Studio Sessions
Discussions about art and the creative process. New episodes every other week.
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Studio Sessions
5. Naming Your Work: The Complexities and Importance of Subjective Interpretation
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A woman walking out of the surf at Manhattan Beach, board in hand, went up on Instagram as "Lone Surfer". We wonder whether even that says too much, since the word "lone" tells you how to feel before you've looked. The photographer who took it once gave a film-school exercise a French title he'd gone hunting for, and he winces at it now. William Eggleston doesn't title his photographs, though his books have names, so we try to find the line. A book or a film almost has to be called something. Orson Welles told Peter Bogdanovich that Paper Moon was so good a title he didn't need to make the movie. A single photograph might say more with nothing under it. One of us puts it as poetry versus documentation: a document needs a title, and a poem can do without one.
Explanations can do the same damage. On a walk through the Denver Art Museum, every wall label that explained a painting spoiled what one of us had worked out for himself. There's a painting at the Art Institute of Chicago that one of us visits on every trip and wants to know nothing about. Near the end we try and fail to name this episode, and one of us brings up the question he used to ask in grad school: whether an idea is merely cool or actually connected to the work.
-Ai
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a rating and/or a review. We read and appreciate all of them. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode.
Show Notes:
Sunny Sixteen Podcast: https://bit.ly/46rFG0y
William Eggleston - The Democratic Forest: https://bit.ly/3rMNdYE
William Eggleston’s Guide: https://bit.ly/3LUHXZS
Joel Meyerowitz - Cape Light: https://www.joelmeyerowitz.com/cape-light
Joel Meyerowitz - Aftermath: https://www.joelmeyerowitz.com/aftermath
Matthew’s “Lone Surfer” photo: https://bit.ly/408stYl
Jackson Street Booksellers (used book store in Omaha): https://bit.ly/3PR10p3
Alex’s Photo Project “The Gates of the Garden”: https://www.alexccarter.com/photography/gotg
Paper Moon: https://bit.ly/45udyZs
Gregory Crewdson: http://www.gregorycrewdsonmovie.com/
Walt Whitman’s Poetry: https://whitmanarchive.org/
Alone Together by Aristotle Roufanis: https://aristotle.photography/
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick: https://bit.ly/3PWcx6I
The Shining: https://letterboxd.com/film/the-shining/
Denver Art Museum: https://www.denverartmuseum.org/en
Matt’s Favorite Painting from The Art Institute of Chicago: https://bit.ly/3to1k78
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a rating and/or a review. We appreciate and try to read all of them. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode.
Ask Us a Question: https://studiosessionspod.com/#ask
Website: https://studiosessionspod.com
Naming Work and Pretentiousness in Photography
And it's been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer .
AlexAll right , 49 minutes 49 minutes .
MattWe've got a hard out at .
AlexWe've got 53 minutes left to show me I was free-flipped Extremely , extremely hard out .
MattSo we've got a timer for 49 minutes , and then we have to quickly transition out of whatever deep conversation we're having into our outro .
AlexSo the thing that we were talking about , that I think we want to go into , is naming , naming work , and this is something that you've been , we've been circling this for a little bit .
MattWe have yeah , and you've , but something I never even thought about until a conversation with you .
AlexWe've , you have , I think you've kind of developed some opinions on it . So let's Strong opinions , yeah , some strong . So let's , I mean , I'll just yeah , give you them , give you the .
MattWe had a conversation .
AlexSpeaking pen .
MattWe had a conversation a while back about naming it work and a lot of this centered around . I feel like it started with me observing on your Instagram that you would post and you wouldn't like . You would just like post like one , two , maybe three at the most , hashtags , like that was the most information . It was all sort of utilitarian what the camera was , maybe the lens information or and that was because I that's how I always check out cameras and lenses .
AlexYeah right , which they've made it incredibly difficult to do .
MattYeah .
AlexFor some reason , but that was the great use of Instagram , yeah .
MattAnd I was intrigued by that sort of minimal , no title approach and because , you know , I would think about what I would post when I would post a photo , sometimes dating back to when I would just post like a stupid photo about like , like kind of what Instagram was was maybe initially intended for , Like take a picture of the flip camera and say , you know , recording a podcast , you know , and you just use your phone or whatever , versus photos that I've edited and it's a you know sort of a portfolio , if you will , of photography that I've taken .
MattBut I would sometimes write a big story or I would , you know , and I don't think there's anything wrong with like telling a story , especially like if it's just like , this is where I was , this is what I was doing , something happened while I was , whatever versus like some big , you know , pretentious , like this photo represents blah , blah , blah blah , and this will touch on the pretentiousness aspect . Because I am certainly pretentious in some of my past .
AlexI mean we even ran into that issue , kind of building the brand approach for this podcast .
MattYeah .
AlexI think what's that ? Pretend we ran up against that wall .
MattRight .
AlexAnd I don't even think we intended to . I think it's just sometimes your taste dictates a level of pretension that might not be right .
