Transcript

Ce qu’on ne nous dit pas étant petit | Max Joseph | TEDxINSA

it's kind of funny that you guys invited me to speak about breaking the rules because most of my life I've followed the rules you gotta understand I'm a very anxious person anxiety you guys who here is anxious in general yeah okay I'm a very anxious person I'd say that I've most of my life I've gone through life with you know 75 to 85% of my moment-to-moment brain power dedicated towards worrisome obsessions right that I can't I can't pull my mind away from so things like the rules really comforted me like I like rules when I was in school you know doing my homework getting A's playing playing tennis winning at tennis being the you know class president or or editor of the paper these things gave me structure and allowed me to kind of free my brain from all of that anxiety right if I were if I was doing well in school and if I were if I was doing all these activities and that I was on the right path and I was and I was doing well and I didn't have to worry about that stuff but that kind of playing by those rules only work up into up until a certain point right and that's the point at which you graduate from college then all of a sudden those rules don't matter anymore it doesn't matter if you know you you're getting good grades or anything and so after school I kind of didn't know what to do so I went out to California to Los Angeles as if you know that were the prerequisite to becoming a film director right that's what I thought the rules were well if I want to be a director I need to go out to Los Angeles so I went out to Los Angeles and what I quickly realized was that once you're when you want to be a film director there are no rules there's no prerequisite to get there you don't need a college degree you don't need a high school degree you don't need to have ever made a film before you could be the CEO of a fortune 500 company you could be a high school dropout it doesn't matter it's just a total free-for-all and things like a resume and any of those things none of that none of that matters so it's been 15 years since then okay and my adult life has basically been an education in figuring out what rules I don't have to follow okay so let's just put a pin in all that for a second and talk about storytelling okay what are the rules underneath the rules there you go okay storytelling so I got out to LA and I took the first job that would pay me so I could pay my rent and that was editing and now I started editing when I was 15 years old and I've been doing it now for over 20 years so I've done kind of more than my 10,000 hours of editing and once you do that you hone in on kind of the foundational rules of storytelling right these are the rules underneath the rules of storytelling and they allow you to tell a good compelling emotionally satisfying movie story and without having to adhere to all the other little rules and I basically want to share with you guys the my three favorite storytelling rules and ultimately I want to use those rules and apply them to life okay okay so these are my three favorite storytelling rules and they all start with one basic question and that is what is a movie what is it I mean what what is a movie is it is it ninety minutes to two hours with the beginning middle and end is it three acts is it five acts you guys are engineer students a lot of you guys so you're interested in how things work right what did what are what is the underlying fundamental structure of a movie this is something I've spent a lot of time thinking about and actually I came up with an answer okay so in essence for me this is what a movie is a movie is a series of dramatic questions okay how will it end who is that guy will he get the girl will Van Damme win the kumite will Nemo be reunited with his family here throw out a movie who's got a movie just throw out the name of any movie what Titanic right will will their love be successful will he get the girl will they survive right your why do you stay to the end of that movie that's the question you ask well throw out another movie Fight Club will will Edward Norton's character overcome his his pathetic nature and and kind of become the man that he wants to be right someone more American Beauty how will Kevin Spacey's character end up dying because he says it at the beginning I'm in less than a year I'll be dead so all of a sudden you're thinking well how is he gonna die well what's gonna lead to him dying right so you know what this is all these questions that are at the heart of movies that make movies work it's anxiety this is how movies work all these questions make they plant little in anxieties inside of all of us that hook us and keep us watching to the end every movie at the very beginning asks a number of questions right and those questions won't get tied up until the very end so every movie kind of promises that they'll answer all these questions at the end of the movie which is why is this is how you get sucked into watching a movie when when you're when you're watching TV or flipping channels and you come across a movie you're in the middle of it right and it's a shitty movie you don't even like it but you can't stop watching you'll sit there for the rest of the afternoon and watch that movie because you need to see how it ends how will it end who did it why why did they do it right and then the the climax of a movie right the big finish of this is generally when the the big question of the movie gets answered right but the movie is not just over then because then there are a bunch of little questions that come after that come afterwards oh well what's gonna happen to his wife or well you know what's gonna happen to them now where