The uncommon magic...

I've been away a while.

Suffering mostly.  

"Suffering through what?"

Through learning how to edit.

I mean, I know how to edit.  I've supervised more hours in an edit suite than I care to remember.  And to all the editors reading this who are thinking, "You don't know how to edit..." may I submit that I was supervising edits back in the day when analog suites where considered cutting edge. 

Analog.

Like, I walk in with twenty pages of timecode notes (a 'paper edit'- yes, we used to do those) and once the system copies from tape to tape we start to put it together in realtime.  Like an 'online' except without the leeway.  And before you go and start speculating on how old I am ("Analog?  This guy must be a dinosaur...") may I also submit that I started my career at age 19.  And the whole "19 year old supervising a 38 year old editor..." thing is another story altogether...

But my Executive Producer and I have decided it's time for me to (as I like to put it) learn how to 'ride the machine' myself.  It's just time.  So I spent all of last week commuting three hours a day to sit in a class with a bunch of computer geeks (SUPER geeks...) doing my best to not have my brain explode while wave after wave of nonlinear digital editing software info rolled over me.

It was truly a humbling, mostly awful, experience.

Now that I've finished I have to get my own system up,  (you don't even want to ask how much it costs...) read the textbook, and start cutting stuff.  It's a very strange to feel like a complete idiot again.

I kept getting ideas during 'hell week' for posts but never had the time to sit my butt down and type.  The upside is that many of the 'so-called' and otherwise flaky ideas that occurred to me percolated some and were discarded as less than worthy of my/our time, leaving me with something for today that is, I hope, actually worthwhile.

The uncommon magic.

So we watched 'Stardust' the other night and really liked it.  It took us away to another world.  Was wonderfully paced, beautifully written, acted, art directed, and directed.  A really nice film.  The thing that struck me about it after was that it was so nice a trip that I didn't spend much time nitpicking the story or plot holes.  It took me away.

Because of the magic.

There was a moment in the film where Niki exclaimed, "So that's what you were trying to do with the Oracle in your movie.  That's exactly what you would have done if you'd had the money!"  Yes my love, I would have.  And that was a nice moment friends.  To have my wife, who is both ardent fan and strident critic, recognize that I did something 'great' (emphasize 'small' "g"...) with something little.  That was cool.

So if my film and 'Stardust' shared nothing in terms of budget, quality of production, etc. what was it that caused her to trumpet their similarity?  

The magic.  A whole lot of it in 'Stardust' that reminded her of the wee little bit in mine.

That's the thing really.  Magic.  Or call it 'transportational ability' if you want.  That 'thing' that allows a storyteller to take his/her audience away.

'Cloverfield' did it to me last night.  Totally took me away.  Not for one second did I feel like I wasn't 'there', like what was happening on-screen wasn't really happening.

It had the magic.

Which leads me back to Church for a second, if I may.  Was at a Church service recently and, though the kids had a great time (for which I'm well and truly grateful and humbled) the service left me with nothing.  I might as well have not gone.  Seriously.  Nothing.  I took nothing with me.  Nothing about the worship, nothing about the preaching, nothing about the production design did anything to leave a mark on me.  It didn't take me away.  At all.

The people were really (REALLY) nice, for which I'm grateful and give them their props. Their professionalism was impeccable for which I admire (and slightly envy) them.  They did everything right.

Except.

They didn't take me anywhere.

I was reminded again recently that it's 'effects heavy' films as do the most business.  And why's that?  Because those kind of films take people away.  O.K, sometimes.  There are many effects films that fail to transport because they lack story.  Those films fail miserably and bankrupt their funders because gobs of $'s have been spent on the flash with no substance. There are, of course, those films that transport on story more than on razzle-dazzle.  The ones with truly great story cross over and become hits.  

If, however, you combine transportational story with transportational effects you get a mega-hit, a blockbuster.  Check out the top grossing films of 2007 and tell me I'm wrong.

(it's not like I can be wrong on this, I didn't make any of it up...)

So, how does this hit home to us, the producers or pastors?

Well, crap.

We have to transport.  

That's the thing.  Everything you do with your piece needs to transport.  And where that gets difficult is in the small details of the work you do.  Take one of the TV shows I'm producing this year.

"The Daily: with mark and laura-lynn" is a daily half-hour series that will be airing in Vancouver (and potentially across the country) starting this spring.  The one-liner I've been using to describe the show is "Breakfast Televsion, at night."  So how, exactly, do you make that exciting?  How does a show like that rise above 'normal' to attain 'transport'?

