Why Do We Remember Stories But Forget Facts? | Climate x Storytelling Part 1

Award winning independent film-maker & IPCC Author, Dr. Sabrina McCormick, joins Marcius to discuss her experience as a writer, director, and producer. They dive into how storytelling shapes human culture, the challenges of independent media, and tips for aspiring filmmakers. 

Let us know what you think at podontherise@gmail.com

00:00 Introduction
05:21 Childhood TV Shows
09:04 The Importance of Storytelling in Society
12:27 Challenges in Independent Filmmaking
15:55 Who Decides What We Get To Watch?
17:41 The Creative Process of Independent Filmmaking
24:12 Navigating the Expanding Media Landscape
26:23 Explaining the Three-Act Structure
31:03 Meditation as a Tool for Film-makers
34:46 Persistence and Building Connections in Filmmaking
35:47 Closing Thoughts and Preview of Sabrina Part 2

Show Credits:
Vishrudh Sriramprasad, Producer
Claire Davis, Theme Music (Long Gone, Get It Right) | @clairedavismusic

Kheya Patel, Art | https://kheyapatel.com/

Contact: podontherise@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The story format is what allows the human, is it the psyche, is it the brain, what's the difference, to remember things, right? Look, I've I've done and looked at a lot of this research on how people understand, believe, reject ideas about climate change. Really, most of it says that you have to tell a story, you have to tell a good story, and you have to tell an entertaining story. And I don't think that's just relevant to climate. I think that's relevant to pretty much everything.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Last movie I saw in a theater was a Star Wars movie. I think it's called The Mandalorian and Grogu. I went with my 10-year-old. It was good. I love Star Wars. It was a classic Star Wars tale, it had all the cliches, but my 10-year-old liked it. She's starting to get into it, so that's a thrill for me. But she said something interesting after the movie was done. She said, Daddy, that was good, but you think we could go see a climate change movie next time? Just kidding. She didn't say that. My children never say that. I've never heard anybody say that. In fact, it's hard for me to even think about what a climate change movie might be. There aren't that many. Now, of course, we've all probably heard of or seen things like documentaries. That's probably the first thing that comes to mind when I think about TV movies, kind of thing you can watch or stream that's somehow connected to these topics. It's a documentary, which means we're documenting and recording what's happening out there in the objective natural world. And we usually get some kind of very serious or David Attenborough treatment, right? Watch the cheetah as she crouches in the grass, low whispering voice. It's very serious. The pacing is very slow. And of course, there's a lot of zoomed-in shots of nature or animals or wide shots of nature. Something else you'll notice in all these documentaries is there are no people. With the exception of the narrator, it's not a story about human beings at all. It's a story about out there, the world. It's kind of like that planet thing instead of focusing on us. Okay, it's but it's not totally true that there are no climate-oriented stories or TVs or films that center on people. There's another category, which I would call the disaster category. Now, we've talked about some of these things before, but I'm talking about titles like Don't Look Up, where an asteroid is going to crush Earth, Snowpiercer, where it's some kind of post-apocalyptic winterscape and everyone's on a train. There is uh the Wool series or the silo series, which is also post-apocalyptic. People are living in these underground tunnels. Waterworld, I've brought up, Deep Impact. Even The Great Flood, which was a Netflix movie I watched a couple months ago. I think it came out last year. Korean movie. Not really a climate movie, but a disaster movie, centers on people, gets a little bit weird at the end. I won't spoil it. So we do have another category that are thrilling disaster movies, maybe even you know action movies, but they usually have sour endings, right? None of those things end well. Think about Don't Look Up. Think about Waterworld, Snowpiercer. They don't exactly wrap up nicely. So it's just got me thinking: is it possible to have a compelling, human-centered climate story that's also entertaining and that doesn't necessarily have to have a bad ending? Not that I need everything to wrap up in a storybook Hollywood ending, but it just introduces a broader range, comedy, drama. Can we do a rom-com about climate or energy or technology or something like that? If it sounds ridiculous as I'm saying these words, maybe it is. But here's a couple examples of films that I really like that are not about nature. They're not about David Attenborough, British whispering reverence for the natural world. They're not about unsolvable problems, for instance, like a lot of our disaster flicks are, but they're actually about people solving problems. Now, yes, they do have a bit of technology bent, and I am a technology person. I don't think it's a coincidence, maybe it is, but I'm gonna name Interstellar. Very long movie, very weird, probably needed an editor, but it features people working together to try to solve big problems. The other one is Hail Mary, which I absolutely loved, came out a few months ago. Somebody told me the basic construction of the movie is buddy cop. Two dudes, two people generate a story, a relationship. They have love for one another, and that is the nexus of the movie. Yes, it's about humanity and solving problems and blah, blah, blah. But the heart of the movie, and the thing that gives it heart, sorry to be punny, is the connection between two people. So thinking about stories, thinking about movies, thinking about how we can approach climate-oriented topics is a perfect way to introduce today's guest, Sabrina McCormick, Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, writer, director, also IPCC author, that's intergovernmental panel on climate change. These are the big consensus scientific climate reports that are published every few years. She's a big deal. She translated her academic research into filmmaking. Here is Sabrina McCormick. I want to start with a weird kind of statement question. I lived in LA for many years, and one of the weird things about LA is that everyone calls themselves a storyteller, for better or for worse. Do you believe what I'm saying? That there's sort of a trendiness to people calling themselves storytellers. And I don't want to make it seem shallow, but I'm just curious if there's some of you have noticed or am I making this up.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

