From Orwell to Clipse, 31 Jumping Off Points for The Work

FilmStack Inspiration Challenge #48

BIG question for radically-minded, future-driven NonDē filmmakers and our film-adjacent artistic soulmates:

If you could consult a contemporary catalogue brimming with heart-rending, peculiar, and often underrated inspirations, which could submerge you deep into your own unconscious trove,

Would it inspire your next creative era?

After (almost) 50 days of DAILY FILMSTACK INSPO POSTS (!!), the FilmStack community — led by the intrepid

Ted Hope

— has put said compendium together for you.

If you’ve never heard of the FilmStack Inspiration Challenge: Ted put out a call to everyone on FilmStack to drop daily inspiration for 100 days in a row as part of a 2-part organizational tactic:

1. To create a compendium of community brilliance, made possible by our lightning-in-a-bottle moment in time

2. To pressure

   Substack
   to finally give Film its own category¹ already!

If you have already heard of it: we’re doing this! As of this writing, it looks like we’ve got around 80 days filled, so we just need 20 more people to join us. DM

Avi Setton

to grab your spot!

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The unconscious mind is a clever girl.

For me, inspiration rarely takes a direct approach. It enters my gray matter, is all I can think about for awhile, and then I let it go just as abruptly as I grabbed ahold of it.

Inevitably, it shows up in my work.

I can’t even really tell you how exactly it shows up in my work. It’s a synthesis of style, belief systems, subject matter, and that ineffability that arrives when something just hits you.

Here’s where my mind’s been most turned on, organized by how these inspirations could be useful to you. Maybe there’s something here that could just hit you:

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For getting brutally honest about my writing and forcing myself to do better every sentence:

George Orwell writing with a pillow behind his back is the most relatable thing on the internet.

1. George Orwell’s 1946 essay, “Politics and the English Language”

2. Specifically Orwell’s questions (p. 279) when editing his work:

   1. What am I trying to say?

   2. What words will express it?

   3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?

   4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

   5. Could I put it more shortly?

   6. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

3. George Saunders’ book: A Swim in the Pond in the Rain

4. John Yorke’s book: Into the Woods: A 5-Act Journey into Structure

5. Christopher Vogler’s book: The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers

6. The Screenwriting Life Podcast with Meg LeFauve and Lorienn McKenna

For being reminded of how artistic, cosmic, and delightful it can be to hang out with an audience, instead of trying to control them:

The smartest person in every room, Michelle Pellizzon Lipsitz.

7. The Twelfth House
   Podcast and Newsletter by
   Michelle Pellizzon Lipsitz
   . Literally all of it, but some great places to start:

   1. TH+ Audio Course: More Lore Less Bore — How to Grow Your Audience and Sell Your Products

   2. TH+: How to ethically work fewer hours at your day job (so you can build what you really care about)

   3. TH+ Beyond Business: Six Esoteric, Creative Tactics to Increase Your Failure Tolerance

8. Ana Andjelic’s book “The Business of Aspiration: How Social, Cultural, and Environmental Capital Changes Brands”

9. Ian Cheng’s ebook “Emissary’s Guide to Worlding”

For finding my guts and vision when I’ve stopped surprising myself and I’ve started sounding like other people:

No one like her.

10. Nina Simone’s 1968 performance of “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free”

11. David Mamet’s book "Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama”

12. David Mamet’s book “On Directing Film”

13. Tangerine (2015) by Sean Baker

14. Any writing from the Transcendentalist Movement by:

    1. Ralph Waldo Emerson

    2. Margaret Fuller

    3. Henry David Thoreau

    4. Louisa May Alcott

15. Vulfpeck’s performance of “Wait for the Moment” at their self-produced, sold out, 20,000-seat concert at Madison Square Garden. (Hi

    Vulf
    !)

16. Jia Tolentino’s book “Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion”

17. Clipse’s new song and music video, “The Birds Don’t Sing”

For finding a musical engine under my work when I’m feeling like I’ll never have any good ideas ever again and I should instead crawl under a rock and perish:

St. Vincent and David Byrne being legends about it.

18. “God Said No” by Dan Bern

19. “I’m Just Ken” by Ryan Gosling

20. “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” cover by Sara Barielles

21. St. Vincent’s album, Masseduction

22. St. Vincent & David Byrne’s album, Love This Giant

23. American Utopia on Broadway

24. “Jesus Was a Crossmaker” by Judee Sill

For expanding my capacity for envisioning what else could be possible…:

Octavia Butler’s famous notes to herself on writing. And feel feel feel we did.

25. Joan Didion’s essay “Goodbye to All That”

26. Octavia Butler’s book “Parable of the Sower”

27. Joshua Citarella
    ’s podcast Doomscroll

28. Peter Fenwick’s book “The Truth in the Light: An Investigation of Over 300 Near-Death Experiences”

29. Scott Aukerman’s entire business model for Earwolf

30. Crow Tarot: 78-Card Rider-Waite(r) Style Tarot Deck by M.J. Cullinane

31. Being in a library. It’s the greatest place on earth.

Please please please tell me in the comments if you’ve read or listened or considered any of the above. Nothing I love more than geeking out with friends.

I can’t wait to see who goes next!

xx

Court

1. An important structural step to help us organize with more speed and depth.