People who know me know how much I dislike the buzzwords that have infiltrated public discourse.  "Community," "content," "creator," and the like, are all generic words that are interchangeable and therefore meaningless, and which devalue everything they are applied to.  Even the pompous, self-important term "creator" devalues the person, because it puts the ego of the person above the thing they are creating.  Which, in the arts at least, is always a HUGE RED FLAG.  I'm not going to rehash the argument a hundred more times; I will make a list of articles below, with links you can click on if you want to read my thoughts on it further.

I just want to make an observation based on 2 videos I've watched recently.  One is an hour-long TV documentary about shooting Raiders of the Lost Ark.  The other is about the making of Apocalypto.  While the films are 25 years apart, they have more than a few things in common.  Both films employ a large team of professional individuals figuring out how to solve a technical or logistical problem, or a stunt.  When they're sitting in meetings, it isn't to figure out what to do; it's to figure out how to do it.  "It," of course, being the vision of the director.  A singular human being as opposed to a soft, malleable mass of people with minds of frightened Nerf who are constantly trying to figure out what the other guy wants them to say.  The director should be an individual who has been hired (not appointed) for the ability to lead a large group of people in capturing his or her singular vision on film.

If, the next time you're watching a good movie you wonder why "they don't make movies like that anymore," it's because individuals are generally not allowed to stand out in a room full of content creators who have to make sure everybody on the committee is happy before they write a single line of dialogue.  This is why everything is a CGI superpeople franchise screensaver or a parasitic woke reboot of a classic film from another time.  It takes NO VISION WHATSOEVER to produce such things.  Can you imagine a bunch of people who expect you to care about their sex lives sitting in a dusty office in 120-degree heat in Tunisia trying to figure out how to truck 5,000 gallons of water onto the set every day, to take care of the crew and all the extras?  Nevermind figuring out which picnic tables to ignite, how many sparking gunshot squibs are in the wall, how to increase the number of snakes from 2,000 to 7,000 so the shot is more believable (as opposed to "adding them in post"), and how long the ditch should be under the truck, so the stuntman can actually pull himself under it in real life, as it's traveling down the road?

The reason they don't make movies like that anymore is because it's culturally impossible.  Weak, communitarian language, far from being "inclusive" or "sympathetic," has in fact destroyed the foundations which make it possible for even an excellent movie to be produced, nevermind anything fundamental or important (like an education, perhaps).  Everybody on the crew of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Apocalypto wants to do a good job.  They take professional pride in their individual work, and understand that if it takes more than one person with a phone to shoot an epic film like Raiders of the Lost Ark, it's the TEAMWORK that makes it possible, not the community.  A crewmember who takes personal pleasure as an individual from something they helped create with a team has NOTHING in common with some guy who thinks of himself as part of a community that never achieves anything, because appeasing the EGO and belonging to a group of fellow mindless lemmings is the important thing, not the work itself.  BELONGING TO A GROUP is the foundation of community.  PRODUCING SOMETHING is the foundation of teamwork.

Unless, of course, you don't need a team, and can make the movie by yourself with a phone.  If you can do it alone, by all means do.  

Apocalypto is a masterpiece.  Writing, acting, directing, production...  Every tattooed extra has a different individual costume, custom made by hand, in addition to their scarification makeup, headgear, jewelry, and other accoutrements.  The individual character of EVERY SILENT BACKGROUND ACTOR is actually considered.  There is no army of CGI ciphers doing backflips, no attempt to make a group of CGI wallpaper people look realistic in their movements (which always fails).  The weapons are made of real rubber, real wood, the blood is made of real corn syrup (no digital blood squibs "added in post"), and, like Raiders, the set of Apocalypto was built by hand on location by professional carpenters with real hammers.

The teamwork involved in both films is epic in scale and scope.  But there's no community anywhere near it.  There's a chain of command, a team of professionals who are individually excellent at their jobs, and a buck that stops with one guy.  Not a community of agenda-pushers and corporate appeasers who can never be appeased.

Also, the crew spends most of their time figuring out how to shoot something, as opposed to figuring out how to fake it with a green bedsheet.

That is why Raiders of the Lost Ark and Apocalypto are great.

Thanks for listening.

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More reading on this topic:   

From The Codependence of Community (DIY or DIE)... "Have you noticed how collectivists and communitarians always seem to think that “you need us,” but never seem to think that “we need you?”  The supposed need is always for the individual, not the group.  The group’s only need is for “each other.”  We need each other.  Since the group’s need is instantly, automatically met every time two unthinking people who share the same beliefs come together, they can act and think as though their “needs” have actually been met, by simply standing there doing nothing.  Saying nothing, thinking nothing.  No effort is necessary.  In order to provide personal (not collective) security for themselves, they paradoxically subjugate their individuality to the collective."