No, I think you're probably right, although I think it started a few years ago. And maybe it has something to do with uh how much is trying to grab for our attention right now and how important storytelling has actually become to that struggle, that landscape of, you know, me, me, me, me, me. And so people who are somehow professional storytellers, maybe there's a bigger job market for it, or you know, that's more marketable in some way than it used to be. Because if you don't get eyeballs now, you don't sell the thing, you don't get the whatever. It's like such a rush for attention. Yes. And there's just so much content, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:18

So much content. Here we are. Like uh, you know, this isn't news, but um Let's make some more. Listen, but this is this is the good stuff, though. This is the good stuff. This won't melt your brain.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Yeah. No, there's a lot of, I mean, honestly, I do look, I was not allowed to watch TV growing up, okay?

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Me either.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Oh, you seriously?

SPEAKER_01 6:39

TV, just real quick, the TV was like I had to ask my parents, can I watch at this show?

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Like in person or at the time. And the answer was always no, unless it was five o'clock and Sesame Street was on. Or it was what my parents thought was a culturally appropriate sitcom, which meant the Cosby show. But go on.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

The Cosby Show. That's the same thing. So my TV, the TV in my house was in a um like a console with a big mirror on it, and it had like this doorknob thing. And my mom and I were constantly, I'm like, I want no, no, you know, this whole thing. And so, okay, I was allowed a half hour a week. And what did I watch? Okay, nerd alert cosmos. Okay. Which is a crazy um kind of I guess coincidence that uh when we were up for the Emmy for the Years Living Dangerously, we were up against for best writing, Carl Sagan's wife, who was the writer, right? And I mean, she won, which I, you know, thank you. That look, that shaped my life. But in any case, I would watch Cosmos. That's what I would watch. So I wasn't allowed to watch TV. And so now here I am, like, I don't know. Did I have a lot of baggage in my childhood from not being allowed to watch TV? And so now I have to make media shit. Um, I don't know, but um why did I even start this story?

SPEAKER_01 8:00

On the subject of unpacking baggage, I wasn't allowed to watch a lot of television. Um, but I also sort of watched as much as I could get my hands on at the same time. Yeah. So I don't want to, it's not like I'm above TV. But I always wanted to uh be on the radio, and so this is frankly my best attempt at getting on the radio. My parents were both big radio hands. My mother especially listened to the radio con well, both my parents really. And my father worked at the local TV station, which was actually a big media network. Uh what'd he do? Sometimes he was a camera operator, I think, earlier on. Okay. But then later he worked in sort of like the technical production of live television, specifically related to commercials, when that stuff was done more by tape and by hand.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Oh wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

So I I mean that's where my engineering interest came up to. I grew around grew up around a lot of gear, but um, like microphones and mixers and camera equipment.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

