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A Shrinking Iceberg

12/8/2015

 
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We're at a point now where the only way humanity is going to survive is if we learn to live together on a shrinking iceberg. 

We are running out of space for your fight, we're running out of room for you to hide behind jargons, behind shallow, empty facades that feed a bottomless ghost.  We don't have the space for your agendas, your soapboxes, your tantrums anymore.  Your planet for hostility is now a neighborhood with an echo.

If it doesn't benefit us all, it has no use.  There's no room anymore for us without them.

Forget the time we each could take a corner to stew.  Forget that extra room designated for cheerleaders, with no clock, a room to learn the jingle of disguised hate, packaged with wrapping paper and a pretty bow.

There's an echo here.  I heard it just the other day.  It's time you hear it too.  It sounds as familiar as the last time you spoke.

Be wary of those echoes with no room but only to bounce.  Echoes are never clear.  In the middle of the iceberg sits a sleeping dragon with ears that hear.  

Weapons designed for extinction, with enough beliefs to encourage it.  A dragon we all ran towards, from separate corners, to build.  Each piece nailed together from the toolbox of fear.  On a shrinking iceberg, do not fear the weight of this dragon or the scarcity of supply.  

The surplus for the build is plentiful on a shrinking iceberg where we keep making more.  Just be wary not to wake him.

One test remains for humanity on Earth.  It's the last test, and the longest lasting.  

The test was always here, nudging with increased attention.  Exceeding success isn't sufficience.  Just to fail not would be fine:  

Trust.  Coexistence.  

And in that test remains the channels of information, which have more arteries than ever.  They are the carriers of an instant boomerang, designed to tap your emotions, to keep the body alive, to keep the boomerang flying.  Back and forth, a tentacled hot potato.  

A game for everyone insures it never gets dropped.  

These arteries do not all carry only the oxygen we need, but also a poison to keep the dead forest alive. 

A forest of dead wood, intentionally packaged with no time to rot.  To rot is to die, and few have the courage.

 Instead, continuously knock down a new tree, a vain and never ending attempt to cover the hole in our hearts with a shelter we never needed.

And this is our great mistake, to believe we are the voyeurs, the spectators, with us on one side and them on the other, fooled by flags, listening to the perpetual lie, that the world is flat, booming through the megaphone, to keep us cheering for our side while we eat the hot dog we sold ourselves for our unearned convenience.  

The price was low, so buy, and ignore the cost is high.

We are not the crowd just cheering for our team, entertained.  We are participants in a game we do not have to play.  A game we're told to tune into, to set to sync on some tv set.  

So sit and stare, before the commercial breaks.

We must practice living together on this shrinking iceberg as it sinks.  

Because when it finally does, we will be left understanding the one word the great teachers always attempted to tell:

Compassion. The other is ourselves.

Until we are forced to lock arms with the other which we hated, in survival against the sea, use this weapon: 

Our capacity to appreciate beauty. It's a hidden weapon we've ignored.

The world is not beautiful. 

The world is a conflicted vibration of energies attempting to fill a vacuum.  The world is killing and eating itself to stay alive.  It neither knows not cares.

But we do.  We have the capacity.  

We may look at a setting sun and see something that is not even there.  We may see beauty.  The great trick the universe played on the wicked.  That the violence of the sun is aesthetic anasthesia. The particles of a cloud are a chance for the human to be in awe and appreciation.

We may explain away the moon, why it is there, but it has no meaning until we have danced under it.

Beauty is not in the world.  It's in our eyes.  It's our perception of beauty which distinguishes us, disguises us, guides us, and gives the universe it's soul.  

Through us, the universe finds it's consciousness.

Make room on a shrinking iceberg.

The Journey Continues

TG


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Lighting Preparations

12/7/2015

 
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As lighting on one seen is underway, preparations for the next one begins.

Thunder Behind the Lines

12/4/2015

 
Thunder Behind the Lines is Now Available.  

This special print is actually a set piece featured in the film.  In the movie, we see this iconic image as a black and white photograph in one of the most important scenes.

When you purchase this print, you not only purchase memorabilia, you purchase a moment in the film.

High quality canvas print, in color, with hand care.  Hand drawn, by the film's director, Tyler Gooden.  This dramatic picture is for anyone who loves soccer, great art, or knows this powerful story.

To receive a special price, join us behind the scenes, and ask for Thunder Behind the Lines.  Sale is for fans only:

TheFCStartMovie.com
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The Daily March

12/2/2015

 
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​A Short Story.

The past month has been a tough one, a month that required laser like focus on production challenges.  I have no excuses for not contributing my weekly story in my journal, or here.  I am not going to make one up.  Instead, I will simply write.

Today, I write a short reminder, to myself and others.  Daily paces, no matter the weather, are the way to success.  Incremental growth, consistency, and patience in the face of delays are the way.  Eliminating distraction, improving your tools, and not overloading your vehicle.  

There can never be enough planning, so plan to prepare.  Once your feet start moving, your success has already been determined or not.

The only way to get to the finish line is to move.  And the only way to know if you are arriving, is to measure your distance, your nautical miles.  You must have a map.  Navigating that map is always based on goals.  Do not exceed, and do not fall short.  Instead, meet what is difficult, discomforting, but never impossible.  If it's easy, be wary.  If it's impossible, be bold.  

In your mind, plant the flag where you are required to go.  Then, go to meet it.  It's already there.

Ration your resources based on the distance you must cover, and let no other reason sway you into misplacing them.  You will need them.  

On the journey to the flag, or on your return.  

Be fat upon your return, not thin.
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The arrow must be aimed, but it also must face conditions once it has been released.  Once it's moving, it's out of your hands.  Planning is critical.

Discipline is self-imposed, it doesn't come from somewhere else, but the consequences of not imposing it upon yourself will come from somewhere else.  Avoid those external enemies through self-discipline. 

Mistakes cost you.  

Do nothing for glory, or for approval, pride, or because of the past.  There is another peak ahead of you which requires your focus.  Cross the threshold, with no shame in how you do it.  
Accept that the external world's attention is already all in vain.  Your life is not measured in external terms or in the memory of others.  The world has always been indifferent.  It always will.

So liberate yourself from the constraints of the external world, and, instead, bask in the illumination of your own internal mechanisms.  

You are the cosmos. 

You are the source for all of this.
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The Journey Continues

TG

TheFCStartMovie.com

November Update Video

12/2/2015

 
November was a tough month!  But we've managed to push on through, and now lighting is underway.  To see our progress, please join us for our monthly video tour behind the scenes - TheFCStartMovie.com

This month, Tyler shares some of the previous months challenge, how we overcame it, and he answers questions from the audience.
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Color Scripting in Progress

11/16/2015

 
Prelighting and color scripting in progress.  More details and magic in update coming soon... - TheFCStartMovie.com
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Teaser For our Behind the Scenes Update

10/27/2015

 
To see October's Update behind the scenes, please join us and receive your fun filled fantastic film. (well, video, anyway) - In this month's update, Tyler shares a trick he used to get precise reflections in an unrendered mirror, shares a collection of stories, and explains how render passes are used in the animation pipeline.
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Watch the teaser here

Or enjoy the full experience by joining us behind the scenes:  TheFCStartMovie.com

Math Homework

10/19/2015

 
When I was in kindergarten my teacher gave us some math homework.  I took it home and solved it all.  It was easy stuff like 2 + 2 and whatnot.  My mom checked it, and all my answers were correct, so she was proud and I was too, I suppose. 

