Yule anaLog

Thank you for a great year.

There are a lot of things on my mind at the end of the year. So much that I went to a coffee shop to write this and left my laptop on the bookshelf at home. Not only that, but I gave the interns this holiday week off, so I can’t wake them up and force them to go get it for me. Like how Ellen DeGeneres woke up my friend to come help her figure out how the cable remote worked, back when my friend was her assistant, and we were all looking for a way into show business. I’m suffering away, writing this in a notebook with an ink pen! This indignity aside, I have much to share.

I’ve been thinking about last week’s writing. Last Week. I even reached out to a writer of “Space Mountain,” to see if he’d be willing to talk to me for five minutes about how that project is going. Stay tuned. As I emailed with some of you, I keep trying to unify a couple of ideas that came out of last week’s writing. “Selling Out.” And “Life is Hard, So Why Bother?” Selling out used to mean something. I promise this isn’t going to turn into here’s what’s wrong with the kids. I stand interested and amazed by what the younger generations are doing. Looking at the list of the top ten movies of 2024, though, I wondered how many voices like Christopher Nolan, for example, are toiling away on the 4^th or 5^th turns at a franchise movie, sublimating themselves and their own voice to stitch themselves into the larger quilt that warms us into sleepy time satisfaction. Marveling at the newest stunt Tom Cruise did all by himself to wow us with the idea he loves us all so much that he would die for our thrill. Add to that some posters of, “The Terminator,” and, “Alien,” and “The Matrix,” flitting past center stage in my head, like the rack of posters in the back of Spencer’s Gifts, CLACK, CLACK, CLACK.

Those movies were blockbuster franchise launchpads. Made to make money. But they all had something underneath them. “Beware Technology.” “What if humans weren’t the most dangerous colonizers?” “Would you wake yourself up from a shared reality to see things as they are? Even if it sucked?” I’m honestly not trying to be reductive here, but is Dom Torretta doing anything like that? Or is it just the thematic idea of, “Family is important?” Is Special Agent Ethan Hunt giving us a deeper message than, “Don’t trust anyone, not even yourself?” I mean, maybe I’m being a bit reductive about “Mission Impossible.” I know there are flashbacks to his wife, and there’s loss and I love the spectacle of those movies. I can tear up at Paul Walker meeting Dom at the end, too. It just feels like it used to be a given that you tried to, I don’t know, give it your all. Big movies could be about important ideas. Now, the biggest idea is usually making sure you’re doing things like, “…seeding some easter eggs for the next one.” Or making a story like, “Mufasa,” happen. Do we need to know how he became King? Was it that different than how people become kings? Or do I need to know how the Rings in Lord of the Rings were forged? Beyond how they showed us in three minutes at the start of the first movie in the trilogy? It needs to be a whole movie on its own?

Back when I first started dreaming about being an artist, there were conversations about “selling out.” You wanted to do your thing and not give in to the commercial mirage in the distance that promised riches and large audiences if you would just play ball with Coca-Cola, or some sort of shadowy figure known as, “The Man.” It was a mostly futile conversation, because very few of us were given the choice. Those that were and turned it down were lifted up as heroes of the realm. David Bowie, Neil Young, The Clash. When the Rolling Stones made you buy a Virgin branded phone to get first chance at tickets, you kind of thought, “Sell out, but weren’t they always a sellout?” Stuff like that. You liked some sellouts, and disliked some who never sold out, but it was one of the ways you reacted to the idea of bowing to only commercial considerations when making art. Of course it was an impossible concept to live up to. And a lot of the people talking about it that weren’t artists were journalists and critics. The worst thing you could be was a poseur or a fake. Guilty of not trying to say anything other than, “buy me.” This conversation is extinct, for better or worse. And the debate over that belongs to some deeper thinkers than I am. I just consider that the sellout conversation at least made us ask if what we were doing was about something.

This is why when I’m writing, and I have an idea, I take it and use a thing called “Dynamic Theme,” to help me with the next steps. Here’s how it works. It starts simply. What is a one- or two-word, clear theme here. There’s a movie I just finished the rough draft of, and the simple theme is belonging. Then to make the dynamic part of “Dynamic Theme,” I write down a quick sentence that is true and you can believe in about belonging. “The best way to belong is to find like-minded people and join them.” In other words, seek out your like-minded people. Then I write something that can be the opposite of that statement. But also, true. And, something you can believe in. A little tricker to pull off. “The best way to belong is to be yourself no matter how ‘weird’ it is. And have faith you will belong to someone else.” It’s not exactly aligned like I want it when I’m done, but it’s close. I’d keep at it until I felt it worked. Now what does this get me? So much. It helps me pick locations, characters, actions, story beats. Everything. I don’t want a monologue at the end that states all of this out loud, I want this baked into the movie everywhere. Let’s say I have a group of characters, kids, four of them boys and two girls. And one of those characters is going to be a baseball player, who should it be? Based on “belonging,” and with the dynamic tension of my two statements and wanting to have characters move from one side to the other, I might pick one of the girl characters. Because it will organically bring up belonging questions for me to help me get started using that lens to look at things.

And the other thing, “Life is Hard, so why bother?” This hit me head on when I read about the latest AI article that said it’s all going to happen no matter what and so why try and fight it? There’s a lot of that out there to read because there’s a lot out there being written like that. Same thing came up when you’d read about “Screen Time for the Kiddos” articles. “It’s a good idea to limit the screentime, there’s some science behind it, here’s that science, but also, it’s hard so it’s cool if you don’t do it.” So much writing about how hard things are, so why bother?

And I can’t help thinking these two big things are related. The Selling Out and It’s Hard So Why Bother. If I want more readers, more viewers, more of anything – wouldn’t it make more sense to give people what they want? They’d love reading that things like long detailed outlines, dynamic themes, and working on a presentation before the day of are hard. And a lot of people don’t use them. They just show up and let it rip. So these articles exist to give more people more proof they’re looking for to keep doing what they’re already doing. I don’t think being a sellout in 2025 is taking money from a company to do their bidding. That’s over. Being a sellout now means you don’t have anything to say. Or add to the conversation. Have a thing to say. My friend just wrote 500 words on why Bob Dylan is the worst singer and songwriter ever and gave his reasons. He had a thing to say, and he said it. He’s wrong as hell, but so what? I like to think Bob would read it and smile and go, “You get it, bub.” I imagine Bob Dylan calls people, “Bub.”

Have a safe New Year, please. And if you like these, share them with one more person. I have set a big goal for 2025 since we easily hit our target in 2024. I am counting on you and me to get the word out because word of mouth is still the best way to grow things, even in this digital world. Some fun below about the time I met some Hollywood Giants. For subscribers.

Sincerely,

The Most Important Chicano In Hollywood That You Don’t Know