Change "Only Important" Stories with Facebook: Alien Encounters and Preserving the Future with Pizza!

Personally, I think Facebook is relatively a waste of my time.  I took a 3 month hiatus over the summer while interning and learning the raw food lifestyle at the Creative Health Institute.  Most of my communication was by snail mail and I used my cell phone very little.  That was nice.  And healthy.

I reactivated my account a couple of months ago when I needed to Share videos for a freelance job I did. Since then, I've stayed "plugged-in" and may be regretting it...

Facebook continues to lose its usefulness for me over the years:  I no longer need to find that drunk girl I met the night before during a party in college.  I can remember the majority of birthdays of my family and select friends.  I am okay with being a jerk for not knowing your birthday with my lack of checking Facebook.  I use to find "Events" useful... but after college, fewer friends use Facebook regularly to make an invitation reliable, ex. "Why weren't you at my birthday party man?!  I sent you the FB invitation."  The layout has become more and more cluttered with lame "Friend" stories and statuses.  And I don't care to learn the "New" features with each frequent update.

The one thing I find Facebook useful for is to contact the friends of which I don't have their email or phone number and vice versa.

By having an active Facebook account, I still get sucked into checking it on a regular basis to see if anyone's contacted me.  Afterwards, I scroll through the "News Stories" for that sixth sense of what my friends are doing far away.  

The problem for me is that a lot of the "Stories" are generally lame or from people I don't know well.  99% of the time, even if you're my close friend, I don't care what you ate, what you saw, what you did.  For the remaining 1% of the time, I want to read something really awesome like, "Crazy night!  Got really drunk, surfed a tidal wave, and ate the raw meat of a shark after killing it with my bear hands!!!!!!!!!!!! :)"  I also want that Status Update followed with an Event invitation to have a bonfire on the beach with a bunch of friends to eat the remaining shark meat while playing drums and dancing with the shark jaws. 

Just the other day, I couldn't find any cool shark stories on Facebook because the Detroit Lions beat the Dallas Cowboys and are undefeated.  I don't have to watch football to know that.  A hundred people told me that with their Status Update.  In an effort to find a good shark story, I made another effort to Unsubscribe from the Stories of people I don't know well enough and/or care.  

It was at this point I discovered a new Facebook feature that gave me more options of how I can Subscribe to this crappy content: "All Updates, Most Updates, or Only Important."  It was the third option that made me laugh!  "Most Important."  Really?!  Come on Facebook!  I know you're company is worth millions or billions of dollars, but this "Most Important" feature seems a little self righteous.  I don't think I've ever read any "News" or anything of real importance via a Facebook Update.  They certainly might exist, but they're at the bottom of the list of drunken photos from the night before and what people ate afterwards.

Actually, this "Most Important" could be a great idea!  If I Subscribe to only the "Most Important" updates from all of my "Friends," I can then find out those who I should absolutely avoid.  I'm very sorry to say this, but if I read that you have eaten a pizza and that is the most important thing you can tell me... Well, I'm gonna stop being your friend, both on the internet and in real life. 

I'm not counting myself out on all of this either.  I certainly contribute my fair share of links and status updates to clog the toilet of information which is the internet.  I still contribute wasteful tweets and links about how I'm running, or eating raw food, or blah blah...

At this point I'm not sure where I'm going... So I travel 88 m.p.h far into the future while reflecting on all this rather lame information being archived on some crazy giant Google server.  Here, I meet an alien riding a hover board around a Google server that stands alone amongst mountains of concrete debris and bent steel.  I look to the alien, whom I've never met, and he or she says, "Welcome Lazer!"  

How does this fricking alien know my name?  Before I can ponder the question, the alien feeds me an entire pizza, 10 shots of booze, and takes a 100 photos of me while I vomit.  What the fuck was that for alien?  Hiccup!  The alien captures my vomit in a large glass vile, straps it to his back, and pulls me onto his hover board.  We fly towards an enormous starship and the alien explains:

I need to keep you alive!  I'm well informed about your subsistence on pizza and alcohol along with your necessity of self documentation.  We've got lots of questions for you!

My skin tans from the bright entrance light of the starship.

I'm an anthropologist and I've been studying the human race for millennia.  We recently discovered this artifact on Earth that we call Google.  From it, we've collected countless data.  We've been very fortunate in our research to uncover your Facebook!

Inside the starship, I'm lead into a large cathedral with thousands of aliens and one giant alien on a thrown at the top of a thousand stairs.

Please proceed to our Leader.

I stare at the alien while trying to process all of this information.  He or she pushes me forward and I now stand at the steps before their Leader.  He or She begins:

Mr. Lazer, I'm impressed we have found you!  Although the human species discovered time travel, very few of you have made an attempt to use it.  You were all too busy documenting your present that you forgot about the past and stopped looking towards the future.  We thank you for coming!

