Film Courage: Story is the act of dreaming?
Adam Skelter: What the function of dreaming is and what the function of story is and that’s
why I repeated it several times throughout the series.
And the process of dreaming is the way we internalize information from the day into
our value system.
So we’re all composed of a subconscious.
The subconscious is constantly absorbing information.
Now we have to learn to prioritize that information or we won’t survive.
We can’t even navigate the world around us.
It’s a kind of psychological equalibrium.
So when we dream, we’re going through the process of taking this information, connecting
it to emotional values and weaving that info our subconscious.
And that right there is the fertile ground metaphor.
That’s where we’re planting our metaphors and that’s where they grow from.
So the dream is the render machine for our lives.
And so what we do when we’re telling stories is we’re allowing ourselves to experience
certain things.
We’re watching a series of events that have emotional resonance with us which is why it
has such powerful effects on a culture.
When you tell a story to a million people that’s imposing, it’s offering up a new
way to look at the world.
And then if we internalize it emotionally, if we sympathetically connect with it and
allow it into our subconscious and it effects the our internal value systems, our sacred
and profane, then it completely changes the way we see the world and that’s a really
powerful thing.
So ultimately when we’re telling stories, we’re allowing ourselves, we’re trying
to engage that subconscious part of each of us and draw it into the conscious and change
the way we have our value systems.
Film Courage: Can storytellers change the public consciousness through manufacturing
new stories or do you think it has to be in the public’s space to be reenacted in film
and TV?
Can we manipulate…let’s suppose society is on a downward spiral, whether it’s a
new breed of terrorism, whether it’s the effects of people’s isolation through social
media and being online all the time, can we infect…not infect because that has a negative
connotation, inject new stories that could change things?
Or it has to follow what’s already out there in the ether?
Adam: I’m a pretty positive person.
I think like the truth of it is the world is amazing right now.
Politically speaking, yes it seems like an awful place and people are behaving really
badly.
But the truth of it is if you look at the trends (are you familiar with Steven Pinker
‘Enlightenment Now’).
So read Pinker, read Chomsky, compare both of them, compare and contrast, I don’t have
any loyalties either way but there’s really good information in both of their writings.
Generally speaking we have a long way to go before we are genuinely healthy, robust communities.
That said, we’re doing really well.
As storytellers, we have opportunities every single day, even in Facebook posts or in writing
samples, or even in getting online and talking about your situation, profoundly effects other
people emotionally.
Honestly this is the time where we’re inundated with endless amounts of stories.
The image has never been more powerful…it’s interesting because since the Internet and
I remember being asked by this one student “Do you think illustration is dead?
Is art dead?”
Because it’s all online and it’s all about animation.
The image has never been more powerful.
Think a hundred years ago, how difficult it was to share just a printed image.
Now you can be constantly producing stuff.
When I was a kid, I dreamed of the day where we could find out about all these artists
that I was pulling from or reading about all these experiences that I had no access to.
I’d have to go to the library or something like that and I’d have to look through endless
amounts of books to find stuff.
Now go on Instagram or go on Facebook or look at different artists and stuff.
So I think the truth of it is, we’re in a really good place.
People are panicking because they are always panicking.
It always feels like the end of the world because we’re living on the edge of eternity,
like we’re right at the edge looking over having no idea what is going to happen tomorrow,
that’s just the human condition.
But the reality is we’re doing really well and when learning a lot and ultimately as
storytellers and writers, we’re doing everything we can to generate new metaphors to help us
go into the dark night…God, that sounded corny!
Film Courage: I see what you’re saying…and not only that but the preservation of images…like
for me I wanted to look up an old shopping mall that was in the San Francisco Bay Area
that I used to go to as a teenager and I think it had been demolished…it was there [online]
as part of the [Forgotten] Malls of the America.
And I didn’t realize there was an entire Pinterest group/page dedicated to it and I
could relive these memories that would be long lost…it brought out “Oh I remember
this spot.
I remember going to this Sears.
People had preserved those images, someone had put them up on a blog, so that’s great
because some of that would be lost had those images not been preserved.
How can we manipulate stories in a good way?
Not spin things in a bad way where I’ll skip current news events but almost like THANK
YOU FOR SMOKING but in a positive manner?
Adam: I mean that’s largely what rhetoric is.
Rhetoric is presenting information in a way that persuades people to comply with you.
But to me what really great art is and what everybody decides what they want to do with
their art, do with their stories and I don’t think people should be telling other people
what to write or what not to write, you get to decide how you’re going to engage the
market and the market gets to decide whether you are relevant or not.
But ultimately the stories that are asking important questions (challenging, important
questions) I believe bringing truth, challenging existing beliefs, challenging values is one
of the most powerful things we can do