FilmStack Inspiration Challenge #147: However Vast The Darkness...

…We must supply our own light.”

It’s a Kubrick quote from a Playboy interview, and it means so much to me that I have it tattooed on my body.

The line comes at the end of a larger quote: “The most terrifying fact of the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death — however mutable man may be able to make them — our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment.”

I feel you could easily sub ‘Hollywood’ for ‘universe’ and the quote would hit especially hard for creatives. But here we are, coming to terms with that indifference, giving it the finger, and making meaning of our own through our chosen work.

Here are a five things that have been inspiring me while I tackle a few projects lately. Two are brand new, two I’ve returned to multiple times, and one is a failsafe for when I’ve got no juice in the tank.

NEW:

1. Pretty much every shot in Bugonia… But especially the exteriors.

There are a few examples in this trailer…

But that 3:2 aspect ratio hits. Especially for the story they’re telling. Jesse Plemons is out here accusing Emma Stone of being an alien, and when they’re out under the open sky, it looms above them. It soars. The actors aren’t just present in the space, they’re dwarfed by it. I always found myself looking up. For me, it’s a perfect visual reinforcement of the central conflict.

Seeing this knocked something loose in my brain, and I will 100% be utilizing techniques like this as I move from writing to directing.

2. Theodora Taylor’s Universal Fantasies aka Butter.

I listen to a lot of podcasts while I’m cooking and cleaning, and stumbled across Theodora while tackling a particularly harrowing closet clean-out.

She’s a romance author who was frustrated not by her failures but by her successes, worried that she wouldn’t be able to replicate what made a book hit because she didn’t know why it hit. In an effort to understand, she unearthed a concept she’s coined Universal Fantasy - the reasons why we love the stories we love. Not tropes, mind you, but what makes those tropes delicious.

She calls it butter. I like it. She gets into it here (and on a number of other podcasts, should you choose to do a deep-dive):

It’s inspired me to make sure my work’s got butter, and I don’t mean just a few dollops. I mean, does every scene compel the reader (and hopefully, eventually, the audience) to invest in my story? Am I delivering on the promise of my premise, and not in a casual way? Do I have you in a chokehold? If the answer is no, I gotta toss in some more butter. Make. That. Shit. Delicious.

She focuses on romance, but I believe there are Universal Fantasies across all genres and hitting a few hard in our own projects can do nothing but help.

OLD:

3. Shoresy

Shoresy’s a spinoff of the Canadian show Letterkenny and follows a bruiser hockey player crushing skulls in the NOSHO - the Northern Ontario Senior Hockey Organization (or, lovingly, “senior whaleshit hockey”) - in his quest to keep his team afloat.

He’s crass. He’s rude. He’s the dirtiest player in the league, both physically and verbally (his chirps are unmatched). If you didn’t actually watch the show, you’d be forgiven for thinking he’s nothing more than a meathead jock with a missing tooth and a perma-dip in his lip.

But then creator Jared Keeso gives Shoresy a quality you don’t see coming: a deep, heart-on-his-sleeve, almost soul-crushing love - for his teammates, his foster family, his country (he cries at ‘O Canada’ before every game), and a woman named Laura who, for quite a while, won’t give him the time of day.

And he is not cool about it in the best way. The earnestness is so refreshing as to be shocking (though not surprising, given that Keeso is a longtime collaborator with Jacob Tierney, who just blew the world’s mind with Heated Rivalry).

If you told me I’d cry multiple times at a show I went into thinking would be a silly comedy, I’d have side-eyed you so hard. But that’s what makes this great: the brutality of the game and the merciless taunting juxtaposed against the genuine soft heart of a tough guy. It makes you care so much.

It’s inspired me to rethink how I craft my characters. Are they one-note? If so, can I give them a quality that catches the reader off-guard without feeling shoehorned in? How can I surprise my audience in an authentic way?

4. Episode 403 of ScriptNotes.

I don’t write Pixar films, but I’ll be damned if I haven’t gone back to this episode time and time and time again when I need a reminder of how to craft an incredible story.

It’s a must-read / listen for writers, as far as I’m concerned.

FAILSAFE

5. Watch a bad film.

Bad is subjective. What’s trash to you might be treasure to me, and I won’t talk shit about any films here because I think we all know getting something produced is a miracle.

But when I’m feeling like I’m an absolute fraud that has no right to put words on a page let alone get within ten feet of a camera, I put on a film in my chosen genre (horror, usually) that I feel is objectively bad. Without fail, my brain quickly rights itself and I feel an almost pathological need to make something cool as I mumble “I can do better than that” to an otherwise empty room.

Maybe I can. Maybe I can’t. All I need is to believe that I can.

Okay! Get out there and set the tone.

xJ