MattWhich is funny because coming over here I thought of two titles that I don't necessarily think we should do . But if we were like man , if we had a photography channel or a podcast , like box speed , like that's got a nice little ring to it , like that's a phrase in the photography world , like sunny 16 , which is an actual podcast .
AlexYeah .
MattOr like the phrase like someone was like just got to finish the role , I got to finish the role .
AlexLike .
MattI think it was grainy days , was like I just got to finish the role and I was like finish the role Is that ? Is that like ?
Alexyour , your burner channel just got changed to box speed , didn't it yeah ?
MattSo you know , and of course you sit there and you go . What does that mean ? Is that some pretension ? Is this this , this , all that stuff ? And so then we started talking about William Eggleston , and , like you were telling me how he doesn't title his work , even the books that are out of his photography .
MattLooks at his work after the books that are out , I'm like , well , but he has these photo books the Democratic Forest you know William Eggleston's guide , like you know he titled that and you're like , no , the photography person at MoMA . I always forget his name .
AlexJohn Krakowski did the . I mean he did William Eggleston's guide and then Democratic Forest .
MattAnd he titled that based on something that I'm not sure Eggleston titled that , or the Democratic Forest .
AlexI'm not sure if Eggleston titled that , or or if that was a phrase he's involved . But yeah , it was basically somebody asked him like what are you doing ? He's like I'm photographing democratically , yeah , which is , you know , just whatever catches your interest whatever . Yeah .
MattNot trying to , you know , not trying to put like all this pretense and crap , like you're just trying to be B and this thing registers on you and you take a photo of it , yeah , and so that conversation led to me talking about some of these like completely pretentious titles for these little video projects we did in film school , just as a way to like understand lighting , and we would take this Canon XL1 for the weekend and we would do these little videos that you know showed whatever , like emulated a painting or like you had to have no dialogue , but like a clear story of a character wants this , this character wants this , you know , object or objective and obstacle , all that stuff . And I titled one of these little shorts that I made . I mean , this is like the most precious thing , les chois de Welle .
MattI'm sitting there going . Well , I'm not even going to title this in English . I took French in high school and in college and I'm going to look for , like French , merci chathime . Like this .
MattThis video is about this thing and I'm going to search for like a French phrase that encapsulates that like a French idiom and I , like , did all this searching and I found this phrase . It was like gross to pittier , and I don't remember what that even means , but it was like , you know , grace and pittier isn't pity , but I can't remember what it is . I'll you know , maybe we'll put up a translation or something . So people can see what gross to pittier translates to . Google .
Yeah , and .
MattI'm just like , and I you know proudly with my long hair and my whatever , I bring this little film and whatever , and I'm like , yes , everybody's going to . This is going to go in the FSU archives . And when I'm a big , famous filmmaker like this is going to think oh gross to pittier , he had so much , so much soul and heft and power to what he was expressing and this is like oh God look back on it .
AlexIt's like the coolest thing I've ever thought of the thing like you put yourself in that professor shoes or something you're just like God , this fucking shit .
MattBut even like last year when I was out in Los Angeles and I would take my EOSR out on like these photo walks and I would just take photos of anything that caught my eye , democratically , like really not joking , like it would just like whatever . I went to Manhattan Beach when I was at VidSummit for YouTube and you know like took like this this awesome shot down toward the airport at Manhattan Beach , a woman coming out of the surf . She's standing there on the edge of the water in the sand holding her board . I'm like oh , snap , you know , and I posted to Instagram and I'm not like cutesy with it . It's not like oh , A little French title .
MattI just like said like Lone Surfer and y'all filmed it , and even that .
Titling Photographs
MattI just like , yeah , like so then that titling was more inspired by some of the titling you see from other photographers that aren't titling it like man struggle or like the feminine mystique , or , you know , like some , like some , some concept . They're just titling it like you know , woman with red umbrella .
AlexYeah , yeah , yeah .
MattLike what a lot of paintings are titled yeah .
AlexThe painter just kind of says this is you know well a lot of the lighter photos , even have , like you know , some titles like that .
MattYeah , subway platformer . Yeah .
AlexI'm not sure if he titled those or if they were titled by a gallery Right .
MattAnd I don't , and I look at those titles and I'm like you know , just sort of saying what he's saying , what it is you know , you know like makes sense to me , yeah . So anyway , I've really gone from you know , especially when I think about a photograph that I take , gone from thinking about titling them something elusive and mystical and like emotional or whatever , to titling it just what it is a lone surfer to just I don't even want to title it like you know , I just let the photo be what it is .
MattYeah , just let it be what it is Now . That's not to say that if I , you know , made a short , you know , a film like the Ted Snow documentary we've talked about a few times here . I've struggled with what I would call that , like you almost have to title it something .
MattYeah , and like a working type like the musician , the songwriter , you know the , whatever you know , but trying to come up with . But then this could be like I don't know what , like the , the the pretentious title is for something like that , but it's like I don't know , taking some obscure song lyric or a line from a poem or something , and like that represents the struggle of of a man and his dream of stardom . You know so .