But what happened next, I cannot explain.  

My best understanding now is that when I looked at those numbers, I no longer saw math, my imagination started to take over.  Before I knew it, math homework became something else.

I went back into the numbers I had written, and I started turning the numbers into characters, making them do things they were not meant to do.

I drew all over the numbers, personifying them based on their specific shapes.  When I was finished with my opus, I had turned that page into a Shakesperean drama, with the 4 chasing the 5, the 7 was wearing a costume, 9 had killed the 8, and the 3 and the 2 had fallen in love, despite the disapproval of the 10 and the 12. 

Furthermore, the numbers were no longer underneath the equation where they belonged, they were now dancing all over the page, battling each other for power in embellished expressions of their original form.  In order to know under which equation each answer belonged, first you had to follow the story.

My math was still correct, but the numbers had just somehow decided to go and do other things.  I didn’t see anything wrong with that.  I thought it was new and improved math homework.  It was far more interesting, and in my mind, completely acceptable, since the answers were still correct.

My mom happened to find it before I went to bed and totally flipped her lid.

Of course, she had no idea that I had turned my math homework into a three act tragedy.  She just saw a bunch of unrecognizable numbers in dark corners of the page, getting kicks by doing things she would never understand.

She told me I was going to be in big trouble when I turned in such a mess.  And so she sent me to bed. 

I couldn’t sleep that night because I knew tomorrow I must face the wrath of my teacher.  It was one of the longest nights of my life (I only had five years to compare it to). To this day, I can still see the 7, haunting my dreams with its weird circles drawn around it.  It had turned itself into a new number the universe had never seen before, and now we all were going to have to deal with it.

But when I went to school and handed in my homework the next day, nothing happened.

I waited and waited for the axe to fall, I was so sure it was the end of me, but the teacher never said anything. 

I never said anything either, better to just hope she didn’t notice.   I just figured Mrs. Barkley saw what I saw.  I soon decided she probably was even going to give me an A+ since I gve her a cherry on top of the ice cream.  Not only did she receive the correct answers to the math problems, I had also turned it into an artistic masterpiece (Open to interpretation, of course).

Later, I guessed that this was too good to be true.  My mom was probably more worried about me being thrown in a mental asylum at such an early age.  She must have gone back into my homework after I went to bed, erased my math opera, and replaced it with clean and readable numbers. 

I think it was in that moment that I secretly knew I was forever going to be in trouble.

The Journey Continues
TG

I am Tyler Gooden, the director of TheFCStartMovie.com - Every week, I share a story.
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More Collector's Art Soon For Fans

10/15/2015

 
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We will soon have some collectibles available.  Fans get them first: TheFCStartMovie.com

Starting Means Finishing

10/12/2015

 
Getting started is often the hardest part.  Finishing is equally difficult.  To start means to stare at an empty page and fill it.  To finish means to know when you are done and be satisfied with the results.

But what about when you are in the middle of crossing the stream and you take a break?  

It's just as difficult, or more difficult, to pick up the great progress you made where you left off sometimes.

In the past two weeks I have not written anything.  It happened by accident, in fact.  It was abrupt and completely unexpected, but that's how discipline is attacked.  It's a slow burning surprise.  

But "no use" leads to uselessness, and it affects one's mind.  When you are doing something, you find the meaning in it, and the meaning feeds your motivation to do it.  It's a nice cycle, no matter what it is -eating well, exercising, or completing a project.  When you are in the moment, keeping yourself doing what you should, everything fits like a puzzle.

Inertia is a funny thing, because once an object is in motion it stays in motion.  But if one stops, it is truly hard to get started again.  

So, after a couple weeks of staring at a blank page, I am returned.  

There's no other personal purpose in writing this piece than to stretch my muscles, but it's also a refresher message: if you fall off track, get up immediately.  Because I've noticed that a waning discipline in one area affects my discipline in another area, and soon everything is in danger of falling apart.  

Likewise, when I am focused in one area, other areas fall in line as well.   

This writing experiment was begun last winter - to write once a week, usually with a story related to our project, but one that offers universal value.  I suppose the personal angle here is simply to return to the writing with this entry and stretch my muscles.  But it's a universal reminder that self discipline is not a charge against laziness, and disciplining yourself to be better is not a punishment.  Self discipline is the work it takes to enjoy the benefit of empowering yourself, of bringing more meaning to your life and others. 

Too many people assign self discipline as a punishment, because it's easier to enjoy the immediate: the extra dessert, another glass of wine, the self deception that "I'll put it off this week, but I will write again next week."  Two weeks later you might find yourself saying the same thing until "no use" becomes "useless."
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  And before you know it, you've forgotten how good it felt to do things right.

We don't pay a price for being disciplined, although it often feels like we are paying a price, because it requires focus and energy.  But we do pay the price for not doing the work.  We pay the price for not being disciplined.  So it's good to remember the reversal:

We enjoy the rewards of disciplining ourselves.  We benefit from our results.  Living right does reward us.

It's important to finish.  But one must also continue.

The Journey Continues

TG

Tyler Gooden is the director of TheFCStartMovie.com  - join us for behind the scenes rewards.

A Tale of Two Surf Shops

9/20/2015

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Prologue

McDonald’s doesn’t need to sell a great hamburger to be one of the richest companies in the world.  Great hamburgers are not what McDonald’s is selling. 

And that’s why I learned to sell surfboards better than the surf shop down the street.

Let me back up a minute.

A Tale of Two Surf Shops


There were two surf shops in the local beach community I grew up.  Both of them were on an island.

One of these shops had the great fortune of an oceanfront view, directly above an arcade, and blessed with a catchy name.  It had everything at it’s fingertips, sitting directly on the beach where everyone was going to go anyway. 

It was a gate to the beach, and to summer fun itself.


A Salty Kingdom

This particular surf shop could afford to have dingy dressing rooms, dodgy clothes, and even dodgier employees.  When you’re positioned on the best corner in town, you don’t need to make the greatest hamburger in town.   Convenience will suffice.

But I don’t want to tell you about this surf shop.  I don’t want to tell you about a surf shop that had everything at it’s fingertips.  I don’t want to tell you about the shop that’s convenient.

I want to tell you about the other one.


Potential Unlimited

I want to tell you about the one I know.  The one that was not lined up, like a target, for anyone headed to the beach, who, upon seeing it, realized they needed a pair of flip flops they’d later never wear. 

This other surf shop was hard to find.  It was tucked away in a corner, far out of view, on the edge of a parking lot, desolate and far from the fun.

To get to this shop, you had to make a special stop on your way to the beach.  It was not on the oceanfront, it was not above an arcade, and the only gate it provided was to a salty, boggy, and stinky marsh where one of us kids’ bicycles died a watery death (that’s another story).

Easily unnoticed, and too much trouble to visit, this other surf shop was stuck in a corner, surrounded by a bunch of other shops you had to pass by to get to.  If you hadn't spent all your money by the time you arrived, this shop had just one small room where you could spend your remaining cash.

If you were to go there at all, you had to really want to go there.

This is where I worked.

The shop was owned and ran by Ken and Ennis, and I still remember going there with my dad to buy my first surfboard as a birthday present.

At the end of that first summer, I was offered a job.  

They showed me how to punch things correctly into the cash register, how to keep the clothing racks organized, and what to tell people when they called to ask how the waves were. 

(Whether or not I was any good at any of this is beside the point.)

The point to remember is that in order to run either shop, these skills were always necessary. 

