Harold Bloom’s “what is it good for, what can I do with it, what can it do for me, what can I make it mean?”

Caring about returns means caring about consequence. Caring about consequence requires a shunning of deontology. We move past hedgehog schools into foxy frames, and slam stereotypes against each other, hashing out the correspondences and breakages between each and the object of inquiry, approximate a circle with many tilted squares. Cartographic veracity (distinguished from something “feeling true” or “resonating” at a gut level) is important in fiction only so far as deception and falsehood can distort the world in desirable ways.

Distortive interpretation is, as an occasional practice and presence, already part of the critical landscape. Critics will ascribe more credibility and intentionality to authors than is probably “true” or “the case,” and over-patternicity results. We are as gods and might as well get good at it, etc.

Miller’s Law for Aesthetics: First accept a work is good, then figure out how and why that might be the case. In other words, generosity is a prerequisite of appreciation. Gabe Duquette can believe return maximization is the equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome all he wants: Stockholm Syndrome is the functional equivalent of love.

[1] I decided on return-maximizing over utilitarian because of the obvious argument that critiquing (in the sense of evaluating) bad art likely has positive effects towards a culture producing more good art in the long run. Arguments over whether a sober or bright-side approach is better for a culture in sum (or where on the spectrum between approaches is a so-called sweet spot) makes for an interesting conversation but one outside the scope of this specific critical mode.

#gabe duquette #kenneth liberman #maurice merleau-ponty #martin heidegger #karl friston #andy clark #edmund husserl

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alainawriteswwe · 6 years

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Pride and Prejudice and Wrestling- Part 8

Characters: Seth Rollins x Reader, The gang from Raw

Summary: When a superstar Hollywood actress (The Reader), interacts with WWE Superstar Seth Rollins at Monday Night Raw, sparks fly. Can Rollins overcome his pride and convince the reader to take a chance on him when she’s still recovering from a nasty scandal caused by her cheating fiancé?

Warnings: Lots of flirting, angsty longing and some bad words

Tags: @caramara3; @panda-girl1999; @easyobsession;

Chapter 8 This Is Not What It Looks Like

“I thought I heard my name,” Seth announced, glowering at Finn. “All good things I hope.”

Seth’s dark eyes raked over me in my skintight dress and then to Finn, standing way too close to me. There was ferocity in Seth’s gaze. He was a vicious lion with a gazelle in its sights.

Seth looked at my hand, still encased in Finn’s. I broke the innocent embrace and instinctively moved a step back, putting space in between myself and the Irishman.

For his part, Finn just stood there looking stoic, almost regal at the situation in front of him.

There was a hush in the room as the photographer and her crew tried to look busy, but also eavesdrop. A couple people pretended to scroll on their phones but were probably secretly videoing everything.

I could feel my cheeks heat with embarrassment. How could I defuse Seth when he was seeing red? Especially when he was playing this scene all cool and detached? I didn’t want a fight to break out between him and Finn. One that would cause Seth to lose the dream career he had spent a lifetime building.

Seth continued his intimidating posture with Finn, stepping in between the Irishman and myself so that he was staring down at The Demon’s alter ego.

“Good thing I did stop by. I don’t want people getting ideas.” He looked directly at Finn. Challenging him. “Like people thinking I won’t protect what’s mine.”

“You seem to be doing a terrible job of that mate. Leavin’ her alone on her first day,” Finn taunted. “I would never do that with my girl. I’d show her a bit of respect. Make sure she was all right. Maybe even send her flowers in welcome. Let her and everyone here at the company know how I feel about her. You know, that she is protected, loved. That’s something you don’t know much about do ya Kingslayer? Ya only care about yourself now don’t cha?”

“Finn don’t. Don’t make things worse,” I pleaded in a small voice.

But I was ignored. Both men were in a pissing contest and I was just the pawn. I was clever enough to know that ultimately this fight was not about me but instead about whatever hurts Seth and Finn had dished out to each other years earlier.

“Yeah well listen up good Demon King because she is protected and cared for,” Seth spat out.

His words were a dagger to my heart. Seth said ‘cared for’ instead of ‘loved’ as Finn had mentioned. I bit my bottom lip to stop it quivering in my disappointment.

Seth continued with his tirade. His voice high pitched and yet still gravelly. “Why don’t I remind you and everyone else what’s up, man.”

Then Seth turned and hauled me into his arms and kissed me, knocking the wind out of me and causing me to be a bit wobbly in my heels. As he pressed his lips to mine his intent was quite clear. This kiss was punishing, angry, possessive.

Seth was putting on a show that he owned me when no one else did. He proved it because of my response to him which was instantaneous with the sighs that escaped my lips. The fucker.

Seth slid his arms around my waist until we were body to body. His nearness was overwhelming and my heart pounded erratically as he took control of that kiss. He stood so close I could feel the heat of his body pressed against mine. Could sense the arousal and anger that was battling for supremacy inside him.

I was so angry at myself and at the treacherous reaction of my body. There was no way I could play off my disinterest or ignore the now familiar ache of want he created inside me, even in front of an audience.

Seth tugged on my hair, forcing me to tip my head back a little and give him the access to my mouth that he demanded. The deepened kiss showed his complete mastery of the art form as our tongues engaged in a tango of dominance and power. There was a savage intensity to this kiss with Seth. I had to admit, it was hot.

Damn him, but dominant Seth was really doing it for me. I’m not going to lie, there were a lot of emotions running through me that were contrary. I felt embarrassed, even mortified by this public display of dominance but honestly if we were alone, I would secretly love every minute of this.

Despite my desire to stay strong and resist this persuasive exploration by Seth and his very sexy mouth, I still slid my arms around his neck like a smitten teenager. Damn, but I couldn’t resist him. All he had to do was touch me and I was a goner and he knew it. He was so sure of it, he put my very weakness on display for everyone to see.

To make his point even clearer to Finn and the entire photography crew (my God they saw everything), Seth settled his large hands on my ass and gave it a bit of a squeeze and then a pat which made me jump. He couldn’t have been more blatant than if he were yelling ‘mine’ and wielding a cave man’s club.

“Had enough?” he asked me once he broke the kiss, cruelly taking away the magic he had enveloped me in when his lips touched mine. Even worse, he seemed barely affected by the kiss.

I couldn’t answer Seth’s question. My thoughts were a jumble. Somewhere deep in my brain, I knew I should be angry at him for saying that and for what he just did but all I could do was touch my thoroughly, deliciously ravished lips in wonder.

Then Seth stepped back from me and let his eyes do another long sweep of my body. He took in the bandage dress that hugged every curve again. He was making an appraisal but also another overly dramatic declaration.

“I approve. Wear that tonight after the show,” he announced as if it was normal for him to issue me commands. “It will be fun to zip you out of it later,” he announced a little too loudly. I wanted to smack him across that chiseled, handsome, sexily scruffily bearded face of his my anger was so elevated. How dare he talk to me as if he were some king and I was a consort begging for his attention and approval by dressing for his distinct pleasure.

It seemed Finn had had enough as well. “You always have to prove you’re the biggest jerk around here don’t ya Seth.” Then he turned and left.

The photographer cleared her throat to signal that we should continue with the shoot. I was mortified. If the ground had opened up and swallowed me, I could not have been happier.

I gave Seth a death glare, not caring who saw it. In response he just grinned at me, winked and walked away. The nerve of him with his fake hit-and-run declarations! I was oh so very angry.

Focus on that, I told myself. Focus on the anger coursing through my very blood right now and not how hot he was just a moment ago, standing there kissing me until my toes curled.

The rest of the photoshoot was fine. I calmed down and actually enjoyed it. After we finished, I changed into jeans and a cute top with the shoulders cut out. I just wanted to relax before the show.

I met up with Sasha and got a bite to eat right before the show started. I told her about the incident at the photoshoot. She laughed it off and noted that I should just laugh it off too. Seth could be extremely insecure, she noted.

But she did think that Seth was very clever to defuse the situation with that kiss, even if it sacrificed some of my dignity. As Sasha reminded me, it was better that than a career ending fight for him and Finn.

At catering, we ran into the man in question. The Kingslayer himself. Despite the annoyed sighs I gave him, Seth still sat down next to me at the table. He was eating one of the specially prepped meals he carried with him.

The moment he sat down I felt everyone’s eyes on us. Obviously word of what happened at the photoshoot had spread quickly, like all office gossip. Where the hell was that hole I could fall into and disappear?

Seth didn’t waste a moment to get into it with me while Sasha looked on with interest.

“Look, I know you’re mad at me right now, babe, but Finn needed to understand he doesn’t have a chance with you.”

Still silent, I rolled my eyes at Seth. I turned away from him and focused on my caprese salad. I hadn’t decided if I wanted to be on speaking terms with him again. Asshole.

Sexy asshole though. He was wearing his fitted Kingslayer shirt and ring pants. The tight, shiny black and dark silver ring pants that showed off all the hard work he did in the gym on leg day. Emphasis on tight! The pants I always fantasized about peeling off him if we were alone and he didn’t hate me.

“Look babe, I know you despise me right now and are liable to do the opposite of anything I say, but don’t mess around with Finn. Even showing him friendship could be misconstrued as something else around here.”

The anger in me kept building like a kettle that was about to blow. Damn but Seth was exasperating sometimes.

I couldn’t help expressing to him how I felt. “Don’t tell me, Seth. You’re afraid you will look like a fool if your girlfriend is seen talking to Finn, is that it? So I’m not allowed to talk to any other guys here? This is all about your stupid male ego.” I pushed my plate away.

Seth swore low under his breath. “This has nothing to do with me, okay. Besides, Finn was doing more than just talking to you when I came in. He was macking you.”

“Macking me? What is this, the 1990’s?” I crossed my arms over my chest. Wasn’t this the universal sign for anger? Why didn’t Seth heed that visual warning?

“Finn wants you. Don’t think this isn’t all a game to him. You give him too much credit for being the nice guy. You think this is about me being an ass but its about you. Protecting you.”

He leaned in. “I am always going to protect you.”

“I doubt that considering how much you hate me,” I whispered. I shook my head and a spoke a bit louder this time. “This has everything to do with you Seth. This is about you and your ego. I’m not going to argue with you about it here. And you’re not going to do more of this claiming me like property in public.”

Sasha cheered me on, interested in the drama as she ate her steamed vegetables. “You tell him girl!”

Seth threw his hands up at his friend. “Come on Sasha. Who’s side are you on?”

“I’m only here for the drama,” she replied and took a sip of her coconut water. “I told Bayley I would tell her what happened.”

Seth ignored that and instead whispered to me. His breath warm and sweet against the shell of my ear. It seemed a very intimate gesture in the middle of so public a space and in the middle of an argument for that matter.

“I don’t think people are going to buy that we are only having a lover’s spat right now if you glare like that at me forever.”

He returned his voice to its regular volume. It was lined with arrogance and smug satisfaction. “So kiss me. Right now.”

