Tyler Gibb – Writer, Director, Editor, Filmmaker

I heard an interesting tidbit* a while back. It was off-hand and I don’t know if it’s entirely true but it made for good reinforcement for the way I was feeling that day which was good enough for me: It went, the USA and the UK are the only two countries that don’t received cultural support from their governments. Consequently, where do (arguably) the most renown movies and music come from?

Hm.

Is it possible that forcing a people to suffer and fight for their passions causes the results of those efforts to be greater than coddling and supporting them with handouts?

As a self-made producer for ten years as well as a recent recipient of such a handout I’m pleading ambivalence at the moment but I thought that this was an interesting observation.

Does survival of the fittest (or more entertaining, as the case may be) rear a better product and thus a healthier industry giving rise to a self-sustaining class of entertainment professionals? Or, put differently, does supporting that class of professionals with grants foster a measure of mediocrity in the final product that holds the entire industry to a limitation? Not to mention enforce a certain sense of unspoken (perhaps unintentional) control over those same professionals ever criticizing the system in which they are attempting to exist for fear of being denied future handouts.

Maybe I’m too close to it to see the truth. Maybe I’m just not brash enough to outright poop where I eat. I don’t know. Or maybe it’s just time to have this conversation. We can have a conversation can’t we?

*tidbit: I just noticed that the word “tidbit”- if in the right font – is a visual palindrome. Cool. Also just looked up the term “visual palindrome” which has 1430 results on Google.

As a kid, I used to draw all the time. My main influences were the collected works of H. R. Giger and Garfield comic strips.

At some point in my early teenage years I recall becoming very aware – and embarrassed – that unlike my illustration idols, I did not possess any distinct visual style. It was disenfranchising. I felt like I didn’t have an identity.

I don’t think it was until I took some “fine” arts classes in college that I realized how wrong I was. I did have a distinct visual style – most of us do if we’re drawing from an honest place – I just couldn’t see my own work objectively. It took many crits and working along side other illustrators to realize this.

It was comforting. And better still, this new found comfort afforded me the frame of mind to worry less about perception and simply draw from that honest place. Style after all is merely the form without the function – the cosmetic without the content. It is however often the most important initial element in a project from a commercial point of view – in a best foot forward type of way. So still worth considering. Unless you’re a true blue “artist”… And think you can get by on your self-satisfying indignation alone?

Where was I?

Right, I think these early steps allowed me to skip this kind of identity neurosis when it eventually came to writing, animating and everything else. Don’t worry about making your work stand out, worry about making it good. If it doesn’t have the substance, all the style isn’t going to save it anyway.

Apt topic for this delayed weekly log post…

What can I say, I’ve been busy and to make matters worse, I’ve recently discovered the art of deep-frying at home… Which, let me tell you, is dangerous business. Did you know you can deep-fry just about anything and it will be delicious? It’s true. Dangerous, dangerous business.

So a couple weeks ago I was yammering on about letting things cool to gain some time to reflect on them. More recently I’ve bore witness to the dark, flip side of that kind of time and space away from a project – not in my own work fortunately – but it was a stark reminder none the less. The issue was that of momentum.

Sometimes time away – especially forced time away – slows things down. Especially in situations where personal relationships are concerned, and, don’t fool yourself, in creative industries it always gets personal… Because everybody’s so damn touchy wouchy feely weely and that makes pragmatists want to throw up.

Anyway, momentum, it’s important once a project has reached that critical mass. Once all the sober-second-thoughting has been dealt with. Once people have consolidated in their minds (especially on indie, no budget productions) that this project of which they are a part, has merit and that they must devote more and more of their time to it. You’ve got to keep things moving at that point. If things start to lag; if those that are volunteering are given too much time to stray, then the wheels start to wobble. And before you know it you’re in a ditch.

Giving you plenty of time  to contemplate how to keep that momentum going the next time.

Working on a brand new script this past week. And why not? You can never have enough unproduced scripts clogging up your harddrive, right?

Drawing up  the outline for this project I started thinking about rhythm. Becoming more deliberately aware of it. I guess it’s been alive in my thoughts these days as I wander between disciplines; songwriting, scriptwriting and illustrating. Finding the rhythm of what I’m working on seems to be an essential part of the preliminary process.

Vidya was working with her band the other day and I could hear them fleshing out the arrangement of a new song. They were quite literally trying to find its rhythm. The other week I was doing some illustrating and as I worked I was searching for balance in the drawings, pattern, a rhythm. And this past week, with this new outline, I jotted down the story – going from notes to setting up a structure – creating place-holder scenes even though I wasn’t quite sure what they were going to be yet. I knew they had to be there in order to maintain the story’s pace, its rhythm.  There’s a reason the term “beat” applies to scriptwriting. I like to try to get that rhythm right when the story is still in its early stages, before things get complicated with detail.

It’s a universal thing, rhythm. It’s that indefinable quality that keeps everything running smoothly. And we, the audience, know instinctively when it’s off, no matter what the medium.

Hey, Tyler, what have you been working on these days, anyway?

Oh, me? Well, lots actually, thanks for asking.

Been doing a lot of illustrating as a matter of fact, but more on that another time. What I’ve been doing in recent days is some video work, more on that another time as well. What I did want to reflect on here, today, was related to that video work though, which is why I brought it up.

A year ago I shot a demo of sorts for a proposed video series (moreonthatanothertime!). It didn’t turn out great. Producing the documentary form has never been what I gravitate towards and this project was in that genre. But a year later, here we are, and the project has gotten a second wind. And what’s been great is that everything is so clear this time around. Going in a little half-cocked the first time around allowed us to dabble, to try things, to see what worked and moreover, what didn’t. I know, this sounds obvious – I’ve basically just described the principle of trial and error – but I suppose I’m just excited. The project is really coming together this time around. And it was something I’d basically given up on.

Nothing’s ever really dead.

That’s something I’m starting realize about this domain. Sometimes it takes a while longer to get there but if nothing else, at least that gives ideas time to marinate.