That Community Feeling – How Connected are Artists in 2022, Really?

The artist Vincent Van Gogh was a fan of community. In 1888 he rented four rooms within the Yellow House in Arles, France, and worked for months to convert and furnish these rooms into a studio, aiming to build a space where fellow artists could live and work together.

The idea of a community is appealing, even to the weirdos and introverts amongst us. Although I refer to artists, it’s long been proven that people, no matter their hobbies, professions, beliefs or what-not, love feeling like they belong. We like sharing ideas and talking about our passions with like-minded peers.

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Reflecting on the CBI Workshop

Last week I sent off a private screener of Cats of Malta to our Kickstarter backers. The next day I received a reply from an actor/filmmaker I knew from my past life working out of Studio 106 in St Kilda. Katrina asked me about our improvised process of filmmaking, how we make films, and if she could see an example of my favorite improvised NPG film.

This request got me thinking and sent me down a rabbit hole of reminiscing about our improvised work and how we started producing and shooting films using this unique method. All this thinking led me to Tubi TV and getting lost within the first twenty minutes of Friends, Foes & Fireworks – the first improvised film Ivan and I produced and directed, plus shot in a single night.

Within the body of the email reply to Katrina I pasted the Tubi TV link to Friends, Foes & Fireworks and filled the rest of the blank space with our improvisation inspirations, directors and films we admire – one of which is Mike Leigh. His name led me to thinking about the whole improvisation journey and business transition which NPG has gone through since making Friends, Foes & Fireworks in 2017. Again this led to yet another fond memory – the five days Ivan and I spent in Basel during 2019 taking part in the Character Based Improvisation (CBI) workshop Robert Marchand teaches.

I also mentioned the CBI workshop to Katrina, then I hit ‘send’. Sitting at my desk I realized it's been a few years since Basel, and that realization brought on some wonderful memories.

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New Year's Resolutions are Fleeting; Long-Term Planning is Key

The concept of the New Year resolution started around 4000 years ago with the agricultural Babylonians. During their ancient annual Akitu festival, which included crop harvesting and appointing a new king, the Babylonians focused on pleasing their gods. Over twelve days they made promises to their gods that they would pay debts and return borrowed tools. Keeping this promise would gain them favoritism from the Gods in the coming year.

Other cultures adopted a similar belief around New Year's resolutions. In ancient Rome 46 B.C, the new calendar was introduced by Emperor Julius Caesar, making January 1st the start of the year. Caesar named the month after the two faced God Janus. Similar to the Babylonians, the Romans offered sacrifice and made promises to Janus to show good behavior in the new year.

UNDER PRESSURE

It’s these traditions that we have to thank for the reason most of us feel the pressure around mid-December to be better versions of ourselves in many aspects of our lives once January 1st rolls around.

Which brings us to today. Why does our society still hold on to variations of these ancient traditions?

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I RETURNED TO THE 9 TO 5 ... AND LASTED ONLY 2 WEEKS

At the end of last month, I was working full-time as an editor and videographer for a Maltese news organisation. When I first saw the job advertised, I was excited. Filming news and human interest stories around Malta, editing videos, learning more about what was happening on the island, it sounded fantastic.

I was entering my fifth month of travelling around Portugal with Sarah, staying three months longer than intended due to multiple cancelled flights, so our bank accounts were running low, and we could use the influx of steady income. So I applied. I went through two rounds of interviews to land the job. I negotiated a higher salary due to my experience. I flew back to Malta with full-time work guaranteed and the prospect of an exciting new experience and even new career.

But even before I began work the voice in the back of my head was asking ‘are you sure you want to do this?’ I wasn’t. And the result was an awkward conversation with the boss announcing my departure only two weeks into the job.

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Being a Kind Producer and Still Getting My Way - How I Find the Middle Ground

The golden age of filmmaking in Hollywood set up an image of a producer being the person who calls the shots and says what goes and what doesn't – outsiders often or not have this image of a white, male, most likely middle-aged big shot, totally comfortable with demanding what he wants and getting it too. He is assertive, which is a kind way to say mean or bossy (when talking about men anyway), and everyone drops to their knees, scampering all over the studio to please him and meet his requests.

In the modern world, we still have these important producers, but the image of them has changed slightly, along with the way producers operate, and importantly what has also changed is how the people working below the producer respond to their demands.

Our generation is accepting of producers of any gender, religion, race and colour, but we are also aware of the power imbalance that comes ingrained in the hierarchy of the film industry. This was demonstrated by the much needed Me Too movement, and what followed for industries outside entertainment with the Time's Up movement. Both proved that you can't be simultaneously worshipped and an insensitive asshole that abuses the power that comes from your role.

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Theft, Cannibalism & Shameless Self-Promotion

Novelist confesses: It’s probably all about me.

One of my early readers – let’s call him Dave…although his real name is Dave – made an astute comment about the novel I have just had published. Having known me for several years it was plain to him that the fictional world of the book was a stylised and more narratively concise version of the somewhat messier realm I normally inhabit.

“I also smiled at the many conversations that echoed discussions we have shared about your life observations and philosophies, and of course the colourful mix of autobiographical traits scattered across various characters.”

There are many artists who cringe when asked if their work is autobiographical but, as a novelist, I feel compelled to confess that my fiction feeds directly, sometimes brutally, on the plot points and psychodramas of self. But it doesn’t end there. I also feast on the blood and gore of friends, family and random strangers. In fact, anyone and everyone who veers too close.

Write about what you know. Isn’t that what they say? Little wonder The Last Summer of Hair is suffused with detail drawn from my own experience, and from my observations of those unlucky enough to fall within the cannibalising orbit of my literary appetite. Dave will not be the only one of my friends to detect unerringly familiar motifs in the book’s 292 self-referential pages. Indeed, some of those closest to me will wonder if it’s them I was writing about. (Truth is, it often was.)

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The Cult of Busy

There seems to be this mentality held by some creative people and even non creatives who are working the daily grind that being busy all the time means you are the most productive person on the planet. That your self-worth is somehow tied up with how damn busy you are all the damn time. The busier you are, the more packed your schedule is, the more proof there is that you are working much harder than your peers or colleagues. And this is what defines us as people.

I confess that I was one of these people around four years ago. I use past tense as now I'm more chilled and sometimes less productive than I have ever been. I still get stuff done but in healthy moderation. Even with my full time job, I get home and manage to smash out a couple of hours working on an investment deck or marketing for one of my films.

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