As long as the shop on the beachfront could run it’s cash register and keep it’s shelves stocked, it’s customers were guaranteed, right?

And yet, everyone I knew was hanging out at and buying from the other shop, instead: 

The one that was tucked away, hidden out of view, and surrounded by a marsh.  The one that was inconvenient, and therefore, harder to sell from, but all the more valuable because of what we created to insure it’s survival.


Where Did We Get It Wrong?


We’re faced every day with the dilemma of paying for things because of convenience, and not because of value.  Perhaps that’s just it: We pay for it.

You pay for your surf wax from the shop conveniently on the beach, the burger from the McDonald’s beside your busy street.  You pay for that.  You pay for eating unhealthy, for not exercising, for not taking risks, for not doing the difficult things.

But I never paid for my experience working in that surf shop that was inconvenient. 

I benefited from it. 

And so did the customers who bought from us.  They benefited from buying from a business that cared enough to be inconvenient.

Let me explain:

It wasn’t easy for Ken and Ennis to run a shop that was off the beaten path.  It required them to create something the other shop didn’t have. 

It required them to build value.

Ken required us to read “How to Win Friends and Influence People” before spring break one year, and then he gave us a written test from the material.  If we passed the test, we earned some discounts in the shop. 

When we graduated from high school, Ken took us on a surf trip to Cape Hatteras to celebrate.  (In this case, the reward must have been for surviving adolescence- Because I can’t say my graduation was as clear an achievement.) 

This wasn’t just a surf trip, it was an investment in the community he had created.  I am absolutely sure the owners of the other, convenient, shop on the beach did not take the employees on a surf trip.

When tourists came from Ohio and left the next week, they were not forgotten.  We were encouraged to make friends with them, stay in touch with them over the winter, and when they came back the next year, they'd have remained a part of the community.  Those who hung out at the shop, in turn, felt encouraged to buy from the shop, and we all benefited.

No shop of convenience with the gates to the beach at it’s fingertips will do this.  To a shop of convenience, you are just a passing tourist.  The negotiation is this: “Give me a cheap hamburger, and all I want is convenience.” So you can’t complain when they respond in kind: “I’ll give you a cheap hamburger, but what you get is convenience.”

Because everyone, both the seller and the buyer, knows this negotiation: It’s a cheap burger. 

But not everyone heeds the wisdom.

The businesses of today teach you how to automate, how to work the 4 hour work week, how to build a system where the burger shop doesn’t need to make the best burger. 

Just be sure to put it in a convenient location, be sure to put it where the money can buy your convenience, and you’ll be rich.

Take this with a grain of salt.

And I will tell you why.

The only value in convenience is convenience.  Make it all about convenience, and you might sell the surfboard, but you eliminate the culture. 

The trade is catastrophic. 

On the other hand, create value within the community, and you give the community a reason to buy the surfboard.  Be it automated or not, this is the only sequence worth investing in, and it's the only one that will sustain.  

It’s my conviction that most of the kids buying from us were not buying the merchandise:  They were valuing the culture first, and then making a purchase.  

I know this is true because I don’t remember anything I bought or sold in those years, but I can tell you numerous enriching experiences that surrounded the job.

I can’t tell you what film was discussed last week in an online film club, but I can tell you everyone who was involved and what funny things they said.  That’s the value, that’s the purchase.
Epilogue

We’ve been building a project for three years already.   Without any sales.

That all changed the previous week when we made our first offer on some products from behind the scenes, and in turn, donating to the community.   

Upon each transaction, I’ve thought about the art of creating value, and I never thought once about the art of selling.  There is a difference.  I’ve worked in sales before, I know the protocol.  But I also know the protocol of a surf shop which built value in the community rather than make a sale to a tourist.

Is this the best way to get rich?

I don’t know. Depends on what you mean by rich.

I know there’s tons of information competing for attention on your way to the beach.

I know there’s other film projects out there like ours. 

I know there’s others trying to make a film about the same story we’re working on. 

These production companies have more at their fingertips than we do, and they can afford to have dingy dressing rooms, sell dodgy clothes, and employ even dodgier people. 

They don’t need to make a great hamburger.  They have a great location.

And when I realize this, I guess I could get scared.  But I don’t.  Instead, I think of A Tale of Two Surf Shops.  Two surf shops- each with their own contribution.  The one on the beach where everyone was seen as merely a tourist, and the one I hung out at and worked for.

And I realize I don’t remember much about the other one, the one with the great location. 

I remember seeing it.  I couldn’t help but see it.  It was there every time I went to the beach.  I went in it.  I knew the people who ran it.  I may have even bought something from them.  It was always there.  But I don’t remember anything valuable about it.   It was just convenient.

Plus, they were always telling us to get off the steps.   

Instead, what I value, more, are those summer nights, sitting on the deck of the other shop with friends, going on that surf trip to Hatteras, finding friends who just happened to become customers, and realizing that they remained friends.  And knowing now that that was always the point.  

I don’t even remember a single thing I purchased on discount for reading that book Ken assigned us.  Instead, what I remember is there was a discount for reading a valuable book.

In such a shop, which we'll call Potential Unlimited, the sale is made after the value is created.

What you sell me today, I forget tomorrow.  
What I value today, I remember tomorrow.

So I’m not interested in making something fast.  We’ll be first because we make things that last.



The Journey Continues
TG


Tyler Gooden is the director of TheFCStartMovie.com 

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My friends and I.  Drawing, circa 1997.
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Special Art Print Sale, and Help a Good Cause

9/19/2015

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Wow, we had a pretty incredible first week on our behind the scenes art prints offer for fans!

It's been so good, I decided to launch this publicly - because we are ONE shipment away from contributing 3 percent toward our Ukrainian Relief Fund.

3 percent of every one hundred dollars goes to help the ongoing crisis. Be the one who tips this over!

Public offering now, includes a signed copy- Get your collector's art now, and also help towards a good cause.

See the link:

http://www.thefcstartmovie.com/store/c2/Art_Prints.html




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A Jacket For the Crisis

9/6/2015

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Prologue


It was my favorite jacket.  Handmade by Bedouin tribesman from somewhere deep in the Sahara desert.  I’d traded some old Reeboks for it in Morocco, and traveled the world with it.    


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That jacket had history and a special origin.  But more importantly, I needed a jacket if I was going to go snowboarding in the Alps for Christmas. 

And that’s why I felt like a turkey on Thanksgiving.

Let me back up a minute.



Turkey For Thanksgiving



It was autumn, 2003, and I was fresh off the plane in Rome.  I’d come back to Italy to visit some friends and look for work.  A little effort, and I found a dream job, right next to the train station.  The agreement was I’d run a local hostel throughout the winter, give tours, and have a place to stay in one of the rooms.  
Secure in my new job, I naturally unpacked my bags and made myself at home in one of the most beautiful cities on Earth.


A few weeks (and many stories) later, the owners of the hostel got cold feet and told me the job was canceled.

I’d already spent a bunch of money getting setup, and now I had to start all over again.

Frustrated, I grabbed my backpack and headed east, into Greece, and began looking for new adventures instead.  Although I hated to leave Italy behind, my bag was lighter by the motion of travel.


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I ended up on the isle of Lesvos, and after some exploring, I wanted to continue further.  I wanted to see Istanbul and then spend the winter in the north.   

But I’d need a boat.

Apparently, there was a local fisherman who was willing to take passengers on his small fishing boat to the next port town across the Aegean.   We waited until dark.

For a few extra dollars I was on my way across the sea, and into the cradle of civilization. 

