Round Robin

Round 1:

She didn't look both ways when she crossed the road. The crutches are so uncomfortable, she almost misses the wheelchair.



Round 2 (Rachel Lawyer):

After waking up from a yearlong coma, he decided to track down the poor girl his motorcycle hit.



Round 3 (Emily McNey):

“Comatose vs. Cripple,” she explained. “That’s what I want the newspapers to call this lawsuit.”



Round 4 (Addison Hunsaker):

However, when they printed the article in the newspaper later that week, the title read "Coma, Toes, and Cripples"



Round 5 (Morgan Jones):

"
"

Artists' Statement:

This assignment really put the idea of creativity into perspective. Creative writing classes often teach that nothing is truly ever “original,” because inspiration is gleaned from all over to help produce new ideas. It was fun to write small stories back and forth within our group, as we were eager to see what the next person was going to come up with. None of us could imagine our pieces turning out the way that they did, yet we were all very impressed with the short stories that were “telephoned” off of our initial ideas.

Some of us were nervous to see what people would think about our work, what would be added on, and if someone would go in a completely different direction than what was originally imagined. DJ Spooky states that “the remix, as always, is what you make of it. Juxtapose, fragment, flip the script—anything else, simply put, would be boring” (DJ Spooky). Collaborating with others fuels our creativity and pushes us to think outside of the box. It was really amazing how you could see the different personalities of the creators in each instalment. A lot of the story remained cohesive within the series, but then some would take a wild turn and change the narrative in a surprising way.

When the first story was conceived, there was an infinite combination of elements that could create the next instalment, and the path that was created by each artist is the perfect mixture of choice and chance. Each story went through a different order of people in the group. If the order had been any different, we would have gotten another collection. This project was the anti-auteur as we weren’t the only authors of these stories. Chance, order, what time of day we chose to write, what we had for breakfast, our interactions that day—these were all collaborators on a set of seemingly unaffecting stories that ended up representing all of everything.

Having a 20-word limit per story served as a kind of mediator for the project. Because of our restriction in this assignment, each word had to be carefully considered, and anything superfluous was cut. This allowed us to really focus on the plot lines and help us channel our creativity in that direction.

This assignment had us step out of our comfort zones - our short stories were inevitably put together with our own personal thoughts and feelings, and we had to watch that story change on a fundamental level. This was a good thing because, after all, the nature of film lies in collaboration, and requires a filmmaker to do what we did in this assignment—let go of our personal biases and desires for our creative output, and revise and re imagine each other’s work to create something unique and special.

Written by Rachel, Nathanael, Emily, Addison, and Morgan

Heard Them Stirring: Music Mosaic

Heard Them Stirring - Fleet Foxes

When setting out to complete this assignment, I decided to take heed from “Seeing” and use the camera to see something in a new light. I figured the best way to do this, while also finding a way to take photographs that compliment Fleet Foxes “Heard Them Stirring,” was to take long exposure shots from the foothills trails not far from my apartment. By taking pictures with the shutter open for as long as 30 seconds, I could see so much more of the mountains due to the amount of light captured by the camera. Instead of seeing dark and shady silhouettes against the night sky, my photographs captured the mountains with the glowing light from Provo. Even in the far distance, light from Salt Lake City silhouetted the Timpanogos mountains. It was really surprising to see how much light was captured that I couldn’t see with the naked eye.

Post-processing was also important to help the photographs better capture the surreal feeling I was looking for. I took a nod from a long-exposure photographer I follow on Adobe’s Create blog, Toby Harriman, who commented that “Cameras don't see what our eyes see. When people ask if they can get copies of pictures, I say, "Not until I process them." I'm a post-processor all the way. My shots are not done until I run them through Photoshop Lightroom 5. I live out of it. I'll apply basic edits just to see how I like them. I'm always tweaking stuff. I try to keep a lot of it as natural as I can.” So, to improve my photo’s I experimented with Lightroom 5, and was really pleased with how my photographs came out. Part of the success here was also due to shooting in RAW instead of allowing the camera to process the photos into JPEGS, as doing so gave me a ton more data to work with in post-processing.

I was also happy with how the photos captured the same mysterious and somewhat eerie sound of “Head Them Stirring.” Something about that song strikes me as mysterious, and I felt that by taking long exposure shots of the mountains and the city at night I could compliment that feeling created by the song. I also tried to juxtapose industry with nature – the two can be seen as complimentary in the photos, as the light from the city illuminates the mountain, and the power cables compliment the composition of the photographs. For some reason, I felt that doing expounded upon the Americana sound of “Heard Them Stirring” – my photos of natural elements that interacted with technology in a way that I think is unique to the western United States, which I find this song to be reminiscent of. The song evokes imagery of wilderness and nighttime, and being able to capture the same feeling with photography is something I find to be a special opportunity for one living in Provo. Back home in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, different landscapes would either be very natural or very industrial, and rarely would the two come together like they do in Utah.