In an instant, the Leader flies down the thousand stairs feeds me an entire pizza, 10 shots of booze, and takes a 100 photos while I vomit again.  Before I can wipe my mouth, he returns to his thrown at the speed of light.

Your Facebook, Mr. Lazer, is the most impressive document we have read among any other species.  It's more important than anything our ownkind has authored.  The last generation of humankind successfully destroyed planet Earth while documenting every single detail leading up to it.  From this authoritative document, authored by every member of your species, we have insight into the last living day of Earth: We know what each of you was doing, what you liked, what you ate, what you thought, what you were feeling, what you looked like- it is truly incredible!

The Facebook, Mr. Lazer, is like a religious text or philosophy for our species.  It offers us all of the insight and knowledge on how not to live.  Humankind destroyed its very own environment that it created and the Facebook tells us exactly how you did it.  Our species learned the secret to surviving happily and sustainably by doing the opposite of what the Facebook says.  In doing so, our species and millions of others have inhabited millions of planets for millions of years.  We thank you for your contribution to the Facebook.  It has saved millions of lives.

Whoah!!!  Facebook is very important I guess.  I never looked at it that way...

Can you tell us more about the original Creator, Mark Zuckerberg?

Ummm... well I never personally met him, like in physical person you know... I think there were a few more than he... at least originally... Did you happen to see the film The Social Network?

Oh yes, the Mr. David film, very interesting indeed!  We've only seen select scenes though... We uncovered a scratched Blu-Ray disk under remnants of Arizona... Tell us more!

Well, I saw it at the theater and-

Was there popcorn?

Well yes, there was-

Tell us, what is popcorn really like?

Well, it's like popped kernels usually covered in butter and salt that you eat-

Oh, are you hungry again?

Before I can reply, the leader flies down the stairs, stuffs me with another pizza, and 10 shots.  I'm not sure if he takes my photos or if I vomit because at that point I black out.

Now I'm hungover, trying to collect my thoughts and finish this blog entry.

Lately, I was thinking that Facebook can be pretty dumb along with the people, including myself, that contribute to it. I thought that the quality of our lives may suffer from the use of Facebook and other lame technology and communication.  I thought we are creating an exponentially growing clutter of crappy pointless information.  I wanted to at least inspire myself and others to create better lives for themselves and better content or "Stories" that we share via Facebook, Twitter, etc.  

Now I realize that I may be wrong.  Every bit of information we share on the internet that may be dumb and useless now... will be very important to the survival of aliens and the Universe in the far future!

So... If you want to eat a pizza, go for it!  And please tell me about it via Facebook and Twitter.  And know this: For every person that "Like"s you eating pizza, one alien will be saved!

Change in Film: Purpose, Value, and Waste

[WARNING: The following may only interest filmmakers or critical thinkers.  Basically, I consumed a ridiculous number of awful films that made me seriously consider the production of my own films and others.  This is a long rant that is partly analytical, theoretical, critical, philosophical, and self-reflecting.]

This past week marked the end of my pre-screening process for the Ann Arbor Film Festival. Over the last two months, I have watched 320 films, narrative and documentary, that were submitted for consideration in the 48th AAFF which will take place March 23-28, 2010 at The Historic Michigan Theater. Of those 320 films, I recommended approximately 40 to the next round of screening with only five or six films that I really liked- thank you to those few filmmakers.

This long exhaustive process has changed some of my ideas about filmmaking and the types of films I want to make.

First off, I don’t think the majority of filmmakers ever intend to make a bad film. But let’s face it: bad films happen. It’s really hard to make a good film and it takes almost a miracle to make a great film.

Regardless if it awesome or god awful, a majority of films take a lot of time, money, and energy.

So before funds are raised and the camera starts rolling, filmmakers should ask themselves, “Why am I making this film?” It seems self-explanatory but I’m not so sure after watching hundreds of films made within the last year.

After some contemplative thought, I have devised a few main categories that describe the purpose of the filmmaker to participate in film production along with the purpose of the viewer or audience to participate in film consumption. [For this discussion, the filmmaker is the primary person responsible for the creation of the film. The categories can be extended to additional filmmakers and crew members necessary for film production but it is not the primary interest of the discussion.]

These categories are interchangeable in many cases and most filmmakers, films, and viewers have multiple purposes although there may be a primary purpose.  For example, the purpose of a film like Farenheit 9/11 may have been political, but it also made a ridiculous amount of money.  Who knows whether or not that was Michael Moore's purpose too or just an accidental end?