I turned sharply to look at him as if he was crazy. “Are you daring me?”

He waggled his brows at me. “Oh yeah.”

“I don’t want to kiss you in what is essentially a concrete cafeteria. I don’t want to kiss you at all Seth Rollins.” That was actually a lie, especially when he was being silly and kind of adorable but I said it anyway.

“Afraid huh.” He patted his pecs with the palms of his hands, smoothing them down his chest. “Too much sexy for you? Afraid you will lose your cool? It’s okay. Happens a lot to women when they are around me.”

“Asshole,” I whispered roughly. Even though I was a grown adult I thought about braining him with a bread roll.

Instead I leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. Quickly. But as always, the moment my lips touched his there was that now familiar alchemy or magic.

“Good,” he said. Then he whispered in my ear again. “People saw that. They will think we made up.”

“Ahh, is this your first lovers quarrel?” Sasha inquired nosily. “I know what that means.” She grinned. “Makeup sex. Am I right?”

My face fell. “Oh no. That’s not happening.”

Seth laughed and hugged me. “Come on, that’s the best part of the argument, the make up sex. It’s so hot, man. We got to try it. If we don’t, I will just keep picking fights with you until we do.”

Somehow his enthusiasm made me laugh.

Sasha got up. “Maybe Cesaro should find another ride tonight? You two might want to pull over on the side of the road and get busy working on that make up sex tonight. It’s a long way to the next town. Three hours. I don’t think Seth is going to be able to hold out that long,” she said with a knowing wink before leaving to get ready for the show.

Once she was out of earshot I turned on Seth. “I thought we were riding alone, Seth. You invited Cesaro? Why did you do that?” I was hurt.

Seth seemed sheepish. “I thought it best to have a buffer.”

My heart broke all over again. My God, he couldn’t even tolerate being in a car with me alone for three hours. He hated me that much.

Still I tried to play off my hurt. “Don’t tell me Seth. You’re afraid to drive with me alone? Afraid you won’t be able to control yourself in my presence?”

I tugged at my top, exposing more shoulder. “Is my sexiness too much for you, Kingslayer?”

Seth was silent and that silence stretched out to envelop both of us. Awkward. I dropped my head down. I felt terribly self conscious suddenly. I wanted to cry. I could feel the tears begin to breach the corners of my eyes so I got up, taking my food tray with me. I’d be damned if I let Seth see me cry over his slight.

In a low voice that only he could hear I said,“You know, you can be a real jerk sometimes, Seth. I thought we had at least reached some level of civility. Especially since we are going to be on the road together, but I guess I was wrong.”

Suddenly I felt like there was a huge weight on my chest and I couldn’t breathe. I needed to get away from him. As I left, I heard Seth call after me but I ignored him.

The rest of the night passed without incident. I stayed backstage and watched the show from the wings avoiding Seth as best I could. He seemed to get the non verbal message as well and just hung out with Dean.

Once I caught Seth looking at me from across the gorilla. He seemed concerned when he saw me, and then when he saw I was looking his demeanor changed. He was suddenly smug, cocky. I turned away and made a point right there that I would not speak to him again until I had to at the end of the evening.

Later I caught up with Bayley as we sat and watched the matches on a monitor backstage. She was watching Cesaro and Sheamus’ match with Seth and Dean. And I mean watching it with great interest. Too much interest. Especially when the Swiss Superman took a bump that looked a little too real.

“I know your secret,” I said in a sing song voice to Bayley. She looked panicked a moment. Her mouth was open but she didn’t know what to say.

“About Cesaro?” I pointed at the monitor. “Your crush on Cesaro. I noticed it at karaoke when I first met you.”

Suddenly Bayley went from panic to relief to blushing. That was a odd reaction.

“He is just so, amazing. And he is such a great athlete. And funny. Oh and he is a real gentleman. That’s hard to find these days.”

“So ask him out.”

She shook her head, panicked again. Her one sided ponytail bobbing wildly.

“How could I? I’m just a regular girl from San Jose. He’s so sophisticated and European. It would never work.”

“Oh I think it would.”

“Why?”

“That man did a medley of karaoke songs with you.”

“And?”

“Bayley, honey, I hate to say it but you are a terrible singer. Yet Cesaro was desperate to get you to sing with him.”

She shook her head. “He was just taking pity on me. Wanting me to participate.”

“No. I think he is interested in some hugging with you. Some intimate, full body hugging.” I did a little body roll while saying it. “Horizontal, full body hugging.”

We both laughed. Bayley said she would think about what I said. As I left, I patted myself on the shoulder about my matchmaking efforts.

Finally the end of the night came. Somehow I was exhausted even though I didn’t wrestle like every one else. Once we were all cleared to leave, I realized that Seth and I still had a three hour car drive together. Alone.

Because despite Seth’s trickery, I engaged in some trickery of my own. I worked with Sasha to get Cesaro to drive with her and Bayley to the next town.

I didn’t tell Sasha about my matchmaking efforts. I had a feeling this crush Bayley had on the Swiss Superman was not something she told her bestie Sasha. Otherwise Sasha would have had them walking down the aisle by now.

The look on Seth’s face when Sasha told him Cesaro was riding with her and Bayley was priceless. Freshly showered after his match, he still looked tired, but now he just looked puzzled, blinking, and trying not to show that The Architect had been outmaneuvered by two clever women.

Seth shook his head and huffed. “Well come on,” he said gruffly as he signaled to me. He wheeled out his luggage. I wheeled out my own carry-on.

I turned to Sasha and looked over to Seth who was silently stewing. “If I don’t turn up in the next town, check for my body along the highway.”

“It’s more likely she will do me in first,” Seth replied over the top of the rental, a roomy SUV. “I swear she will be the death of me, man.”

The moment we got in the car alone, the tension ratcheted up. We were still sat in the arena parking lot as Seth started a tirade.

“Okay, Seth’s rules of the car. Number 1, seatbelts on at all times. That’s non negotiable. Number 2, the driver always chooses the music. Number 3, I am always the driver. Number 4….”

“Whoa whoa whoa, what’s with the rules? Who are you, John Cena?”

Seth ignored my jibe. “Number 4, no feet on the dash while the car is in motion. Number 5, passengers can’t use their phone if the driver can’t, so while the car is in motion no scrolling.”

I threw my hands up in the air in total exasperation. Seth was crazy. I was in love with a crazy person.

“That’s insane. Why should I be punished? You have decided to be the driver at all times. It’s not my problem that you’re a control freak who is obviously addicted to your phone. Surprise surprise.”

Just to piss him off I took out my phone and started looking through my social media accounts.

“I’m serious about my car rules, man. I’m not moving until you put your phone away, and your seatbelt on.”

He leaned back in his seat and took a sip from his disgusting, brown, mushy protein recovery drink, looking all smug and self-satisfied as we had our stand off.

In response, I put my feet up on the dash.

After about fifteen minutes of stalemate and Superstars honking at us, I thought Seth would cave. He didn’t. I had honestly finished looking through my gram but I kept my phone out anyway just to piss him off.

After another ten minutes there was a knock on the window. Seth hit the button to lower it.

Dean popped his head in the car. “What are you two kids doing in here parked for so long? The windows are all steamy steamy like in high school.”

He grinned as he looked from Seth to me. “You kids ought to be in a comfortable hotel bed and not trying to make the confines of this car fit whatever action is steaming up these windows. Trust me. I know the limitations of these cars when it comes to that. And I am very creative.”

He drew a heart in the condensation, and chuckled which made Seth hit the button to raise the window without a word.

I let out a groan. “All right, Seth. You win. Let’s go.” I took my feet off the dash, put my phone in my bag and fastened my seat belt.

“Finally,” Seth huffed and put his own seatbelt on. He hooked his phone up to the car’s internal speakers. Soon some pop/punk music was coming through.

“Ugh,” I grumbled. “This noise is going to give me a headache.” I rubbed my temples.

Nothing from Seth. He just focused on getting us out of the arena and onto the highway.

I turned to him. “You know your music is criminal right?”

“Okay. So I’ll bite. What do you consider proper music? What do you listen to? Britney?”

“Well I like a lot of classic rock for your information.” I paused. “And there is nothing wrong with Britney,” I declared. “You’re just mad that her Womanizer song perfectly describes you.”

Seth snorted. “Uh huh.”

After that we sat in silence again. I just looked at the road, trying not to think about the confined space and being so close to Seth. Having his heady masculine scent surround me. It was heavenly torture.

About an hour into the ride, Seth finally asked what had been on his mind.

He looked at me a moment. “Why did you pull that stunt with Cesaro and make him ride with the girls?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I was just doing a little matchmaking.”

He turned and looked at me. “What?”

“Bayley and Cesaro.”

He took his eyes off the road a moment. He looked at me like I had sprouted alien antennae on my head.

So I filled in the blanks. “She likes him. Cesaro.”

Seth shook his head. “No. Nope. Bayley would tell me. She tells me everything. She’s like a little sister to me.”

“And that’s why she didn’t tell you. Sometimes a little sister doesn’t want her big brother butting into her love life and definitely not her sex life.”

Seth gave a shudder. He didn’t answer that though. He just looked puzzled.

“Bayley and Cesaro?” He said the words together as if they really didn’t match.

Seth said it again. “Bayley and Cesaro.” This time he said it as if it was an idea that was slowly taking hold. “Together.”

“Yup.”

“Wow. So what would their celeb couple mash up name be?”

I turned in my seat towards him, fully engaged in the conversation now.

“Ooh ooh. I thought about this for awhile actually. What about ‘Baysaro’ for the couple name?”

Seth ignored my cleverness. He was still trying to wrap his head around what I was telling him.

“Bayley and Cesaro. Damn. I did not see that coming.”

I sighed to myself. Men. Sometimes they couldn’t see what was right in front of their eyes.

The silence stretched on a number of miles after that until I had to say what was eating at me.

“So I asked Finn about the black roses. He didn’t send them.”

Seth was not happy with my subject topic. “Why are you bringing up that man’s name while I’m driving? Do you want me to run into a ditch?”

“While I personally don’t care if you harm yourself by falling into a roadside ditch I do love myself enough that I don’t want to share the same fate with you and we do happen to be in the same car.”

I played with the slim gold bracelet that was on my wrist.

“I just thought you should know.”

“Ok. So how do you know he is not lying to you.”

“Why would he lie about not sending flowers. That’s crazy.”

“Ahh. You don’t think he’s capable of lying to you.”

“Well, all human beings can lie but Finn seemed genuinely surprised about it so I do believe him.”

“But you won’t believe me when I tell you he is dangerous.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why is he dangerous? You never give me the specifics.”

Seth sighed. “Look, I can’t tell you.”

“Okay. So why should I believe you?”

“Why indeed. Let’s look at this logically. You trust Finn, a stranger, more than you trust me, a man you have actually slept with. You trusted me with your body but you won’t trust me where that damned Irishman is concerned.”