And then later I got into, you know, lasers and electronics and other stuff that I made a career in.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Okay, that's very cool.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Yeah, always interested in mics and audio. Okay, but you talked about you said something really funny and then also really interesting and deep I want to pick up on. You talked about my baggage. We're gonna get straight into it, the childhood baggage.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Let's go there.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Well, look, I mean, maybe that's where it begins again. You were talking about the attention economy. You said something like maybe people need to think about storytelling more because there's more of a pressure to sort of sell, or this phrase people use be a brand. But there's also something that you said earlier, which you kind of glazed over. I want to come back on. You said something like it's so important to our society, and it's maybe always been important to our society. And that touches on a deeper point that I've heard a lot of folks make that storytelling is a really important part of humanity. I don't want to get too sanctimonious, but humanity with a capital H, it's something we do, it's part of our culture. Not just, and this is what I want to ask you is it part of our culture that we've inherited and it's with us? Or do you think it's an essential part of our culture and something we need to maybe even protect and not lose? Do you know what I'm asking?

SPEAKER_00 10:04

I mean, maybe I think look, there's all kinds of studies about this, right? I think that um what they say, at least my read, is that the story format is what allows the human, is it the psyche, is it the brain, what's the difference, to remember things, right? It's it's like creating a psychological coherence around phenomena that are otherwise disparate and disconnected. So, you know, uh look, I've I've done and looked at a lot of this research on how people understand, believe, reject ideas about climate change. And they just, you know, as much as there's a lot of research about um consumption of facts or graphs or visual representations, really most of it says that you have to tell a story, you have to tell a good story, and you have to tell an entertaining story. And I don't think that's just relevant to climate. I think that's relevant to pretty much everything. I mean, look, like I have traditionally had a pretty like not encyclopedic, that was my grandfather, but I could remember facts and stuff. But, you know, people aren't talking about facts at the water cooler. They're really not. Yeah, you know, so and I don't think that just started, you know, in the past hundred years or since TV or since the play, or I think that's human. I mean, that's what we see in graphics and inside of, you know, cave walls, right? These are really stories that are being told about the human condition. And um yeah, so I think that's a in terms of your question about being protected. Yes, I mean, I think what's happening right now in the media landscape is um highly problematic in regards to, and I'll just speak to what I know, yeah, the difficulty it is to um produce, create, and distribute independent films, independent media, right? That is doesn't rely on a conglomerate, a big bucks funder telling you what to make. And it's really hard now, and I think it's really important to a vibrant civil society.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Okay, so you said a lot of great things there, and I want to come on come on to this point about why you think it's so difficult before we unpeel some of the other stuff. I think I've heard the story or uh a version of stories about why independent filmmaking is so tricky. And I from what I can understand, it usually comes down to the or the explanation is, and I want to hear your version, but the explanation I've heard is it's something about the business and the finance works. And that's maybe an oversimplification. But to a lay person like me that doesn't understand really how the industry works at that level, I also think, well, but people like me and a lot of my friends and people I know and other people I hear and listen to, they say there's a reach a lot of craving for new and independent stories. Yeah. So this is a simple oversimplified question. How is it there's such a demand, I guess, for new and independent stories? Not just new, but independent storytelling, filmmaking, let's say. And yet the business, at least the profit-seeking side of the business, struggles to connect with that. What am I missing?

SPEAKER_00 13:23

I mean, it's complicated. It's really complicated. Um, but but when you ask that question, you know, one thing that just jumps, I mean, just jumps to mind is an example of of why it's uh difficult is, you know, I'm working on a project that has a lead male and a feature project that has a lead male and a lead female. And to be totally transparent, I was trying to decide how old the lead female should be and what the market would be for that. Struggling with us, this idea that I didn't know the facts on until I researched it that most lead females are under 40, right? They say that it's really hard as an actress to get a role once you're over 40. So I'm like, okay, is that because it's actually uh less marketable to have a lead female who's over 40, or is it something else? So I asked my my AI to tell me. And and then I did a little of you know due diligence on that, getting the um my dog is really very insistent on having some kind of joining the story.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Uh-huh. We'll consider it. We'll can I said joining a story, we'll consider it.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Yeah, exactly. Come on. Um, and so you know, in that particular instance, apparently it's not doesn't make a story less marketable. Doesn't, in fact, in many instances, it makes it more marketable. So I'll just say that Meryl Streep's biggest budget success was when she was 63. So, and that's just one example, right? But so what what I discovered in this process, which is not rocket science, is that it's the industry gatekeepers that are not allowing women over 40 to go onto screen. This is just one example of how the industry gatekeepers will shape what you and I end up seeing. Why do we end up seeing these things? Because they hold the reins for the marketing dollars, back to this point, right? About, you know, the grab for eyeballs and independent film, like right now, and and this is I think is maybe a a more relevant answer to your question. It's like there's nobody buying it right now. There's very little buying, there's a lot of content and a and not that much purchasing. And I'm talking about like million-dollar to three million dollar films.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

