ROLES

i had an interesting debate late tonight with Hans Kuzmich about the relationship between... hm how could i say this... the relationship between people, power, and production. ppp. meaning simply that we were comparing different modes of production, having both recently worked on my film, which is slowly evolving into having a more traditional hollywood production mode, meaning there's a prescribed work-flow and division of labor etc. it started out with a typical art-making mode = totally formless & fundless. now it's well, super organized with a lot of people involved having specific roles, and we have some money (very little by industry standards, but astronomical in terms of what I'VE ever spent on a project, TENS of thousands people). it's been exhilarating to receive so much support and to gotten as far as i've gotten, but every step feels perilous in the sense that it affects the direction of the project. i've always worked with a poverty of means - meaning what you make is determined by your scarce resources. so i'm learning a lot about PPP right now as i go!

for example, this is like something REAL new to me and it blows my mind: having a hierarchy of LABOR and CREDIT:

DAMELO TODO: GIVE ME EVERYTHING  

Directed by Wu Ingrid Tsang
Produced by Ernesto Foronda and Felix Endara

Directors of Photography: Julia Meltzer and Ashley Hunt
Associate Producers: Daniel Eduvijes Carrerah and Mariana Marroquin
Cinematography: Rhys Ernst, Mariah Garnet, Michelle Lawler, and Leilah Weinraub
Contributing Writer: Raquel Gutierrez
Contributing Editor: Hans Kuzmich
Assistant Editor: Jimena Sarno
Music: NGUZUNGUZU
Additional Music: Total Freedom
Creative Consultant: Matt Wolf

With support from Good Works Foundation and the Wexner Center for the Arts

artists also have conventions of crediting, but it wouldn't be so formal. and actually the art world in the end kinda wants you to just pick one person to get all the credit. i just keep thinking about the operation of ROLES here. as in role-playing, and how amazing it is.

that's the crazy thing about having a person in a "producer" role - it makes you (ok it made me) feel like anything is possible. i remember the first time i felt that way i was terrified, like i how do i decide something if it's not determined by a limit??? of course having a producer doesn't actually mean anything is possible - it really just creates a DIVISION OF LABOR (hottness) whereby "creative" thinking is separated from "business" thinking... i only recently realized that they could be separated. in fact i've always kinda flourished by having the two merged together. but working on something as large scale as a film, i see that it's not always possible, and it's actually really cool to divide divide divide... i'm having a moment where i think that producers are really magical - and the way things are going in the art world, artists kind of need them too! i mean i'm artist, i need one. you need one. you deserve one. i guess i'm just thinking about how more and more these days artists are more like directors or conductors with ideas, and teams of people executing. trueish? basically we need the infrastructure of something like hollywood, because in actuality in the art world people just assume that the artist does all this stuff by herself. and for free. ANYWAYS i feel incredibly fortunate that this particular project morphed into something (a film) that merited the support of two really magical producers named Ernesto Foronda and Felix Endara. seriously bless you both. but i mean theoretically we could all just do it! you and your friend can do it to each other! it's just a role geez...

we're basically talking about GROUP WORK here. and i'm not even talking about productivity mkaaay? i'm just thinking about getting together in a room to make decisions. i come from a tradition of believing collective/collaborative non-hierarchical modes are more radical. i still do and participate in them with like the legal clinic for example, but right now there is something really radical and exciting to me about the film industry mode actually. which is that in my long ass experience of group work, all of it collective/collaborative, there is always this attempt to structure things non-hierarchically, but in reality the over-determining structure becomes psychical- ie everyone brings their shit to the table and acts it out on each other. totally cool to do that but i'm just sayin'... whereas the industry mode revolves around highly ordered divisions and roles and like contracts and shit, so it's kinda cool cause it's got built in all kinds of financial, temporal, and emotional boundaries, ya know? just for me, that's really radical right now... hm whatever modes are out there? i heart al anon. can we count that as productive?

woa sorry for so many wordz and no imagez