He had me there. I couldn’t argue that line of logic.

“So I will try and not be offended by that,” he continued. There was no gloating with that statement. Just a sad truth that maybe Seth did not really intend to share. Silence reigned over the car again.

We continued on our journey. Seth allowed a stop at Chipotle for food and that caused another argument with him. This time about the best shape for tortilla chips and that went on for over an hour in the car. It was completely maddening.

Other than that the ride was uneventful. We listened to Seth’s terrible music and I pretended to sleep. This is what I signed on for I reminded myself.

When we finally got to the hotel I was silently grateful for the opportunity to sleep in my own bed. With the charade going on I knew it was too much to ask that we be able to book separate rooms for us both. That would never fly in the press or to the other Superstars. People always talked. Especially hotel staff, for the right price.

Seth took charge of checking us in while I hung out with the luggage. Sasha, Bayley and Cesaro arrived too and they all seemed in good spirits. I watched from across the Lobby as Cesaro and Bayley enjoyed a joke, their heads bent together with laughter. Awww. My good deed for the day was proving successful.

The universe did not reciprocate in kind though. Because when Seth came back, the next horror of the day unfurled before me. Our room only had one bed. -

#seth rollins #seth rollins fan fiction #seth rollins fanfic #wwe #wwe raw

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impandagrl · 7 years

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Devils’ Trap

Devils’ Trap Part 1

Characters- Sam, Dean, (female)Reader

Pairings- None

Summary- Canon fic: Sam and Dean rescue the reader from demon possession and realize she could hold valuable information- if only she could remember …

Word Count- A little over 5k

Warnings- Canon-typical action violence; Mild (censored) language

A/N- I didn’t mean to write this. I actually told myself I wasn’t going to write fanfiction- at least not featuring Sam and Dean- because I didn’t feel like I could do them justice and I’ve really fallen in love with the characters. Then this story more or less came to me and I decided it needed to be written down.

Thanks to @jalove-wecallhimdean for being my editor and mentor and to @deals-with-demons for being my cheering squad. I would not have been able to finish writing this story without your encouragement!

Further thanks to @neversatisfiedgirl, @whatdoyouthinkmyjobis, @torn-and-frayed, @moonlitskinwalker, and @seenashwrite for inspiring me and without whom I wouldn’t be getting this posted (It’s not like I’m expecting you to read it or anything, I just believe in giving thanks where it’s due)

Part 2 Here

"Tibi facias libertate servire,“ It was a familiar scene: A freshly-painted red circle, with the star and sigils comprising a devil’s trap; A chair in the center with a writhing black-eyed girl secured with iron chain. “Te rogamus, audi nos.” As Sam voiced the last words of the exorcism the girl gave a final shriek; a plume of black smoke shot out of her and circled against the confines of the trap, finally sinking and flaring up briefly before melting into the concrete floor of the abandoned building. With the demon gone, the girl slumped in the chair, her head hanging limp; blood oozing from somewhere, mouth or nose he couldn’t be sure. He was hit with the sick fear they had been too late. He rushed forward, pressing two fingers to her neck to check for a pulse. Dean hovered nearby waiting for the verdict. He found what he was searching for and felt a surge of relief, “She’s alive.” The girl stirred and Sam carefully began to remove her restraints. She started to raise her head, reflexively touching her tongue to the blood that was dripping off her lip. Dean took a step forward, “Hey, take it easy.” He pressed a cleanish bandana into her newly-freed right hand and she clutched it to her nose to stem the bleeding. “What’s your name?”

She glanced at Sam, who was just straightening after freeing her, before returning Dean’s gaze, trying to make sense of what was going on. She was struggling, either to grasp the meaning of Dean’s question or to remember the right answer, but she was finally able to croak out the word she was searching for. “Anything damaged, besides the nose bleed?” She considered this for a moment, before shaking her head which produced a noticeable wince, “I don’t think so.” “My name’s Dean, this is my brother, Sam. We’re the good guys. We need you to tell us what you remember.”

Remember? Not much. Her brain was fighting her; it was about all she could do to remember how to speak English coherently, but it wasn’t like she could explain that to the imposing figures in front of her who were waiting for an answer. "I remember … bits and pieces. Most of it’s- foggy. I remember- a girl … I- killed her …“ She trailed off, scanning their faces to see if either of them were disgusted or shocked by this revelation. They shared a glance and when they resumed their scrutiny they seemed slightly less intimidating. It was the taller one, Sam, who spoke up, his voice compelling, “That wasn’t you, that was the demon that was possessing you. We think it may have been planning something; working with others in the area, but we weren’t able to get it to talk. Anything you can remember could help us stop them before they hurt someone else.” She pulled the bandana away and studied it, glad for the excuse to break eye contact. The bleeding seemed to have stopped for the most part. She searched for a memory that might be useful, but disjointed images that eluded any attempt to grasp onto were all that she was getting. Like glimpses from a nightmare. The ringing in her ears and her throbbing skull were definitely not helping, but she didn’t want to disappoint her rescuers whom she could tell were still waiting expectantly. What if they thought she was in league with the demon if she couldn’t give them anything? Or would they just assume she was weak; too scared to face the reality of what she’d done while under the- demon’s- control. She could feel her mind shrink from the word and she gritted her teeth, ignoring the pain blossoming in response. There had to be something she could offer. “There was a place,” her voice came out too soft and she forced herself to speak up, “this one building- it- would go.” She hoped the hesitation at the passing mention of the demon had escaped their notice, but she doubted much got by them. Well, maybe she’d covered enough it hadn’t been too bad. “It would meet others there, I think. We,- it- went there several times.” Sam’s eyebrows raised and he seemed excited by her words. He rummaged through a worn duffle on the floor and pulled out a map. He approached her, but halted as he misinterpreted the distress that was growing on her face. “No one’s going to hurt you, we’ll make sure you’re safe, but if you could show us where it is …” he trailed off as her discomfort became more pronounced. “Um …” awesome, these competent looking guys who had just saved her were going to think she was an imbecile. She might as well get it over with. “I’m not, ah, good with maps …” or having a sense of direction, or apparently any of the basic skills normal adult humans were supposed to magically possess, but she was pretty sure they got the picture; she couldn’t bring herself to look at their response to that news. She started babbling, anxious to make up for it, “but, I might be able to find it again; I went there enough times, I think I could recognize landmarks.” She got up the courage to peek at their reactions. They were exchanging looks again. That was kind of unsettling. They led her out of the warehouse and into a car that was parked nearby. It was dark and she was so exhausted she stumbled and might have fallen if Sam hadn’t been following close behind ready to steady her when she needed it. She hovered on the edge of sleep as the car rumbled along the road, but her nerves were still jittery and the ride wasn’t quite long enough. There was another short walk into a motel room. Beige and boring, two beds, a wooden table, and a beige armchair near the window. A couple leather-bound books on one nightstand and a duffle near one of the beds suggested the brothers had spent at least one night here already. Dean grabbed the bag and tossed it toward the lumpy chair. He gestured toward the bed furthest from the door. “You should get some sleep; you look like you could use it.” She hesitated, but he continued, “Sammy and I’re taking shifts; nothing’s getting in without us knowing.” She appreciated that he had addressed her concerns without acting like he’d noticed her freezing up. Of course she was pretty sure he had, but she was grateful that he hadn’t felt the need to call attention to it. She tried not to fall into the bed. The bending required to take off her shoes seemed tortuous, but she managed and slipped under the covers jeans and all.

Dean had taken first watch, in the last three hours there had been very little to attract attention. A short, heated argument had broken out between a couple several rooms down. A car somewhere down the street had screeched causing a dog to bark. Inside the room Sammy slept like dead man. Shift change was in one hour and he was making the most of it. The girl had been out the second she’d hit the pillow, but he’d bet money by the way she occasionally twitched in her sleep she was having a string of unpleasant dreams. It was the silence that alerted him she was awake, she was trying to breathe without being heard, s–t, no . . . she was trying to cry without being heard. Damn it. One hour, they would have changed shifts; Sam was better at the emotional crap than he was. He stood up and she immediately held her breath. Maybe he should just leave her be, she was obviously embarrassed. An almost inaudible sniff when she couldn’t hold her breath anymore helped him make up his mind. He walked across the room and grabbed something in each hand before approaching the bed. She was facing the wall trying to hold her breath again. He tapped her shoulder with the tissue box and she reached her arm around without turning to accept it. He waited while she blew her nose. He could hear Sam lift his head as the small commotion disrupted his deep sleep. When she was done she whispered, “Thank you. Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb-” “Don’t worry about it, I was already awake; Sit up.” She obeyed somewhat hesitantly and he handed her the water bottle. Her hands were shaking slightly as she unscrewed the lid, but she got it open. After the first few sips, her thirst took over and she guzzled the rest. Her stomach growled and she looked mortified at the betrayal. Damn, brilliant work Dean. “Yeah, demons don’t have to eat, and they don’t care that you do. I would have offered you something earlier, but you looked like sleep was first priority,” he cut off her protests by turning his back on her and found a granola bar in one of the packs. He brought it back to her along with a second water bottle. “Eat it slowly and sip the water or it’s not staying down.” She started work on it, intent on following his instructions. He leaned on the wall nearby, careful not to face her directly; she seemed to prefer not to have an audience. “(Y/N), isn’t it?” She swallowed, nodding to confirm he’d remembered her name correctly. “Well my brother and me, we get what you’re going through better than anybody. If there’s something you need, speak up; we’ll try to make it happen. There’s no reason to try to act like you’re okay if you’re not, got it?” Out of the corner of his eye he could see her duck her head and blink to hide a few fresh tears. Her voice was low, but steady when she replied “Thank you.”

She was certain by now they were both wishing they’d interrogated the demon more thoroughly before sending it out of her. Or maybe that the demon had chosen to possess someone more useful. She’d had a couple breakthroughs earlier in the day, but the last several hours of circling in the guys’ car made her unsure if a particular building looked familiar because she’d seen it while riding shotgun in her own mind, because they’d passed it an hour ago, or because she was so desperate to see something that triggered a memory that she was imagining it. She couldn’t even be sure some of the frustration she could feel emanating from the two in the front seat wasn’t projection. They’d stopped asking her every five minutes about this or that street corner at least, but probably that was a bad sign. “I’m sorry, I don’t think so.” She hated how small her voice came out, but honestly she wasn’t sure if she really wanted them to hear her. She could sense Sam glance over the seat at her and peered intently out the window to avoid seeing his face. She didn’t know if she could handle assessing the level of annoyance she was causing them. “Dean, I think we could all use a break. It’s two o'clock; we should stop for some lunch.” Dean snorted and seemed about to argue, but they did their silent mind meld or whatever and he apparently conceded. Great, now they were pitying her. Awesome. She rubbed her temple. She supposed she could add demon possession to the list of things she sucked at.

