Being asked your philosophy of making musicals when your brain is blown from carbo-loading for a hundred-mile ride is like... well, I suppose that is the analogy. Feel free to compare your next blank-agog moment to it.

I hate going blank. So here's a blog entry.

In creative work, I've made a point of not having a philosophy. I have lots of ideas, and I can talk about wanting the vocals to be natural, or how a performer providing her own melody is like an actor providing his own costume, or how the best way to break new ground is to work in areas where other people aren't working. I could call those things philosophies, but they're not. They're just thoughts, and they have pragmatic, not philosophical, roots. Any philosophy that grows from them is merely a thought experiment. Pretty flowers. Sometimes the flowers pollinate, but mostly they're just pretty.

One of my guiding artistic instincts has always been my distrust of manifestos. For better or for worse--and I'm not young enough to think there's no "worse"---anything that puts a grand idea above a good result smells bad to me. All prescriptions for art remind me of a quote from the introduction to THE FUTURIST MANIFESTOS that Richard Zvonar gave me. Unfortunately, I can't find it. But trust me, it was great.

All right, fine. It was something to the effect of:

I have no doubt whatsoever as to either the brilliance of their ideas or the mediocrity of their art.

That's not even a paraphrase; I just made it up from my memory of my reaction.

A manifesto is an elevator statement. That's what business books say you should have, so when somebody in an elevator says "What are you working on?" you can shoot this crafty little prepared blurb at them, and they understand and become a business ally and put you in touch with this other business ally who does all the distribution for Malta east of the Wied il-Gnasel river.

Networking, Ben. Networking.

And marketing, Ben. Hook. Nothing says "Marketing gimmick" like a nice fiery manifesto.

I also think of something RZ told me about his analysis of Webern, which is that the really interesting parts were where Webern departed from the rigorous twelve-tone system. Because--RZ supposed--he just thought it sounded better that way.

Manifestos, philosophies... I guess I should have one, but I'm just trying to make a living doing things I'll be proud of after I'm dead. I assume I'll be as tough an audience then as I am now.

But specifics? Love 'em. Here's where we're at now:

I had a casual screening for some unusually perceptive people this weekend, and it was nervewracking, both because it's always nervewracking and because they're unusually perceptive people and I didn't know all of them. I showed a 6-weeks-outdated version of the unfinished film (because it was a casual screening and that was all I could get onto a DVD in time), and the gaps in the audio track were painful. They've also now resulted in confusion for me, because the editing felt slow to at least one unusually perceptive person--so now I have to juggle that possibility against my already knowing that some moments drag because they're missing audio.

I'll get there when I get there. First, finish the audio. Then see how it feels.

The website is pretty well finished, though there's nothing in the PRESS or SCREENINGS areas yet. However, there are now hoody sweatshirts in the ILY shop.

I spent tonight bringing the real vocal audio tracks in from the recordist's Pro Tools file, laboriously digging through them to find the right takes, and lining them up with the camera audio, which will be turned off. This is all done by looking at waveforms and listening to the tracks. (This is similar to the process for CREDO, but without the benefit of video to help the process.)



You can tell they're lined up when they suddenly sound like a single track. No variation, no wobble.

Before this, I spent a few days working on a promotional DVD to have in-hand for FAIF, the festival where CREDO is playing at the Chinese Theater in October. Ain't this writer/director cool? Ain't these films of his cool? Ain't money a great thing to invest?

I'm very tired. Goodnight.

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