TITLE: Lady Gaga & Brian Eno: Why “Interesting” Beats Talent Every Time
VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOGnyoz1ezA

You've been told to get better at your craft. That's all you need to do. I'm going to show you how that's not true. >> You don't get the full development of human personality by trying to cultivate personality. Did you ever hear of anybody who had true personality who got it through taking a course on how to win friends and influence people or how to be a real person? You never did. It's rather when you forget about your personality and you become interested in something else that you become interesting to other people. >> A referee uses a whistle to stop the play. Then there's an explanation. That is the same format you use as a creative. Being interesting is a lot like blowing your own whistle. It's so you can get the attention of the people before you give your art to them. uh from a storytelling belief, an actress belief, and I guess the music that I like too, that people put way too much emphasis on being likable. And I don't actually think likable is as important as lovable and interesting. >> A lot of people will look past being interesting and they'll say things like being skilled is enough or being talented is enough. But the problem is the world is so noisy now. The only way for a person to even see your talent or to see your abilities is to be interested in the beginning. And you could work on your craft for years and years and years and people still won't look your way. Being good is just the baseline. Just being good will get you forgotten really quickly because there's a lot of people who are just good. >> It's not it's not to change yourself to what someone else thinks. First of all, you don't really know what someone else thinks. And if you're not genuine to yourself, there's there's like nothing nothing is there. It's just a projection or a mask. It's not true. In a sea of information, the more yours is personal, the more it's not like hers or his or theirs. >> It's it's yours. >> There are these different points of view around us. If we're all thinking the same thing, it's boring. Why would we make anything if everyone thinks the same thing? What makes us interesting are the differences. >> And even even the imperfections, the imperfections are what makes us humans, what makes us what we are. >> It's really about attention, interest, meaning, and then skill. You must get someone's attention first. You can kind of think about it like dating someone. First, you have to get the girl's attention. Then, how she responds determines if she's interested in you. Then, you're looking for meaning. Is this going to be a relationship? Is it long-term? Further into the relationship, you find out what the person's skill set is. If you um pay attention to someone like Lady Gaga, she understands how to be interesting. She doesn't ask permission. She uses herself as the canvas. Then it becomes this personal game of what will she wear next or what message will she convey next? Making films that deal with the American military and government and all of that segments of it have given you push back. Is that a badge of honor? Would you have been happy if if that hadn't happened? >> Well, I never anticipated it necessarily. Yeah. I just think what's interesting is there's a conversation whether it's antagonistic or productive. There was a conversation and that's that was the intention of the film. >> Think about rappers and actors. Actors were coming out complaining that rappers were taking their jobs. And then all of a sudden there was this new wave of rappers coming in and not trained, not whatever. And so what what what people don't always understand is, you know, actors, you know, you're you're starving for your next job. You don't know what you you're sometimes just barely hanging on. Here comes this great role. This great role and you're like, "Okay, I'm going boom." You put everything you have into it and it's got nothing to do with talent. It's got to do with, oh, this person has a song and so the devastation people in the theater, >> we think because it doesn't always translate, but they were willing to so they were willing to take a chance. So, oh, well, that's just one job. No, it was happening a lot. And one job is important. You know what I mean? And one job, one job is important when you when you are a true true artist, true artist. When you're a true artist, >> there's no such thing as just one job. Film industry, their first thought is how do I fill the seats? How do we sell tickets? It's not really a meritocracy. They start looking for interesting people. Rappers have a more interesting life outside of the view of the camera. So that's less marketing dollars that a company has to use to make people interested in them. Paid marketing, paid advertising, that's buying attention. And the difference with rappers is they brought their audience with them. They didn't have to buy attention. >> Eth Ledger, who oh my god, you know, what a performance. What a pleasure to have gone to work with him and just to see him, you know, and how much he put himself into the Joker. And I would and and I was watching it going, "Yeah, this is absolutely fantastic. Are we in trouble here?" Of when Chris and I first sat down, we said, you know, the problem with Batman is is that the villains are always more interesting, right? And so Batman actually, he's very close to being a villain himself, so let's never let him become dull by comparison. And unfortunately, I was sitting there going, you know, I'm feeling a little bit dull by comparison cuz Heath is just like killing this. And but I'm so proud of that film. I love it. The The Dark Knight is absolutely extraordinary. >> Interest is about contrast, scale, and polarization. Contrast is how you stand out. And polarization is are you extreme enough to be loved or extreme enough to be hated. It's like getting a C in class. Nobody remembers the C student. Everyone remembers the A students and everyone remembers the F students. When you see the big shoe that Joanna created, that is an example of scale. And then you see what the shoe is made out of, which is metal pots and metal lids, a woman's shoe, a high heel. Then it makes you wonder, is this a metaphor for being in the kitchen and then being transitioning to a professional woman? And that becomes even more interesting. T one of the funniest comedians to me 15 years ago. Kevin Hart. Kevin Hart not funny no more. Brilliant businessman. Brilliant businessman. He