Untitled - and the Art of Communicating Action Over Words
Are you a Buster or an Edison?
Some say one was a great marketer while the other wanted to make people laugh.
When people discover or invent something new, there is always a rush to take ownership. Some attracted to the money and will do anything to stop others. Other people prefer to earn their cash by doing something they love doing. That includes entertaining people. By 'others', I mean jumping off a building for a visual gag will make people laugh. Laughs pay bills. So providing you got balls to take risks and someone to film it. It could pay off than everyone is a winner. Or so they thought.
In 100 or even 1000 year, people have not learned how to support and protect the creative industry. I swear some people love getting off on shafting creative people. It's an ownership thing with no change in sight.
As a kid, I loved watching silent comedy more than learning about a guy who claimed to have invented the light bulb. Buster, Lloyd, Chaplin and Mary Pickford inspired me to get into creativity. One day I wished I grow up and earn a living from creativity.
The filming industry began in the late 1900s and grew fast and big than anyone imagined. Only a few people owned patents to film making and distribution. For the many other enthusiastic and excited artists, there was only one way to get into the movie business. First, you needed to get shafted by the industry standards of licencing, distribution, film and shooting rights and so on.
Many creative people suffered from the industry's greed to control and monopolise the filming industry. By 1908, Edison founded MPPC, giving his company most of the industries patents. That company did whatever necessary for complete dominance of the filming industry.
Many artist and filmmakers fled to the west. To a land far, far away. Far enough from Edison's Trust and MPPC. Together, creative folk stood in the face of tyranny. Then, in 1919, four movie legends took an aggressive stance to create a fair filming industry.
It could be a very different industry today had it not been for the migration and taking that stand. Imagine, EDDYWOOD, Movies Powered by Money.
Well, some of that may have come true.
Creativity is the freedom to express oneself. It is a right to ownership, and yes, get paid for work. People create stuff to make others feel good, live a better life, inspire and entertain people. Most artists compelled to tell a good flipping story, fuelled by curiosity and imagination.
Money doesn't make creativity. People do.
The 'Untitled' booklet tells the story of Buster during these times. He was a guy that wanted to make people laugh. He wanted to show simple humour truths. Bring imagination and that feel-good moment we all have inside.
Many silent movies were either lost, burnt, thrown away or natural deterioration. Some people will do anything for money. The sad part, people are willing to destroy the beauty within us and exchange creativity for complete control.
And for what?
People can't give another Edison control over creativity and free-thinking like that again. EVER.
There is a big difference between a creative genius and a great marketer. You decide.
For every Edison, dominating an industry causes conflict. For every Buster, taking action is a future worth believing.
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The United Artists Corporation (UA) Founded in 1919. By D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks. Currently, doing business today as United Artists Digital Studios.
The Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC, also known as the Edison Trust) founded in December 1908. It closed down seven years later in 1915 after conflicts within the industry.
Untitled
A short story and about the art of communicating action over words.