I'm much closer to just being an audience member when it comes to films again, but even I could notice things like, oh, another sequel. Or exactly uh, we're gonna make uh the film version of a three-part novel, but it's gonna be 27 films, or it's gonna be three seasons of 12 episodes each, sort of like the stretching and going back, and so you know, I I've read and heard more about that, but it plays into what you were talking about.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

The absolutely the rationale is that there's an existing audience, and so it's they have more economic confidence in an ROI that um than if they fund, and those things are generally pretty big budget, right? So they think that the ROI is more um is more likely with that than say a low budget indie, but the that's just not the truth. That's just not what the numbers say. The numbers say the numbers for entertainment are exactly what the numbers are for business. More diverse groups making more diverse content, like it just guarantees it's just a predictor of success, right? And it that's true of who you have behind the camera, in front of the camera, all the things. I apparently a more diverse caste, and I'm talking about racially diverse, guarantees a higher success in terms of economic return on project. So it's not um I don't know. I don't know what's you know, it's it's all the things, it's all the systematic norms and isms and all of that that are the problem here, of course.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

I like it, I like a nice tidy explanation. So I guess it's a lot of one. No, but it what you what you are saying makes sense, and I can, as I said, I can sort of see the see the evidence of that even from the outside, just as somebody flicking through channels. Never mind if you try to think more about it. But let me switch gears a little bit and ask you about just kind of breaking it down in a really basic level. How do you even start to, in the midst of all that landscape that you've talked about, you're still an independent artist, you're still an independent creator, you're still an independent filmmaker, working on features, working a lot of other things for now. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

No, it feels like maybe it won't, you know, tomorrow, who knows?

SPEAKER_01 18:01

They say you should live in the present.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

I try. I meditate, I try.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Okay. We're gonna I would like you to meditate on what is sort of a process of approaching an independent film. Whether you have a traditional process you like to use, or maybe thinking about a most recent project, how do you get started and what are the sort of rough steps you go through? I'm thinking from a perspective of like creative process. For someone out there that is working on a piece of music, a piece of writing, articulating an idea, a diagram, a film. Talk a little bit about how you approach these things and then maybe how it might be a little bit different uh if you weren't in the independent setting. How do you how do you do what you do?

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Yeah, I mean, independent anything, any of the stuff that I do is really different than the commercial side. Commercial side usually being, you know, we have an idea and we need to hire a writer, and there you go. Um my process varies from project to project. You know, traditionally, my work, my film work has come out of my academic research work. Um, and and mainly because those are topics I'm interested in. I'm driven to understand better and to really uh then share with the world. But um, just to spit stick to the creative um process, it can be anywhere from like, I'll just speak to a a script that we, my co-writer and I have that um is out to uh, I'll just remain nameless, uh, an A-list female lead. Um, you know, that project, which is about a super important environmental supreme court case. Okay, it started based on this. I mean, I did 10 years of research on climate change lawsuits and came upon this story, and it was a great human story. It and I couldn't believe I would, you know, go to parties, whatever, and people had not, I mean, when I say people, I mean real climate people, this is a climate story, had never heard of this case. And I was kind of like, how is that true? You know, and so um we wrote this, and look, we fictionalized it a lot, but having the basis of the real hum, we um, I should say that we shot a documentary about it first, and having met all the people in it and um, you know, discovered who was a like a real funny character and who was like a very different, you know, it was like I see it was great because then we got to really now I should say once we wrote the fiction version, and then now we've been talking to the real life people about the fit, it becomes more challenging. Okay, hold on.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Let me let me slow you down for a sec. I just want to make sure I'm following the process. So, this example you're giving, because subject of your rigorous academic research, entry version of it, where I guess you're developing a story further, you're getting to know some of the characters, people, um, or sorry, the real people and personalities involved.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Then you work on a fictionalized version, still of the ideas and stories, yeah. Now into production of that fictional version. Am I with you?

