Very Theatrical Honesty
This is Finish Your Monsters, a weekly blogletter about the creative process. I'm sharing adventures in art and life as well as setting CLIFFHANGER goals for myself, so--
DID I MAKE MY GOAL?
Big picture, I’m working away on the post-production of our horror film, Dead Media. My goal this week was to get six specific pieces of sound design done and placed in the film’s edit.
Grraawoooaahhhhnnnggg! That was a sound effect meant to capture that, yes, I did make my goal.
It was really great to shift focus and work on a different creative aspect of the film after months of editing. I worked on some monster growls, disturbing bone crackles, and a mysterious hum from the ancient forests of Norway.
I also continued to work with our composer on the score, fine-tuned the credits, and got to do some very fun drawing of fake storyboards.
The film is barreling toward its completion date so I can definitely see light at the end of the tunnel. There’s just enough light that I can also see the tunnel is PACKED FULL OF SHADOWY MONSTERS.
I’m struggling to keep up with it all so I’m going to take next week off from doing the blog to buy myself a little bit more elbow room.
Thanks for all the help—emotional, financial, etc—in getting this film made!
Anyway, if you’re interested in helping DEAD MEDIA, I need to raise a bit more money for post-production. You can make a one time tax-deductible donation via Film North here. Thanks to the folks who have made contributions in the last few weeks. Deeply, deeply appreciated.
ADVENTURES OF THE WEEK--
This week, I had adventures that helped me prepare for a challenging time right around the corner in my own life.
It was also a week that made me think of duality a lot. Comfort and adventure. Chaos and peace. Artifice and authenticity.
Which is a very dramatic way to say I went to Lady Gaga’s MAYHEM BALL. Which was in an adventure in duality in multiple ways. The first being comfort and adventure. I’m at my happiest when I can strike a balance between those two things.
I like to have nights at home eating familiar cheese-intensive food, watching cozy TV, flipping my phone on its face so the problems of the world cannot penetrate the hygge force field surrounding my couch.
But I also want to try new things. Stay out late, say jokes real loud, laugh with other people, order the cocktail with the dumbest name even though it’s probably the worst drink on the menu, start the night not knowing exactly how it’s going to end. I want to be reminded that anything is possible outside my cozy bubble.
Excess in both directions has caused me harm in the past. Too much comfort and I stagnant. I lose myself, I doubt myself, I have less energy. Too much adventure and all the loud fun starts to feel like a way to run away from my problems. I collect all sorts of inspiration to make art, but I’m too distracted and exhausted to follow through.
Getting the comfort/adventure balance right has been difficult while I’m working on the film. The film itself is a great adventure. Fun but stressful and I’m worried about it pretty much all of the time.
So last week, I was really craving some comfort time, but past me had already signed up for adventure: Lady Gaga’s MAYHEM BALL.
I’ve been a fan of Gaga’s music for a long time but I particularly connected with Mayhem. It is full of monsters and joy and has a sense of both experience and experimentation (hey, another duality!). I’ve listened to it a ton while working on the film. Often, after editing all day, I’d put the record on while I made a cocktail.
I was very excited to go to the concert, but also it was a Tuesday night. I was stressed and exhausted.
My wife and I spent most of the 45 minute drive to the concert venue, The Forum, discussing scheduling issues for the rest of the year. Exciting!
But the second we pulled into the parking lot, my comfort force field was joyfully blown to smithereens.
Gaga’s always been good at encouraging inclusion and self-expression in her fanbase. The parking lot was full of folks of all ages decked out in glam costumes, posing with the giant Mayhem poster on the outside of the building. There was even a guy just wearing a Nirvana t-shirt. The ultimate in outsider self-expression to wear ANOTHER BAND’S T-SHIRT to Gaga’s Ball.
The show was exactly what I needed. Gaga encourages people to sing along. She skips lyrics from time to time knowing the audience will keep it going. I was screaming lyrics that I normally whisper-mumble alone in my tiny apartment, but now there were about 17,000 other people screaming, too. I was surrounded by people I don’t know, but connected through a shared love of this specific art. Me, the mom and her tweens behind me, the young couple in front of me, the drag queen across the aisle, and somewhere in the sea of humans the Nirvana t-shirt guy.
