James Kanka

Here is another little video my friend Jeff Asher directed and I shot for Mosaic.

Here is the short video my friend Jeff Asher directed and I DP’d for Mosaic.

Almost three years ago, with in a week or two, Danielle and I moved to Los Angeles, California; it’s been beautiful, warm, and full of adventure. Today, Danielle flew with Elijah to Michigan to stay with her family and tomorrow, I’m driving our stuff to Virginia in a truck. Before we settle down into a new place we are going to take the time to visit with our families. I’ll be visiting back and forth between Virginia and Michigan, looking for work and creating a website, while Danielle will be staying with her family in Michigan but still traveling all over the country for her photography business.

We’ll miss you California–you will forever hold a special place in our thoughts–this is where our first son/child was conceived, born and where he learned to crawl, walk, and say “Da-da.”

Eli says goodbye to his first home. (iPhone + Photoshop)

My good friend Jeff Asher invited me to DP a video he was doing for Mosaic’s Palm Sunday. It was a great time but bittersweet; most likely this will be the last thing I do for Mosaic. I really love Mosaic and the friends we’ve made but we are moving back east at the end of the month to pursue other endeavors. This photo is a still I took during one of our setups–the crop and coloring are just my play.

I wrote this quick teaser a while back for an idea I had. I was thinking about the future of science and eventually being able to counteract the process of aging and cell damage. Old people would rejuvenate and everyone would look and stay youthful with perfect bones and skin, free of cancer. It raises lots of what ifs.

If people didn’t have to die of natural causes anymore how would the world look? Would people have children if they didn’t need an heir? Would violence and war be less likely? Would the arts and science become stagnent without any new influences? How would governments control the population? Who would control this cure for death? What would happen to religions that see purposes in death?

I imagine the first couple hundred years would be pretty eventful–those that didn’t want to take the drug would die–but after that things wouldn’t change too much, hundreds of years would go by without much death at all. Then, just when people had gotten comfortable one man turns it all upside down discovering a purpose in death and self-sacrifice, choosing to grow old and die naturally while everyone around watches, suspended in youth. Would the society take notice? Could he convince anyone? Who would try to stop him?

I was kind of overwhelmed with the possible conflicts and conspiracy theories but I’m really intrigued by the story of someone choosing to die when they don’t have to. Someone choosing to live by the limits of their biology. Someone who becomes a hero by facing the exact same thing we all face, growing old and dying.

I’m not a great writer, but I’d love to see someone else take up this story someday.

I’d like to be a trendsetter.

Check out in HD.

Robert Krulwich: Why Can’t We Walk Straight? via NPR

“By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” -God, Genesis 3:19

We are lost without direction and guidance–doomed!

This video is a reminder to me the life we live without God, a small picture of our fate without someone or something to guide us. What I like about this illustration is that in the beginning we very likely head out in the right direction, and as we get the closest to the destination, say in our twenties, we really beging to sense the life our Creator had in mind–full of hope and optimism as we get a glimpse of life and it’s potential. But, it’s at this time that we also begin to drift away from where we should be going and the process of decay begins… until, finally, after a few loops (maybe a midlife crises) we just circle.

We need direction and guidance. Ideally, we need someone who has succeeded before us and can see what we cannot.  Strangely enough, to follow a guide keeping you straight will look insane to everyone else going in circles.  I choose to look insane.

On a recent panel John August asked for a question to answer via Twitter, this is the question he got. The response is very similar to the suggestion poised by Don Miller in one of the blogs I linked to earlier this week.

Lawrence Turman suggests asking random people for their opinions of your concept. Any panelists do this or is mums the word?

Aaron Sorkin cautioned that talking about what you’re planning to write can easily sap your enthusiasm for it. Stuart Blumberg agreed, noting that even one ‘meh’ response might scare you off your dream project.

Lisa Cholodenko said that while they were working on The Kids Are All Right, they hadn’t talked to many folks about the plot. Only after the movie was finished did an executive mention that she’d read a couple of scripts with similar storylines over the years. Had Cholodenko known there were competing projects, she might have had second thoughts, worried that someone would beat her to the screen.

I agree with Sorkin and Blumberg. It’s comforting to know that even some of the great creatives can fall victim to same feelings I have experienced. It’s amazing how important enthusiasm is to the creative process. When I’m enthusiastic about something I want to share it with everyone but as it turns out, enthusiasm is fuel for the creative process and when you share it with too many others you loose fuel and make the already difficult process of creating harder and less joyful.

Sharing your half-baked idea with others is doing a disservice to yourself and the people you share with.  People’s natural reaction with something new is to make it familiar, usually it’s something successful or something they saw as a failure, whatever is it, it’s not your idea… and they’ll put that on you. I can’t blame them, I do the same.

Somewhat related is this talk I saw on the TED site:

Basically saying, if you share your goal you’re less likely to complete it because just sharing your idea can give a feeling of satisfaction that is not dependent on completion. If you can trick yourself into being satisfied without doing anything, then why do anything at all? Seems like a trick Screwtape would describe to Wormwood in C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, and, he probably does.

Try to find satisfaction in doing, not in success or telling.

Here’s the follow up teaser from the stills I took earlier. Everything was shot on the Go-Pro and attached to the camera. Bill did all the effects, editing and voice over.

I love this, reminds me of climbing around and crawling through sewers as a kid.

http://www.undercity.org/