AlexWell , let me ask you do you think , is my thought when I see extravagant titles and this is not the case for everybody , but first of all , I don't think I don't see a lot of like people who have been working for a long time giving very extravagant titles , and maybe that's just like the sphere of influence that I'm plugged into , but I feel like it's almost . It's a way to if you , even if it's instinctively , you know that the work is not up to a certain quality level , and a lot of times it's just because you're incapable of reaching that at like when you're in film school . Film school literally exists because it's teaching you to make film , Yep , so there's no expectation that you know somebody's going to come into film school and be a fully developed Steven Spielberg , Right , Nobody's coming into film school and like putting out .
MattWe all think we are Everybody yeah .
AlexYou know , there's the people that you look up to , and everybody thinks they'll do that , but I think that the title , though , is almost a way to bridge that gap between your . There's something , there's a great thing it's called like the gap , and it's where you want to be and where you are , and then like the gap is like what's in between , and I think it's a way of , yeah , overcoming that , or like , maybe , overcoming that , that ego , yeah , oh , this isn't up to the quality , but I can add so much mystique and it's going to make it so much more , there's going to be so much more depth to it , yeah , with this crazy title . And then you , you know , you grow past that point of the work and you just look back at it and you're like , yeah , what was I doing ? The reason that I stopped titling my work , I don't think it was because I had some grand thought of like , oh , I want , I like this is ridiculous . I , this there's like , these don't deserve time . I just really got to the point where I was like , every time I write a title , in three months I look back on it and I want to shoot myself . And then I just , you know , it was as simple as yeah , I don't want to look back on work from three months ago and shoot myself in the head .
AlexAnd then , you know , you start developing a working theory and as time went on , I started to develop more of a working theory of you know , I don't really agree with especially my words . You know somebody else's words , somebody else's interpretation that interests me and how they're interpreting the work that I create . But approaching the work from , I love the quote a great photograph is the best paragraph never written . Exactly , the best sentence never written , yep . Or the best book never written . You can go as deep or as shallow as you want , but I , when I start to apply words to something , it , you know , even if it's not completely conscious , it does limit the possibility of the work . You know , you saw the woman coming out of the waves , the lone surfer . Yeah , it's a fairly innocent title , but then when you , if you want to , you know , be annoying and look too deep into it , right , maybe that limits the visual metaphors that that photo could represent .
AlexBecause lone that raises an emotional connotation .
Yeah , yeah , that's what you see , the lone surfer .
AlexBut maybe you know , somebody else sees that photo to you . It's this , you know but that title is this lonely woman and she's , you know , the only somebody else maybe sees somebody who's you know she comes here and serves every day and they build this narrative of like she's working on her craft or she's like . Photography is great because it is projection of self from every viewer , yep , and you can get 20 viewers in one photo and the projection is going to look different for every viewer Right Most likely .
MattWell , the word lone , you know , has meaning .
It has a meaning . Of course it has an emotional connotation Surfer on the beach .
MattThat's a more sterile type of them , the loans you know , lone surfer or the lone surfer . Yeah , now I will say that I feel like with you , know , and everything I've ever created , whether it's written , a poem or a short story or a screenplay or a short film or whatever . With photography specifically , I am drawn the most to not titling photography . Yeah , I love the idea of just showing a photograph and there's something special about photography that really lends itself , I think , to not being titled , whereas I would argue if you wrote a book , or if you wrote , if you made a movie , had a movie , it's hard not to title those things , because If you see a book , that's just a book , yeah .
AlexLike that's suddenly it's funny because that transcends and is all of a sudden that's pretentious again , right ?
MattPotentially yeah or nothing . It's literally just . It's just yeah . Maybe your name is on it and .
AlexI think , also an interesting thing . I know you and I both have an affinity for old bookstores . Yeah , you're literally constantly in that situation and any other situation . We're always judging books by their cover . No pun intended Yep . If a book has a mildly interesting cover I may have never heard of , or a mildly interesting title , I've never heard it before . I've bought books , yes , and like that is a cool cover . I've listened to music .
You're doing a lot of music .
AlexYou're doing , you're going through Apple Music or you're buying CDs . I think even more so with Apple Music , because you've got this huge , massive catalog of stuff and you're just looking through and you're like , oh , that is it . If the cover looks like that , I bet the music sounds like this and you hope for that , and then , so that was where I was going to lead you . You kind of jumped right into it and I think it's perfectly so . Where do we draw the difference between , yeah , titling photos , but then say you have a collection of photos and a photo project ? Right , then where would you ? Because , like I , you know , I have a photo project on my website and it has a title Yep , I like the title and you know it's that's been . I made that , I came up with that title a couple of years ago and it hasn't aged out , so I think I nailed it . Yeah , in terms of I don't want to like shoot myself every time I see it , but like , where do we ? You know , how do you do that ?
AlexBecause I know like you know , eggleston has all the photos , and then he's got the different products , and then he's got the Democratic forest .
