The Superbowl is coming up. I know this because my clients told me they were going to watch it, and eat pizza. It was the first thing they told me when I began our group therapy session. Rumors flew about toppings. The possibility of ranch. They couldn't help but share with me their excitement.
Pizza is just one of those things. Their excitement reminded me of when I was a kid and my parents told me we were ordering pizza. My parents always got off work at 5. They would walk through the front door at around 5:10. Except on days we got pizza. We never ordered delivery, to save money. So one of them would have to go and pick it up, changing their arrival time to around 5:20.
Small things make you happy when you're a kid. Or in jail.
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"I just..... feel like I don't belong here."
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I've never enjoyed scripts that are over-complicated. I've read a lot of scripts, the majority of them are by amateurs like me, hoping for feedback. Because of the nature of screenplays, it's easy to tell when the script is being forced. The story is getting pushed out of the writer's fingertips.
Unnecessary use of complicated words makes you look insecure. I get the impression you're writing to be listened to. That you were writing, aware of how you sound to the reader. That you want to appear intelligent.
If you're telling a powerful story, your intelligence doesn't matter.
Powerful words aren't big words. They're words that make you feel something.
Recently I saw this status on Facebook.
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"It's funny almost, how fictitious one's contextual reality truly is. For people, places, and things can all be contrived from a dimension that only exists to one person, and the subsistence of this web from which it all came inevitably fluctuates and breaks, leaving only memories of things that never existed."
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Shortly after, I heard this from a client at my practicum site (an in-patient rehab for drug addicts in jail).
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"I don't think I can stay clean. I'm going to leave here and drugs are going to kill me."
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Words can be powerful. But the power doesn't come from their complexity. It comes from the emotions that carry with them.
I absolutely love this video, and I want to talk about why.
Music videos don't need to tell a story. They just needs to be a visual representation of the song, or its themes. Sometimes artists try WAY too hard by pairing their song with a long, drawn-out story that has nothing to do with the song. And it can end up being terrible. Seriously what were you thinking Drake.
This video keeps the premise incredibly simple. He's high. He sees a pretty girl at a restaurant. He dances. She thinks he's weird. She thinks he's funny. She leaves. He sits back down.
But I love the attention to detail the video has. Lots of actions he does play into the song itself. The subtle things that make this music video impressive. How he waves at her when the song says "high". The cracking of the egg in his pocket to the percussion in the song. How his dance moves eventually become absurd and impossible when the audience learns that he's high.
My favorite part is the subtle squeaks from his shoes while he's dancing. It's something that would be edited out in post production, but it's purposely kept in the video. I think that was a great decision. The whole scenario feels so much more realistic. It's the same reason I also appreciated how his cardigan kept falling off of his shoulder while he's dancing. The whole thing seems so much more real when these things are happening. It never feels like you're watching a music video. It feels like you're watching someone that's incredibly high dance in a restaurant. And yeah, his cardigan would probably flop around while he's dancing. And his shoes would definitely squeak the entire time.
And the comedy comes out of nowhere. His awkward reaction to the pigeon in his shirt. The egg. But the comedy in the video is perfectly juxtaposed to this strange, level of darkness. I mean look at Childish Gambino himself. He looks terrible. He's so creepy. He has such a sunken look on his face, almost like a zombie. His shirt and cardigan look like he'd been sleeping in them for days. The restaurant itself is empty, lifeless. The environment has a dark, ominous tone. And of course, the ending. Childish has a realization at the end of the video that everything he was doing was fleeting. He was trying to grasp for something that was never going to be there in the end. And he can do nothing but sit back down and marinate in his own memories.
Even the song reflects this. The first half of the song is pretty poppy: a generic, electronic beat you might find in a lot of current popular music. But then the entire song breaks down into this incredible mess of bass beats, static, "whoo's!", and broken lyrics. Only to jump back to the original beat. Then silence. The song transitions from poppy dance song to wild electronic noise, matching the bipolar comedic and serious tones of the video itself. Did you notice how it's a clear night when the camera moves outside, but it's suddenly snowing when the beat changes?
For comparison, watch the music video for Chris Brown and Usher's song New Flame. Notice how perfect everything is. Every inch of every frame combed over by editors to make sure the musicians look perfect. Their clothes tailored to fit their bodies, their faces powdered with make-up. Nothing is realistic. You can't relate to anything in this video.
In a lot of ways, Childish Gambino and Chris Brown are singing about the same thing. Both songs are about asking a girl to give them a chance. To embrace romance with them, and to give them a chance.
But look at the difference in their approach.
Chris Brown is asking this girl to "start a new flame" with him. Why? Because he's rich, attractive, and famous. Does it work? Probably.
Childish Gambino is asking this girl to "give it one night". Why? Because he's incredibly high, and has no idea what he's even doing. He's afraid of his sober life, and wants her to be the drug that's replacing the one he's on. Does it work? No. She leaves.
In my opinion, this is the type of music video that rarely gets made because it's honest. Childish Gambino is asking the audience to see him as just a rapper, and not as a celebrity (After all, he labeled two previous albums, "I AM JUST A RAPPER"). So many music videos focus on the musician getting a girl (Reference: any Chris Brown music video ever), it's refreshing to see a musician willing to admit that, like the rest of the world, he's not able to woo any girl he meets with a song. Sometimes, he's just a guy that's way too high at a restaurant.
For more Childish Gambino, check out another great music video, Sweatpants.
