Is Stillmotion's MUSE program really worth the $$? A pilot asks some tough questions

[Lintel]

Hey DVX'ers,

In case anyone's interested, I've just written an article about Stillmotion's MUSE program (which I've been a member of for a couple of months now). It contains a Q&A with Patrick Moreau, and details a lot of the misgivings I have about the program.

You can read it here:


Would be great to hear your thoughts. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have too.

 

[Patryk_Rebisz]

What kind of "story" you think you need to make to excited a half naked many from African bush? Does it have to be complex and sophisticated or can you get away with a simple shot of a train arriving at the station? And what's more importantly why this specific image to illustrate the banal and totally not true statement at the opening of MUSE video that "story is our universal language." This statement is so wrong on so many levels then it Single-handedly destroys any credibility behind this program. Story is NOT universal language - the stuff that excites half naked many in the bush is not the same stuff as what excited a sophisticated city dweller in XXI century. They deliver those images with banal statements like that because they want to appeal to people who don't self-reflect and only go after those easy cozy feeling insinuated by the world. It's nice to believe that there is something (they claim "story") that brings us together but it's much harder to face reality that we actually probably have very little in common.This is a much harder to accept scenario as it forces us to self reflect who we are, who "they" are - the commonalities and differences and with that force to learn history and whatever else might help us understand each other. It forces us to exercise the mind on a complex level and this is not what the makers of this promo video wants you to do. They would rather give you want you want - this internal good cumbaja feeling rather then depth. Is this really someone you want to teach you about intricacies of stories?

Stories are not universal.
Only the most banal of stories communicated with everyone - those are the kind of stories that might be okay for a bushman who hasn't seen a computer in his life but NOT for a sophisticated XXI century person. By chasing after a story that will reasonable with both you will be doing disservice to your craft.

"There isn't really anything to help you understand the story and give you a cheat sheet" (beside's McKee's "The Story" - and countless of other publications...) because art is not about a power point presentation but amalgamation of various aspects of self and the world coming together into one point. As such storytelling is much more about you and how you connect with the world than anything else. Storytelling is about the literature you read, philosophy you subscribe to, depth of psychology you subjects yourself to and power of your observation... Do you really believe those can be learned by some cheat sheet?

Needless to say i'm fervently against cookie cutter approaches especially so because stories are only a backbone to experiences. What matters is not the story but what's behind the story. Noone watched, say, "Blade Runner" because it's a story of some detective chasing bad guys in a gloomy city. That banal story let the creator explore issues of loneliness, solitude and alienation in a big city. That banal story let the director dream up the "what ifs" of the future (what cars, what social structures, what urban developments etc). Those elements BEHIND the story is what made the film an artwork. So next time someone offers you tips on story, ask yourself how much they really know what they are trying to enlighten...

 

[Eric Coughlin]

I used to be a big fan of StillMotion but after hearing the buzzword "story" from them 1000 times it started to get old.

I recall this one blog post where they had shot an interview in a foreign country with daylight coming in through windows, and as the day got darker, the lighting for the interview changed at lot, such that when they looked at the footage, they realized they needed to reshoot it even though it meant flying across the country to do so. Basic technical mistake; they should have paid attention to the lighting, time of day, window light, etc. But we all make technical mistakes, so no problem with that. However, if I remember rightly in the blog post, they said they made the mistake because they "were so focused on storytelling they didn't notice the light changing." Really? Come on. They could have just fessed up that they made a technical mistake but instead they decided to use their overused buzzword of storytelling to take the blame.

That blog post appears to have been removed from their site so perhaps they realized how silly that all sounded and took it down.