MattMaybe that's a bad example , but , like you know , meyerowitz , cape Light , you , you're super plugged into the book world right now , and I mean that , and that's the thing too with , like Meyerowitz's book Cape Light , Like I don't , I'm not offended by that title because it's , it's just , is what what it ?
is .
MattYou know , obviously the Democratic forest has , you know , there's meaning there , there's , there's , there's uh , imagination , there's mystery .
AlexYou know , like it's a title , it's a title that gets you because it introduces I mean , you know the video about Eggleston . It was at war with the obvious was the quote that I pulled and you were like whoa , just , I'm not taking credit for this . Let me just be clear . Like that was Eggleston .
MattYes .
AlexBut you were like whoa , yeah , just the economy of words .
Yeah .
AlexAnd it immediately hit you and you were like it captures . You're like , I have never had that sequence of thought before , right , and that just completely shifted , like it , like clicked a switch in your , in your brain , yep , so like you could argue that that's a super effective 100% and almost .
MattAs we continue to talk about this , I'm like I'm okay with titling a book , you know , like book movies , you know . But what media ?
Alexwhat I think of , like the the Paper Moon title . You know there's like Orson Welles by Donovitch story by Donovitch paper moon and Orson Welles .
MattOh my God , that title is so good .
AlexYou don't need to make the movie . But no , you , that's a good title . Yeah , You're like oh man , that's a fantastic title .
MattI honestly look back at some of the spec screenplays that I love and I think sometimes I still believe that they have legs to be made into a movie because I love the title so much . Yeah , yeah , you know I have one script that's called pencil neck and I just love that title because it comes out of a truthful moment . I wrote that script because of something that that happened to me as a young man . That it wasn't traumatic , but it was very memorable moment in my life .
AlexI think that's . Yeah , I think that's a good title , though you hear that going . Oh , I'm interested in that . Yeah , yeah .
MattI have another script that I called bloom and I love that title for that story . And then I have another like kind of hard boiled cop drama . That's like dirty Harry meets good fellas and it's a . It's a little pretentious , but I there's something about it , it's called I just I love like the Charlie caught .
AlexIt's dirty Harry meets good fellas .
MattI'm taking over this podcast . I'm gonna pitch you guys all my failed . But the title of that one's called they go to glory .
AlexYeah , and there's a rhythm to it . I like that one less , but it's not bad .
MattNot bad , it's , it's , it's not as simple , it's a little bit more complicated . It's it's whatever , but it's not like a phrase that we've heard , but it like kind of sounds like I kind of know what that means . Anyway , you know , that's one of my favorite scripts that I've written . But you know , I think of those titles and I'm like man , I see the movie poster , all of that stuff . But then I look at my photos and I'm like I I . I do not want to title them .
AlexLike I just look at them , I almost it's interesting and I want to . I want to break that down more Like why that's different ? Because it is , I think . I think photos . I think photos are in a great photo project . It's a collection of work that talks to each other , it works together , it speaks and creates new you know visual connections and new connections and ways of thinking about things . That's what a great photo project does , much like a great film , and when you're making a film , you're not going in and titling each frame . Right right , it's working together , though you're not titling each scene .
And there's examples . If you're quite familiar with my title , you can act .
AlexAnd yeah , there's examples where you're like , and so , as I'm saying this , I'm like where is the line drawn ? Is it just did we just pick some arbitrary line ? And we're like this is why did ? Because it feels like this is right . It feels like we're saying something that probably is true . I feel like you don't want to title individual photos , and this isn't . This doesn't go for everything . In some situations , it might be worth it to title the photo , if that fits into the whole of the project .
MattI wonder if it's the difference of sort , of the nature of that thing's origin . So a movie , a book , a poem , they're all like sort of premeditated . Right , they're crafted . You have a question , a struggle , a character that you see , a world that you , a character , portrait , a world you want to explore , two sides of an argument coming together and you're not taking sides , you're just sort of letting it play out .
Titles in Art and Photography
MattWhatever it is , in the piece of work that you're creating , and there's no doubt photographs that are premeditated , someone gets a subject , they light them or they create a scene . Gregory Crudson , right , if I'm saying it right , his photos are about as crafted as they get and they're very cinematic .
MattBut it's interesting photography and some more of the stuff that we do . I feel like I'm just out there waiting for something to happen that clicks , pun intended and I take a photograph and I'm capturing something that really happened and I don't know that it's appropriate at least for me to title whatever that thing was . I know what it meant to me , I know what it felt like , but I'm not coming into it going . But then , like with Cape Light , right Like he moved out there , I'm sure it was just completely blown away by the imagery that he saw out there , especially having lived in the city for so long , and something compelled him to go out and craft these photographs based on sunrise and the beach and houses and all that stuff In Cape Light was just . That was the through line , the spine of the work .
AlexAnd I mean , you know , Aftermath is World Trade Center . Right book yes , Very , that was the word .
MattAftermath , that's what it is .