(and here's the price of admission for the day [if I do say so myself]...)

By finding the uncommon magic in the everyday.

What is it that is extraordinary, special, marvelous, about what happened today?  What would make a 'hook' to a song, a story, a sermon?  What thing did you observe in the world around you that is worthy of your audience's time?  What 'spin' can you put on it to help it rise to a level of inspiration so that your audience is arrested by the beauty, humor, or painful truth of what you've decided to share with them?

Finding and applying the uncommon magic is the thing that separates a 'blah' TV spot from a great one, a smokin' movie from an 'o.k' one, a brilliant sermon from a waste of time, a 'singalong' from a session of touching Heaven.

Man, oh man, we've got to find that magic.

If I don't, my show will fail.  If they don't, their pulpits will be weak.  I you don't, your efforts will be wasted.  And here's where the non-producers/preachers get something from this.

The magic is everywhere.

I truly, honestly, believe that...

You can cook it into the breakfast you make for your kids.  You can mix it into the love you make to you wife.  You can wield it in your relationships, at work, in your heart as you struggle to find the strength to do the right thing in the face of doubt.

Where's the magic?  Where's the magic?  Where's the magic.

The uncommon magic.

How can I grasp it?  How can I apply it?  

BOOM!

You find that sweet spot and, all of a sudden, your work rises to art.

"Eeez-alla-mumbo-sheem-een-dumbo!"

(watch 'Alladin' again, kids)

T

Addicted to the shivers...

Everybody gets 'em this time of year.

The first major case we ran into this time was courtesy of my eldest son, Jordan. We were visiting the Eaton Center in downtown Toronto-- a 'Christmas Mecca' of sorts for my family.  We used to go at Christmastime when I was just a kid, and to take my kids now is time warp city.

Anyway, this was our second or third trip this year and each time we've made a point to visit 'The Big Guy' (as our kids call 'Santa').  It's a neat experience to see all four of them sitting with the old dude.  We have pictures of Jordie with the same 'Santa' from when he was just a baby.  The same Santa, all these years.  So strong an impression has the Eaton Center Santa made on my kids that they're sure he's the 'real' one and that all the others are just 'helpers' 'cause they know Santa can't be in two places at once and can't move faster than light except on Christmas eve.

So, on this second trip to the Eaton Center there was a different Santa in place of the 'real' one. Our kids were a little 'thrown' by this, but after some coaxing, made their way up to him.

And he gave Jordie the shivers.

"Seriously Dad.  All the way up and down my back.  He gave me this warm feeling. He must be the real Santa!"

And that got me thinking about 'The Shivers'.

See, I bought Niki a Christmas album yesterday, Josh Groban's "Noel" (a wonderful CD buy the way, well worth the purchase--not a dud on it) which we've been listening to non-stop since I brought it home.  I do this every year, show up with a Christmas album as an early Christmas present for her.  She loves Christmas. Intensely.

So I'm cleaning up after dinner last night and Josh is singing "O Come All Ye Faithful" from the living room.  It sounds glorious (in the authentic sense) and I find myself in the living room, transported.

I got the shivers.

And I got to thinking about the glory of God and the way in which that glory is strong enough that it works its way through all our fallenness to connect to us and call us to the heights.

See, David Foster produced the album and since I'd had the misfortune to tune into his reality TV show a couple of times for a couple of minutes last year I had come to realize that he doesn't seem (and I use 'seem' intentionally 'cause, after all, who the heck am I to judge or label anybody?  I'm just sayin' it's how it seemed to me...) to be the kind of guy in whom the thirst for godliness runs especially deep.

And I got to thinking about friend David standing in the recording space as Groban and the London Philharmonic ripped through the glorious tunes on that album and I wondered if he would have been feeling 'em.

The shivers.

Then it hit me.  Of course he's feeling 'em.  That's how he knows what's good and what's not.  That's how he writes the theme to the '88 Winter Games in Calgary and it's so damn good.  That's how he knows how to arrange the songs so that they soar so high they make us all want to take wing.  

That's how all great artists (filmmakers and preachers included) create work(s) that are worth the audience's time and investment.

They must know God.

To what degree, in what capacity, to what end, these are not for me to discern or decide.

What I can do is marvel at the greatness of the 'Author of the Shivers' and the way in which He causes people to experience those moments of clarity and transcendence where they connect to that great unknown whose incarnation (aka: making Himself 'known') is being celebrated this time of year by 'shivers addicts' the world over.

Noel, indeed.

T