The wind was cold, and the boat was small against the waves.  I still remember the crash of the ocean and the cool night air.  And as the water sprayed against my face, I could feel the last days of summer were long gone.  It was getting cold.

I arrived, cold and wet.  The salty Turkish fisherman lead me through the gates of a small port town, when I soon discovered I needed to pay off the locals for safe passage. 

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The next bus to Istanbul wasn’t to arrive for a few more hours, and so I was left with the decision to wait it out at the busstop or to find a hotel.  I’d already slept under the stars in a broken down plaza in Athens, and found the view and experience quite beautiful.  I figured I could do the same here.  Wait it out.  Because the best adventures came when life was met head on and not slept through in a safe hotel bedroom.

As I watched an otherwise ghostly city, I noticed peculiar activity.  It took me a moment before I realized what was happening.  I’d arrived in the middle of Ramazan (Ramadan), the holy month in which Muslims refrain from most earthly enjoyments.  And I was witnessing a small rebellion.

Local Turkish men were sneaking behind the wharf to share an alcoholic drink where no one else would see them. 

Freedom is an impossible impulse to subdue.

But time passes slow in Turkey in late November at 5 am.  An hour later, the wind and cold air was getting to me.

Time to bring out the lucky jacket.

I reached in my bag for my burlap savior.  But there was no jacket.  No winter clothes.  I’d thought my bag had been lighter, but I had not heeded the warning.  Until it all became apparent:

I’d left all my winter clothes unpacked in a drawer in that hostel in Rome.  Once I thought I’d landed the job, it seems I’d tucked away my lucky jacket, and all my warm clothes for the winter.

And I’d forgot all about them in my frustration to leave.

It was going to be a long, cold winter indeed.

I was on my way to Istanbul.  It was thanksgiving.  And I felt like a turkey.

Trentatre Trentini, Tutti Trentatre da Trento


A few adventures later, and it was December.  I had made my way through Turkey, and through the Balkans, and after many bribe attempts, stolen video cameras, and other assorted stories later, I was in northern Italy:  the Dolomites. 

The cold, snowy mountains just on the edge of the majestic Italian Alps.

Without a jacket.

I’d supposed, I guess, that I deserved it.   If I couldn’t keep up with my things, then I guess I’d just have to deal with the consequences of a winter in the mountains with whatever clothes I’d managed to keep.   And I had got such a good deal on that burlap jacket, traded for a pair of Reeboks, I guess I just couldn’t bring myself to purchase a new one with actual money.

No winter clothes, and in the middle of northern Italy in the dead of winter.  I was staying with an especially generous Italian family, and just trying to beat the isolation of being alone in a foreign land during the holidays.

Well, imagine my surprise when I was given a second gift by this family.  Dagmar, who had invited me in, presented me with a winter jacket as a Christmas gift.

Not quite the lucky burlap jacket.  No, it became something else.

I was truly welcomed in the homes of strangers, and their generosity I will never forget.  I met kids my age, stayed on their sofas and snowboarded with them at reduced prices and with borrowed gear.  And a winter jacket.  Those memories stay with me.

That jacket kept me warm through two more winters, until it was burned while working on the set of Alien vs Predator in Prague.  Even then, I continued to wear it. 

I will wear a gift even if it is burnt, I guess.

I finally retired the gift after too many people made fun of me.  They didn’t see the same significance, and how could they?      

When I finally got a new jacket, it was a 300 dollar beauty that was stolen two weeks after I’d received it.   

And the next day the thief tried to sell it back to me.  But that’s another story.

In any case, jackets can be lost or stolen. 

But they can also be given when you really need it.


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Hungarian Lanterns

I’ve written before about my Budapest Blues, but I didn’t tell you everything. 

In 2009, I spent a lot of time getting prepared for my move to Hungary, and meanwhile, my best friend had a connection and was getting set up quicker and easier.  We had a plan.  I’d help her with money, and she’d help me land a job and I’d crash with her until my job came through. 

It didn’t work out so well.

I ended up kicked out on the street in a foreign land, not knowing anyone, and not knowing where to turn.  With money quickly hemorrhaging to stay in a hotel, I had to do something fast.

I’d been a turkey in Istanbul, now I was homeless in Hungary.

With a little research, I found a website that helped travelers.  A kind of community of generous, kind hearted people who offered up their couch or extra room to others.  If you wanted a place to stay, they’d give you a couch.  The trade off was simple: You had to be nice, tell your story, and share with them.

With strangers.

Eva and her sister, Edua, answered my call.  I told them my situation, and I asked for help.  Two beautiful Hungarians welcomed me into their home and put me up in their extra room while I continued to get settled while looking for a job.  In fact, Eva even helped me with interviews.

It was the generosity of strangers that saved me where my best friend had kicked me out.

And when I later moved from Budapest back to Prague, I also met strangers who put me up and helped out.  But, as I like to say, that is another story.


...

This story is about a jacket. 

It’s about being kicked out.


And it’s about a station in Hungary.

It’s about a passage from Greece to Turkey.


...


Sisters of Mercy

When I saw the images of the refugee children who perished in the capsized boat last week, I was moved, like all of us, with emotion.

I also thought of that passage from Lesvos to Turkey.  I’d made it on a fishing boat.  The same passage.  And I remember the cold water splashing upon my face as the waves just narrowly stayed below the hull of our small fishing boat, as it rocked violently in the angry ocean.  Mine was a trip of adventure.  Theirs was a trip for survival. 

And as I look at those images, I see only loss.  The loss of something special.  Something with it’s own origin, it’s own history, it’s own personal significance.

And when I look further, and I see the images of the refugee families who had made it out of Greece, into Hungary, I am also moved with emotion.  I recognize the very train stations they are camped out in, and I remember my own journey under it’s arches.

They crowd together, kicked out of their homes by their best friend – their own country.

Fearful, I am sure, of being at the mercy of others.

It’s times like these, when the world shows it’s humanity.  When the policies and dogmas give way to deeper instinct.  And the impulse to freedom is impossible to subdue.

This can lead us to be afraid of the stranger.  To be afraid for our own scarcity, our resources.  To steal the 300 dollar jacket and try and sell it back.  To kick out the best friend because you’ve got a war to fight.

Or it can cause us to reach out and give a stranger a jacket, and a trip down the mountain they will never forget.  To invite them in and give them a place to sleep in exchange for their story.

The world shows it’s humanity in many ways.  We may fight the war and kick our best friend out of our home, or we may welcome the stranger into our own.

And what becomes of the stranger?  They are no longer strange, the world is no longer cold, and memories of abundant generosity are created through your simple acts.

I owe the memories of my most beautiful experiences to strangers.  The very Europeans who are now asked in another way to see the kid without the jacket.

Epilogue

The same winter I spent in the Alps ended in Prague, where I finally established myself and eventually got my own apartment.

I went to a local bar and hostel where they screened films on Sundays. 

As I sat there, watching Kustarica’s “Black Cat, White Cat,” I looked across the table and saw a familiar face.  It was one of the Bulgarians who worked at the hostel in Rome where I’d left my beloved burlap jacket.

There, in some tiny little hostel in Prague, was serendipity. 

Here to teach me something, I am sure.

I spoke to him, and he remembered me.  It seems he had traveled up for a weekend tour and was now sitting across from me in a cold dark hostel that smelled of raspberry tea and grog.

I never mentioned my favorite burlap jacket, nor did I ask if they could mail it to me in Prague.

