And I think that's beautiful.

Can I talk about Shane Koyczan and the Short Story Long for a second?

When I think about the importance of story telling over the importance of technology I immediately think of Shane Koyczan and the Short Story Long. This band if I were to call them that is all about the content of their music if I could even call it that. The first "song" I ever heard by them was "To This Day" and it was honestly its all just spoken word. It was almost like slam poetry. And maybe that's what it's supposed to be. But when I listened to this song for the very first time I was confused as to why he wasn't singing. But then I started listening. And the point of song meant more than whether or not he was a good singer. He wasn't even actually singing. It wasn't sung for a reason. It would've lost some of it's power if he had done it any other way. And I think that making music like that can tear the industry apart. It was about the content as opposed to how it sounded.

So how come we have a harder time thinking this way about films?

A lot of people today (and maybe it's because it's all that we're being offered) complain about how there's not plot in anything. But oh hey at least it was visually stunning. Why do we keep accepting this kind of entertainment? And I know I say this in literally every blog but why aren't we demanding films that challenge us? Why are people so okay with swimming in lukewarm waters? Don't people want to think abstractly and actually develop ideas? We should demand more. Because they need us more than we need them. We fund their projects. So we should want some sort of substance out of them.

With film its easy to get caught up in how it looks. Because yes that is important. But honestly I'd rather have a good story with characters that are real and dynamic than something that looks pretty. Sure its easy on the eyes but it's also easy on the brain. And that hasn't been getting anybody anywhere.

In the reading there was a section about making the technology invisible. And it's basically saying that your story is the most important thing about your art. It's not about what camera you used or how well it's edited or lit or whatever the heck else. It's about the content. And I think that is Shane Koyczan and the Short Story Long were filmmakers they'd know how to make it about the content. They'd make the technology disappear. They'd blow us all away. They'd tear the industry apart.