Raafi Rivero | images and ideas

In Red Ink

Writing, which has been romanticized as a solitary pursuit, is often undertaken by teams in the case of filmed entertainment. There is a tug of war inherent to any collaborative process. In order for the process to work, however, neither side can be dragged through the mud pit in the middle.

The collaborative process can work in many ways. Earlier this year I spent time interviewing a number of rock bands. Some wrote all music collaboratively. Others depended on one member to write the songs while other members focused on their individual instruments and play. Still, inherent in all of those conversations was the recognition that some mysterious element was also necessarily at stake for all parties in order to keep the process engaged. One musician described band practice as, “where we all go into a room together to hate each other for three hours so we can come out again and be friends.” At its best, creative work is both difficult and rewarding.

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The Clouds My Sofa

For as much time as I have spent waxing on about flat, graphic compositions, vast depth is also deeply compelling. The thought crossed my mind as I flew home last weekend that sunset, as seen from above the clouds, will make a pious man out of a sinner — at least for the duration of an east-bound flight from Las Vegas. It begs mention that any non-trivial shift in perspective provokes contemplation not of the nectar that we sip daily, but of the whole fruit itself. Boom-shots!

The camera cranes up at the end of any classically structured movie. As it does, our grip on the details loosens. If the film has had any affect, we drift into the dreamy darkness of music and credits for just a second before we hear seats snap back into place and the velcro sound of sneakers on a sticky floor. In flight, this moment can glow for some time as the camera continuously cranes above the action — particularly when the drama is comprised of the sun’s final bow.

“Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.”

The Bachelor’s Party

He sat, with all the aplomb of a man crafting the Gettysburg Address, hunched over a loose sheet torn from a notebook. The weekend was to have rules. The first one, “have fun.” Years had hardened his body into a man’s. Present also in the right middle seat of row 9 were the deliberate procedural maneuvers of an attorney’s mind as he crafted his six item outline. Business being set aside for the moment, he joined the rest of the plane’s human cargo in loose slumber. Las Vegas would float beneath them all soon enough.

Alchemistry

re: writing.

On another tack: a wide angle lens can overly dramatize a photograph. Sometimes the effect is desirable; often it is distracting. In the second version of the shot, I backed up and zoomed in a little resulting in a more classical composition — straighter lines on the extreme edges of the frame. Which shot is better?

In this case, the distorting effect of the wide angle improves the image — a writer hunched over his machine — because his bookshelf appears to curve towards him. The weight of words on the subject appears to be more evident. Such are the many invisible choices available at any time to the person behind the camera. Hopefully that person chooses correctly when it matters.

The Writing Process

It has been 13 months since I innocently walked into the co-writing process. The illusory object, a screenplay. My writing partner, Gabriel — another technophile — and I have employed all the tools in the arsenal in service of that goal: not-quite note cards, Word documents, a wiki, a cmap, fulsome amounts of Night and Weekend Minutes™, and finally open-source software. We have traded turns making trips between DC and NY. Gabriel has also lived in three different apartments during that time.

A document has emerged, and twinkling on the horizon somewhere is the ceremony that changes its designation from Rough Draft to First Draft. Fingers crossed, breath short, nose down. There is more work to do yet.

Broadsides

Every so often the idea of design hits me in the chest like a medicine ball. The idea that every man-made thing we see — from the hinges on a van to the metal lining on a curb — was designed and built by someone to serve a specific purpose is confounding in its size. Further, every design implies history as every object is an improvement over an older less-efficient version of the same thing. Intent is something we experience in everything we see and touch — somehow this fascinates me.

Years from now, when I’m a famous architectural photographer or zoologist, I’ll have the rusty bottoms of trucks and vans to thank for teaching me to revel in designs that function in spite of entropy.