Instead, I zipped up the one Dagmar had given me, and I walked out the door.  I didn’t need a relic from the past.

I was sad at the loss of that jacket, a jacket that had shared the road with me through so many adventures.  But now, I smile because I know the lesson of the jackets.  


Somewhere, I am sure, a young traveler went rummaging through his room, in a hostel in Rome, and found the coolest, luckiest travel jacket in the world.  It was a stylish jacket, handmade my a Bedoin traveler deep in the Sahara desert.  

But that’s not what made it warm.

I’ve met the hostility of friends, and I’ve met the hospitality of strangers.  And what I know now is hospitality makes one not a stranger, and hostility makes one not a friend.  

No, the jacket is warm from something else.

I hope the next traveler wears it well.




The Journey Continues
TG




Tyler Gooden is the director of TheFCStartMovie.com, inspired by the incredible true story of FC Start.

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Service.  Not Just Making a Movie

8/25/2015

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Today is aug 25, I just sold my first art print.  It feels good.  It’s a sign of accomplishment, and a hope for the future.  I've sold a few preorders of the film, already, and we've had support through crowdfunding.  But this is different.  In recent weeks, I have gone from a mindset of "I'm making a movie for an audience" to giving something to not just an audience, but also a customer.  This all inclusive mindset has a positive effect on making sure they enjoy the work, and on the responsibility.  If I truly want this film to succeed, it cannot be just about making a great film.  Part of the results karma feeds into however I treat all aspects of the film.  The world works this way.  How one speaks to 'the world' is how one speaks to 'one's self.'  If you want the best for something, all that channels in and out of it is the intelligence of that being.  Whether it is a creative project, a person you love, or an endeavor.  Results karma is what you give is what returns. 


It is worth noting and remembering.  Hurdles were crossed to get the delivery overseas and affordable, but that made the resulting service all the more enjoyable to perform.  


More on behind the scenes artwork coming soon.



The Journey Continues


TG
TheFCStartMovie.com  

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Bill Cosby vs Donald Trump

8/16/2015

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Persona

The persona is “A kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and on the other to conceal the true nature of the individual."

-Carl Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology


A character is not defined by what it wears.  Bill Cosby wears the sweater, tells the joke, and sells you the pudding pop.  The sweater and the clean joke is not Bill Cosby’s identity, just as the fireman’s uniform is not his.

The persona is the reason George Clooney, Val Kilmer, Michael Keaton, and Christian Bale can all play Batman.  Batman’s characteristic is defined by the mask and always recognized in silhouette. 

You don’t need a movie star, in fact, to play Batman.  We know Batman is Batman by his costume.

But that’s not the same thing as character.

Batman’s character, like Bill Cosby, is revealed through his choices – especially in the face of antagonism.  The choices a protagonist makes reveals the inner character.  


The conflict is this:  We’ve been tricked by The Riddler who stole the costume and we’re unhappy that the costume is not the character, nor is the pudding pop it sold us.  


Id

Id is a word used in psychology to represent the unorganized part of one’s personality structure – instinct, basic human drive, the pleasure principle.  Id has no checks and balances.  Id is Latin for “it.”  


People complain about Donald Trump because he’s rude, crass, and speaks off the cuff.  There’s no filter, no checks or balances.  He doesn’t speak through the mask, he speaks through the impulse.

The id is the reason the narrator in Fight Club plans to destroy all systems of a rational society.  The id leads others into a fight against the persona through a dangerous path of impulses seduced by free will and enigma.

And yet, people are disappointed both by Bill Cosby’s false sweater and Donald Trump’s real face. 

So, we see the lie is ugly.  The truth is ugly.  And yet, both are popular in our projected collective subconscious desire.  We might wish this to not be true, but our attention says otherwise.   We pay to watch them both, never trading punches, but always in the ring together.

Ego


The sound for “I” is a variation of the same vocal expression in many langauges.  All derived from “Ego” in Latin.

Eu – Romanian.  Io – Italian.  Eu – Portuguese.  Yo – Spanish.  I – English    
    

Ego, rudimentarily, is being conscious of your own identity.  Recognition of yourself outside the illusions of the ring. 


Without a healthy recognition of our own impulses, and our own masks, we may find a confusion in identity.

In 1989’s Batman, Bruce Wayne has no problem telling a thug “I’m Batman”, but he struggles endlessly to tell Vicky Vale the same thing. 

Only when his internal conflict is resolved does the mask between them disintegrate.

And the id of Tyler Durden in Fight Club does whatever “it” wants until the narrator recognizes he is responsible for the mayhem.

Only through this recognition can the id be controlled.

So what’s the point in all of this?

Self


Somehow we find ourselves surprised when the sweater that sold us the pudding pop is discovered to be just a “Sweater that Sold Us a Pudding Pop”, or the impulsive no rules tycoon turns out to be just an “Impulsive No Rules Tycoon.” 

Somehow, we play to their theatre and we gasp in shock at just the right moment in the play, that we, ourselves, wrote.  We wrote the play.  They are a reflection of us as individuals.

Is this the one we want?

How about this:

Recognition is the path to a healthy ego. 

Characteristic does not equal character.  Neither does telling someone who we are. 

What remains after our choices is our character. 

And we should not confuse our mask with self-identification, nor our impulse with consciousness.

Please show us your I.D.


The Journey Continues
TG


Tyler Gooden is the director of the upcoming film inspired by the legendary true story of FC Start - TheFCStartMovie.com


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The FC Start Story

8/10/2015

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In 1942, during the heart of World War 2, the invading Nazis instructed Iosif Kordik to run a baking factory in Kyiv, Ukraine.  Khlebzavods were large baking factories churning out mass shipments of bread to feed the German army marching further east into Russia.

This protocol wasn’t new for Kordik, nor for the Ukrainians.  Before Hitler’s invasion, the most fertile farmland in Europe had already suffered under the other most brutal dictator in human history: Iosif Stalin.  Stalin’s paranoia and oppression led to a manmade famine in a land known as The Breadbasket of the Soviet Union.


fc start invasion of kiev kyiv
Kordik was a baker before the war, he spoke German and Ukrainian, and so he seemed the perfect fit in the bakery.  But the invasion had left him without survivors to help him. 

He was tasked to find new bakers, or suffer the consequences of not meeting quota.

But Kordik wasn’t just a baker.  Kordik was also football’s biggest fan.

Before the war, if a soccer game was being played in Kyiv, Kordik was there.  It didn’t matter the team, he loved the game.  Kordik lived and breathed soccer, and everyone knew it.  Always from the sidelines, he was always the face of the game.

Faced with the task, and without surviving bakers, Kordik's choice seemed natural.  Instead of hiring new bakers, he found all the surviving members of his favorite football teams.  Professional, star athletes, who were left on the streets to die.

These were minor celebrities in the city, but to Kordik, they were gods.  He may have saved their lives, but for Kordik, this was a chance to be in the presence of his heroes. 

But they now had refuge.  And the greatest soccer players of Kyiv would not forget his gesture.

fc start kordik dilemma
However, soccer players have a tendency to reveal themselves.  It must be an innate habit to kick a ball anytime you see one.  And when these bakers began kicking one around in the bakery, they did not go unnoticed.

Seeing another opportunity to crush their victims, the Germans challenged the bakers to a game.  They had no idea who they were about to play.

The great Aryan athlete, Nietzche’s supposed superman, the winner of invasions, and conquerers of cities, was about to be humiliated and defeated on a soccer pitch. 

By starved and weakened bakers.