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Well, we don't have the funding for that yet. Okay, but it is out to being attached. I mean, in my ideal world, this this actress would attach it, and then that would allow us to finance it and then we would make it. But yes, that is the process.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

We're living in the present, heading into the future.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

Okay, sorry, I cut I cut you off. So what um what does that future process sort of look like for you, or how has it looked in other projects?

SPEAKER_00 21:27

Yeah, so with that one, uh we'll wait to hear back from her, and then if she says yes, um, which she has to, no, I'm just kidding. Uh, then I will try to find people essentially climate um adjacent either philanthropists or people who care about it, who have money to fund it. That's kind of like the independent film trajectory, right? Is to to find investors or in my case, philanthropists who um want to get behind a project. Um, so that's That's one kind of real world way of doing it.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

I mean, also can I jump in with a question here?

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

Um how far along? And you should tell me to shut up if I'm prying too much, but how far along, or how much of the concept or project do you have to have complete in order to get to that pitching stage? So you talked about securing uh the lead of your choice. Does this entire script have to be written? Do you start shooting? How help me understand like where you know how to stop, or maybe that's the big question.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

Well, it's, I mean, honestly, I've done every every type, right? So the feature that I made in Brazil, Sequestrada, we um I had a small grant from the UN actually, and we started shooting. This was in the Brazilian Amazon in the context of what became a huge international human rights uh violation for 22 indigenous tribes in the Amazon, the construction of the world's fourth largest dam. We started shooting, um, and then we used a little piece that we got um cut together to get more funding. Um, but that's very unusual. Uh typically it this process will fall into two categories, and I have projects that fall into both of those categories right now. One is you write the script, you attach a famous, ideally a famous um bankable star, and then you go get the funding. The other, and I have a series concept at this stage, um, is uh it's a pitch project. So you have like a treatment, you outline, you you do kind of biopic bio descriptions of some of the main characters, you paint the picture of what the world will be in, you know, short synopses of a couple of episodes, and then you go pitch that to studios because studios actually generally don't want the concept to be too developed when it comes to TV, especially. They don't want the concept to be too developed because they want to shape it in their image, right? They each one of them have their own image. So if you bring in something that's too far along, then that you know that's not appealing.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Okay. I want to ask you about medium. Um, we talked about drowning and content earlier. There are a lot of different media out there. Maybe two-part question. One, uh, which are you most uh comfortable in, or which where do you feel like you can your voice maybe sings the loudest or highest? And the second question is is it easier or harder to be a filmmaker or storyteller as the media seem to be expanding and expanding?

SPEAKER_00 24:39

It's harder. I mean, just to answer your questions in reverse order, I think it's well, look, there's so many things changing at once, it's hard to say. It's just because it's expanding, it's more available, right? Everybody can get a camera and shoot a thing. And um I mean, maybe it's just harder for a lot of reasons.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

But uh are those people really competitive with you though, or other people that have been doing it a while, have more skill, have more of a critical eye? Maybe it's just signal and noise.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Yeah, no, I do think. I do think. Um I mean it's different. Yeah, certainly it's different, right? Like, you know, I I have access to people and networks and whatever knowledge I other people don't have. But you know, uh in Hollywood, it's like always the hot new young blah blah. Any any role, director, right, whatever it is, right? So that's also a resource. Um, I mean, there's a sh always a shifting dynamic of what the kind of what you're playing to, right? I mean, just your question earlier about what what's changed, it's always changing.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Um, but I personally, you know, I feel squarely most comfortable in the 90-minute feature. I don't feel good, I don't feel really, and just to what we were talking about earlier, in terms of like not growing up with TV, I'm not very good with TV. I don't really understand the five-act structure, which is what TV is usually for or five acts. I have a lot more experience writing in the three-ac structure. Um, but it also kind of makes sense to me. And I I mean, I can explain how that works if that's helpful, but it's like, you know, act one, establishing a normal world. Here are your characters, here are your people, here's what's going on, here is the dilemma that is being posed, or the inciting incident as it's called, that you're going to have to spend the rest of the fucking film resolving, right? And then you're when you enter the new world of trying to resolve that, then it's the second act.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

