you are in a system and need to examine how that system is in you.

Such recognition is a core element to any creative practice...

don’t get burned when you enter the prickly patch

You are in a system and need to examine how that system is in you.

I am a bit surprised that I haven’t written about this yet. I guess I am slacking…
You might have read today’s title phrase in other posts of mine, but I have not yet gone deep on it. I am going to try to now, for you and me both.

The fact that we are in a fixed system that determines many of our actions, and that we have likely also internalized that system, is a core aspect to how I see the world and why I recommend the creative practice tactics that I do. I suppose it is adjacent to the question of how much free will we truly have, but for this aspect, I find the reality of it drives much of my actions as well as those of others. Recognizing the system, wherever it lurks, consciously drives me. It gives us that thing that is pleasing to resist, just as I suspect it is simultaneously pleasing for many others to comply with.

And yes, for many of you, perhaps it already seems too obvious to state it, but I know I took my autonomy and self-determination for granted for too long and believe if I had recognized more fully how it was compromised and that it was anything but true autonomy, I could have done even more to make it better far sooner for both myself and others. But maybe that’s just another fantasy too…

And yeah, just to keep a handle on things, I am only writing now about how it manifests within the FKATheFilmBiz, but you are right, most of this can apply to things far larger and even more relevant to your daily life than the movies you watch or the ones you make. But let’s keep it a bit contained today to our industry and culture, shall we Ted? Yeah, I got you. Let’s stick to the point and not drift through all these open windows, as fun as tangents can be.

“The medium is the message” has been with us since May ‘58 when Marshall McLuhan gifted us with the slogan that allowed us to recognize the soup we were in. But it surely doesn’t end there, does it? Yes, we are burdened – or graced – with the technological delivery system our art and commerce is served upon, and that has a significant influence on the story forms we use, our style choices, and the mindset we receive them in, but we must recognize that our stage of capitalism too shapes what we do, as does the legacy of the art and business forms we follow. The recent shifts in our global political situation towards authoritarian crackdowns, also will have significant ramifications on what gets made or released – unless of course we build a NonDē cinema ecosystem.

In short, my focus on “us in the system and the system in us” is driven because when we know we have something new to say or a new way to say it, we are wise to consider the tools we have to distribute it, as well as the likely mindset and behavioral tendencies of our likely recipients, audience, and/or community. How can we ignore that we are in a system and the system is in all of us? It goes well beyond the medium that is the message.

Newspapers gave birth to the serial. Radio gave birth to the soap opera. Television to the sitcom. Hollywood to the blockbuster spectacle. The internet to UGC & Creator Economy. Sure, all of these could be defined, sliced, and diced further, but you get the point, yeah?

All the formats that proceeded a tech platform continue to survive and progress and each informs what comes next as they too morph and merge. Businesses blossom and are cannibalized. The Next crowds out The Prior, but in return gets replaced by something else. Things get mixed and remixed. And it all gets faster and faster, and then faster still. Art and business forms alike adapt to the culture too -- both the what was, what is, and what may never be. In the culture industries, it is not that those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it; it is that those don’t study history, or recognize the present, chances are… will not be able to drive the future.

We all need to have those keys to the vehicle, along with our heavy boot on the accelerator.