The rest, as they say, is history.  Word spread of the victory, and the oppressors were now trapped.  If they were to execute the bakers, the bakers would be martyrs, and the Nazis would be remembered as losers. 

No, they had to win.  

fc start nazis
The Nazis staged several more games, but they could never beat the ragtag team of Baking Factory Number 3.  The Nazis even brought in professional players from Berlin, and even they were defeated. 

And still, the invaders had no idea who they were playing:  The surviving members of the greatest teams of a defeated country.

But Kordik knew.  And the people knew.  They knew what defeat meant.  They knew what it was like to never see your own flag fly.  They’d already been forced to worship their murderer once, and now they had a new one to serve.

Oppressors never predict the overwhelming power of desperation.

Here, on the football pitch, was the Ukrainian voice, coming to life.  They now knew victory, not on a battlefield, but on a soccer pitch.  Life had dealt the hardest blows and brutality had robbed them of dignity, and suddenly they heard a new voice, they'd never heard.  Their own.

The Nazis had unwittingly erupted a volcano.  They attempted to control their own confusion in the only way they knew:

The bakers were finally given an ultimatum: A final game.

First, they must pledge allegiance aloud and to the crowd, with a “Heil Hitler” at the beginning of the game.  Then, they must let their opporessors win.  They were told, in the locker room, “If you don’t let us win, that’s it.  It’s over.” 

They would be sent to the concentration camps to die.

To lose was to live.  To win was to die.

This is the game of life, is it not?  A game against death, with a choice.

But what kind of life would they return to – if they were to intentionally lose?  Brutality, starvation, manipulation, and allegiance to murderers?

What would they gain if they won?  A trophy?  Oh no, it was much more than this.  The only trophy was unseen.  It was a trophy that came from deep below, in the hearts of the players, reflected back in the hearts of the crowd.  A mirror only they could see.  


The only trophy was loyalty.  Dignity.  

But was it worth it?

fc start kordik kuzmenko
No soccer game in history had such high stakes as this.  This was the greatest game ever played, and these bakers must make a tremendous decision.  Lose the game, and walk away with their lives. 

Or win the game, restore the voice of their people, and defeat death itself.

All the answers they needed were in the boom of the crowd.

The bakers were so good, and they beat the Germans so bad, one player even maneuvered the ball past the charging goaltender, drove the ball to the goal line, and held it there.  When the goalie charged back, instead of kicking it into the net, he simply passed it backwards to his friends on the field, who carried it forward again and scored.


That's how great they were.

fc start game match of death
They never heiled Hitler, and they never really died.  Not really.  We still talk about them today.

Does this story not deserve to be made into a film? Would you watch it if it was?  Are you tired of the junk you see in the cinema? 

We’re making this movie, and we’re open to developing relationships with investors, and the audience that will help bring this to life. 

We’ll make it anyway, but I invite you to join us.

Perhaps you are a soccer fan, or perhaps you love good art, cinema, or animation.  Perhaps you care about the plight of Ukraine.  Or, perhaps you enjoyed the story I just told you.

This movie promises all of this, but it is about so much more.

This film is about the game we all play.  We arrive on the empty field, pushed and pulled by voices in the crowd, and we play.  Always knowing that when the final whistle blows, it won’t matter who won, it will only matter that we played. 

Because when it’s all over, the field goes back to emptiness, we will be gone, and all of our life was what occured on the pitch.  A game.

Join me on Wednesday during a live podcast with fanvox.net. We will be discussing the making of this film:


Join our Podcast Interview 


- Please leave us any questions in the comments for discussion.


You may also email me and I will send you a friendly reminder.


The FC Start Movie soccer cleats burning city
The Journey Continues
TG


TheFCStartMovie.com


Podcast will be Wednesday at 2 pm USA East Coast Time:
 
Podcast

For a friendly scheduled reminder, shoot me a quick email -[email protected]
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Sea Turtles

8/3/2015

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* At the bottom of the story is a link to the video I shot of a sea turtle's journey.

To fully enjoy the video at the bottom, please read the story.

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Prologue


I recently watched sea turtles hatch on the beach and begin their long journey out to sea. 

One of the sea turtles was feisty and determined.  Instinct seemed to say “As long as your feet are churning, you’ll make it.”  And so it charged across the sand, out to sea, and without a pause.

But the second turtle was lethargic and slow.  Perhaps, it was hatched too soon.  It seemed to already be exhausted before it arrived to the shoreline.  As it stared, aimless, at the sea, a cold and heavy wave suddenly smacked it in the face. 

The turtle froze in place. 

Shocked by the brutality of the world.

Only one thing crossed my mind:

“It’s not ready.  It’s not going to make it.”

But suddenly, another wave rolled up and swept it away in the blink of an eye.

Are we ever ready?

Trials

The sea turtle is not born just once.  It is born through a series of trials.  If the egg itself survives, the turtle hatches, only to be faced with it’s first challenge.  It finds itself immediately weighed down by the sand it is buried under.  Now, it must dig it’s way out of this second shell, until it has broken the surface of the Earth itself. 

Nature’s first obstacle.

It now faces a 20 yard crawl to the sea.  Disoriented in a brand new world, the turtle must quickly learn to navigate, or it will never make it.  With only instinct for guidamce, any bright light can send a turtle scurrying towards an artificial hope- the lights of a nearby hotel or distant town.  Distraction can be deadly.

The finish line of this marathon is critical.  In front of the turtle is the great race of vulnerability, when flying seagulls and scurrying crabs will be indifferent to its’ plight, seeing only a short snack that luckily crossed their paths.  


To make matters worse, the turtle is not equipped for this leg of the journey. Built with fins instead of feet, it is perfectly clumsy.  Unable to hide in it’s shell, the baby turtle is exposed, it is the perfect prey.  


Small against the world.

If the sea turtle makes it past this gauntlet of land predators, it arrives to a false safety.  The ocean.  Now it will face a violent sea, with her waves of confusion.

These strange waves swoop it up, only to shove it down, pull it close, then spit it back to the shore.  It’s as if her entire message is to say “you’re not ready.”

The turtle will soon discover there is only one way to pass her test.  The turtle must be at the mercy of something larger than itself, something it cannot control. 

It must learn to gracefully ride out the wave that holds it back, and take the favorable current when it embraces.  


But this new world is not the cradle it promises.

The sea is deadly.  With a 30 mile swim ahead of it, the turtle must face new terrors in the dark which it cannot imagine.  Predators with teeth, and fat humans with fat cast nets to feed fat tourists. 

Hunters of the depths, which swim with ease in the currents it struggles against, will all be waiting, lurking where the turtle cannot see.  These new predators have fins, teeth, and they breathe under the water, an advantage the turtle does not possess.

The turtle must learn to navigate this endless ocean, still depending on the air above.  It left the precarious shore for an even more dangerous sea.

And yet, the turtle keeps going.

Hatching.

Digging.

Crawling.

Swimming.

The turtle keeps being born, trading one antagonism for another, larger, and more terrifying one.  And what happens when the turtle solves one problem for a bigger one? 

The turtle grows.

And what happens when the turtle grows? 

The sea become home, the currents become a guide, and predators soon avoid its large and impenetrable shell. 

After years of work, years of surviving, years of hiding.

The turtle is ready.

Against all odds.

It’s Not Ready

Back to the shore, watching this second turtle gobsmacked by a wave, I expected the second wave to wash it back up to shore, drowned, its journey over before it began. 