Okay, hold on. This is really good. Imagine you're speaking to like someone who knows nothing about filmmaking and is scribbling down everything you say because they're gonna go try to write their first, you know. That might be me, but it might be somebody listening. So act one, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

I mean, um I'm not the best person to do that, but I'll do that.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

You're on fire, you're doing it. Um I shouldn't have interrupted you. Act two, now we're in that world.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Yeah, so act two almost always, and spoiler to every big budget or every, I mean, most movies follow this, right? Not all, but uh, and I I love it when they don't. But as you turn into the second act, your character, your lead is in a new world, right? So they've got a new job, uh, they're living in a new location. Their life has changed radically to the degree that they're going to spend the whole second act struggling through addressing whatever was posed in the first act as the issue. And in the second act, and this is the bulk of the film, right? So the first act is about 25, 30 pages or 25, 30 minutes, a minute is a page. And then you turn into the second act, and the challenges, the obstacles to the resolution of the dilemma that's been set up, just mount and mount and mount until you get to the end of the second act, at which point they have probably died, or it appears they've died, and then they come back to life in the for the third act, right? Yeah, not dead. Or, you know, just the example of bridesmaids is popping to my mind. I have no idea why, right? So I love bridesmaids. I think it's hilarious. Yes. Um, I totally saw that without knowing what I was getting into. And I just like, I wanted to.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

It's probably even better. Even better.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

So good. Exactly. I had no idea. And I walked up, I was like, oh my God, I'm dying. And then at the, you know, at the end of the second act, Kristen Wig, she thinks she's lost her best friend forever. You know, there's no going. I mean, she's she's lost her job. She's lost the cute guy. She's lost her best friend. It's a shit. Like life is just a shit and there's no coming back. And then um, Megan, um, what's the actress's name? The hilarious hilarious. Anyway, her friend comes and punches her. You get back up, you get back up, up, up, right? And so then she does, right? She does. And you then the your lead has to go and face the climax. Like this is the ultimate confrontation with generally it's the bad guy, right? Who is the bad guy? And and just to keep going, the bridesmaid's example, it's that other best friend who she's been competing with, who is just perfect, right? She's just perfect and she does everything right and whatever. And they have to have a face-off where the truth comes out and then it's, you know, resolution. So now now I'm shouting because it's um it's so fun. That's a movie.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

You're speaking with passion. You told you broke down the three-act film structure with bridesmaids uh as examples and two and three. Um, I want to uh switch gears in a minute and start to talk a little bit about climate-specific filmmaking. You've alluded to that a little bit. Uh you've you've told us a lot about how you think about it and approach it. And now I want to get into a conversation about how we can think about climate storytelling and how you specifically think about it. But before we do, uh just to put you on the spot a little bit and we can riff on this, um, do you have any general or specific tips or recommendations for aspiring uh filmmakers or storytellers or and or people that uh don't consider themselves up and coming, maybe they're toward the end of their career, but they're interested to tell stories maybe for the first time, or maybe to a new audience. Um any tips for storytellers that may come to mind about what about maybe well, the creative process, production, mindset, how to approach it? What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 30:49

You mean in terms of climate or in general?

SPEAKER_01 30:52

I would say generally. We can um we can say some of the climate stuff for the second half, but um whatever comes to mind. I'm curious what what comes to mind for you.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Well, I mean, I'm gonna say some things that are maybe weird. I get all of my best ideas in meditation.

