Tunnel of Love — Chapter 4: Opening & Closing (2014) — Scott Ginsberg Concert Documentary

Tunnel of Love is a feature length concert documentary written, produced, directed and scored by Scott Ginsberg. The film explores the intersection of identity, belonging and creativity. Through live performances, playful and romantic exchanges, unexpected creative moments of conception and behind the scenes storytelling, Ginsberg’s film takes you on a heartfelt journey about what it means to be an artist, a romantic and an opportunist.

Watch the trailer. Meet the creators. Go behind the scenes. See the episode schedule. Download the discussion guide.

www.tunneloflovedoc.com

Tunnel of Love will be presented as a serialized, episodic documentary. The movie’s centerpiece is a live concert, so I’m premiering each song as a stand alone chapter. There are 14 songs in the concert, so the distribution timeline will occur over a period of 14 weeks, from September to December 2014.

Here’s chapter four:

OPENING & CLOSING

Shattered a dam I built in my mind
Tip the world on its is shoulder
Labor of love and labor of light
All this rational thought makes me so sober, my lover

We came through the door fists and hearts first
Stuffing our eyes with wonder
I stood around you like a windbreaker
The past cozy up and interrupt our future, you sir

When my heart is always opening and closing
There’s part of me that’s overly exposing

Now everybody’s shoveling for gold
You get what you don’t’ pay for
The future is the place where we get sold
With them tiny side effects, this complicated mess, we’re into
With sick sweet gratitude

When my heart is always opening and closing
There’s part of me that’s overly exposing

Nothing to fear
Nothing to lose
Nothing to hide
Nothing to prove

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter. 

[email protected]


Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!


Moments of Conception 122 — The Final Scene from Le Ballon Rouge

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the arcade scene in Le Balloon Rouge:

What can we learn?



Be there before the lightning arrives. Pascal’s balloon is the perfect emblem of inspiration. It has a mind and will of its own. It’s colorful and unpredictable and sprightly and graceful. Sometimes it follows the boy wherever he goes, sometimes the boy follows it wherever it floats. But he stays with it. And that’s the lesson. Because inspiration is the fundamental human survival mechanism. It’s the only way we can cut loose from the dead hand of the past, ratchet up our species and let the best have a real chance at us. But inspiration can be fickle like a balloon in the wind. The moment we try to catch it, we miss it. Because any over determined action produces its exact opposite. On the other hand, if we’re always with it, moving at its speed, as much a part of it as its own shadow, then it becomes easier to seize. Wherever it goes, we go. And so, our job as creators is to stay with it. To never to allow ourselves to rely on inspiration alone. To build a routine and ride it. To be there before the lightning arrives. And to approach out work with the right lens, posture and filter, that way inspiration can seek us out. Sure beats chasing inspiration around town, waiting for it to settle. Are you placing yourself at the mercy of inspiration or teaming up with it?



Where my dreams begin to turn outward. This movie won tons of awards and received overwhelming praise from the critics. Not just for it simplicity and humor and color symbolism, but for its poignant message about dreams and the cruelty of those who puncture them. Pascal’s dream is the balloon. It’s the one thing he longs and aches for. So strong is his devotion, that there is nothing that is not part of it. But his dream draws inquisitive looks from adults and becomes the envy of the other children. At one point in the film, we see it floating outside his bedroom window, but his mother will not allow it in their apartment. And by the end, the balloon is actually hunted down and killed by slingshots by a mob of cruel boys on a barren hilltop. If that’s not a metaphor for dreaming, I don’t know what is. Because just like the boy, we become devastated when things pop. When our one and only dream in the world gets punctured and deflated by those who feel disenfranchised by its power, it makes us want to drop down to the dirt and cry our eyes out. But that’s precisely when the magic happens. That’s when we look into the sky and watch as all the other balloons come to our aid and take us on a ride over the city. Dreams are like that. Once we commit to them, the world reverberates with the sound of our purpose. Where will your dream carry you?