Because I was sure it wasn’t ready.  It wasn’t going to make it.

Instead, I was astonished.  When the second wave swept it away, this once lethargic and slow turtle suddenly came to life.  It suddenly burst with an energy it didn’t seem to have while crawling toward the sea.

And the last time we saw each other, the once slow and unready turtle was fluttering at full speed across the water.  Out to sea.

Epilogue

So maybe that wasn’t a cold, heavy wave that had first smacked it in the face.  Maybe it was life reminding us that none of this ever has anything to do with being ready.

Adversity is a law of nature, but so is growth, and neither can happen without the other.  You can be distracted by the bright lights, or slammed by the ocean. 

You can take this as a test and wake up, or you can get eaten.

We might say this is unfair.  Only 1 out of 100 sea turtles will make it to adulthood. But fairness has nothing to do with it either.

Sea turtles have been doing this for 100 million years.  And if it makes it, the turtle outlives us all.

Link to the Video

The Journey Continues
TG


Tyler Gooden is the director of the upcoming movie inspired by the true story of FC Start.  People told him, especially in the beginning, he "isn't ready" and the project "isn't going to make it."  


They were wrong.

TheFCStartMovie.com
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Speed Painting Video

7/27/2015

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Watch a video behind the scenes speed painting for art direction.  Set to cool music:

Klimenko Speed Painting


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Commitment Remains

7/24/2015

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Weeks of development, planning, and revisions to design the bakery.  
Headaches to build the architecture to suit the requirements of each shot.
Logistics. 
Building the set.
Communication in 2 languages - neither understand each other.
Delivery.  
Wrong.
Revisions.
Months later return to the set, now used in scenes.
Flaws and corrections.
Animation and layout battles across 2 time zones and texting.  Hiccups to get the scene right.  
Logistics.
Looking at the scene in the edit, recognizing changes to be made.  
The set is not organized and technically optimized.  
Revisions conducted.  
Upsets in the layout require revising of each of 20+ shots.
References found.
References checked for authenticity.
Revisions made.  
Art direction.
Painting, painting painting.  
Hiccups in the organization.
Revisions made.
Nerves racked - resolution too low?
Revisions.
Materials loaded and preparations.  
Logistics.
Final looks, final fine tunes.
Not enough time, not enough personnel.
Nevermind.  Looks great, sour grapes.
Yea, we'll make it work.
Brain racked, how to light it.
painting, planning, painting, planning.  
Light breaks through the cracks with a few images.
'Look' realized.
Revisions.
Ready. 
Organization of each shot.
Logistics.
Communication brainstorming - how to convey what I know is needed?
Lighting Artist hired and ready to go.
Revisions of organization.
Organization ready?
I hope so.


Shots ready to be lit.
I hope so.
Scene ready to go?
No.

Lighting remains.
Compositing and render remains.
Mistakes surely found.
Revisions remain.
Logistics remain.
Communication remains.
Edit remains.
Music remains.
Dialogue final remains.
Sound remains.



2012-2015.


Commitment remains.


TheFCStartMovie.com


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Silent Victories

7/18/2015

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Once a week, I write a story in my journal to work through a challenge I am facing.  These stories are written for an audience to help you as well.  Stories come with conflict, but also with resolution. 

Usually, there are many conflicts within my project to choose from, and so it’s easy to begin.  But this week, we had several successes, and so I choose to focus this entry on victories, rather than challenges.

I’ve found that making this ambitious movie is much like climbing a mountain.  It’s always an uphill battle, we’re constantly surrounded by the thicket, sliding in mud, banging against the rocks, and with great difficulty to see where we are, where we’ve been, and where we need to go.  It’s tough to climb the mountain.

Many who know the incredible true story of FC Start have joined us in this journey, and perhaps they are a big reason why I find it difficult to write about conflict this week.  The cheers of others gives the project hope, and hope is the seed of victory.

But there will be no victory laps.  There will be no slamming of the football after a touchdown.  There will be no flags planted at the top of the mountain.

There will be no vain display to show we expected anything but victory. 

We will win because we did the work.

Victory will come in the silent moments.  They are small in action, but tremendous in gesture: Emails and skype conversations with fans of the project, cheering us forward.  New fans signing up, with excitement.  Seeing the work come together.  Finding new ways to give back to the audience.   Sparks of hope filling a vacuum.

Victory is the silent moment when my teammate came around and delivered what was required – on his own time, because it needed to be done, and because he is that kind of teammate. 

Victory is in the silent moment after a long day, when I paddle out to join my friends to surf under a glowing sunset.  The victory is not in this act, it is in the exhale. 

Only by climbing will you get increasingly beautiful panoramas.  

And no flag will be planted when you know another is just around the corner.


The Journey Continues
TG


To see more, simply join us: TheFCStartMovie.com


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Klimenko - The FC Start Movie art direction
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Art Direction.  Stages of development.
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New Art Direction - The FC Start Movie

7/18/2015

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Recent color script final from behind the scenes: TheFCStartMovie.com  - join us to enjoy a more intimate look into the making of this film.


-Tyler Gooden
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July 11th, 2015

7/11/2015

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New Character Painting Complete

7/9/2015

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New Painting Work Completed.  With animation finished, we are left with final art direction and lighting.  One step at a time is paying off.  
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For more behind the scenes, please join our community.

TheFCStartMovie.com
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The Heavy Kite

7/7/2015

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Overture

I’ve wondered before why anyone should value the work of the artist. 

I don’t say that because I do not value it myself.  It’s artist’s guilt.  When the desire of the artist to create something is so strong they do not care what the rest of the world thinks, it can still lead to guilt for doing it.  


See, the artist works from an innate compulsion.  The artist cannot always explain why they are compelled to sing, compelled to write, compelled to draw.  Usually, the artist will do these acts regardless if they have an audience or not.  But without an audience to receive that compulsion, it's easy for the artist to question it's validity.

The resulting guilt is probably what leads some artists into self-destruction and poverty, even when they do find their audience.  It's also this guilt that remains after they’ve asked their families to “please bear with me.” 

If one interprets the artist in this way, it seems as if being an artist is a burden. 

But that’s not going to stop them from being who they are.  So instead we should ask: Why should we value the artist?
The Single Serving Expense

Yesterday, my sister saw a giant kite flying high in the air.  It was the kind of kite you can see from 5 miles away.  She wondered aloud: “A kite like that must be expensive.  Why would anyone waste their money on that?” 

Most kites are broken by the end of a weekend at the beach.  They are not made to last.  They are single serving kites to keep the kids busy.  Fun like a ferris wheel.

So why pay for that kite that is so expensive, when you can spend your money on something else? 
​
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The Heavy Kite

I don’t know if you have ever tried to carve marble using only your hands, a hammer, and a chisel.  I have.  Whoever came up with the idea must have been crazy.  You can spend an entire week chipping at it and barely notice a difference.
For those of use who only see the marble, we see only the cost of spending our lives chipping away at it.  That big slab of marble embedded in a mountain took centuries to form.  Changing such a thing is very expensive, especially if all you see is a big heavy rock.

But maybe the first stone carver looked at the marble and saw something else.  Maybe he saw a drowning figure stuck inside, pleading to be set free.  If the artist did not take it upon himself to release it, that image would be lost forever.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini was an Italian sculptor who might agree.  It took him as long as six years to complete some of his stone sculptures.  That’s a lot of sweat, arthritis, frustration and study.  

But for Bernini, it was far more expensive to leave the image lost in the rock. 