they're gonna go live and that's the resolution or then new-mown so that's the first rule is that film is a series of dramatic questions okay second rule flow is king okay so what does that mean people are not data processors okay I see a lot of young filmmakers documentary filmmakers especially and editors make this mistake right they assume that if they have their characters say everything that they want the audience to hear that the audience will somehow digest it all and receive it they'll hear it and they'll understand it and and they've done their job as filmmakers right this is not how it works to show evidence of this I've been making a television show for the last seven years we've done over a hundred episodes okay and we have a lot of fans and a lot of them come up to me they run up to me and they go Nev Neve is the name of the other guy on the show okay no one ever says my name and it's not because they don't it's not because they haven't paid attention to the show it's that things like details like my name aren't well recorded when people watch a movie or a TV show the things that they remember are the emotions that they felt while there while they were watching it they don't remember the information so much as they do the experience of watching it right they remember the anxiety they remember the the laughs they remember if they cried they remember if things got tense they remember the relief right that's what people remember and that is flow and and flow is basically its musical as opposed to rational right there we remember we remember the music of something as opposed to you know the A to B to C of it this is the ebb and flow of energy right so when we talk about flow we talk about it kind of in the language of of sex and seduction we we we remember a suspense anticipation acceleration deceleration climax right basically it's an emotional playlist it's kind of like it's kind of like if you were making a playlist if you were a DJ you're not gonna put three slow songs in a row right and you're not gonna put three fast songs in a row that you'd be a bad DJ right you would when you when you make a playlist for someone it goes like this and that's what a good story does it's also kind of similar to you know the phenomenon of like when you're in a car right if you're going if you're in a car and you're moving at a constant speed and you're going dead straight you don't actually feel any movement it's boring but if the car's you you only feel that you're in a car when it's speeding up or when it's slowing down or if it's making a left turn or a right turn and basically when you're when you're in a movie you want to always constantly feel like you're in motion of course if you make a 90-degree turn and you go too fast you're screwed then the car will flip over and you've lost it but basically if you prioritize flow the audience will go along the ride with you third rule okay first rule was film is a series of questions second rule was was flow is king third rule is energy is greater than information basically when you're calling for moments or clips or you're trying to make you're trying to make someone fall in love with the character or even or even just understand the character you you want to follow this that that energy is more important than information a lot of young filmmakers will do this so they'll have a character sit on screen and kind of tell you everything they're about so when you're editing you actually kind of learn to look for the for the parts where people light up you know where they tell a funny story or they they refer to something offhand or they talk to someone else but it's like where where their face brightens up with all of a sudden they have energy right you put it you put this kind of like energy filter on where you're just scanning all the footage for energy as opposed to information because information we don't feel information it's its intellectual it's boring we want we want those moments where people light up okay it's kind of like is anyone here like an art student and anyone here draw sketch okay an art an art student friend of mine once told me that if you're doing a sketch of someone the best thing you can do is actually instead of just like drawing an outline like oh that's the nostril that's the eye and you're doing it all like in lines the best thing you could do is actually just draw the dark parts where the light is falling all the the dark patches and then leave all the kind of the bright patches blank and all of a sudden if you just kind of look at things through that prism you'll get a much more accurate representation of that person you'll get a much more accurate portrait at the end of it and I think that's the same way when you're editing and it comes to energy right energy is greater than information okay back to life so let's try to apply these three rules to life this was actually really helpful because again I wake up every morning freaking out about my life what am i what am I doing with my life why why am i so slow at making anything you know what am I gonna be when I grow up am i grown-up now what's the you know like why can't I be happy why why am I so ungrateful you can ask my wife I wherever she is I wake up every morning very anxious and so I was hoping that maybe taking some of these rules that I've spent so much time thinking about in regards to storytelling and I wondered if I applied them to my life could I figure something out could I figure out a way to be less anxious okay so dramatic questions right if if a movie is composed of dramatic questions that that stir up anxiety in us maybe I should just stop asking those questions what am I gonna be when I grow up am i grown-up now am I gonna be