Does "Love & Mercy" have what it takes to change America's attitude towards mental illness?

In Bill Pohlad's film "Love & Mercy," a biopic about The Beach Boy's front man Brian Wilson, audiences get to see the happier times of Wilson's life, when he was producing "Pet Sounds" and "SMiLE." More importantly, however, they are also shown the darker times of his life, where he suffers from schizoaffective disorder. This biopic is unique not only due to a dual performance of Brian Wilson by Paul Dano and John Cusack, but also because of how it portrays mental illness. Thanks to the film’s accurate and balanced portrayal of schizoaffective disorder and the filmmaker’s activism, “Love & Mercy” is certainly capable of inspiring nation-wide change, but whether or not that change has happened yet has yet to be seen.

Before one can understand what changes a film like "Love & Mercy" is capable of, one must first acknowledge that there is a problem with how mental illness is talked about in America. One major issue is that the only time the media ever discusses mental illness is during the aftermath of a mass shooting. The aftermath of a mass shooting is the worst time to discuss mental illness as doing so contributes to negative stereotypes and unhealthy stigmas that further alienate the mentally ill (most of whom are not violent at all). Additionally, while college students across the country campaign for political correctness concerning language and marginalized minorities, people with mental disorders continue to be labeled as "psycho" or "crazy." And so the question now is, how can a film like "Love & Mercy" bring about the change that is so desperately needed?

The answer is in compassion. One of the film's greatest assets lies in how it is able to stir compassion in audiences for Brian Wilson. This alone isn't much of a challenge if one considers how Wilson is one of the founding members of what Ronald Reagan called "America's band," The Beach Boys. The fact that the subject of the film is someone who's music is almost universally recognized means that more people are bound to listen to the film's core messages, and take the issues more seriously.

Fortunately, however, Bill Pohlad does not simply use the fame of his subject to get butts in seats, and designs scenes and episodes in “Love & Mercy” that accurately portray schizoaffective disorder.

Accurate portrayals such as these do not come often. "A Beautiful Mind," for example, tells an amazing story but takes an approach to portraying John Nash's illness that is too literal, and ultimately fails to give the audience a realistic experience of his illness. 

Where "Love & Mercy" differs is that when the audience does get a glimpse inside Wilson's head, they are presented with genuinely frightening sounds and voices that, according to those close to Wilson, resemble what he truly experienced before getting proper treatment. The main scene that accomplishes this takes place when young Brian, shortly after a tense encounter with his father, puts on his headphones, and instead of hearing somewhat heavenly music (like before, while lying on his car), he hears a terrifying and twisted voice screeching. Not only is this episode accurate, but it also inspires empathy from the audience. Surely, a viewer of "Love & Mercy" would be grateful to not have to deal with that, but would also find a newfound respect for people like Wilson, who bravely live on in spite of their illness. 

What also differentiates "Love & Mercy" from other biopics is that episodes like the one described above are sparse throughout the film - instead of relying on episodes like these to make a point, the film shows the audience the suffering caused by the illness from the outside. The main examples that comes to mind are at the beginning of the film, when young Wilson has a panic attack on the plane, and the scene where he later on flails about in his pool's deep end, unable to have a serious conversation with his bandmates due to paranoia that Phil Spector had his house bugged. Both of these scenes clearly show how much pain Wilson was in, and thanks to the sparse yet poignant episodes described above, these scenes of outer suffering are even more powerful. 

So, "Love & Mercy" has been out since June of 2015 - has anything in America changed? Hard to say. What can be said is that thanks film's popularity, awareness of mental illness has indeed been raised. The effort to do this even goes beyond the movie itself, and both the producers and the cast have become vocal and active. Bill Pohlad, Paul Dano and John Cusack, along with Brian and Melinda Wilson themselves, announced a partnership with The Campaign to Change Direction, and Wilson even threw a benefit concert with his band to support soldiers with PTSD.

 The change the filmmakers behind "Love & Mercy" wish to see in our culture still has a long way to go. What can be said is that those who viewed "Love & Mercy" with little or no awareness of mental illness have certainly been given a lot to think about. The film gives great perspective into Brian Wilson's struggle with schizoaffective disorder and thanks to the accurate portrayal of his illness, the film is more than capable of inspiring compassion towards those who struggle with a mental disorder. One can only hope now that this compassion spreads beyond the film's audiences and fully permeates American culture.