SPEAKER_01 31:09

Ah, say more.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

Uh really, I get only only I only get ideas, good ideas in meditation. Um and I don't have a complicated way of meditating. I I've been doing it a long time, but I'm not like I can't give you meditation tips. But typically for me, um, I have to quiet. I mean, the mind is never quiet, right? There's always just that's what the mind is. However, if I can just sit without, you know, acting on my impulses, without um, you know, checking my phone, just sit quietly, focus on my breathing. And look, you don't have to sit, you can walk. Um, you can stand, you can lie down, whatever the form is. But to for me, it helps to close my eyes and really just focus on the breath. The mind will keep doing its thing, you know, and I keep bringing my attention back. For me, it's my nose. I don't know why. Uh I focus my on the breath in my nose. And if I will just keep doing that, things will become clear to me that I've been struggling with, right? So our conscious mind is doing, you know, gonna do a lot of work. So let's say you have a story idea and you're thinking, what should it be? What should I do? What should it look like? Fine, that's fine. Yeah. Also, that's not all this, that's not the whole picture. There's a lot going on in your subconscious that you you really, at least for me, I'll speak for myself. I can't bring to the form four consciously. I have to give it the space to do it itself. I don't know. I'm not a meditation guru. I don't know why I'm talking about this so much. This is not my expertise at all.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Sounds like it. No, what I was gonna, I I can definitely relate to sort of the stillness and the having a bit of distance from your ideas. I can definitely, I definitely get caught up in my own shit all the time. Um, and I can also get very in my head about my own ideas in particular.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

So anything that I can find to get objectivity about my own ideas, like, was this just one of your was this a crazy passing thought? Yeah, right? Is this actually one of your rare, very good ideas that you need to really study? And something like that. How do you figure that out?

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Do you have a way of knowing that? Because I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

Not like I'm being attacked by horrible thoughts and brilliant thoughts all day. Uh but you are. Um, but um, I mean, flattery will get you everywhere. No, but um no, the the thought that I'm not sure which idea is which is like truly terrifying to me.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Okay. Tips for young filmmakers. I want to pin you down on this before we take a quick break. Tip number one, meditate. Okay. Tip number two. Give me tips number two and three.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

I don't know. I think make a lot of friends. You know, I know that there are a lot of introverts out there, and that's I get that. I really do.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

Um but I can produce and edit and film all in my bedroom, and I can just produce all my stuff.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

Some people can do kind of like that, but filmmaking is the most collaborative art form I have ever encountered.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

And you gotta build, you gotta find your people, you gotta build your team, you gotta hone that team. And the only way you do that is by getting out there, meeting people, seeing work you like, talking to those people, you know, building your crew, as it were. This is really, really important.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

This is sage advice. Uh, meditation brings wisdom. Okay, any last thing, young filmmaker, what they're gonna meditate, they're gonna not meditate full time, they're gonna get out of their apartment and meet people.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

And I would say the main thing that has resulted in any successes I've had is persistence. Certainly intelligence helps, but that we're not, you know, we all have different kinds of intelligence. And I actually think persistence is more important. And so whatever you can do to develop the grit to just keep getting at it, whatever it is, just do that because in like, you know, I think being sensitive is is a useful skill set, but also kind of being able to say, okay, I'm just gonna keep going, even though that hurt, or that was hard, or that was it. You know, like keep it's just be persistent. I mean, that's you, that's it. It's kind of horrible. It's just that.

SPEAKER_01 35:37

Perfect note to end on, Dr. Sarita McCormick, filmmaker, scholar, storyteller. Thank you for this, and we'll see you on the flip side. That brings us to the end of part one of my conversation with Sabrina McCormick, filmmaker, writer, director. Probably my favorite and weirdest part of the episode was the detour into meditation. But look, if it works, it works. I had fun with that. If you love this conversation, you're not going to want to miss part two, which will come out next week. In it, Sabrina connects how the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa is related to climate solutions. She gives some tips to young and aspiring filmmakers, and we continue that conversation. She talks a little bit about her upcoming film, a movie she's working on right now. And she also talks about the seven typical or classic story forms or structures that seem to have been with us through hundreds or thousands of years. And we talk through which ones of those seem like they're actually best suited to telling climate stories. Thank you very much to my producer, Vish. Thank you to Sabrina for being part of this. Thank you everybody for tuning in. We love your support, we love hearing the early feedback. You can always catch us in audio on Apple or Spotify or wherever at your podcasts. And of course, if you're watching here on YouTube, we love your subscriptions, we love your like, we love your shares. We really appreciate that. That's how we get great people like Sabrina in here. Of course, we look forward to the next episode, and we can't wait to hear from you at podontherize at gmail.com. You can write to us anytime. That's pod on the rise at gmail.com. And now here is the music of the great Claire Davis to take us out.