Dean was trying to figure out whether this whole thing was a dead end. Sam had insisted they’d stop working the demon over once it had become clear they’d exhausted any methods that didn’t cause harm to the possessed girl. Now that he’d- met her, so to speak- he didn’t regret letting Sam’s conscience be their guide. However, he was fast losing what hope he’d had that it was going to pay off as far as furthering the case was concerned. It wasn’t the girl’s fault, but maybe it was time to move on to plan b. Or at least put some thought into what plan b was exactly. The issue was bringing it up with her there. He couldn’t decide if her reluctance to order anything at the drive-thru or make eye contact ever since they’d brought their food back to the motel was a result of the failed venture of the past few hours or because she’d recently been inhabited by hell-spawn, but either way he was just going to have to insist on a private meeting with Sam. She was currently sitting at the table absentmindedly drawing in a puddle of condensation with her pinky finger. She looked up suddenly and winced when she realized he’d been staring at her. “Um, remember when you said if I needed something I should speak up?” She flushed and Dean was wondering what he’d gotten himself into, but she must have been worried she would lose her nerve; she didn’t wait for a reply. “If that still applies, I was just wondering if I could have some ibuprofen. Or Advil.” Dean raised his eyebrows, all that buildup for a couple otc pain pills? “Uh, no problem, I’m sure we have some in the Impala somewhere. Gimme a sec.” He jogged out to the parking lot, returning a minute later with a bottle which he handed over. She thanked him, poured three rust-colored pills into her palm, and downed them with a little water. “Anything we should know about?” She shrugged a little too casually, “It’s just a headache.” His mind went to the horrific headaches Sam used to deal with from his psychic episodes. “Is this something new?” Something flickered across her face like she found his question amusing somehow. “I’ve had chronic migraines since I was 16; a lot of things can trigger them including stress,” she smirked, “apparently being possessed by a demon counts.” She was almost convincing, but she busied herself with picking at her fries as an excuse to break eye contact. She might look soft, but he was beginning to guess she had a lot of experience downplaying her pain; joking about it. Well, sorry, sweetheart, he had invented those moves. He crossed his arms and gave his voice a slight accusatory edge, “Now what I want to know is how long that was going on before you decided to ask for the meds?” She started at first, but her answer had a hint of a bite to it, “Honestly, I’m not sure. The only way I know how to function with almost daily migraines is to try to ignore it as much as I can. “I was really focused on what we were doing so by the time I realized I had a headache, it was really bad, and then I was was too embarrassed to even think about bringing it up.” She ran her hand through her hair, her fingers pressing into her scalp, and turned her attention back to her fries before mumbling, “If you’re wondering if that was the reason for my being so useless today- it probably didn’t help.” “Hey, you know we don’t blame you for that, right? You can’t make yourself remember something.” She whipped her head up, her eyes alarmed, “I didn’t mean to … I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to say you’d done anything!” Sam leaned forward and held her gaze, “Is that what you meant earlier: ‘if that still applies’? You figured since you didn’t help us enough or whatever we wouldn’t give you some Advil?” “N-no, not exactly,” her gaze flicked to Dean then back to Sam. “I just felt uncomfortable asking when I figured I’d wasted so much of your time. “It wasn’t that I thought you were like that, I just kept wishing the demon had picked someone more helpful and I couldn’t imagine it didn’t cross your minds …” Sam shook his head, “First off, you didn’t waste anything. You gave us a lot of information we didn’t have before. I’ve been working out a way to use that info to narrow down where we have left to search. “Secondly, let me get this straight, you wish the demon hadn’t picked you, not because your life has been turned upside-down, but because you don’t feel you’ve been helpful enough? “Someone else might not be willing to help us, or even be able to after being a demon puppet for weeks.” She looked down at the table again, “Thanks; sorry, I really wasn’t fishing.” Sam, slightly exasperated, turned to Dean with a look that invited him to take a turn at reasoning with her. Dean was amused, but kept his voice casual, “Is there anything else that can help the headache?” She gave him a half-hearted attempt at a smile, “Hopefully within the next twenty minutes or so the ibuprofen’ll kick in, and the food will help. I don’t know of anything else besides maybe distraction.” “Anything in particular?” he pressed, giving her a look that made it clear he wouldn’t tolerate an attempt to dodge the question. “TV, usually: the dim light doesn’t strain my eyes and it can sometimes take my mind off it.” “Well, you’re in luck,” he tossed the remote onto the bed she’d used last night. “We’re gonna work on what you already gave us like Sam said, and we have a couple other leads to run through. You’re taking a break.”

There wasn’t much noise for the next few hours besides the low sounds of the television and the guys occasionally murmuring to each other. Dean busied himself making calls and perusing local news stories while Sam was glued to his computer. After about thirty minutes, Sam glanced up from the screen to ask her how her head was doing and she reported it was a bit better. She hadn’t wanted to bore him with the details; she’d already whined enough for one day. The meds had taken the pain down by about half, but she was still feeling dizzy and nauseated. It was better than nothing; definitely more manageable. It was around five o'clock when Sam stretched from the cramped position he’d assumed. “So get this,” he gestured for her to join him and she came to see what he was drawing her attention to on the computer. It was a map. Lovely. “I used the results from our work this morning and added the data from the media and witness accounts that led us to you in the first place and it gives us a possible zone for this meeting place. Within that I figured out the most probable areas to search. “For now, I want you to forget about how you got to the building and tell me everything you can remember about the building itself.” She did her best to pry her brain for every detail she had. The memories still seemed slippery, like her brain didn’t want to access them, but she had to. “That’s great, okay, let’s see where that gets us.” She nodded, grateful that she was off the hook for a minute. She could feel her temples throbbing from forcing herself to dredge up things her brain was trying to repress. She went back to sit on the edge of the bed and absentmindedly started fiddling with her shirt. It was the one with the pandas that she’d gotten off teeturtle. There was a dark stain on the front that she was trying to pretend not to know what it was. She looked up to see that Dean had been watching her. She felt uncomfortable, like he could see right through her. There was no doubt in her mind that he knew it was blood, that it wasn’t hers, and that he had noticed her hands were shaking again. So she was very surprised when he looked away lazily. “Hey, kid, no offense, but if there’s any chance we’re gonna be stuck riding together again, you’re going to have to take a shower.” She suppressed a giggle though she could feel her face flush from embarrassment. “Oh. Yeah, I guess demons don’t care about BO either.” “Toss your stuff outside, I’ll find you something to wear tonight while they’re in the wash.” Oh. He’d noticed all right. She felt her eyes prickle and willed herself not to cry. She’d managed to keep the wall up all day, but his understanding threatened to bring it crashing down. She cleared her throat, “Yeah, okay, thanks.” The shower was glorious. She hadn’t realized she’d needed it so badly. She scrubbed at her hair with the entire contents of the travel-sized shampoo bottle, using her fingernails until her scalp was tingling. When she ran out of hot water, she turned the faucet off and lathered with the bar of soap until its sharp scent had overpowered the last remnant of sulfur. She tested the water to find it had heated up again. One she’d rinsed, she allowed herself to cry silently to relieve the pent-up stress, then just stood under the stream until the water started to run lukewarm. When she emerged it was like she felt human for the first time since waking up in that devil’s trap. Her clothes were gone, in their place a large grey long-sleeved men’s tee and some boxer shorts. She chuckled. They were baggy on her, but she could never sleep in anything remotely form-fitting anyway. She briefly wondered who these items belonged to before deciding following that train of thought was a bad idea. She opened the bathroom door and peered out. Sam was still at the computer, Dean on his back on the bed nearest the door watching the tv with his eyes half-closed. Sam gestured to her, his face still intent on the screen. She craned her neck to see over his shoulder and he turned with a grin on his face. “Look, I narrowed it down to three possibles,” he pointed to three places he’d highlighted on the map. “Yesterday we had a whole city to try to search. Doesn’t sound like wasted time to me.” She was sure the credit for any breakthroughs went to Sam and Dean and the hard work they’d been doing all afternoon, but it was so kind of him to try to make her feel like what little she’d contributed mattered. There was no point in arguing, and there was no resisting his infectious enthusiasm. “So, what’s the plan now?” Sam’s grew serious and he seemed to study her a moment. “Well, that depends …” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Dean sit up and swing his legs over the side of the bed to join the conversation. With a flash of intuition she had an idea what it depended on; she could feel a spike of adrenaline, but knew what her answer was, “I’ll do anything I can to help, just tell me what it is.” She supposed that would have been more convincing if she had managed to keep her voice steady, but there it was. Sam gave her a small smile, “Look (Y/N), we know you want to help- and you have! No one could ask more from you after what you’ve been through …” “Sam,” this time she didn’t even bother trying to keep her voice from quivering; great, her hands were shaking again too. “Every time I close my eyes, I see the look on that girl’s face as I choked the life out of her. If there is anything I can do to help, even a little, I want to do it, please.” Dang it, her eyes were brimming again, she couldn’t look at either of them. They were doing that annoying telepathy thing anyway. It was Dean who spoke up, “Okay, we get it, believe me, but there are a couple conditions if you want in on this trip. “First,” he sighed and shook his head, “I know what it sounds like, and I know you know this already, but let me repeat it: That. Was. Not. You. I know the demon used your body, your hands, and you’re the one that gets stuck with those memories, and they’re not going away anytime soon. That’s why it’s important you get this straight. You do what you can to help us, that’s fine, but you do not have to pay for what happened ‘cause it wasn’t on you. We clear?” His earnest gaze held her and she was able to regain control. She nodded and he seemed satisfied. “Alright, next order of business. You come with us, we aren’t planning on you getting anywhere near the action, but demons don’t always cooperate with the plan. We will keep you safe, you have our word, but I need your word if either of us gives you an order, you follow it no matter what. If I’m not one hundred percent convinced, you’re not leaving this motel room.” “Yeah, I don’t think that’ll be a problem.” She gave an unconvincing try at a chuckle. Everything in her wanted to be as far away from that place as possible, but she’d meant what she said. Plus, she trusted Sam and Dean. “I promise.” Dean nodded with an expression she couldn’t place. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say he looked proud or -ridiculous- a little impressed? She wasn’t sure why he would be, she was convinced he could see how scared she was despite her attempts to hide it. “Okay then, you’d better get some sleep, kid. We’ll be getting a move on before sun-up. “You get first watch tonight, Sammy.” He swung his legs back onto the bed and rolled over onto his stomach.

