WHY WE ALL TALK POLITICS! + MY GOALS FOR THE NEW YEAR

Growing up, I was always hearing older family members talk not only about history of the past, but current events, as well.  It rubbed off and manifested in my affinity as an adult for following and talking about current events and, particularly, what's called "politics" here in America (and sometimes elsewhere).  Nobody has really held that against me - why would they?  However, on occasion, my mother, for example, would frown at my timing.  You know how it goes - one doesn't talk politics at the dinner table, etc.  I was always a little confused about that.  I understood wanting to avoid unnecessary social tension at what are meant to be cordial gatherings and such, but how can people not grow bored talking about meaningless trivialities?  I eventually came to realize that it wasn't politics that people were avoiding, but disagreement.  They simply did not want the conflict, but to avoid politics altogether?  That, in fact, is impossible.

It all comes down to how we define the word, "politics."  Do you live in a community with others?  Have you talked with others in your community?  Have you had to buy, sell, trade or otherwise come to some kind of an agreement with somebody else, either within your community or another's?  If so, then you've engaged in politics, and you've certainly talked politics, too.

Most people associate politics with issues of governance, which affect a great many people in different ways within the same group and can be sensitive topics because of their dramatic, long lasting and far reaching implications.  However, Merriam Webster has a slightly expanded definition of politics as being, "...the total complex of relations between people living in society."  In other words, you cannot be social and not engage in politics.  For that matter, you cannot live in the modern world, period, and not engage in pure, unadulterated politics.  After all, relations are interactions and societies are little more than organized groups of people sharing values and property.

Coming up on the New Year, I plan to put this blog to greater and better use.  It's been languishing virtually untouched for about a year now - more, really - and if I'm going to accomplish any of the goals I have set for myself, that has to change.  Be warned, though, that even when I'm talking about things like movie production, I'll be talking about it in a political context.  Why?  Because as an art form, movie making is probably as political as it gets.  To do it as most conceive of it being done, in order to tell a story with actors in front of  a camera and so forth, you have to have something of a political mind and take a slightly political approach.  Whether you're at the top or the bottom of the proverbial chain, you're engaged in an activity that is fundamentally rooted in somebody's ideas and opinions which are, nevertheless, being interpreted and brought to life by a group of individuals that likely have slightly different viewpoints and ideas about how to go about everything.  If you're at the top, you have to be flexible and adaptable while still representing something of a cohesive vision and capable of leading everyone towards a common goal.  If you're at the bottom, it seems as if you need only do what you're told, but in the process, you may have to do things you don't want to do or in ways you don't want to do them, and unless you don't mind losing your job, you have to be able to deal that fact and deal with those in charge without either letting yourself be run over or stepping out of bounds.

My primary goals for the New Year is to successfully launch The Woodlane Council, which I initially conceive as simply a gathering of people - preferably professionals from different key sectors of the local economy - coming together online, at first, to discuss how and why more and better motion picture productions in the region and a better standing for that region in the film and entertainment industry can be accomplished and achieved and can even benefit those that seem to have no stakes in "the business" whatsoever. By motion picture, though, I don't just mean those for the big screen or even television.  I also mean those distributed and marketed online, which nowadays represents a great opportunity in an ever-expanding market even for those with generally fewer resources because of the availability and cost-effectiveness of the resources offered online.  My overall motivation hinges on a problem I've seen for years in the so-called "film making community" of which I've tried with varying degrees of success to be a part of for over ten years now, and that is an attitude of exclusivity and of basically deserving opportunities and recognition that has not yet been earned... either because, when confronted, they say it's too difficult or they just don't have time (etc., etc.).

