The Productivity Series - How to Do A Lot In 48 Hours
Part One: Caffeine Management
Words by Dirk Calloway
This is a new series, aimed at finding the right corners to cut, when trying to get something completed. I'm no expert, but - as someone who juggles one career in IT and another (much less demanding) professional role running film screenings in Wellington; whilst regularly playing live rock gigs; recording an album; and making my own films too - I think I've learned a few tricks that might be of assistance to other creative folk out there.
The inspiration for this series stems from the V 48 Hours filmmaking competition. I've entered it annually since since 2006. It's a competition that gives you a few compulsory elements (genre, prop, line of dialogue, character, and cinematic technique to include) on a Friday evening and expects you to return with a completed short-film featuring those elements by Sunday night. Since 2008, I've attempted to complete my movie using the medium of animation. This is, obviously, a fairly stupid thing to do. It took Disney six years to make the film Tangled; it's not easy to make cartoons quickly. Just for giggles, I make things more complex for myself by doing it all solo. Again, pretty stupid of me. For an idea of how stupid it is, pay attention to The Simpsons' end-credits next time its on TV: there's usually an army of Korean animators involved in making 2D images 'move' and 'talk' to each other.
So, how do I get this all done? There is always a corner to be cut, and as a consequence, I've somehow managed to limp 3 minutes' footage over the finishing line each year. For the next few posts on this site, I'm going to explore my favourite short-cuts. Hopefully reading the series will help you boost your own creative productivity as a result. Today's post is about.... caffeine management.
Got a deadline? Need to decrease your intraocular pressure, but increase your level of alertness? Well, that's your problem, and it's not going to be fixed by drinking a plunger's worth of coffee every hour. Don't get me wrong, you can dose up if you've only got a short run to the finishing line, but if you're 48 hours away from completion, you're gonna need to manage your caffeine intake. There are three important time periods to take note of with this drug:
45 minutes after ingestion your body's finally absorbed it
An hour after that first sip, your blood has reached peak caffeination-saturation. From there, it's a downhill glide....
5 hours after you put your mug down, your body has still only removed one half of the caffeine you ingested.
When I'm making a movie over the space of one weekend, I aim to always have half a coffee's worth of caffeine inside me. If it takes 5 hours to get to that place, that means I have to use a simple equation:
In my case, I find that in 48 hours I'm only allowed to consume 9.6 cups of my favourite beverage. No more than that. Apply this formula next time you're in a bind and tied to a desk, and your body will thank you for it!
Hi. Normal service has nearly resumed. For one last hurrah, we're going to re-cap on the past month, where I undertook a daily challenge of review my chosen Top 20 Albums of 2010. Rather than force you to trawl through them all, I thought it'd be cool to list them in one place, along with links to each of their reviews. I also thought it'd be cool to do some statistical analysis afterwards.So, without further ado, let's get into it...
And, because I find it to be an illuminating way of seeing 'range' in a person's music taste, here's the dominant gender breakdown of vocalists:
And here's a few miscellaneous statistics, which could act as a guide for 'the perfect album' if you're an aspiring artist out there making your debut:
Average length of track on the albums: 4:09
Average length of the albums themselves: 46 minutes
Preface: you're reading the final post in a daily series I've been writing on the best albums of 2010. It took me until April 2011 to start writing them, because I needed a bit of time for my opinions to percolate. I've actively listened to around 81 records from last year, and these 20 have been the cream of the crop. Today's a special post, because it's about the Album of the Year, but if it's not your cup of tea, perhaps you'd enjoy reading about the others here.
Do me a favour? Kindly look at the album cover above? Ordinary geometric shapes are skewed; the ocean's waves look like a giant Firefox; a creature with eight eyes is surfing over foam seemingly created in MS Paint using its spray-paint tool; and there's no artist name or album title. Now, if you were a record company executive, would you "ok" that album cover? Or would gently propose the band should release it with this on the front instead:
See what I did there? I retained the 'surf' element, put the band in there, added a guitar to appeal to the rock market, but got the lead singer to act kooky so they don't alienate their fans, while - most importantly - we put the names of both the artist and the album front-and-centre. I know you're not reading this blog for a lesson in design, I realise you're here for some analysis about the music, but a picture tells 1000 words. The picture that was eventually released to promote Congratulations is of an 8-eyed mutant riding a lo-fi wave made out of a fox. To me, that decision meant one thing, and one thing only: MGMT have decided to release their "shut the fuck up, we know what we're doing thanks" record.