Sam got up to turn off the tv and the main light. On his way back he paused near where (Y/N) was still perched on the edge of the bed. He scanned her face and in the few seconds before she dropped her gaze he read everything there. He was familiar enough with the dread associated with going to bed when you knew the nightmares that were waiting for you. He hesitated, hoping to find the right words that would comfort her, not make her feel pitied. “I just want you to know not everyone could handle all this and keep it together so well- I’m serious. I get the feeling you don’t realize how strong you are. You are going to be okay.” She was struggling to process and accept his words. He paused, wanting that to sink in before he continued, “When I was- possessed- I could remember hurting people too. I would wake up in a panic thinking I was still a prisoner in my own mind. “Dean must have known; it wasn’t long afterward he took us to get warding tattoos. Sigils that protect you from possession.” He pulled down the top edge of his shirt collar so she could see the flaming five-point star etched on his collar bone. “It helped, and I thought maybe …” he pulled a sharpie out of his pocket and held out his other hand, inviting. She gave him her arm and he cradled her wrist in his left hand, sliding the grey shirt sleeve up over her elbow with his right. He deftly drew three sigils down the length of her inner arm while she watched, intrigued. First the anti-possession symbol he had taken, then he chose a different warding glyph, and one for protection. He gave her a small smile in response to her sincere, “Thank you,” and lightly squeezed her wrist before releasing her. He knew all too well they would only go so far if a demon was really determined to harm her, but he hoped they would give her peace, and that she would never get the chance to become more familiar with their world.

Dean was used to being up at the crack of dawn, downing a styrofoam cup full of black coffee, and getting on the road. The girl hadn’t taken as much waking as he’d anticipated, although he’d scoffed at the amount of cream and sugar she’d added to her coffee. She took it good-naturedly and even joked back. She seemed like she was feeling better today. Why did demons have to pick nice girls who wore shirts with cartoon bears on them and had enough crap to deal with without adding demon possession and memories of blood on her hands to the list? Hopefully once she pointed out the place she could sit back while they took care of every black-eyed creep that might know her face; she would be able to go home and pretend this never happened. He glanced at her in the rearview. She was tapping her fingers against the door to the Foreigner song currently playing, the only expression of nerves he could see as she stared out the window. They were headed for the second spot Sam had singled out- (Y/N) had seemed pretty confident the first one wasn’t it. According to the map they had about ten minutes before they arrived. As he neared the next turn, he heard her inhale so sharply it sounded like a hiss. Her fists were clenched and every muscle taut. He slowed and debated pulling over, but her head whipped up to meet his gaze in the mirror. “You were turning left up there?” He nodded. “I know that turn,” her voice was muffled, she knew saying so was unnecessary at this point. He drove cautiously after that, his eyes peeled for any sentries or anything else that seemed out of place. Occasionally he would gauge (Y/N)’s expression to confirm she was still recognizing their route. They parked around the block. The place looked abandoned. Huh, it was really going to be a let-down if the demons had skipped town. Well, they might as well check it out. She had been able to tell them a little about the building’s layout. Dean was planning on using the back door and sending Sammy through a side entrance. “This is the part where your job is to sit tight. We’ll either be back here within 45 minutes or one of us will text you,” he handed her his other, other, phone. “If you don’t see or hear from us and an hour has gone by, you call the number for Jodi Mills in that phone, you got it? You get out of the Impala, you cut down that road on the right there and keep your head down till you reach the police station. Jodi will pick you up from there. She’s a sheriff, she knows what we do; she’ll make sure you’re safe … You better hold up your end of the deal.” “I will, just don’t make me have to do all that, please. I might get lost … You know me and directions.” Dean rolled his eyes at the weak attempt at a joke, “It’s just a precaution. Let’s roll, Sam.”

This way to Part 2

#spn fic #spn fanfic #canon fic #possession #sam and dean #reader insert #idk how to tag this #feedback welcome

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talabib · 4 years

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How To Win Your Audience Over Using Effective Communications

In Faust I, a masterpiece of German literature, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, “Words are mere sound and smoke.” But is this really the case?

Hardly. Words carry meaning and ideas, and choosing the right words is vital to winning people over, be it in politics, advertising or your personal life. Anytime we talk to our colleagues, our boss, our children or friends, we have to weigh our words carefully in order to get our message across.

How can we find words that convey our message as intended? This post explains exactly how people will understand your words and why their interpretations might differ from what you actually mean. Find out how to make your message stick in your audience’s mind and how to use language most effectively.

Effective communication is about considering your audience.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where your words were totally misinterpreted? Have you thought you were saying one thing only to find the other person heard something entirely different?

If this has happened to you, there are likely some flaws in how you communicate; that is to say, your words have failed you. But you’re not alone. In fact, flawed language habits are so widespread that we encounter misunderstandings in everything from politics to business to everyday life.

This is the case because everyone has a different understanding of words. As such, two different words that technically denote the same thing can elicit entirely different reactions.

For instance, “welfare” and “assistance to the poor” essentially mean the same thing. But if you ask Americans, only 23 percent will say that the country is spending too little on welfare, while 68 percent think there is too little “assistance to the poor.”

Clearly, different ways of communicating the same idea hold contrasting connotations. So, while “welfare” conjures up images of “welfare queens” and wasteful government spending, “assistance to the poor” reminds people of charity and Christian compassion.

Effective communication isn’t about your message or what your words objectively mean, but rather how people understand them. It’s essential to consider your audience’s preconceptions, especially their beliefs and fears.

Take the English novelist George Orwell, who knew this well and whose famous book 1984 played on the deep personal fears of his readers.

For instance, one passage describes “Room 101” as a place where one is confronted with her greatest fears. Since the fears of every reader are different, Room 101 became associated with the personal nightmares of any given reader.

Effective language is clear, simple and well organized.

How often do you pick up a dictionary and look up a word you don’t know? For many people, the answer would be seldom – or not at all. And that’s fine! After all, if you get used to using words so sophisticated that they are barely understood, your message is unlikely to be received. Thus, it’s often best to stick with clear and direct wording.

Effective language is easy to understand. But how can you make yours as effective as possible?

First of all, it’s important to use simple words and brief sentences; the more simply you present ideas, the more likely they are to be received. In the end, shorter words always have a bigger impact. Just take Apple’s Mac computer, which was originally named Macintosh.

Shorter sentences are also more easily remembered. For instance, many Americans remember Dwight Eisenhower’s 1952 campaign slogan “I like Ike,” which used the then-presidential candidate’s nickname.

By the same token, ignoring the rule of simplicity can mean big trouble. One reason John Kerry lost the 2004 presidential election was because the average American could hardly understand him. He tended to use overly complicated words and sentences that were far too long.

For example, he spoke of his preference for a “progressive internationalism” over the “too often belligerent and myopic unilateralism of the Bush Administration.” In the end, many Americans had no clue what he was talking about.

it’s also important to carefully explain the relevance of your message, which means giving context. This is easy to do by arranging your message in the right order.

For instance, if you want to offer a solution, your audience first needs to know why there’s a problem; without the initial context, your message is worthless.

Take 1920 presidential candidate Warren G. Harding’s famous “Back to normalcy” campaign. His effort was successful because he began by explaining how the political climate of the post-World War I United States was one of chaos and disorientation. Once he had given this context he offered the solution that could restore stability: himself.

Effective language appeals to the audience's imagination and senses.

It might not seem like it, but language is extraordinarily powerful. Just think about how putting together certain words, like a giraffe on a bike, can paint a vivid mental image in the minds of your audience. Such a powerful mental picture forms because people struggle to resist imagining a long-necked creature, helplessly pedaling on a bicycle that’s far too small for it.

In fact, the strength of the human imagination makes appealing to your audience’s imaginative senses a powerful tool for conveying your message. To do so, it’s essential to create a strong image in your audience’s mind – in other words, to sensualize.

For example, good advertising slogans often employ language that grabs your imagination and senses. Just take M&M’s famous slogan, “melts in your mouth. . .” When you hear it, you can practically feel the chocolate on your tongue.

And there’s an easy way to trigger this sensualization with one simple word: “imagine.” When you ask someone to imagine something, you’re asking them to generate their own personalized vision based on their deepest emotions and desires. Naturally, this makes for a powerful image and also explains why John Lennon’s song Imagine is among his most beloved and famous.

Alongside its visual components, the sonic quality of language also plays a central role. As such, you can achieve even greater success by utilizing the musical qualities of words. For instance, you can use words that sound similar together to make them more memorable. Returning to M&M’s famous slogan, the repetition of the letter M in “Melts in your Mouth. . .” makes the slogan stick, and the same goes for “Intel Inside.”

Another sonic strategy is to use words that sound like what you’re describing. For instance, when you hear “Snap, Crackle and Pop,” the slogan of Kellog’s Rice Krispies, you get a perfect sense of what it sounds like to be eating the cereal.

Effective language directly addresses people’s emotions.

Hollywood writers live by the rule that their words should stir up emotions in viewers. They know that when language touches a person’s feelings, it leaves a lasting impression in her memory.

The key to accomplishing this is to find words that either apply to a situation everyone is familiar with, a strategy called humanization, or even better, to their personal life experience, a technique called personalization.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech is a great example of humanization. The message of the speech is that people shouldn’t be judged by their appearance but by their character. This applied not only to the black members of his audience, but to the guiding principles of all Americans and, for that matter, human beings.

In everyday contexts, advertisers use humanization and personalization all the time to appeal to our individual life experiences and demonstrate that consuming their product will make our lives better. For instance, the skin-care line Olay uses the slogan “Love the skin you’re in.” This phrase plays on a sense of self-worth that anyone can relate to.

Another excellent tool for making an emotional impact is to ask questions. Addressing your audience with a question that begs a direct response will trigger a thought process and lead them to a conclusion.

So, if you reveal the conclusion to your audience right off the bat, they’ll be less invested and interested in what you have to say. But if they reach an opinion on their own, it’ll come with a profound emotional impact.

For example, during the 1980 US presidential debate, Ronald Reagan posed a very simple question to voters: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” By asking this question, he prompted a thought process that led the audience to realize that the country had indeed gotten worse under then-president Jimmy Carter, and famously resulted in Reagan sweeping to a huge victory in the presidential election.

Strong language combines the well known with surprises – and does so with credibility.

So, you’ve learned some important skills for getting your point across; but it’s also important to know about the major pitfalls that should be avoided. When it comes to communicating, two stand out in particular: boring your audience with old information and overwhelming them with new ideas.

After all, the key to effective language is striking the perfect balance between consistency and novelty. For instance, many companies make the mistake of changing their slogans too frequently.

Take Coca-Cola: can you think of the company’s current tagline? Probably not, since they change it all the time, a practice that has wreaked havoc for their image. For example, from 2009 to 2016, their slogan was “Open happiness,” but in 2016, it switched to “Taste the feeling.”

Compare this to Wheaties, a company that still uses a tagline it created in 1935 with great success: “The breakfast of champions.”

On the other hand, people are also easily bored. So, along with your consistency, you’ll need something novel that surprises people and grabs their attention. In the 1950s, when cars were getting bigger every day, Volkswagen shocked car buyers with its successful campaign, “Think Small.”

It’s also critical to communicate your credibility effectively. To do so, make sure your words don’t contradict common perceptions and facts. For instance, during his 2000 presidential campaign, Al Gore became the butt of endless jokes and lost credibility when he claimed that he “invented” the Internet.