AlexAnd it's interesting because I almost think , I think I had the thought while you were saying that , and I mean this in the least pretentious way possible , but it's poetry versus documentation . If you're documenting , you need to title . If you're taking a portrait of a relevant social figure , like a celebrity , and your intention is not to create some kind of you know , archetype , visual archetype for a way of being If you , but instead to document this person , you need to title .
AlexBut if I just go take a portrait on the street now , there might be the case that I want to document this person . But there is the alternative use case where it's like I just want to . This person has a vibe about them , has a demeanor , has something that's translating visually that I want to capture . And then , you know , I can't necessarily reach down on myself and examine what that is and put that into some kind of verbal syntax or put some kind of attribute , some kind of a meaning to it , and if I try to do that then I'm limiting it . So it's like maybe it is that documentation versus . You said the word poetry and it got me just stuck on that .
MattI don't know if it's poetry , but Because I could see writing a poem and not having a title . Like but then if you had a collection of poems that had kind of a through line to them or some connected tissue .
AlexWalt Whitman has , you know , plenty of poetry that has no titles .
MattNo title it's just lines of yeah . And now I think of some of my recent work , like when I first got the like X1 , I went down to , you know , jean-lay Hymal , downtown and I really found myself after I looked at all the photographs that I was taking , photos of people that had sort of isolated themselves . They were sitting on a rock and on their phone . They were , they were by themselves and they and they , you could tell you know Matt really likes lone figures . I'm drawing lone figures and lone objects .
AlexYeah , absolutely , and just out in nature , and I think that's that's like , but man made objects we need to we need to definitely talk about that Cause that's that Joel Myerwitz idea of you just take a bunch of photos and then you start to examine the patterns and that shows you what your interest is .
MattWell , and I think too I could see myself if I found that over the course of a couple of years I was taking photographs of different people that were alone but together , if you will . I could see pulling those photographs into a collection or a project and then titling it , because I I know what word or words bubble up to you know , to represent whatever the spine of those photographs are . And now I didn't necessarily set out , I'm going to go down to Gene Lehi mall and downtown Omaha and I'm going to look for people who are by themselves .
MattYeah , for whatever reason when I see them it makes me click and so I could see , you know , looking like having 25 photos in a gallery or a book or whatever and titling it alone or alone , or alone together , or you know something you know ? Or getting some weird French phrase about being alone because I want to feed my ego , oh , my God , my insecurity is , I know I can be an artist and if I title .
MattThese pretentious enough people will think I am an artist and that's me making fun of I don't know . Whatever it was in me back then that was driven by the idea of being perceived of as an artist instead of just being an artist .
AlexIt's we want , and I mean . You know that even that term , artist like , gives me the heavey-javey .
AlexAnd it's like but it's , you know , we want to be relevant , we want our work to be relevant . I think every everybody who creates not everybody , there's definitely people who don't , but there are a lot of people that create , work , want that want to do something yeah , like , oh , wow , look at this amazing work right , that , you know , is so singular and so different from anything else , and I think it's a similar . You know , titling is almost like when you accessorize , you wear a flashy watch or you know , yeah , yeah , crazy chain with the , but like or what you know , yeah , that's it . I think it's a similar intuition , almost it's a similar guiding . Yeah , it's , I don't know , I did . Do you ? Uh , do you think , because you you said right there , you talked about you know , you could see doing the collection of photos and reaching back and doing the , like , the french title . Do you see , like , what's your relationship with titles right now ? Because personally , I don't think I'll ever title a photograph again .
MattI don't think I'll ever title a photo , an individual photograph , and even projects like I .
AlexI mean , I've got so many . Whenever I write something , I always just do and I'm literally at the point where it's like title TBD 24 yeah title TBD 25 and it's . It's not because I'm trying to be like all this , you know , I just I'm so bad at it , I just I don't want to put something on because you know you go for the names or like the , the really simple description or whatever you like . This is perfect , yep and I've done both .
MattI have gone into , you know , going back to screenwriting , I've gone into a screen play this is the title , because I know what this is about and others where I'm like I know what I'm gonna write , I know what the characters are , I know what their objective is .
MattI know what like the rules are of . Whatever the thing is , the concept , whatever , and sometimes I'm like I don't know what the title is . I'll have some working titles , maybe just in a notebook , and then sometimes , after I've written a rough draft or a couple drafts , I would come back and sort of reverse engineer the title , based on what I was seeing in the work and similar to the photographs , you know . You know people who are alone , together , and people in isolation actually a book title probably that seems pretty .
MattI mean , that's a nice parent paradox , yeah , but yeah , right , but you know I can see with the photo collection , just you know , titling at something simple and unpretentious just to represent the through line of the work , and that's what to me the screenplay was as well like the title represents sort of the spine of what this is what it , what it means to you , and you know , I mean , just you know , some of the things I love most about movies is just the title of the movie . You know whether it's something that's a little bit out there , yeah , or it's definitely some movies with better titles than the 100% yeah , I mean , and then movies where I read the spec screenplay and I loved the
Matttitle of the spec and they change it to something else , like this one spec called the low-dweller that was originally gonna have Leonardo DiCaprio , blah , blah . I ended up being a movie called out of the furnace with , with Christian Bale and I , you know , even if out of the furnace is a nice kind of catchy title with some phrase that we've heard before out of the furnace and into the fire . You know , it feels like a little bit like some producers went . What about out of the furnace ?