It's difficult to understand that cost if we only see the slab of rock and not the image inside.  

But some of us never know how expensive it is to set that image free.

The Weight of Decision
​
I was shooting a short film in Prague a few years ago and I called upon some friends to help.   My cinematographer friend, Mark, jumped on board and we went location scouting. 

Olšany hřbitovy is a sprawling, magical, and antiquated cemetery in one of the oldest cities in Europe.   Walking through such a place is truly special.  Ivy grows over gravestones that date back centuries, looking  like the arms of its ghosts, beckoning you to come closer and never forget.

While scouting through this special place, Mark proceeded to tell me his own story.  
During the communist regime of the Soviet Union, people were not allowed to leave the tightly controlled borders.  Ex-Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) was one of those border countries.  The freedom of West Germany and Austria was mere kilometers away.  And although everyone knew it, no one dared speak of their dreams to leave.  

Inside the walls, you could choose between the red car, the green car, or the orange car.  One design, one shape, one image to serve.

You could be an artist, you could be a writer, you could be a doctor, you could even be talented.  

But an artist must only create work approved by the communist party.  If you were a doctor, you must be a member of The Party, or you’re washing windows.  And if you were talented, well, you better not stick your head above the crowd, where the guillotine swings daily.  

Better to not be talented.  Better to not be smart.  Better to not have dreams.

 Mark was 19 or 20 at the time.  We, who are so lucky, might say of people we know: “He had his whole life ahead of him to do what he wanted.”

But as Mark and I walked through this ancient cemetery, filled with those lives lived before us, he told me what he had wanted: to be an artist.    

An artist.  Under the communist regime.  It must be expensive to fly that kite.    

Artistic expression wasn’t going to happen behind a curtain where you only have three colors.  He would need to get out.  But getting out would even be more difficult.  To escape was treason, and traitors were shot dead in their tracks. 

But if life is the sculptor, sometimes all you need to do is let loose the scream.  If you’re lucky, Bernini is on the other side.  Or maybe you are Bernini, and the dream is on the other side.  Either way, the release is never simple.  The cost is never cheap.

His test came in the form of an offer.  The communists told Mark they needed someone to travel into communist ex-Yugoslavia to do some work and return in a few weeks.  

But in order to get to Yugoslavia, the train passed through Austria, a free country.

It was a rare opportunity for anyone behind the curtain.   If he jumped the train in Austria, he could disappear while no one was looking.   If this was his chance, he had little time to prepare.  

And at his age, he had a lot of courage to find.

Because you don’t just walk in and out of a totalitarian regime.  There’s no friends on the other side, no job waiting for you.  You don’t get to speak your own language, or have an allowance, a safe place to rest.

And you certainly cannot tell anyone your plan, your dangerous plan of becoming yourself.  The walls had ears that heard, and guns that fired.

But that's not what makes it expensive.

If you make this decision, you don’t dare come back if it doesn’t work out for you.  When you say goodbye to your friends and family, they might think it's for only a few weeks.  But you know it’s for a lifetime.   

Because if you cross the line, you're now the enemy.  Pursue your dream, you are the target.  The certainty that you've been living in a prison is clear when you know you cannot come back.  Returning home would mean imprisonment or death.

All of this was running through Mark’s mind as he sat there, talking to his mom, a day before departure.  He must decide if he was never to see her again, or if he was going to see what exists on the other side.  

She left the conversation, thinking nothing different.  And as his nausea overcame him, he made his decision.  And he vomited, courageously.  The courageous vomit that so few will ever experience was not from his decision, but from the recognition of the sacrifice.   

Mark told me that although it was a heavy decision, he knew he had to do it.  Young Mark guessed what Bernini knew: It was too expensive to leave that image behind.  To let that vision drown. 

It was too expensive to leave that figure lost in the rock forever, for no one to ever see.  Especially him.

And so he carved his way out.  Now a foreigner, with no allowance, no English, no friends, no family, no backup plan, and no way to return.  But he had a dream in front of him, a vision he saw inside that slab of rock.  

It was a dangerous escape.  But that is another story - and one that I hope he will one day tell.

Instead I am going to tell you about my friend I met on the other side.  The first time I met him, I thought he was Australian, not Czech.  He spoke in perfect English and with experience about surfing, art, travel, and cinema.  He'd made his way across the ocean as a merchant sailor and landed on the other side of the world. 

And once grounded in Australia, he applied for education and became the artist he had envisioned against impossible odds.  Now, he is one of the best cinematographers I know.

But it’s also why Czech cameramen now listen to him with respect, as he speaks in their language, using their jokes, and their understanding.  Because years later, he did come back.  He did see his family again.

See, communism itself had fallen under another kind of weight.  Another kind of expense.  A weight it could not oppress:  The dreams of human beings.

The Heavy Kite is not so heavy after all.  

The lightness of human dreams is too heavy an expense for our oppression to bear.
Conclusion

And so we return to the original question that still begs the answer.  What is the value of the artist if the artist is left with guilt for his compulsion to create, and the audience just continues on about their day?  

What use does the artist possibly have for the rest of us?

I believe the artist elevates our experience.  The artist says there’s something more in a rock.  There’s something more out there, something deeper to discover.  There’s more than just three colors and one design.  There’s an expensive kite visible for others to see, from further away.  It’s something that lasts, and not just there to be thrown away after a weekend at the beach.

A sculpture that was once a rock becomes a figure of beauty.  And in it's beauty alone, all of humanity agrees it is worth protecting.  We know this because people travel from around the world to witness it - for no other reason than the simple fact that it is beautiful.  It's this, our capacity for appreciating beauty, which separates and elevates us.

We need that elevation because sometimes we are not happy in the mundane.  With the rock.  With the ferris wheel and the hot dog.

Sometimes we turn on the tv and we see who we are.  We see humanity at its worse.  All these millennia to get us here, and this is where we are?  As vile, wretched, and confused as we ever were.  If we haven't figured it out at this point, perhaps we deserve to be extinct.

But then, sometimes we see something else.  Not just the statue, the image that remains.  Sometimes we witness someone who saw the higher price we were paying: The price of remaining a rock, an expensive kite, and the three colors mandated by the regime.

We see in the statue what we hear in Mark's story.  In the statue, carved from marble, only by human hands, in it’s existence alone, all the trials and tribulations of the universe have been worth it.  Because there is no greater sign that humanity is worth keeping around than in the art it has created.   

So the artist should not feel guilty.  No, it is we, who only saw the rock, that are guilty.  

When that sculpture stands complete, we will be the first to relish in our capacity for knowing its' beauty, but we will forget the price of never seeing it at all. 

Because when the artist carves his way out, following the urge and libido, and not the credo and the system, those very mountains that imprisoned us for centuries all fall under the weight of our dreams.

And we are left with a vision that becomes real.


Tyler Gooden and Mark Bliss shooting in Prague
Mark and I shooting at Ošlany.  Photo by Tereza Huškova
Sculptures by Bernini
Sculptures by Bernini


The Journey Continues
TG


Tyler Gooden is the director of the upcoming film inspired by the true story of FC Start.  

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Character Design

7/6/2015

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It's taken us a long time to get the project to this point, but we are beginning to finalize our painting work on our characters. Some of you brave and generous people pledged towards this project and received a character based on your likeness in return. Here is a work in progress of one of those characters, modeled on the likeness of my friend, Kim. Thanks so much for helping to make this film a special one. Join our community if you'd like more intimate behind the scenes access. More to follow soon. - TheFCStartMovie.com



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