Finally, it’s important to remain authentic. The easiest way to accomplish this is by turning your words into actions. During the 1992 presidential election campaign, George Bush Sr. famously said, “Message: I Care.”

While he obviously wasn’t supposed to read out loud this note written on his cue cards, he also failed to communicate that his politics were caring in any way. Meanwhile, his opponent Bill Clinton said he would “Put people first” and explained how he’d do so by providing healthcare and high-quality education. Of course, Clinton went on to win the election.

Knowing your audience is essential to effective communication.

So far you’ve learned how effective language can get your message across in the way you intended. But for language to be truly effective you need to understand something else: your audience. More specifically, you need to know your audience’s hopes, beliefs and preconceptions.

For instance, if your audience is American, you should be aware of common misconceptions about average Americans, such as the assumption that many of them are highly educated. This is important because when you look at Americans older than 45, only 29 percent hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. Barely one in four Americans over 25 are college educated.

Another common misconception about Americans is that they vote based on a candidate’s political agenda. In reality, the majority don’t know or care about political opinions; instead, they are focused on the type of person a candidate is – on their character, image and trustworthiness.

Consider the actions of George W. Bush during the national turmoil that followed 9/11. In retrospect, it’s clear that his policy wasn’t very effective – but Bush knew his audience extremely well. He knew that Americans wanted a commander-in-chief who was strong and determined to secure freedom for the United States and people across the world.

He also managed to convey this image successfully, which resulted in increased popularity and his reelection in 2004.

Another aspect of your audience that’s important to keep in mind is how they perceive specific, frequently used words. Again, if your audience is American, it’s crucial to know how words like “freedom”, “fairness” and “opportunity” are perceived in the local culture.

After all, you might think that the word “freedom” carries a positive connotation, but it was so overused during the George W. Bush administration that it has become closely associated with the Republican Party.

Similarly, “fairness” has become associated with the Democrats, as it is a word they use very frequently. On the other hand, a middle-of-the-road term that most Americans like is “opportunity” – a word with no associations with either political party.

Effective communication can help you every day.

Now that you know the ins and outs of effective language, how can it help you in your day-to-day life? Well, imagine you’re running late for a flight and the plane’s door has already closed. How can you use effective communication to get on the plane?

Start by understanding the situation of your audience, in this case, the airport employees. In their eyes, opening the door again is a major hassle. Therefore, you’re completely at their mercy and you will need to beg – but be sure to start and end your plea with the word “please.”

You can then tell them a story that makes it clear how catching this plane will change your life and why they should help you. For instance, you could say it’s a family emergency or a life-changing job interview, something that anyone could relate to. At the same time, you should assure them you’ll be eternally grateful.

Effective communication can also bail you out when you get pulled over for speeding. In this situation, you again need to understand the situation of your audience: the police officer.

In contrast to the case of the airline employees, the cop could do you a favor without causing himself any additional work or hassle; after all, writing a ticket will produce extra paperwork that he certainly wouldn’t be excited to fill out. Next, you should show that you’re not a threat by turning off your engine, rolling down your window, placing both hands on the wheel and having your license and registration ready to go.

Remember, cops have a dangerous job and never know if the person they’ve pulled over is a total lunatic!

Finally, you’ll want to show how grateful you are, respect the officer’s authority and be honest about violating the law. So, when the cop reaches your window, make eye contact and be sure the first words out of your mouth are, “I’m sorry, officer.”

While this approach can’t guarantee you’ll dodge a ticket, it will boost your chances. After all, language isn’t magic, but it is a powerful tool to help you get what you want.

Everybody interprets language differently, and this important fact makes the dictionary definition of your words far less important than the way they are received. Effective language is all about taking the views of your audience into account and choosing the words that will have the greatest impact upon them.

#How To Win Your Audience Over Using Effective Communications

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rivkyschleider · 4 years

Text

Unpicking an Article

Blog Post 5

Artist Peter Tzanev of the Department of Art Psychology and Art Education, National Academy of Arts, Sofia, Bulgaria has written about his own work in a paper entitled ‘Ectoplastic Art Therapy as a Genre of Contemporary Art’. This blog post deals with my response to this article. Writing this critique helps me to define what type of art therapist I don’t want to be, and by looking at pitfalls to avoid, I can come closer to becoming the art therapist I want to be. I will explain what I think are the idealogical problems with his approach and also where ethical and procedural issues seem to be occuring.

1. The author places art therapy idealogically with pseudo-science and the occult. He quotes Bramble (2015, p 134) “art therapy as developing at the same time as the downfall of the modernist culture of the soul”. He tracks the rise and fall of the occult, references Modernism and his own term ‘Psychological society’. Then he states that art therapy developed in the 1940′s alongside all these other cultural developments. They may have been concurrent, but that does not show direct cause.

2. The author tries to make a point by putting two texts side by side for comparison, using the fact that one was published in the same year as the other was begun to lend credence to his narrative. That fact is incidental, it proves nothing. Schrenck-Notzing’s book Phenomena of Materialisation was based on his work with mediums and ectoplasm: “white immaterial emanation that surrounds a person in a deep state of trance...moved in an autonomous animate manner, responding to touch...” (Sommer, 2012). This article writes of “disturbing images of mediums with ectoplasm”. He puts this next to Carl Jung’s “The Red Book” - a collection of Jung’s personal writings and drawings chronicling the exploration of his own unconscious. With the Red Book Jung discovered higher development of the personality.

3. Tzanev then discloses that the photos in Phenomena of Materialisation were fraudulent! “Schrenck-Notzing admitted that mediums deceptively smuggled pins into the seance room and replicated the ectoplasm using a comb, gauze and a handkerchief.” (Tzanev, 2019) .This should have prompted Tzanev to discard the book as it was clearly a false piece of work. They have no connection with the dreams and hallucinogenic drawings of Jung’s actual inner life.

4. Now I turn to the question of the authors’ qualification to do work with people and call it art therapy. I do not see any evidence of a relevant qualification to work with vulnerable clients. It is legitimate to do creative or artistic work with people and call it therapeutic. It is legitimate to frame that as contemporary art, as his article title suggests. However, it is not legitimate to tell people one is doing Art Therapy with them unless one is fully qualified and working within a professional framework. All students are mindful of this, and once qualified, we must continue to comply with the governing body of our profession.

5. In an article about effective art therapy, I would expect to encounter something of the voice of the participant, even a minor reference or an implied presence of a client group. Here, there is a vacuum, we don’t get a sense of any real human engagement.

6. In making art to describe “states of being” for consumers to to consume or experience in a gallery, it is removed from art therapy, as art therapy is located in the experience of the making, usually in the context of a trusting therapeutic relationship.

7. He does not describe any successful outcomes of his therapy with children and adults presenting with PTSD, MDE and ASD, he just says that it was successful. We do not know what his measures of success are. A therapist should be able to describe how it was good for wellbeing, or if it reduced symptoms, or achieved any stated goal. The furthest he goes is to say that his technique leads to unexpected and effective psychotherapeutic insights.

8. The artist then describes another intervention, that of using photographs of the mentally ill and projecting them onto ceilings and walls of public places. I question the ethics of such an exhibition. Putting aside copyright issues, ethics has to take into consideration broader schemes of thought than that which might be covered by regulation. This was discussed in our lecture on ethics. Using an image of a mentally disturbed person as an artifact is unfair, it makes an object out someone who has already suffered. Dignity, respect and sensitivity all seem to be washed away in the name of Art.

9. He writes of the reaction to his exhibition: “Absolutely all reactions were directly provoked by the way the images had affected the viewers.” What else is a reaction?

10. “The discussions with the audience were entirely devoted to issues related to psychology, mental illness and art therapy”. An open ended discussion may have ensued, but what theories of personal development or group dynamic was it built upon? What did it set out to achieve? How did he assess its efficacy? It may have been a cultural experience, but it was not art therapy.

11. There is one interesting explanation for the way that art making impacts self awareness and identity. I liked it, yet it is ruined by a notion that his technique “investigates the complex self-therapeutic situation in which a psychotherapist falls into the role of artist and an artist into the role of psychotherapist in the hyper-psychological medium of art therapy. During the long process of art therapy, our body acts as a psychologization ‘machine’.” He is overthinking what it means to be alive.

In contrast to this, is Neil Springham’s article (Springham, 2008) on the importance of taking responsibility for interventions with vulnerable people. An artist cannot afford to fall into the role of a psychotherapist.

CONCLUSION

The artist Peter Tzanev has dubious ideas about the art therapy, and has questionable authority to be working under the title Art Therapist.

Therapy has to have an element of ordinary human care and he makes no mention of care, connection or trust. He quotes Soussloff, 1997, the “artist is not just unlike others but absolutely different because of the concept of art”. Art therapists will disagree. Art, mark-making is accessible to most humans, shared globally by people across time, space and culture. It unites us all, in a sense. And yet, art therapists have a duty of care. They need appropriate training and the structures of a profession to guide their involvement with vulnerable people. His effort to assert his ectoplastic art therapy as contemporary art is unconvincing. Perhaps he should stick to performative art as he seems to gain much fulfillment from that.

Bibliography:

Springham, N (2008). Through the eyes of the law: What is it about art that can harm people? International Journal of Art Therapy, 13:2, 65-73

Tzanev, P. (2019) Ectoplastic Art Therapy as a Genre of Contemporary Art. Arts (2019), 8, 134; doi:10.3390/arts8040134

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jurassicparkpodcast · 5 years

Text

EXCLUSIVE: A Look Behind The Scenes At Masrani Global, The Dinosaur Protection Group and Much, Much More…

We’re all Jurassic Park fans – that much is undoubted. But, whether you loved or hated the newer entries in the Jurassic World series, it is undeniable that the immersive viral marketing for the films has been incredible. I know as a young and impressionable college student during the Jurassic World release campaign, I was inspired by the marketing – envisioning dreams of a grandiose marketing campaigns which pushed the boundaries and walked the line between marketing and real life.

With this personal love for immersive marketing, it is my absolute pleasure to share with you today a behind the scenes look at Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’s marketing.

Jack Ewins and Timothy Glover are responsible for the formation Chaos Theorem – a marketing agency which has handled Universal’s immersive Jurassic projects.

So – Jack, Tim, before we start why don’t you tell us a little bit about how you got into Jurassic Park, and what it means to you both?

Timothy Glover: I was actually living in Rhode Island, USA as an eight year old at the time Jurassic Park came out in 1993. I had grown up reading illustrated books and playing with those late 1980’s dinosaur toys, which always looked like they were inspired by the 1933 King Kong film. When I saw the preview for this new Spielberg movie that made dinosaurs look so incredibly real I was hypnotised. The entire concept of a Jurassic Park felt very believable as a kid. As a film, Jurassic Park made you want to be a storyteller, director, musician, actor, animator, you name it - it’s the pinnacle of film-making.