It’s a great duality that art encourages: The individual matters but so does the community. They’re not opposed. They’re equally important.
Gaga doesn’t put on a regular concert—it’s a theater show. Lights, dancers, interactive filmed pieces, a narrative that re-contextualizes each song. The story of the show was explicitly about duality—the conflict between two sides of Gaga’s persona, the person who craved peace and the person who craved MAYHEM. It was very relatable!
Gaga has always been theatrical. But this was—and I say this as a compliment—the most THEATER KIDS concert I’ve ever seen.
There is a duality to very, very theatrical performance. First, there’s the artifice. We are all agreeing that something is very, very explicitly staged but we are investing in that fake reality. Gaga is a master of this just in the way she physically presents her presence at a concert. First, she’s just an image on the screen, then she’s a torso popping up out of a giant red dress. No, actually, the dress is a cage for dancers. Wait, she’s descending through the cage. Oh wow, she’s singing in the cage. Wait! The cage is opening, she’s escaping, dancing down the runway into the heart of the screaming crowd.
The simple, mundane truth is that she’s a human we’ve all come here to see. We gave her money to sing some songs. Eventually, she will walk fully on to the stage and just sing the damn songs. We all know this. But the theater of revealing herself, of leaning into the mystique of Mother Monster, and the audience all willingly participating in this artifice, elevates the experience. It is so theatrical it borders on British Pantomime.
But there is deep, deep authenticity in the music. The songs are true to her as a human. They’re made their way into the audience members’ lives in a thousand different ways. I hear these songs and I’m drinking a cherry martini after 12 hours of editing. What do the songs mean to that mom and her tweens? The drag queen? Nirvana guy?
And as the concert goes on, the levels of artifice are artfully flung away, until Gaga’s alone on stage, sitting at a piano, speaking about real moments in her real life. I don’t want to share spoilers for anyone who might be seeing the show, but there’s a moment at the end of the concert that seems explicitly designed to remove artifice.
I described the concert as very THEATER KIDS because I think the duality of artifice and authenticity is at the heart of the theatrical experience. I kept imagining a joyful 17 year old who has just discovered theater, bursting with excitement because there’s nothing they’d rather do than put on a wig and speak in a dodgy British accent in front of other humans.
The show was inspiring in direct, immediate ways. It got me excited to work on some visual art that I needed to for the film. It got me extra excited to be bold with the film’s score.
But it also helped a lot in thinking about the next step for the film. Once it’s complete, I need to promote the living hell out of it. That means lots of social media time, lots of theatricality, lots of LOUDNESS and ADVENTURE. I’d be more comfortable sitting in my couch bubble, whispering, “I made a film” and then have people check it out. But that’s not the way it works. For the film to be successful, I need to find ways to create intrigue, demand, buzz, and lots of thrilling artifice around the film.
But as the MAYHEM Ball reminded me there’s lots of ways to find the truth in the theater.
LIGHT PLUGS—
DEAD MEDIA! We’ve got a fiscal sponsorship with the great Minnesota organization Film North. They can accept one-time donations that will go directly toward finishing the film: SCORE, VFX, COLOR GRADING, etc. It’s like a Kickstarter where the rewards are A) a tax deduction and B) helping us make the film.
For full info, please check out the page for the upcoming horror film, DEAD MEDIA!
Or if you have any questions about supporting the film, feel free to reach out to me personally!
Another way to help the film is check out my albums (and one cosmic horror story) on Bandcamp. Any proceeds there will go toward helping me complete and promote the film.
MY GOAL FOR THE WEEK--
As mentioned above, I really need to take next week off from the blog. There are many different things I need to get done for the film, but I’ll set the most FUN goal I can. So by the time of the next blogletter post, my goal is to have a good start on building the very theatrical opening credits of our film, Dead Media.
YOUR GOAL FOR THE WEEK--
I would absolutely LOVE to hear what you're working on this week in the comments below. What's your goal? How can I help you literally finish your monsters?
A LITTLE SKETCH--
This week’s sketch is a close-up of one of the storyboards I’ve been working on for the film. A mystery man!
Anyway, thanks for reading, I hope you hear and tell some good human stories this week, and best of luck finishing your monsters