From Happiness Compliance Grid... "Policy exists to protect an entity against innovation.  Innovation means risk, which means potential loss.  When an entity has nothing to lose, it is innovative.  Once an entity has reached a certain level of comfort, it begins to implement policies.  The size of the entity can be a single individual, a coalition of shareholders, or a nation, but the point at which it becomes comfortable is the point at which innovation stops, and policy-making begins."

From Good Art vs. Sick Content... "Content creators have an agenda; artists are engaged in the process of discovery.  Creators of content are factory workers; artists are panning for gold.  Artists experience the revealing of the work before their eyes much like a child opening a Christmas present; content creators produce material for consumption (including by themselves).

The two are opposites."

From Why Artists Should Never Call Themselves "Creatives"... "The reason artists shouldn't call themselves 'creatives' is that the word 'creatives' DEVALUES the work of the artist, and the validity of his or her individual vision.  When an accountant cooks the books of any given company, they aren't called 'artistic accounting practices,' they're called 'creative accounting practices.'  You can have a 'creative' solution to a mechanical problem, or a math problem, or a welding problem, but you can't have an 'artistic' solution to these kinds of problems.  Anybody can be creative in any given field, but NOT everybody is an artist.  By calling themselves 'creatives,' artists are allowing themselves to be devalued even further than they already are.  Anyone can be creative, but not everyone can be an artist."

From Recreation vs. Simulation... "If it has the vibe of a place it was built to duplicate, that quality will be captured on film.  In contrast, if it was blocked and pasted in a computer lab, it will have the vibe of a fancy screensaver.  The fact that you can actually visit the "Sad Hill Cemetery" in northern Spain almost 60 years after filming is one of the reasons that The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly has stood the test of time.  That feeling is what separates real films from fake ones.  Who cares what commercial park the new Star Wars wallpaper was manufactured in?

Nobody."

From Storytelling vs. Filmmaking... "I like to watch actors work.  I have a real appreciation for the craft, and love to watch it play out before my eyes, embodied by the perfect cast.  The perfect script is not necessarily a piece of literature; many movies are over-written, masturbatory dialogue contests between the scriptwriter and his mirror.  That doesn't interest me.  Great writing doesn't necessarily make a great script.  It's as bad for the actors to sound like they're reciting important art as it is for them to sound like they're reading something written by a room full of monkeys."

From An Audience of One (You Are The World)... "Songs with the most widespread appeal are written for an audience of one."

From The Punk-Rock Soccer Matriarchy (and how to avoid it)... "It is time for the monsters on the edge of town to stay where they are.  NOT to unite, but to celebrate their monster-ness, alone, in the woods, in the desert, out to sea, away from the incorporated cults, whether they be towns, groups of enslaved, unimaginative people who are religious about their politics, or stores at the mall with all the cool merch I like.  The monsters need to be grateful for their exile, NOT as a juvenile, pained reaction to being “excluded from the scene” (which reaction is only natural, but harmful), but rather as a quiet, pro-active acceptance of their own individual identity, whatever it may be.  Whether the cult is a bunch of jocks, punk-rockers, film-savvy hipsters, intimidatingly-attired rich kids, cheerleaders, rodeo clowns, or mutant carnival freaks,

the true monster must be glad to not be burdened with being forced to jump through the golden hoops of the Soccer Matriarchy, in all its terrible forms, and eat frozen beans in solitude, for years if necessary, until total immunity has been achieved

from the debilitating disease of the religion of community."

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And finally, a comment from my video of "Is It For Real?," which uses a silent film made in 1907 starring a guy in a pig suit.  The commenter says he can't believe how much better the 100-year-old suit looks, compared to the brand-new CGI superpeople wallpaper movie.  I have the exactly opposite predisposition.  I grew up with the original Star Wars movies, in which half the characters are literal Muppets.  Of course the real pig suit looks better than the CGI wallpaper girl.  It's real.  How can it not?

Anyway, something for all the future visionaries to think about.  I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do.  Hit me up if you think I can bring anything to the table.  I run my band like a benevolent monarchy, not a democracy, so I understand the concept of not engaging in power struggles with arrogant nitwits who have no imagination, and would be very interested in working with people who would rather excel individually at the task they have been chosen and hired for.  For every reason.  Weak language that devalues and invalidates the contributions of individual visionaries has destroyed Western culture, which has perhaps created a vacuum of competition in which literally anything is possible, since there's literally no competition except Goliath himself.  Goliath's community of crushing, overwrought one-ness should be easily overwhelmed and outnumbered by a coalition of skilled individuals who take pride in doing good work.

If nothing else, please do consider curtailing the use of the buzzwords that work like termites to undermine the foundation of our formerly free and interesting society.  The 10-year-old Miles Davis of the future will thank you for it.