Mattyeah , that's good that's good tested this after the test screenings and this the people really responded to this one . We'll let them . Well , let let's just let the audience title our stuff . Yeah , so which happens sure , yeah , yeah so you know , I you know , raging bull keeps popping into my it made me too .
AlexYeah , I'm like that's a great title and then you go through . It's just like he's the king of , like the Irishman taxi driver you know .
MattSo yeah , so you think about all that kind of stuff and there's some that are just really special and they work , and there's others that maybe are is raging bull , the , the title of the , the story that it's based on , I don't know the source material .
AlexYeah , I mean cuz I don't know if it's directly based on an autobiography or if he was .
MattLamar was just involved with the and a lot of times the movie title is better than the source material title . What would that would ?
Alexbe , I guess , shrader's titles right , like I mean the Irishman wouldn't , but I remember like , do , do . American Jigolo great title , great title .
MattThere's like a sci-fi book like do sheep dream about electric ?
Alexyeah , do do androids dream of electric sheep ?
Mattand it became Blade Runner yeah , like you know , blade Runner's hard to argue as a pretty awesome title for a movie like that . Yeah , but you know when it goes . But your photography , I like that you named your projects . It sort of grounds me and it gives me a place to start from , without you telling me how to think or feel .
MattIt gives me an orientation . So if I just , but then at the same time I think about some of my photos with people isolated and I think if we put that in a pop-up gallery and didn't have any title , nothing , I think that people could still have a satisfactory experience . Like it would still be the same thing with Meyerowitz if he did a gallery of all his cape light photos and never said cape light .
AlexHonestly , I think he could put that book out , take the cape light off the title and just have a photograph and and it speaks for itself , especially as you discover what the spine , and that's like I mean I've I've told you about some of the meetings I've had with people where it's like you need to title all of these , you need a description about the photograph , like gallery owners , people that are respected for their opinions on photography , and , like you've mentioned , a couple of gig keepers , and oh , you need the time , and I'm like we're just , are we removing all of the ? We're just removing anything , that's , we're removing any kind of romance , we're removing any kind of mythology , we're removing any kind of intellectual experience well , the gift , the intellectual experience shouldn't be figuring out what the title means the intellectual experience should be relating to the , to the scene that's being presented .
AlexIt should be , you know , whether that's a tableau or whether that's a portrait . That that should be the intellectual experience , not mmm . I'm pretty sure this is German right yeah let's break down the , the original Latin roots of this right title . Like that shouldn't be , or like I don't know , like just .
Interpreting and Experiencing Art
MattI think about , like the shining and yeah work that has come , analyzing all the imagery in that film and all that I love that . Yeah , I love that people are trying to read into . You know the Native American symbolism on some of the food products and the thing and how that relates to you know the the greater elements of the story where the hotels built on a Native American burial ground . Like I love people trying to like figure it out I also meaning and and doing all that stuff .
MattJust like if I took a photograph , like I could have a gallery and I could go to every photo that I took and I could tell you what was meaningful , yeah , why I took the photo , what I like in the image and all that . But then that becomes cemented in , in in what the photo is and in like the history of that photograph , and so when other people come to it and find their own meaning . But then maybe they look up what I said about it in a YouTube video where we talked about the work in my gallery and then all of a sudden what I said about it overpowers what they thought about it . I just think it's more fun , as someone who took the photograph , to watch people see what strikes them or what , what , what , what is meaningful to them in the photograph , what it means to them when they see it absolutely , I mean I that reminded me of so well you showed me a photograph of yours that I went oh , look at the imagery of this or whatever , and you're like I never even saw that never and .
MattI'm like I thought that's why you took the picture .
AlexYeah , yeah well , and I sometimes I fall into that where , like you know , but I think that's what's great , it's everybody can examine . There was a Audrey and I were at the Denver Museum of Art . I got this just five years ago at this point like more , like it was a long time ago , was way before COVID or anything like that . But we were like all right , let's just , you know , take a bunch of edibles and go walk through the museum yeah , and so we're just like buzzed out walking through the museum .
AlexIt's awesome and we were just . You know , we'd stand there and just describe what we like this painting . And you know I've been to a lot of museums , I've seen a lot of art , I've had the opportunity to see a lot of great art around the world and things like that . But that experience stands out in my mind so much because we would look at this art and we'd give what we mean and I , you know , you spend five minutes in here . It's just the best time ever . You're like , oh , this represents this and it represents this .
AlexAnd I found I recognize this pattern that any time that we would look down in the little tag would the little tag would show or have some kind of artist description that would just this is this and this and this represents this . I would go aww . And there was just this feeling of just immense dissatisfaction , of like because one suddenly it's put this stupid , stupid construct of you're wrong , this is right , or you nailed it suddenly it's like this reward mechanism that you know you're supposed to be just experiencing a piece of work and suddenly there's this reward mechanism in place of like good or bad and it's like that's disgusting , that's taking away from the quality .