When some writers and directors, in particular, are told to treat their work "like a business," they are mortified.  They instantly think of art-by-committee, watered down by purely commercial interests into drivel with no other meaning or purpose save for conformity and the maintenance of a certain comfort level for the less sophisticated, less discriminating masses. To some extent and, perhaps, in still too many instances, they're right. A LOT of what the professional industry puts out is very much about identifying a trend in the general public and following it to the letter over and over again to where certain types of movies almost seem to self-replicate for years on end, differentiated only by minor details such as the names of actors and characters and little details here and there in the plots and stories.  That said, treating it like a business simply means that you care about being able to do what you do well, over and over, and about how many customers you have and how many people you reach with your product and, in this case, your message.  The fact is that if your goal really is to say something new and meaningful and worth being seen and heard, you really risk wasting your time if you do not do whatever you can to get that message before as many people as possible.  That requires the sometimes difficult task of delivering your newer and perhaps controversial message in a more familiar and comfortable package.  Yet, it's a task that pretty much every successful film maker and producer has had to master for almost a hundred years now.

All of it comes down to politics, which is less about the message, itself, than about how that message is relayed.  In communications, we're taught the widely accepted idea that, "The medium is the message," which I interpret to mean that the way in which you're putting your message out - whether through movies, music, still imagery or the written word - you have to do so in a way which ensures that people will accept the medium first so that, hopefully, they'll get the message in the process.  If your message is in music, you make sure it's being delivered via good music by a musician.  If it's in literature, then you make sure that you or whoever is writing it for you knows how to write well.  If it's in photographs or a painting, you need to be or employ a good photographer or painter.  Whatever the case, the effectiveness of the message has a lot to do with how it is delivered. Once that is accepted, you stand a greater chance that message will be accepted.  This, finally, is politics: The way in which you deal with others to get across what you have to say and do what you have to do.

Although their reasons are understandable, I believe that too many people where I live that WANT to make movies, for example, and want the community to have a better standing in the movie making industry and to attract more and bigger productions from Hollywood so as to create better opportunities and more resources, but they don't want to get into the politics of it.  They bemoan their shortage of resources, but they don't want to go to anyone that they don't know or that isn't "in the business," as it were, to ask for help because they either think it's a waste of time or they simply do not want other, less knowledgeable hands reaching into the proverbial pot.  Instead, they do the next best thing and go to the government, whose goal is always to generate more income for their communities, so they beg for tax incentives and such to attract the big Hollywood productions that accomplish the politicians' goals of helping put more more money into the local economy, but that don't stay long because our shortage or absence of industry-grade facilities and don't hire many, if any locals because by the time they get here, they already have everyone they need and can usually only hire unionized workers, anyway.  Alas, most film production people and people here, in general, are, by and large, non-union - and they stay that way because they cannot find the work they need to gain the experience and credibility to earn meaningful union membership.

In conclusion, I believe that people need to have a more inclusive definition of the word, "politics," because the word really does have a much broader meaning than most people believe.  In the process, it also needs to lose its stigma of being associated almost solely with conflict and embraced as the only means to pretty much any social end.  Part of my task with the Woodlane Council will be to motivate others like me, that are into film production and/or want to engage in meaningful film production, to join with "non-industry" people in the rest of the region to be more political and enter into a mode of communication and of give-and-take with the only source of support really accessible to them at the moment IF they'll properly seek it out: The surrounding community.  After all, movies aren't just made by writers, directors, actors and technical crew.  They employ lawyers, accountants, drivers, cooks, security personnel, advertisers, public relations people, artists, carpenters, electricians, plumbers... need I go on?  When George Lucas formed Industrial Light and Magic in the mid 1970's to make the first STAR WARS film, a majority of the people that worked there had little or no experience in motion pictures whatsoever.  They were simply people that could do things - draftsmen that could draw up concepts and plans, people that could build, put parts together, etc.  Most were just college kids needing a job, hired to do nothing but recycle model kits in order to paint and glue together pieces to eventually form TIE-Fighters and X-Wings.

Ultimately, my motivation is my desire to have what I need to make movies, but getting to that place is going to require something on the order of a political discussion and a political... campaign, of sorts! Wish me luck. ;)