not funny no more. He's too successful. He used to have comedy jokes. Laugh in my pain. Now what? Laugh at my billions. What happens with success is that people become conservative. You start protecting your status. You stop taking risks and you trade your interest for insurance. Fame can kill interest because you start to replicate what you've already done. So it becomes familiar but it becomes less interesting. >> I feel that it it's so easy. The question it's so easy that everybody could do it. What makes the difference when I do it or when another filmmaker does it? It's a point of view. It's the attitude toward people. It's the desire to frame the desire to get the more significant image or the more uh touching image so that they could go to other people. You know, I never film like this to just to say a film. The question is not to be a woman making a film. It's a big filmmaker making something interesting creating a new language. I think it's important to offer images with the space and the silence sometimes so that they have to read it themselves and we have to respect the ability of everybody the intelligence of everybody to to understand and image any film. >> They have something called the zygarnic effect. When something is unfinished or something is missing, we remember it easier. The way I discovered the Zagarnic effect was through typography where you would have a word that was missing a letter or you would replace a letter with a symbol and that word becomes easier to remember. Of course, Netflix uses this zygarnic effect. It's the reason for cliffhers. It's kind of a mental hack. Unanswered questions feel louder than answered questions. They stick with you longer. It's similar to curiosity gap, which is another technique that's used, but you see it in all of art. They'll leave space in the song where it's just drums where you can add your part to it. Too much mystery ends up being confusing and too much clarity ends up being boring. So, it's almost like it's gaining the interest of the audience because they get to participate in the art. And it's in our best interest as creators that we understand these methods because they're being used against us when we should be using these methods for us. There is a kind of brain theory about this which is that most of what we perceive as a prediction and the things that we use our eyes, ears, noses and other senses for is to correct for prediction error. In other words, we disproportionately um attach attention to the unexpected. And will Gdara's one of his stories was taking over an ice cream stand, am I right, in the middle of a museum in the US or an art gallery >> and he had an incredibly extravagant spoon, wasn't it? You know, that that made zero sense. It was ridiculous. >> So, the ice cream was all pretty good, but he, you know, he allowed his accountants to choose the ice cream supplier and the pots and everything else, but he absolutely went out on a limb for these Italian-made spoon. And what he noticed was that if he ever mentioned that ice cream stall anywhere to anybody who ever been there, they all talked about the spoons. >> MF Doom is not only interesting because of his mask. He's also interesting inside of his art. When you look at someone like MF Doom, he felt ancient and futuristic at the same time. That contradiction in itself is interesting. >> Is there one or one of these fields in which you would like to be remembered? if that doesn't sound too pompous. >> But I've been always more interested than in experiment than in accomplishment. >> I always used to say that artists are either cowboys or farmers really and they're both both ways of being an artist fine. You know, the farmer wants to find a piece of territory and fully explore it and exploit it. The other kind of artist is the one who just wants to find somewhere new. He just wants to find the ne the next frontier, the next piece of territory. And that's what he gets turned on by. You're most alive when you're not quite sure what what is going on. When you're you're slightly flying by the seat of your pants and you have to negotiate it somehow. That's that's why we love improvisation so much because people are deliberately putting themsel at risk in a way soaring out into the unknown and uh somehow dealing with it and that process of hearing someone dealing with it is the difference between life and death in a piece of work I think. So I suppose all all of the strategies and techniques that I use and there are quite a lot of them besides randomness are really ways of trying to find myself in a new place. >> I remember this battle between YouTube and Vimeo. But you would go to Vimeo and they would have great filmmakers on there. I mean like people using high-end equipment just a lot of great like cinematographers and they still wouldn't get the attention because they were making films and they were making content to impress other filmmakers. And then you'll on YouTube you'll have some random guy who shot something on his phone in Walmart in the frozen food section. He captures 13 seconds of a fight and it gets a million views. you're focused on competing with, you know, uh, Scorsesei, but you should also figure out why people are so interested in that fight video in Walmart beyond the idea of it being a fight. The secret to staying interesting is not asking permission. >> That's it. Because my kids don't ask for permission, right? My kid will go into my closet and put on every single piece of clothes and come back and and I'm like, I'm gonna do that. When's the last time I did that? Eight, seven years old. And I go and I put on like all my underwear like and I just we we have and then I roll down the stairs and I go permission granted. Like people really don't they forgot how to have fun. They forgot how to like be goofy. I often think about the Fab Five in Michigan when they came out with those black socks and those long shorts. You can see the cultural impact right away. Before then, at the park, you didn't see anybody with black socks. If the economy you're in is based on attention, quality doesn't matter if nobody looks. Some people have figured out being unforgettable is better than being liked. You'll always remember the most interesting. Don't ask permission, just do. Make sure you subscribe, hit the notification bell if you like the content that I make. If you want to support the channel, make sure you sign up as a member. This is Brian from the King's Hand. Until I see you next time. Peace. >> Be appointed hand of the king. [music] [music]