PURPOSES OF FILMMAKERS AND FILM PRODUCTION

1. Money. The purpose is to make money. The content of the film does not matter. The film can be Citizen Kane or really dirty pornography- as long as it makes money.

2. Entertainment. The purpose is to entertain an audience. The filmmaker may also experience pleasure and amusement in doing so and may experience similar pleasure in the making of the film itself. So there is entertaining the audience, and entertaining oneself. Entertainment can be commercial, artistic or both.

3. Art. The purpose is to explore film as an art form and push its boundaries.

4. Social. The purpose is to explore social issues. It may be the intention to raise audience awareness on the issues at hand. The content of the film can vary from private and personal to global matters. Social factors may also participate in film production and not just the film itself.

5. Political. The purpose is to explore, expose, or propagate political issues. It may be the intention to influence the political views of the audience.

6. Education and Experience. The purpose is to educate an audience. Also, the filmmaker will mostly likely gain knowledge and experience from the production of the film itself.


PURPOSES OF THE VIEWER, AUDIENCE AND FILM CONSUMPTION

1. Entertainment. The purpose is to entertain oneself. The kind of pleasure varies greatly from the type of film, the type of viewer, and the type of consumption. Pleasure may not even be dependent on the film itself, only the type of consumption. For example, teenagers may go to a movie theater to get away from their parents and make-out with their significant others. What is on the screen is insignificant.

2. Art. The purpose is to view film as an art form, see its boundaries being pushed, and enlighten one’s experience and understanding of film and art.

3. Social. The purpose is to gain insight, knowledge and/or understanding of the social issues the film addresses.

4. Political. The purpose is to gain insight, knowledge, and/or understanding of the political issues the film addresses.

5. Educational. The purpose is to gain general knowledge and insight of a particular interest.


VALUE

Each purpose for film production merits a particular value. Value describes the worth, importance, or usefulness of producing a film. Although value is somewhat subjective, most would agree that certain purposes have higher value than others. For example: a documentary may merit social value for raising awareness of a global concern. A simple comedy may merit value in its ability to entertain. Although the latter has an important function in society, one would not argue the greater value of the former.


FILMMAKER EXECUTION AND AUDIENCE RECEPTION

The purpose of filmmakers and film production should be distinguished from the purpose of the film itself. The purpose of the film itself is related to both the filmmaker and audience. If the filmmaker’s efforts are well executed, their purpose may continue with the film itself. For example, if a filmmaker’s primary purpose is to make an entertaining film, and the production of the film is well executed, then the film may be entertaining. There is then the possibility that the film, with its purpose to entertain, may entertain a viewer whose purpose for consuming the film is to be entertained. However, if the production of the film is not well executed, the film may not be entertaining and may not entertain the viewer. If the primary purpose for producing a film is not met by the film itself, it may have little to no value for existence or for an audience.


NARRATIVE AND DOCUMENTARY

Based on quantity and not quality, it seems the primary purpose of most narrative film production is to entertain while the primary purpose of most documentary film is social, political, or educational.

A poorly executed narrative film that does not entertain yields little to no value for its primary purpose of production. However, a poorly executed documentary film that does not adequately engage its topic still seems to yield some value. Perhaps its because the original purpose could be considered of higher value and the act of partaking in a documentary film production raises awareness, however small, to its topic or cause.


VALUE VS. COST

A film’s value should be weighed against its cost. It takes a lot of time, energy, and resources to make a film. If the end product has little to no value, then the film and its production is waste and the filmmaker could be considered wasteful for that matter. Filmmakers with a primary purpose to make money understand this concept quite well: if the cost to produce a film is greater than its revenue, it has lost or wasted money and was not worth the effort.


CONCLUSION

I enjoy nearly all types of films for a variety of reasons. I see value in each purpose of film production and consumption. I do not necessarily think particular genres of films have more value than others. I think creativity determines that. Unfortunately, a majority of narrative films are unoriginal and a waste of time and resources. The only time a cliché melodrama makes me cry is during the end credits, knowing that a lot of money, people and energy were used to create a lot of waste.

I’ve begun to think that I, myself, may have a greater purpose by pursuing documentary filmmaking whereas I once thought I would become a director of narrative features. The lifestyle of a documentary filmmaker seems more engaging, active, and appealing right now.  Especially if there are some travel perks...

Who knows what I'll ultimately do or become.  I’ve labeled this last section “Conclusion” but I have yet to get to the bottom of anything...

If you bothered to read all of this, thank you!  I would appreciate any feedback.  If you think this blog post sucks, let me know.  I apologize and will try better next time.  At least the production of blogs post uses little resources and only wastes my time and yours.  If I had produced a film about this instead, I would have wasted several people's time, money, and resources and that would have been devastating.