Dreaming isn’t dead. I hated this movie when I was a kid. Our elementary school teachers played it for us every single year. And it always took me on an emotional roller coaster. First, I was frustrated that the balloon was just barely out of the boy’s reach. Then, I was angered when the bullies tried to pop it. Next, I was sad when the balloon eventually popped. Then, then I was inspired when the other balloons formed a colorful cloud around the boy. And then I was jealous when they carried him over the city. But I’m sure that’s exactly what the director had in mind. Delightful manipulation. Rewatching this movie as an adult, however, is a different story. Because now I understand it. Now I appreciate watching the boy’s imagination literally taking flight, floating him off into a feeling of escape and peace. Perhaps the was also the director’s intent. To remind us that there’s nothing wrong with trading in our smallest dreams for better, bigger, more colorful and more voluptuous ones. If you dreamed in terms of your potential and not your limitations, how would that change the dream?

What did you learn?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter. 

[email protected]


Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!


The Nametag Give Live: Handling Creepy Stalkers, Setting Healthy Boundaries

I recently delivered the closing keynote address at the BeautiControl 2014 Annual Sales Conference. 

I spoke to 3,500 beauty consultants in Dallas, Texas.

This particular clip tells the story about a real life stalker that I had, teaching a crucial lesson about boundaries. After all, if you don’t set boundaries for yourself, other people will set them for you. And then they will violate them. And they then will tell all their little friends that it’s okay to do the same.

Where do you draw the line?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter. 

[email protected]


Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!


Moments of Conception 121 — The Arcade Scene from Last Starfighter

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the arcade scene in Last Starfighter:


What can we learn?


The byproduct of creating value. Raising your fee is moot point. A more strategic approach is to wonder, what could I create, that would enhance my offering and diversify my identity and upgrade my context and grow my skillset and raise my credibility and strengthen my leverage, that would earn me the right to command a higher fee for my work? That’s how value is created. You keep adding to the collection. You continually engage in new projects worth pointing to. You seek opportunities that make yourself more attractive, regardless of the outcome. And your fee changes as a natural byproduct. Alex is doing just that. He’s an ordinary teenager living in a trailer park, cherishing the arcade game as his sole leisure activity. And he knows that if he wants to get the heck out of this town, he’s going to have to raise his value. Little does he know, becoming the highest scoring player of all time is exactly what summons the game’s inventor. Centauri shows up to offer an opportunity to travel to a faraway planet and defend a small planet from alien invasion. Alex, of course, jumps at the chance, using the tactics he mastered playing the video game to defeat the armada and become the savior of the galaxy. Proving, that if you want to get to the next level, you have to raise your game. Literally. If you were arrested and charged with creating value for people, would there be enough evidence to convict you?



Success never comes unassisted. Every creator needs a secure base. A reliable source of emotional renewal, nourishment, safety and security in the face of everyday challenges. People who can serve as the stabilizing influence in your life. Individuals who can help take up the cross you thought you were going to have to bear alone. That’s why this scene always touched me. Alex didn’t have any money. No career prospects. He was just a kid from a some flea speck trailer park in the middle of tumbleweeds and tarantulas. But what he did have was a community. Family and friends and a girlfriend and a mentor. His support flowed from many fountains. What more can you ask for you? And so, when he finally gets the chance to do something meaningful with his life, and he grabs with both hands and holds on tight, his secure base was there to lift him up. Yes, they were sad to see him go off into outer space as a permanent star fighter and flight instructor. But they knew his time had come. And they were proud to have had a hand in his virtuosity. Alex’s story reminds us that if we’re going to follow our dreams, we have to surround them with support structures. That way, we can to live our dreams as a thank you in perpetuity to those who shaped us. If your family supported anything you chose to do, what would you do?



The fertile soil where instinct and intuition flourish. Alex is not a creator in the traditional artistic sense. He doesn’t design video games, he just plays them. But consider how many thousands of hours he’s logged at that arcade console. That’s the kind of hardcore formative time that fosters dreams, informs what he does and lays groundwork for the years to follow. Alex’s art, then, is his useful combination of focus, patience, strategy, resilience, pattern recognition and problem solving. And nobody can do it better. That’s why he gets recruited into the fighter training program, so he can finally take the training he already has and apply it for the greater good. It’s accidental preparation at its finest. The experience of investing thousands of hours and gallons of sweat doing something small, that later proves to be the training ground for something big. What have you been accidentally preparing for?

What did you learn?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter. 

[email protected]


Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!


5 Strategies for Making Your Mark at Your Next Event

This post comes from my latest column at The Ladders.


Thousands of people. Hundreds of vendors. Only two bathrooms. How are you supposed to make your mark at your next event?

Simple. Spend some of the time making a name for yourself, and spend some of the time helping other people make a name for themselves.