And that, dear friends, is exactly what they have done. This is no ordinary pop album. It's 43 minutes of genius that encompasses several genres, without compromising on a chosen 'sound.' That sonic aesthetic makes sense in the world of the record itself, but is largely unclassifiable when viewed from the outside world you and I live in. If I had to summarise it in an old expression, I'd use the one about wedding preparations, where, for it to be perfect, you need "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue." MGMT have made something fantastic by cobbling together Mamas & The Papas-styled harmonies, post-Pet Sounds Beach Boys hooks, Blur's drawled and ironic vocals, guitar noises seemingly lifted straight out of soul groups like The Delfonics, and bass riffs that sound like The Strokes made a baby with U2's Adam Clayton. To put it bluntly: they've distilled 40 years of pop music, cellared it in a recycled plastic barrel and served it to you in a chilled mug to drink. This is seriously messed up mainstream music.
More importantly though, in the context of it being "album of the year" and all, Congratulations combines everything I found great in all of the Top 20's records. A fan of 9-minute epics like Kanye's Runaway? Try MGMT's 12-minute song Siberian Breaks. Do you like the way Arcade Fire and The Brunettes created dreamy soundscapes without losing their way in their song's melodies? Try MGMT's I Found A Whistle. Did you love dancing to Sia, Goldfrapp, and New Young Pony Club? Try MGMT's Song For Dan Treacy. How about the messed up synths in tracks by So So Modern and Crystal Castles? Perhaps you'd like MGMT's Brian Eno. Or were you more of a fan of Nas and Plan B's arena-sized arrangements? Well, clearly you didn't watch the music video above! Anyway... this album has everything I've loved about 2010, compressed into 9 beautiful tracks.
The above music video is the album's closing song. On the first few listens I thought it was the most dull cut of the lot, but upon closer inspection I began to understand the lyrics. Told from the band's perspective, the verses could be read in a way that shows a band struggling to take in their mega-fame. One line in particular, shows how depressing it must be to have your finances dependent on your cookie-cutter pop machine blasting out mega-hits like the previous record's Kids. That line? "It's hardly sink or swim when all is well if the tickets sell." The song appears to be the reverse of a mission-statement. It's a footnote, explaining and referencing the rest of the album. This is an album that forces the band into a "sink or swim" situation. Just like Simon Peter in The Bible (well, not just like it, but humour me as I indulge their metaphor), we as fans need to step out of the boat as well, to test these new waters. MGMT's new direction has probably shaved a few hundred thousand record sales of their next few records, but their remaining fans are much stronger devotees now. MGMT could have been the biggest band in the world by emulating their past successes, but instead they chose to be one of the pop world's boldest acts. Check out their album's opening track:
That was called Is It Working, and it's the band's version of a mission-statement. One witty Youtube commenter said that "[the] moral of this story [is]...don't go to Ikea stoned." Indeed. I'm pretty sure that is the gist of what the band were going for. They needed clarity in their work, couldn't get it anywhere, so studied other patterns and got so obsessed by this task that they re-invented themselves. Is It Working is the blueprint to the rest of the album. It lays down a set of rules:
Each song must 'turn' midway through.
The lines between 'synthesised sound' and 'real instruments' need to be blurred
There is no such thing as "too much echo"
If you've found a good riff, mine it once or twice, but then move on to something else before you kill it
These rules bring a method to MGMT's madness. They make sure that, during your second and third listen, you feel a sense of anticipation for the next moment a rule will be enforced. The MGMT manifesto artifically propels the songs forward, even when if the tune would otherwise have naturally relaxed into its groove and been perfectly fine otherwise. It is this perpetual movement that makes this album a great one. Just like the mutant surfer on its cover, and the skewed chessboard background, this is a record that abhors stillness.
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