AlexBut then when you see something , and it was like there's no description , you just like this you know .
MattSo I was looking for a picture I took of a painting at the art institute in Chicago and I'm terrible at remembering , like , who the artist was , and that is like every time I go there . I go look at that painting and I just love it and I think to myself , even before we had this conversation , I think to myself I don't want to know what this , why they painted this , what this meant to the artist , what , like , what's it based on ? Did they actually see this ? Did they make it up ? Like ? I don't want to know anything because I disappear into this painting every time , I just want to experience the and I just want to feel my feelings and come up with my own stuff about it .
MattI don't want the answer .
AlexAbsolutely , and I think that's . I think you just nailed the core of it . Yeah , we are , in recent years we've kind of I think you know pendulum swings when my pendulum swings back , I don't think this will be forever , but I pray that it won't be forever . But we've built this expectation of things need to be tough , but not quite tough . Like you know , it can't be this ephemeral , unexplainable thing . You know we don't . We've got to be able to get there . Yep , there's got to . You got to be like , oh , I'm going to sit with it , but then I'm going to figure it out , and I don't think that's good because you know that's limiting in and of itself , yeah , when you approach anything with that , with that . So you got to be able to explain it . What's the explanation ?
MattSo that conversation the best things just don't have an explanation . That's the conversation I would have with producers on this script blew my reference . This young man has Matt pitches his screenplay . No , this young man has a very dark , like sort of supernatural ability , and they would it manifested in different ways , sort of unpredictable ways . Yeah , and they would the note I would always
Importance of Clear Storytelling
Mattget . This is a big note in like Hollywood when you write something that is like not grounded in reality . Yeah , especially in the horror genre . Well , what are the rules of it ?
MattYeah , they constantly wanted the rules .
AlexWhat are the rules ?
MattAnd I would just point out these awesome movies have this thing that happens to people or whatever , but there are no rules .
AlexYeah .
MattAnd they would cite other movies . Well , you know , Final Destination or the Ring , and I'm like , the ring is like kind of has rules , but it also doesn't yeah . It's . There's some weird shit that happens that like doesn't really fit into a box . They . Oh , that's like I'm like you're just saying this because , like you've heard this note or people have talked about how the solution to making a good horror movie is to have very clear defined rules or whatever .
AlexThe gimmick is Right and I'm like that's the formula .
MattThat's the trap , that's that's all bullshit and , yes , some movies have done well with having like these three rules . If you do this , then this happens , do this and this is whatever , and it's a nice title .
AlexAnd before you die , you see the ring and all this shit and I just really quit because I could see this being mistaked . I don't think what we're talking about is just . You know that . What are we creating ? A tone poem that doesn't have any kind of no that's not what we're talking about .
AlexBut we're just talking about leaving things open , for it's not necessarily ambiguity , but it's . It's just realizing that everything has , you know , it can have the intended , you know outcome , it can have the intended structure , but then there's always room for more . You know , when you're , when you're directing a scene , and the actor does something you didn't expect , do you say , oh no , no , no , we have to redo it . You did this thing , yeah , no , like that . You know cries when it's supposed to be this brilliant , you know whatever . Okay , that's awesome . That's just completely takes this to a complete different level , and I think that's what we're , yeah , what we're talking about .
MattYeah , titles , you know the title , that that serves the work , that enhances the magnetism of the story , the , the , the mystery of it you know it's , it's when they're right , they're right .
AlexYeah , I think that's . That's the unfortunate thing , right ? Yeah , that's the explanation . Nobody wants . Yeah , but it's just like you kind of just like a gut thing , you just know it . I kind of , so I thought a fun exercise might be right here if we had to grade title great title .
MattYou don't even call it that , we just call it PDL by .
AlexPTA , pdla , pta . What if we try to name this podcast episode ? I know I figure that might be fun . Just take like we'll take like two minutes just sling some back and forth , Because I think it's interesting when we .
MattI think we should call it alone together .
AlexAlone alone , come it together .
MattWe're together , Alex and I we're very much alone .
AlexWe're actually in different rooms right now .
MattWe're , we just matched , we've seen matched , we're not literally alone , alex , we're , we're metaphorically , figuratively alone , we're just together .
AlexUm starring Jack .
MattThat's the name of the whole podcast . Yeah , Alone together .
AlexLike what's this about ? Do well , and that's I mean so that's just the thing we were talking about . Yeah , naming the podcast and we kind of defaulted back to studio sessions . I think a good name is typically a pretty minimal thing , but you can't be so minimal that you're like like yeah .
MattIf you're trying to be ironic with your minimalism .
AlexIt's not okay . It misses .