Consider these strategies to stand up, stick out and steal the day:

Live the brand. You never know when your brand will need to rise to the occasion. That’s why consistency is far better than rare moments of greatness. And yet, living the brand isn’t what you think it is. It’s not about dressing for success. It’s not about converting yourself into a corporate clone. It’s not about memorizing some hollow, hackneyed mission statement. It’s not about puking your unique selling proposition all over everyone you meet. It’s not about integrating a sequence of promises that align with organizational initiatives. All that does is annoy the bejesus out of everybody you meet. The reality is, to live the brand is to leave no doubt in people’s minds about who you are, what you do and what happens when you do it. Do you have answers to those identity elements? 

Be disarmingly predictable.People trust brands that are predictable. Which means it’s your job to prove customers right. To confirm their suspicions about the value you deliver and the values you stand for. To become known for a unique way of interacting with the world. That’s all branding is anyway: An expectation. A shortcut. A predictable infection. And your challenge is to decide what you’re going to breathe into people, then sustain that spirit through every touch point. How predictable is your brand? Because every interaction you have with somebody either adds to, or subtracts from, the overall perception of your brand. What can customers expect about your behavior? 

Make the invisible inescapable.Potential employers don’t care what you know, they care how you think, and how your thinking will make their company money. The question you have to ask yourself is: How do you express how you think? The good news is, the available tools for doing so are both easy to access and easy to apply. From blogs to social media outlets to public visibility, your goal is to take what’s in your head and get it onto people’s radars, under people’s skin and into people’s hearts. Without that, your thoughts will remain just that: Thoughts. And all gorgeous gray matter will go to waste. And every branding effort thereafter will be nothing but winking in the dark. How are you branding your thinking in three dimensions? 

Be a mirror.Sometimes the best way to infect people is to staple your tongue to the roof of your mouth and let them infect themselves. In my leadership council, we regularly employ the practice of “becoming a verbal mirror” for the presenter. By reflecting their reality back to them, using their exact words, not by summarizing, we allow them to see themselves as we see them. In fact, you might even help people become impressed with themselves. What do you reflect back to people? 

Mood matters.According to a twenty-year study published in Time, emotions can pass among a network of people up to three degrees of separation away. “Your joy may, to a larger extent than you realize, be determined by how cheerful your friends and their friends are, even if some of the people in this chain are total strangers to you.” And so, moods are contagious. The question is whether you infect people with the right one. Consider asking yourself: When you walk into a room, how does it change? When you walk out of a room, how does it change? If you asked the five people who spent the most time with you, what one word would they use to describe your mood?

Ultimately, going to networking events and careers fairs is more than just being the life of the party, it’s also about bringing other people to life at the party. Don’t just make your mark, help other people make their marks as well.

What did you learn?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter. 

[email protected]


Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!


Tunnel of Love — Chapter 3: Cold Recover (2014) — Scott Ginsberg Concert Documentary

Tunnel of Love is a feature length concert documentary written, produced, directed and scored by Scott Ginsberg. The film explores the intersection of identity, belonging and creativity. Through live performances, playful and romantic exchanges, unexpected creative moments of conception and behind the scenes storytelling, Ginsberg’s film takes you on a heartfelt journey about what it means to be an artist, a romantic and an opportunist.

Watch the trailer. Meet the creators. Go behind the scenes. See the episode schedule. Download the discussion guide.

www.tunneloflovedoc.com

Tunnel of Love will be presented as a serialized, episodic documentary. The movie’s centerpiece is a live concert, so I’m premiering each song as a stand alone chapter. There are 14 songs in the concert, so the distribution timeline will occur over a period of 14 weeks, from September to December 2014.

Here’s chapter three:

COLD RECOVER

Late to the table serving crumbs
My mind is wide with such strange appetites
So right that everything else feels so wrong
Pound this foot in the ground
Let the neighbors fight on the lawn

It’s a cold recover, for this old belover
It’s a cold recover, for this old belover

Squeeze my nickel till the buffalo shits
Send my mind to its secret heaven
The futility of everything is fertile ground
The white hot smoldering shock
Leaving trace without a sound

It’s a cold recover, for this old belover
It’s a cold recover, for this old belover

On those nights when all the wolves they will go silent
And we’ll hold tight as the moon she will go howling

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter. 

[email protected]


Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!


Moments of Conception 120 — The Vibranium Scene from Ironman 2

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the vibranium scene in Ironman 2:


What can we learn?



