Quality—Quality—Quality

As a music engineer and record producer Jimmy Iovine has worked with a Who’s Who in the music industry— John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, Stevie Nicks, and Tom Petty. He also co-produced the movie 8 Mile, co-founded the company Beats with Dr. Dre., and was hired by Steve Jobs to help create Apple Music.

Here’s a snippet from the New York Times article “Jimmy Iovine Knows Music and Tech. Here’s Why He’s Worried”:

Ben Sisario: What’s the secret for an artist to have a long career today?
Jimmy Iovine: Quality —of everything you do. Make quality the priority, not speed. Speed is marketing, but you have to have something great to market.

Which reminds me of this quote I posted back in 2017:

“I think if you put energy into how do I break into the industry, how do I get an agent, how do I – it’s putting the cart before the horse. I think that ultimately first and foremost practicing. Shooting it. And then reshooting it. And reshooting it. And rewriting. And just getting, working on yourself and getting better. But just doing it.

Like getting a camera. Getting whatever camera you can get your hands on. And making stuff. And then getting out there however you can. I actually think practically that’s the industry – you can’t say the industry will be the path to your door, but I think the best way to find your career is just to do what you do and get it out there however you can…. Double down on substance. And that ultimately is what everybody is looking for so hard out there. Everybody wants something that’s interesting and good.”
Writer/director Rian Johnson (Knives Out)
Scriptnotes Q&A with Craig Mazin (Episode 299)

And here’s a music related clip from the movie Walk the Line that seems to belong here.

Scott W. Smith

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All Art is Based on the Principle of Synecdoche (Joyce Carol Oates)

“Movies are about life-changing events in these character’s lives.”
Screenwriter John August
Scriptnotes, Ep. 218

The 25 cent word of the day is synecdoche. Author/Princeton professor Joyce Carol Oates uses the word synecdoche in her MasterClass talk as a literary device meaning “one stands for the whole” and states that “it is the principle of all art.”

One example she gives is her book Blonde: A Novel. While the real life Marilyn Monroe had several miscarriages and lived in multiple orphanages and foster homes, Oates chose to write about one miscarriage, one orphanage, and one foster home. Limiting selections gives your story power.

Oates says this principle works in journaling and other forms of writing.

“If some profound thing happens one day out of 25, that’s the day you write about. So too with a short story. Most of my short stories focus on people at climactic moments of their lives. Like it’s the one event in their whole lives that’s really momentous— that’s what I’m writing about. I’m not writing about anything else.”
—Joyce Carol Oates
MasterClass, Principles of Writing Short Fiction (Message 2)

This principle works in screenwriting as well.

“If your movie isn’t about the most important moment in your hero’s life don’t write it.”
—Scriptshadow

Billy Ray used synecdoche in his screenplay Richard Jewell where he made a composite character named Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm). A singular FBI agent that stood for the many FBI agents on the case.

Aaron Sorkin used the technique when he limited his screenplay Steve Jobs to just three days —three acts—in the life the Apple co-founder. The 1984 Apple Macintosh launch, the 1988 launch of NeXT, and the 1998 launch of the iMac. The king on the throne, the king in exile, and the return of the king.

And when writer/director Lulu Wang chose to tell the story of a Chinese family in The Farewell, she chose the events surrounding her grandmother getting cancer and a lie.

Scott W. Smith 

 

 

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‘Ford v Ferrari’ Behind the Scenes

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Happy New Year … You’re Going to Die—Now Get to Work

“Spending too much energy romanticizing the past or dreaming about the future can come at the expense of appreciating today.”
Casey Neistat
What Just Happened? 

Many years ago I crossed paths with Orlando-based photographer Bill Bachmann who had one of those jobs that creative people dream about—get paid to travel around the world taking photos. He was a tall guy with a dynamic personality, and incredibly talented.

He invited me to his home studio to talk about a project and I was instantly impressed with his photos that were from everywhere on your bucket list (and a few that aren’t). He gave me a signed copy of one of his travel books before I left that day and our paths unfortunately never crossed again.

Last year, I wondered what he was up to and I found out he died from cancer in 2017. (His obituary said that he’d traveled to 200 countries, authored 15 books, and photographed five U.S. presidents.)

On the last day of 2019 I found myself driving by a cemetery where I knew he was buried and I decided to pull into the cemetery to see if I could find his mausoleum. Because mausoleums have a way of standing out it only took me about a two minutes to find it.

I’m one of those people who finds peace in cemeteries. They remind us of the people who’ve gone before us, and of our own mortality. It puts things in perspective.

This puts things in perspective, too . . . a few days ago I was working out when a old movie started on TCM and I realized as I watched the opening credits that I did not recognize a single name of anyone who worked on the movie.

Let’s all get back to work this new year, not forgetting to work on building lasting relationships with the ones we love.

Scott W. Smith

 

 

 

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