MattBut we're we're going for a little bit more along the lines of literal versus figurative or something you know . It's just we call this room the studio studio and we always like in our conversations like therapy sessions . So it's not . It's not like it was some brilliant , like oh yeah , it's like a coffee talk . Exactly , we're having coffee and we're talking , we're talking , we're in the studio . I like .
AlexI don't know why , but I thought of like comedians and cars getting coffee . Yeah , it's like comedians . Like you know exactly what you're going to get Comedians cars . They're probably going to get coffee , and when ?
Mattwhoever ? If Seinfeld came up with that or somebody else , did you ? Yep , that's the title .
AlexThat's it . That's the title .
MattAnd so I'm like , I think I'm part of me , like the old ego me like wants our podcast to be something a little bit more poetic and mysterious , but I think that's just bullshit .
AlexIt's , I think . Well , see , I think like I , my secret recipe to titling things , and this is patented , by the way so nobody , nobody .
Matthe's going to have a Twitter thread later . It'll be a 10 part thread , so make sure you like and subscribe .
AlexI always I always look at course available as ebook will be available . I always try to like put myself in my shoes 10 years from now , looking back and be like am I going to think that's corny and like piece of shit , or am I going to ? Yeah , am I going to not .
MattRight and I'm going to cringe .
AlexYeah , like , am I going to cringe or am I not ? And you know , we came up with some , even coming up with the cover , right ? Yeah , we're throwing ideas back and forth .
MattI'm like , oh , I love this , like and it did look really cool , it did .
AlexBut it's like you were , like it's a little and see , I'm caught up in like , I'm not looking for pretentious at that point and like . That raises another question of like , is it so ? Is it pretentious if it's subconscious , like , where do you draw that line ? Yeah , you know , because I think you can't just think anything that you think is cool but it's not directly right . You can't just throw that out .
MattRight , but so this was . These were conversations I remember having in theater school , grad school , because people would make design choices that I wouldn't understand how it was connected to what we were making , yeah , and so I would always ask this question . I started to ask myself this , and this is what helped make me not title things obscure French phrases was is this cool ? Or is it connected ?
MattYeah , and like when something's connected to kill a mockingbird like you just know it when it's connected , or when it's some cool disconnected thing that a different part you know like like the not truth is coming up with .
AlexAnd sometimes even I , that you just use a phrase that I've used a lot . It's just cooler as it connected . Yeah , and I'll think about that when , when I'm writing sometimes , and sometimes I try to find things that aren't connected but are cool , and then how can I connect it ? Yeah , hamfisted or not hamfisted but like , so , like you know , punch drunk love , for example . Yeah , he had like seven core ideas that came together to create this story . He's like he's got a story about some pudding over here .
AlexHe's got like a he went to Hawaii for a girl , yeah . So he's got that story and it's like it's this . David Lynch has the thing where he's like you want to film right down , you know , put in every idea . You have put it on a note card , yeah . And once you have 74 note cards , hang them up together and you've got a film yeah , and you watch his films and it's brilliant . Every scene is an idea . And then part of his absolute genius is he can make them feel connected .
AlexYeah , Now I'm . I'm sorry everybody's like Jesus Christ , that camera's not even working anymore . No , I don't know . I just replaced those batteries last night .
MattIt's out . It says zero minutes . Did our timer not ?
Alexgo off . No , we have one minute left .
MattThis one's not , one's a little little low , it's all right , we've got two cameras . Yeah , we can , I don't . I don't need your angle . Yeah , we're good Rip .
AlexBut yeah , I mean it's you know , you , I'm just , I'm sounding like a fool . Look at the more I keep going . But I'm literally trying to work through this idea in real time . No , which is what I love about this , and it's you know the , the person that copies Tarantino but doesn't understand the underlying architecture of what he's doing . It always comes off as just like Jesus . This is bad .
MattYeah , it's a .
Alexit's a certain the person that that sees a David Lynch movie and just tries to copy like the creepiness of it , but they don't quite understand how he's .
MattYou know , melding ideas and working with different or people that think expectations copy how Apple packages a product that they're whatever and like whatever , like that their product is good as an Apple product . Well , like you're missing the point just because you put it in a box in a very elegant way , and and I think that's the summation .
AlexI'm like I'll rush . Yeah
Effective Titling and Connecting to Truth
Alex, it's like . I think that's the perfect submission for this whole episode . Tying it up in a nice boat , is you know ? The title has to understand . You know , before you try to save your work with a title , you have to know that you're . You know you've got to be doing the right stuff . Yes , underneath .
MattYep . And there's a more elegant way to tie that up , the work has to be connected to the truth , the source , whatever we want to call it , it's just you can't say I maybe put it this you can't save the work by giving it a unique title . Right , it needs to have more . And I have tried that many times , as have I , but I am not going to do it and I don't know if .
AlexI have never succeeded but that's it that camera's dead . Do you know what that ? Give us a if .
MattI ever title a photo project something pretentious and full of shit . You , I know Alex will call me out on it , or I'll at least have a look on his face . That is just nothing but cringe . And I'll know Old Matt came back . That's it .
That's it , titling your work figured out and it's been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer .
