43. Kensington Diner
PARTS OF THIS NEWSLETTER WERE ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JANUARY 14TH, 2024
We have shot two episodes of a digital series I have created called Kensington Diner. We have four more to go. I based some of them on some of my favourite films: Cleo de Cinq a Sept, In Bruges, When Harry Met Sally, My Son the Fanatic. I steal from the greats — I do not just let myself be inspired by — and then I put someone else’s ideas or filmic techniques or casting choices or story elements through my own neophyte gaze and out pops a dog’s breakfast unrecognizable to it’s estranged parent. Rob Reiner, Agnes Varda and Martin McDonough would not give their ugly stepchild a second glance.
Kate Zeigler, Fiona Highet and Amy Matysio on the set of Kensington Diner.
“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources,” Albert Einstein
When I bang on about copying the greats to see how you can do a version of what they are doing I don’t mean you reverse engineer a performance in order to replicate their results, I mean by copying the best you are better able to find your own voice, your own way to the questions you want to explore. Nowhere are we searching for answers. As artists we just ask the questions. The more pointed the better.
“The point is to be pointed.” - Terry O’Reilly
What the greats do in performance, when they are at their most formidable, looks like magic to the uninformed but we know better. It’s technique honed by many hours of practice. There are no shortcuts to the hard work you have to put in. Luckily, a creative life only stops when you’re dead. So you have all the time in the world. The pressure is off to make it.
“Good artists copy, great artists steal.” - Picasso
The writer and critic Jacqueline Rose speaks of translation as not about equivalence but about a re-rendering. The actor translates those words on the page into the thing that is most them. You re-render ideas that came from another world (the writer’s) into your world, the physical. Translation is not mimicry. It’s an opinion, an interpretation.
The way we do this is by choosing a path. There are innumerable ones in front of you. There is no need to deliberate on which path to take first. Just take one. The learning is in the doing.
Above is a theory on learning retention. As you can see the teacher has the advantage. But second to that with a 75% retention rate is Practice by Doing. The only shortcut to becoming a good actor is by acting. In class, in auditions, by yourself, with friends. You take the class to get better at auditions and then you meet your people in that class and then outside of class you get together and scheme. In a darkened bar, at a cheap restaurant, drinking in a park. In other words, my youthful charges, this won’t happen via the phone. You plan your next short film, your next digital series, your demo reel. You do this not because it is easy or because it will get you somewhere. You do it because making stuff is the very reason why we are here. To create.
The meaning of life is to connect. Artists connect through making art. Auditioning for a laundry detergent commercial may not be enough. Booking two days on a Hallmarkian masterpiece may not scratch that itch.
Shooting in a neighbourhood like Kensington Market is a dream. A filthy, graffiti-encrusted jumble of restaurants and vintage stores, empanada shops and cafés. Every episode I am bowled-over by the background and art direction that shows up in our frame. Our cast gets to act surrounded by the vividness and diversity that makes Toronto special. I didn’t have to invent this neighbourhood. I just had to film it with my phone and I have a copy of it and it is mine.
Tai Young, lil’ ol’ me and Cheverny Baluca outside of Gallery 78 Books.
So whatever art you’re making a shortcut to learning is copying someone that’s gone before. Make it your own.
That great performance you copied was also copied. Picasso didn’t enter the world out of a void. Glenn Close doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Nor did Glen Gould. The electric vehicle is more than 100 years old. Before there was Elon there was Nicolai Tesla. Before Streep there was Sara Bernhardt. Before there was Putin there was Stalin. The world is unoriginal. These bad times are not unique. Our suffering is constant because we chose it to be that way. Because it’s easier.
You have more agency than you think, I say to myself.
Re-render your point of view and watch a whole new world open up to you.
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❤️ Felicidades ! So inspiring !