Work is a gateway to the timeless. Howard was disenchanted by a postwar society that wasn’t ready for his inventions. The man was simply too far ahead of his time. He wasn’t interested in playing a game to wait out the world. And so, realizing that his son was actually his greatest creation, he built a diagram that represented the chemical structure of a new element that was the key to the future. Tony then synthesized the formula into vibranium, placed it in his arc reactor to end his palladium dependency and changed the world. And that’s the beauty of creation. Its seemingly miraculous power to transcend time. I’m reminded of an interview with a veteran actress, whose first television series only lasted for one season. Claire said, though, that in the twenty years that followed, the show had an amazing afterlife. It gained a cult following, made millions in home videos and merchandising and went down in history as one of the best single season dramas in television history. And so, it doesn’t matter if we’re making a chemical reactor or a television drama. Each of us can create work that lives on long after its moment of conception. Each of us can produce art that remains vital after the culture in which it was conceived passes into history. Does the theme behind what you do speak louder than the era in which you do it?



Nothing comes from out of nowhere. In a fascinating article about how to nurture a creative climate, Brooks explains that creativity hardly flows out of an act of complete originality. It’s rarely a virgin birth, he says, but rather of clash of two value systems or traditions, which, in collision, create a transcendent third thing. Moments of conception, after all, come from combining diverse references. Letting various ideas reflect heat onto one another like logs in a fireplace. Tony, then, is a master of the creative climate. Watching him restructure his father’s chaotic and fragmentary pieces of information into an orderly, understandable and conclusive insight is like watching a maestro conduct a symphony. That’s what makes him a superhero. Not physical domination, but mental combination. This is my favorite scene of the movie and one of the best uses of advanced digital technology in film. And what’s crazy to think about is, his operation isn’t as futuristic as it used to be. Jarvis is a form of artificial intelligence that already exists. It’s only a matter of time before each of us has one for ourselves. Assuming that technology posed no constraints, what would you change right now about your business processes and operations?



Your body will never lie to you. Tony’s suffered a severe chest injury during a kidnapping and was forced to wear an armored chestplate beneath his clothes to act as a regulator for his heart. Now he must recharge that chestplate every day, or else risk the shrapnel killing him. But because of this condition, he’s developed an exquisite understanding of what his own inner ecology has to be. Ecology, after all, is the study of the relationships and interactions between organisms and their environment. Stark is a master of that. Just look at his workshop, garage, man cave, creative control center and laboratory. It’s the one place in life where he is most himself. It’s the sacrosanct space where he’s completely free to direct the traffic flow of his own overcrowded mind. Where he can focus on transcribing his visions, subduing his thoughts and corralling them onto a canvas. Where he can manage his internal ecosystem and personal habitat. And the good news is, not everyone needs a billion dollars to reach that level of understanding about themselves. As much as we’d all love to have our creativity boosted by a billion dollar corporate machine working every angle, all we really need to do is pay closer attention to our physical sense experience. To increase our feelings of connection and aliveness whenever possible. If we can achieve that, there’s no telling what kind of new elements we might discover. What does your inner ecology have to be?

What did you learn?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter. 

[email protected]


Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!


Moments of Conception 119 — The Rooster Scene from Milton Glaser

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the rooster scene in To Inform And Delight:

What can we learn?



Make whatever you feel like you’re missing. Treat others as you’d want to be treated. Be the
change you want to see in the world. Two sides of the same philosophical coin.
Interestingly, artists have their own version of these maxims. They create what they want to see in the
world. The write the book they’d want to write. They make the movie they’d want
to watch. They paint the murals they’d want to see. I’m reminded of a podcast
with the principal songwriter of a multiplatinum rock band. Fascinating origin
story. Back in the late nineties, Mike finally got fed up of flipping through
the radio dial and never hearing the hard, aggressive rap music he so badly
craved. And so, he started a band and created just that. He made exactly what
he felt he was missing in the world. Because he knew that he wasn’t alone.
Sixty million albums later, his audience proved him right. Glaser, similarly,
isn’t just an illustrator, he’s a reminder. That if we’re not happy with the
posters and billboards and public signage we see around us, it’s our
responsibility to try and do better. To let our work do the talking, not our
words. Because the best way to complain is to make things. To invent the world
we want to live in. How could you leverage your frustration in the world as motivation to grow
into the artist you’ve always wanted to be?



All art is selfish art. When it comes to writing, I’ve always been as selfish
as possible. I write about myself,
to myself and for myself. I don’t care about being right. I don’t care about
being the best. And I’m not trying to deliver some systemic worldview for
people to follow. I’m just trying to explain my own life to myself. I’m trying
to metabolize my experiences, organize my thoughts and process my feelings.
That’s why I make art. It’s completely selfish. Because it’s not about the
product, it’s about the transformation inside of me that happens during the
process of making it. Like my mentor used to say, first you write the book,
then the book writes you. That’s what I always loved about this movie. Glaser
never cared about the label society assigned to him. To him, the core value was
always the act of making things. The transformation of the idea that he held in
his mind that became real or material. In fact, his most well known design,
perhaps one of the most iconic slogans on the planet, earned him nothing.
Glaser claims there were no cash rewards as a consequence of drawing it. On the
other hand, he says, it makes him feel very, very proud to have taken part in
that shift in the city’s consciousness from being indifferent to itself, to
realizing, wow, we love this place. Proving my theory, that we should be
selfish when we create art, but generous when we share it. What are the barriers
to getting your work in people’s hands?



Focus is a function of identity, not activity. Milton is one of my heroes because of his deeply
diverse portfolio. He’s produced work in a wide range of design disciplines,
including logos, stationery, brochures, signage, website design, annual
reports, exhibitions, interiors and exteriors of restaurants, shopping malls,
supermarkets, hotels, product packaging and product design. That’s inspiring.
And to think, it all started from drawing sketches of naked ladies for the kids
in the neighborhood. I’m reminded of another one my artistic heroes, who
famously said that diversity is not a business decision, it’s a way of staying
interested. We should all be so lucky to venture into various creative
territories and mediums and platforms and avenues. It doesn’t mean we’ve spread
ourselves too thin. It doesn’t make us a jack of all trades. In fact, diversity
is the highest creative form of focus there is. Because art isn’t about
hammering one nail all our lives, it’s about hammering lots of nails­­­­––one
way––all our lives. Are you focusing on
what you need to do or what you need to be?

What did you learn?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter. 

[email protected]


Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!


Moments of Conception 118 — The Johnny B. Goode Scene from Back to the Future

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the Johnny B. Goode scene in Back to the Future:

What can we learn?



Develop deeper trust in your own instincts. Marty initially auditions this
song at the battle of the bands. But when he gets kicked off stage by the
conservative judges, he starts to lose faith in his own abilities. He locks
into the pessimistic narrative that he’s no good, that he’s got no future, and
that he’s not cut our for music. Which is totally normal. Because
in the early stages of the creative process, there’s a
very real hunger for feedback on our art. It’s human nature. We’re pining for
validation and encouragement to help move the work forward. But something we
learn after shipping a few dozen projects is, most feedback is overrated. It rarely reflects who we are as an artist. And more often than
not, feedback is just projection of the insecure concerns and character flaws
of the individual providing it. In fact, if we’re not careful, an overabundance
of feedback can start to bounce us around like a pinball. And we can get so
overwhelmed by everyone else’s opinion of our work that the creative momentum
fizzles. Marty, had he continued listening to wrong voices, might have given up
on music for good. But traveling back in time gave him one final opportunity
trust his instincts and play the music he wanted to play. So he did. And he
blew people away. Even if they weren’t ready for it yet.
Are you giving people’s opinions more weight
than they deserve?



Never underestimate the audience of one. I’ve been listening to this fascinating podcast about the business of show business. During one
particular episode, the guest was an accomplished writer, producer and network
sitcom runner. When the host asked what his advice to young creators was, he
said, just do the show you want to do, because they’re going to cancel it
anyway. Wow. There isn’t an artist
alive who can’t understand that. Even outside of show business, it’s still
applicable. Consider the book industry. Over a million new titles are published
every year. Which means, mathematically, most books will be ignored. Most books
will fail. So why not write the one you want to write? May as well make art you
want to see in the world, since most of the world isn’t going to see it anyway.
Marty, then, represents the power of the tiny audience. Because his sole
purpose in playing this song is to get two people together. That’s it. Even if the band thinks he’s
on drugs, even if the rest of the audience think he’s crazy, as long as his
parents are slow dancing the night away, the song has done its job. What hidden audience are you playing for?