a good father am i why am I so slow why can't I just be like this guy who does four movies a year right those are all questions and unlike a movie those questions will never be definitively answered like the reason why we love movies is because it'll take a dramatic question an anxious question it'll work it from every angle and at the end it'll give you a definitive answer that will deliver catharsis resolution and ultimately peace and we feel good but life is not like a movie it's more like a really long TV series that asks a number of big dramatic questions that never really get fully answered life is fundamentally frustrating right and you don't get those answers so if I were to apply this rule to my own life it would be well let's just stop asking those questions so now when I catch myself asking these anxious questions in the morning what am I gonna be when I grow up am i grown-up now why am I so slow I stop take a deep breath remember that I should just stop asking these questions and I put one foot in front of the other and I move on it actually has been really helpful I came up with this a few weeks ago and I've been trying it and it's great so if you're anxious maybe just stop asking questions to yourself okay so that's the supplying the first rule okay second rule have faith in flow okay flow is king so if we were to apply this rule to life one thing we could do is take the pressure off of ourselves to make plans right that five year plan that you have I want to be I want to be doing this by the time I'm 25 I want to be doing this by the time I'm 30 and then I'm gonna be doing this and doing that [ __ ] that that's not a recipe for happiness okay you know life is weird and we it has a weird musical logic to it right and things and things take weird turns and you got to prioritize that let the flow let the flow take you a little bit right when you come to a moment where you're not sure which way to go listen to what life is trying to tell you listen to what the next chapter of the emotional playlist should be if you've just done something really intense maybe take a break for a little bit if you're if you've if you've just taken a break for a long time maybe now is the time to kind of turn up turn up the heat and and and really get intense about something right enjoy the ride be on that roller coast that roller coaster get in touch with the flow that is your life life is not that straight line that Abe that A to B to C to D if you did that it would your life would be kind of boring it would be like being in that car going dead straight at a constant speed and what fun would that be that wouldn't be a ride at all lastly follow the energy right how do we do this how do we do this in our in our lives energy is something you feel in your body right and unlike your mind the body doesn't lie and so you know follow the energy you know have you guys seen the predator you know that movie the predator yeah well the predator sees things like this okay it's very it's very not intellectual the predator just sees like body energy right body heat and this is kind of what when I'm editing I'm kind of like this is how I see things right I see like when when people light up that's a moment that I want to use and when people kind of get bored or just start talking like that that's that's something to cut so in life put on this filter you know it held also when you know whether you're choosing your romantic partner or your business partner or your mentor or your friends you know go go with people who energize you right as opposed to people who deflate you rate doesn't matter if you can have an intellectual discussion with them about proust for three hours if it leaves you feeling deflated afterwards then maybe that's not someone you want to have in your life my wife and I didn't speak the same language pretty much for the first three years of our of our time together and our whole relationship was just based on the great energy that we had when when we were together and it's worked out so far I think the truth is though that making anything is really [ __ ] hard whether it's whether it's a building or or a school project or of movie making anything is hard and if and if you don't love it if you don't have a lot of passion and energy for that thing if talking about it and doing it doesn't energize you then you're not going to make something good the things the things that I've done purely for money are the worst things I've ever done I would be embarrassed to even show them to you but the things I've done where I've gotten paid nothing or got paid very little where the budget was nothing those things those are the best things I've ever done mainly because I was doing it out of my own love and passion for it and for no other reason so if you're doing things because it's what your parents want you to do or because the you know it's gonna pay you well or because you know maybe you'll get some prestige at the end of it that'll only take you so far your heart just won't be in it and you won't be you won't be lit up so in closing you want to find things that turn you on right that light you up and you want to find other people in your life that light you up too and and again it's like it's this follow the energy thing and it and every time I do that and I get out of my head and I just pay attention to what's going on in my body and I try to try to feel what where life is pointing me and what the next chapter in the emotional playlist of my life should be and who I should surround myself with if I focus on the flow and I've have if I focus on choosing energy over data or over information or over reason then it kind of works out so anyway that's my talk thank you very much [Applause]