Jack Ewins: I’ve been heavily drawn to Jurassic Park after seeing the first film at the cinema when I was 4 years old. At the time, I was enthralled by the adventure of the story, and the menacing presence of the dinosaurs, which still rings true today, but now I’m 30 I’m engaged by the deeper meaning that Jurassic brings to my life. To boil down to the spine of Jurassic’s story, the franchise surrounds a moral, and ethical debate about playing God, and this is something I think captures the minds of children, and adults, which sticks with them because it resonates with real debates that exist in our world. So, whilst Jurassic means a lot to me because it’s fun, and adventurous, it also means a lot to me because of its philosophical nature.

As we’ll touch on in a little bit, you guys have been on an incredible journey with the franchise. How did this all start for you both?

JE: I’ve been thinking about this ever since we got the initial email from Universal asking if we’d like to join the team. For myself it went something like this:

In 2011, my mother presented me with this box which contained all my old Jurassic items, or close to all of it, and I was surprised just how much I had accumulated over my childhood years. So, I went online to see whether anyone else had made videos showcasing their collections, and I found this plethora of fans who were proud of their stuff. So, I made my collection video detailing all the nostalgic memories I had for the items, why my Robert Muldoon was nicknamed “El Floppo”, why my Coelophysis had a missing foot, or how my Juvenile T-rex figure was missing its dino-damage. This gained millions of hits on YouTube, and caught the attention of Sam Phillips who hosted a Jurassic Park podcast called Jurassic Cast. He reached out to get me on the show to discuss my collection, and I agreed wholeheartedly, because I was a fan of Sam’s podcast, listening to it in my spare time. However, before going on the podcast, and after finishing work one night, I felt this urge to send a tweet out to the newly announced director of Jurassic Park 4, Colin Trevorrow, inviting him onto the podcast with us to discuss his attachment to the franchise. I had no idea that he would agree to this but he DID! And it was going to be his first official interview about Jurassic since he was announced as Director. Going not to some major magazine or news outlet but directly to the fans. So, after a week or so we recorded and released our interview, gaining a lot of media buzz. And this is where Tim came into the picture, by hearing about our podcast, and researching who we were he reached out to myself for help on his (yet to be completed novel). Tim?

TG: In early 2014, I befriended Jack on Twitter. I was writing a creative story about a space exploration mission and I needed an artist to push some of my ideas forward. At the same time, all this Jurassic Park 4 news was coming through full of rumours and speculation. I think in February there was a JoBlo article that hinted at the possibility of an open park run by an Indian billionaire with the surname Patel. I asked Jack if he’d be interested in making a fan-based viral website for this company showing they’d recently acquired InGen. He was totally in, which was great as I don’t think I would have had the motivation to do it alone. Everything happened quickly after that - the Patel site went up and Twitter went nuts. Colin and Universal both saw the site and how it generated so much reaction. Luckily for us they reached out! The rest is history.

Most people will be familiar with your viral work on Masrani Global – the website which was featured heavily in Jurassic World’s marketing. How did you go about constructing the website?

TG: We had a few months in 2014 to work on our ideas, content and so forth before we were flown out to LA to meet with Colin, Frank and the team at Universal to present our ideas. That trip was when we had a first look at some of the materials from the film as they’d just wrapped shooting. I think straight away I said to Jack, “Wow - this film is going to be amazing. We really need to make something that blows everyone away”. Fortunately for us Universal were fantastic and sent us an assortment of assets that we could use. From there Jack and I worked on making a website that was rich in content and fun to explore. We had to make sure someone could dive into 20 years’ worth of lost information but not do it all in 5 minutes. This included us brainstorming and writing original ideas about events that (in all likelihood) would have occurred over the twenty years since 1993’s Jurassic Park. Colin’s help and feedback was instrumental to our success. A day before we went live he told us the website was “understated, thoughtful and rich”, which was a great compliment for us.

On the website, we see a lot of World Building – grounding Masrani Global as not only a conglomerate who built Jurassic World, but a conglomerate who have ties to the security, power and fuel industries. What kind of real-world inspiration did you use to ground this fictional company?

TG: I think I recall there being a little bit of Wayne Enterprises in the mix, but we were honestly making a lot of this conglomerate up during our Skype brainstorming sessions. We were told by Colin in LA that Simon was a billionaire with interests in Oil and Telecom, so we knew first up we had to create two companies and give them some backstory. Then we looked at various other specialties a billionaire might be interested in such as engineering, aviation, healthcare and data consulting. We had a bit of fun with some of their names along the way too. Axis Boulder is an anagram for Diabolus Rex, the original name for the Indominus. Timack Construction was a play on our own names and for constructing the world of Masrani Global. Masrani Oil became Masrani Energy, which was a fun environmentally friendly rebranding campaign we launched. In hindsight, perhaps there was a little bit of Elon Musk in there too!

A fan favourite feature of the Masrani Global website is the Backdoor – providing insight into the Jurassic world beyond what we see on screen. How did you decide what to include here?

TG: The Backdoor was a really important addition we wanted to include in the viral campaign because Masrani Global as a company would only be interested in positive PR on their main website. The Backdoor was where you could look for archives and Easter Eggs that had direct connections to some of the previous films. We felt this was a platform where we could really go into some details about Henry Wu’s character in particular, so a lot of focus went on his archived logs and you can see his thought processes evolving as he picks up new discoveries since the early 1990s. We’d also come up with the acronym of I.B.R.I.S. when Colin mentioned to us that Owen’s program didn’t have a name in the film. So, we were like - “Let’s name it!”

JE: This was an idea that we jumped on because we felt that one of the major parts of the original Jurassic movie was this notion of hacking into parks systems. We hoped early on to bring that aspect to the site so fans could play the part of hackers. The site wouldn’t launch until the day of the home media release, so it was a case of better late than never. One of the must haves for this section of the site was the timeline of events. For years, we had been seeing wishes for Universal to officially release a timeline of events that would help explain things more coherently than before. So, we sat down and researched what dates would be best to highlight and what to keep hidden. We agreed to keep the events of the movies under “Restricted Access” because the fans, and audience would already know what happened and the company would want the information contained within to be harder to reach. This would also allow us the opportunity to bring stuff to the surface later down the pipeline if need be, and with the release of the reports of the DPG website we made that happen.

We also see areas which retroactively add to the story-line – such as some of the information about the Spinosaurus. What kind of approach did you take when adding to the history of the franchise?

TG: Where there were opportunities to promote Colin and Derek’s story-line we did that first and foremost. I consider the viral websites as prequels or bridges with opportunities to connect the films together in a linear method (i.e. timeline) and so that responsibility came second. The third level of writing was left to our own creativity. We had to be very careful here as we didn’t want to upset any fans by including contradictory or irrelevant information, and we also didn’t want to tread on Colin and Derek’s territory. We noticed that Jurassic Park 3 in particular had some opportunities for expanded ideas, and there were some positive elements to Jurassic Park: The Game that we could “borrow” and bring into the film canon’s world - such as Mt. Sibo and the Bribri tribe. Overall my favourite additions were creating the I.B.R.I.S. acronym and writing a prequel for Vic Hoskins’ character in connecting him to the Jurassic Park 3 Pteranodon “cleanup”. Both these pieces seemed to be well liked by the fans and have made it to official games and booklets.

JE: We took a careful approach. We never wanted to spoon feed the fans information, and that meant not revealing everything at once. We carefully decided what to dive into, and used the position of the company Masrani Global, or the organization of the DPG as vessels for information within that universe, meaning the reader would only know what they would know, or were willing to publish to help their cause. So, for example, on Masrani Global it mentions Simon personally hiring Hoskins after his working during the “cleanup” of some flying reptiles over Canada in 2001, but if you watch Jurassic World, when those characters meet, it’s their first actual encounter with one another. So, the website was painting a nicer picture to what was really happening, a corporate mask as it were. Whereas the DPG are fighting for a specific cause, and will only release what they felt would help gain traction behind their vision for saving the dinosaurs of Isla Nublar. The dialogue I have seen fans undergo, trying to dissect or understand what is happening is reflective (I think) of what people within the Jurassic universe would be talking about. So, the fans and the fictional people who have witnessed the events go down in the world of Jurassic are closer than ever.

So – Masrani Global has been one aspect of your work with the franchise, but for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom you doubled down with both the Dinosaur Protection Group and the Extinction Now! Group. What inspired these ideas?

JE: The DPG was already in motion when we were brought back for round 2. It plays a pivotal role in getting our protagonists to the island within the plot of the movie, so the ideas for that site were given a jump start here. When we visited the DPG set we got a real sense for how the site should look and feel, and how juxtaposing it was going to be when compared to Masrani Global. However, Extinction Now! came about in an entirely different way.

TG: That’s right, the DPG was already central to the plot of the film. Whilst pitching our ideas for the DPG to the team at Universal, we came up with the idea of an antithesis group, which we simply referred to as the “Anti-Dinosaur Group”. It didn’t get the green light until much later in early 2018 when Colin reached out to us wanting to promote the same kind of idea. Believing the DPG were only representing half the ethical debate, Jack and I worked with Colin to build a campaign based on some fun back and forth social media banter, and really get the debate going. Thus, Extinction Now! was born as a collective effort between us and Colin. Can’t forget mentioning Manuel’s incredible San Diego video too which really kicked things off!

So, we saw you really double down with this project – with a heavier influence on Social Media. What was it like getting to work on trends such as the Dinosaur Adoption campaign?

TG: I came up with the idea for “Adopt a Dino” very early after hearing about the DPG project, even before we were booked to visit the set of the filming. Universal loved the concept so much they ran with it separately and created a whole campaign - including badges and t-shirts. We knew it was going to be a big hit with the wider audience because we did something similar on the Masrani Global website that let people interact and “apply” for a job, which turned out to be more successful than we’d anticipated. Watching Adopt a Dino all unfold in the way it did on National Dinosaur Day was very rewarding.

For the DPG, we also see content from the set of the DPG office, with stars like Bryce Dallas Howard contributing. What was it like working alongside these people to build the fictional world of the DPG?

JE: We didn’t exactly work alongside those actors, but we did write a list of phrases for them to record for videos, or sound bites for them to say which made it into the videos. We wrote those on the DPG set, and handed them to Bryce Dallas Howard’s assistant so once the main filming on that set had been wrapped, they would use the cameras to shoot the viral videos using what we wrote. However Universal worked on the content for the videos, and sent them our way once completed so we could integrate them on the site.

Is there anything else you’d like to add about working on these epic-scale Jurassic Projects? I think to the average fan it is hard to comprehend just how much work goes into these projects!

JE: There’s months of preparation that goes on behind the scenes, including ideas, and pages of documentation that doesn’t get used. One example from the last campaign was this idea to have a simple video game appear within the Kids Section of the DPG. We worked with Manuel to design how this game would look and what it would be. Our idea was to have the player be a triceratops escaping the volcanic eruption on Nublar, trying to get to the East dock to be airlifted to safety by the DPG. However other more crucial things came up, and we decided to abandon the game. In hindsight, I think it would have been OTT, that site was already packed with plenty of goodies. On top of that there’s the aspect of where our team members operate from on Earth. Chaos Theorem works globally, so keeping up with time-zones whilst we work, other external work we might have, family life, social life, and R&R, there is never a dull day.

However – these big projects are not all the pair of you are working on! Can you tell us a little about Chaos Theorem?

TG: Chaos Theorem I think is something that’s going to be evolving over time. Right now, I like to think of it as a digital storytelling entity that is lucky to possess some talented individuals who aspire to work on BIG ideas.

What is the dream with Chaos Theorem – where would you like it to be in five years’ time?

JE: My hope is for Chaos Theorem to be working on its own productions. Bringing our own method and flavour to the world of storytelling. But with anything large scale like this it’s one step at a time. So, we’ll just have to see how it all plays out.

TG: Like Jack says - producing our own creative content. Lucasfilm and Amblin are very big inspirations for me. I’m not just talking about the obvious stories like Indiana Jones or E.T., but early short films like THX 1138 4EB and Amblin’ really set the tone for what Lucas and Spielberg were going to do for the rest of their lives.

Where can people go to learn more about Chaos Theorem, and how can they support your continued work as the company grows?

TG: We’re working behind the scenes on building a website at www.chaostheorem.com and we’ve just kicked off our Facebook page https://fb.me/chaostheoremdigital/ recently where we’re posting videos and a bit of content related to the Masrani and DPG campaigns. We’d love for the community to keep in touch and follow us.

Lastly – what would your one piece of advice be for anyone looking to get into film marketing?

TG: If we’re talking digital marketing then I’d say two things -

Grow your imagination. People will be attracted to something they haven’t seen before. If it’s already been done then try to make it better. Don’t be afraid to share your ideas because just discussing them can lead to even greater ones.

Learn the internet. Web development is important if you want to be creating a website. Not Wordpress and WIX type stuff because creators will want you to be dynamic. HTML5, CSS and JavaScript is a good way to go. Social media management is a must, and the more Adobe you learn the better. Get out there and create!

JE: Thanks guys!!!

No Jack and Tim – thank you for taking the time out your busy schedules to have a chat with me about all things marketing for the Jurassic franchise! I really appreciate it.

Make sure you check out Chaos Theorem, and stay tuned for additional interviews, features and much, much more here on The Jurassic Park Podcast.

Written by: Tom Fishenden

#article #tom fishenden #dpg #masrani terminal #masrani global #choas theorem #jack ewins #timothy glover #dinosaur protection group #backdoor terminal jurassic #jurassic world viral marketing #viral marketing

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evybeibei-blog · 7 years

Text

Storyboard Feedback

Rough Storyboard Feedback:

Feedback Summary of Evy's Rough Storyboard

by Jejomaila Garcia - Saturday, 1 October 2016, 2:23 AM

(Hi Evy, I apologize as I wasn't able to clearly capt a few parts of some the points brought up during class, but am hoping a majority of the notes will have enough clarity to them.)

Tia:

- Sugg. 1: Perhaps show a split screen to illustrate how the doctors' acts are directly linked to the action that is taking place in the world of the illness. (ex: when the doctors use the defibrillator in the real world; in parallel, it causes the earthquake in the illness world. Connecting visuals and sounds)

- Sugg. 2: When the doctors puts a mask on the boy, maybe utilize a dissolve rather than a cut?

Narges:

- Had mentioned something about the reaction of Japanese animation characters that go “Aaaaah!!!!”, but where they don't move much while reacting in this way.

Luigi: “For the evil version of the boy, maybe the boy has to do something different to defeat the monster.”

* * * * *

Jejo // Thoughts and comments:

Visuals that create Connections? When I was contemplating the back-and-forths between the two worlds in your storyboard, I felt a heavy disconnect in their relation to each other. As both worlds are closely intertwined, like Tia, I thought it could definitely help to clarify their connection by providing us with more visual or aural clues and as we go forth from one world to the other and back again. : )

I do have a question though before I continue--

Maybe I missed hearing this point in your presentation, but I am wondering what your character's illness is?

The reason behind my question is because I don't seem to remember elements in the visuals of the Sickness World that helped to clue me in or establish clearly what Ming's sickness is. I'm thinking that if Ming's sickness is clarified, this could possibly help with how the big monster he is fighting against can look like (I am not very knowledgeable with different sicknesses and what they entail, but i.e.: could he be fighting against a sickness that deals with blood cells? With the brain? With the bones? With the nerves?, ... ), as well as with the final look and atmosphere of the Sickness World. Maybe the Sickness world could be a representation of the insides of his body? Or the darkness of his mind and heart as he faces his sickness?

Using Dialogue? I'm thinking that maybe one way his sickness and struggle could be clarified is... Maybe right before the doctor(s?) put the mask onto his face, through the use of the dialogue, two or more doctors could be talking to each other above his head or by the bedside, discussing Ming's situation with each other (and as they have masks on their face, lip-syncing won't be too much of a problem as their mouths will be covered-- not as time-consuming to animate!). It could be a way for you to easily introduce what Ming's character is going through; context will be provided to your audience before you make them dive with Ming into his Sickness World.

Nearby People as a Source of Determination? I'm kind of blanking as to whose story Luigi had commented this on, but since Ming is fighting against his sickness --a fight which could involve not only the physical, but also the emotional, the psychological and the spiritual-- maybe he is actually fighting this sickness, fighting for his life and health for the “nth” time (i.e.: for the third, fourth time) ? If this is a direction you might choose to take, I feel it could help you illustrate his emotional and psychological struggle, which could give more depth to his fight, which currently shows a lot more of the physical. When we see him for the first time in the Sickness world, and he is getting off the ground, perhaps he could look very tired and drained, having a hard time getting off the ground. Maybe he stays lying on the ground for a while, while his sickness engulfs him, and he lets it do so. Maybe he cries while this happens. Maybe one of the challenges you will make him go through in your story will be to summon from deep within himself the will to get better and/or live, and finding the strength to defeat the monster/his sickness/his negative mind(?) (once and for all? Or at least for this battle of his this time around), which has been winning against him consecutively up until now. The sword that he makes appear from his body, maybe it appears as a medicine is administered to him in the Real world; maybe when a beloved family member calls his name (in a distant/echo-ee form)? That way there can continue to be a connection made between the hospital room and the Sickness world.

>> Reading what I just wrote in this paragraph and whether what I stated is actually scientifically valid (“...a fight which could involve not only the physical, but also the emotional, the psychological and the spiritual”), I'm questioning right now as to what people who are fighting against their sicknesses go through when they are dormant or unconscious on a hospital bed. Maybe finding, hearing or reading real-people testimonies about individuals who have gone through the same situation as Ming and his specific sickness might help to inspire you on how you choose to portray his obstacles on the screen, as well as his facial and body language.

An idea on the use of sound/a script: Digging a bit deeper on the use of sounds, does Ming have family members by his bed side calling or crying out his name? Supporting him verbally, hoping and/or praying for him to get better? We might not necessarily need to see them in your visuals as they call out to him, but maybe their voices are what will be a sort of 'turning' point for him in the Sickness world, a reason for him to fight back, and not only fight back, but win the battle he is fighting. Family and loved ones can be very important people that play a big role in giving a sick person hope again and a will to live.

Total ambiguity? Careful orchestration behind Mysterious ending? Another question. Although you had mentioned wanting to remain ambiguous in regards to the ending, where the last shots end with the purple orb exploding, followed by an extreme closeup shot of Ming's eyes wide open (which, through its nature, blocks the audience from receiving any additional clues from Ming's surrounding environment that could help them form a solid conclusion on the outcome), I cannot help but wonder if Ming's character is one that comes out victorious or if he loses the fight. I personally find ambiguity quite enjoyable in a lot of cases, as it allows a lot of freedom in interpretation. However, I think if you are able to choose whether Ming's character will be triumphant, or will end up losing the fight, it could help you decide what will happen to him and what you show the audience. I don't think having an ending shrouded in mystery is a bad thing, but I do believe that if you manage to guide your audience's thoughts toward a certain direction, where we more clearly see Ming's determination either dwindling or strengthening as the story slowly progresses, you will be able to lead our interpretations down a certain path, therefore providing some clarity, while not entirely having to reveal everything in an upfront manner at the end. If he wins and lives to continue seeing the day, what do we see or hear from the Real world that allows us to know we're back there with Ming? Maybe the use of sound here can come into play again; after the purple orb explosion, did Ming maybe lose to his sickness? Maybe we hear a flatline heart-rate from the hospital machine after that the orb explodes; maybe we don't see Ming's eyes at the end, maybe it's a fade from the white, screen-engulfing explosion to a black screen, which could illustrate a passing from life to death. Maybe we hear a family member calling out to him in a joyous and hesitant manner, soliciting his response to confirm his return to consciousness or life. Do we hear the doctors again? (Q: But then... did we hear any of these characters talk to Ming when he was in the Sickness world?)>> Maybe certain groups of characters are only heard in one world or the other, but not both. That could help us associate the sound of their voices with the world Ming currently finds himself in on the screen.

With such a high climax as that of the exploding orb, I think it would be hard for the audience to not know what happens to Ming in the end, especially if we see him go through a struggle to emerge victorious, or to die trying.

I guess it will depend how you choose to go about it! : )

Refined Storyboard Feedback:

by Dylan Alberts - Sunday, 16 October 2016, 10:39 AM

• In Sc.34 Ming is face down and then in the next shot he is face up. Although they are two different scenes, the jump from face to down to face up may seem awkward to some people.

• The monster being a puppet is a cool idea but also adds a lot of animation. Perhaps a plain evil Ming would be better than a puppet and monster? It's not bad but it adds a lot of animation so it is dependent on your personal time constraints.

• I personally find the dream sequence really clear to understand and the story as well. The colours of Ming's dream sequence look nice, I particularly like the dark blue of the night time and the hospital shot where the doctors are putting Ming to sleep. The shots seem very powerful and unique in the sense of colour pallets and camera angles being used. Keep it up!

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talabib · 6 years

Text

How To Win Your Audience Over Using Effective Communications

In Faust I, a masterpiece of German literature, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, “Words are mere sound and smoke.” But is this really the case?

Effective communication is about considering your audience.

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Effective language is clear, simple and well organized.

Effective language is easy to understand. But how can you make yours as effective as possible?

it’s also important to carefully explain the relevance of your message, which means giving context. This is easy to do by arranging your message in the right order.

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Knowing your audience is essential to effective communication.

He also managed to convey this image successfully, which resulted in increased popularity and his reelection in 2004.

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While this approach can’t guarantee you’ll dodge a ticket, it will boost your chances. After all, language isn’t magic, but it is a powerful tool to help you get what you want.

#How To Win Your Audience Over Using Effective Communications

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