If size mattered, dinosaurs would still be around. Marty is convinced that he’s never going to get the
chance to play in front of anybody. Like so many young musicians, he struggles
with the universal artistic quandary, the longing to be heard. What he doesn’t
realize, though, is that life is only limited by our own prejudices. Once we
destroy them and cease to be at the mercy of ourselves, it’s amazing how many
creative doors fly open. What’s interesting is, had this movie been made more
recently, his posture and context and strategy would be completely inverted.
Marty wouldn’t be give record labels a second thought. He wouldn’t waste his
time competing in battle of the bands. And he certainly wouldn’t struggle to
find an audience for his work. He would have created his own leverage and built
his own stage and manufactured his own opportunities. Because the modern
creator doesn’t need tickets for the starving artist lottery. They no longer
have to wait for some invisible jury to stamp their creative passport and tell
them their art is okay. They go out and create a market for what they love. Not
matter how small that market is. Because if size mattered, the dinosaurs would
still be around. When will you voluntarily opt out of the
mainstream?

What did you learn?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter. 

[email protected]


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Moments of Conception 117 — The Inventions Scene from Honey, I Blew Up The Kid

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the inventions scene in Honey, I Blew Up The Kid:

What can we learn?

The prolific power of emergence. Szalinski might be an eccentric nut job, but the man is a
prolific inventor. He’s completely optimized their household, automating
everything from shaving to dusting to cooking breakfast to getting the mail.
This scene captured my imagination as a kid. Szalinski made me want to become
an inventor. But as adult, watching this movie is a charming reminder to
practice polyamorous creation, or the pursuit of relationships with multiple projects. Keeping lots of
interesting balls in the air. Maintaining diversity among creative endeavors.
Sound like an attention
deficit disaster? It’s not. In fact, the act of dividing your attention among several projects doesn’t automatically
lessen it. In fact, it’s quite the
opposite. Polyamorous creation actually makes the creative process faster and
better.
By giving yourself permission to spin a multitude of creative
plates, you
produce positive interactions between
endeavors. By allowing different works to bump into each other, you gain more
perspective than if you were only engaged in a single project. And so, the
result is a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts. That’s how
creativity works. Every act regenerates
the system. The more
of it you use
, the more of
it you have
. Physicists call it emergence, and their research has
found it to be the originator of novelty, creativity and authorship. In short,
if one and one makes two, you failed. Are you helping your ideas talk to each
other?



Everyone is somebody else’s weirdo. Wayne is one of the definitive movie geniuses of our
time. He’s smart and creative and well meaning and enthusiastic. But he’s still
weird. He doesn’t do anything normal. Playing baseball? Out of the question.
Baseball is for mortals, he says. And yet, that’s what endears us to his
character. I remember watching this movie as a teenager, standing in awe of his
faithfulness to his own eccentric nature. Hoping that one day, my weirdness
would be just as valuable to the world. Fast forward to twenty years later,
weird has now gone mainstream. Now it’s cool to be weird. Now the world
acknowledges, respects and caters to the weird. Now we don’t have to worry
about being weird alone, because whatever obscure thing we’re into, there’s a
thousand other people just waiting to connect around it. Nietzsche famously
said that those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who
couldn’t hear the music. Little did he know, technology would make it instantaneous
to find the weird people whodohear
the music. If they remade this movie, adjusted for cultural inflation, our
protagonist wouldn’t be the punch line of the joke, he’d be the belle of the
ball.What group of weird people could
you cleanse yourself with?



Use every part of yourself like a buffalo. Wayne has clearly created a life that makes use of all
of his gifts. He’s found a home for all of his talents, feels fully expressed
and is constantly firing on all cylinders. None of his assets have gone
unharvested. What more could an inventor ask for? That’s the definition of
intellectual freedom. Pure, unadulterated creation. And yet, he’s not inventing
machines for the sake of inventing. Every part has its place. Each contraption
solves a real, urgent and pervasive problem in their lives. Wayne is a master
of using his creativity to scratch his family’s itches. Then again, hedoesaccidentally expose the toddler to
his industrial sized growth machine, which gradually grows the child to over
one hundred feet tall and destroys the downtown are.Woops.And so, it’s a subtle lesson about becoming a victim of your
own efficiency. Not letting the creativity of our minds supersede the
practicality of real life. Because
ambition can get very expensive.Who is the
primary beneficiary of your creative talents and abilities?

What did you learn?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter. 

[email protected]


Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!


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