What do you do for a living?

“To many of us define our value, or ourselves by the work we do.”

Simon Sinek

So, what do you do for a living?

I’m often “confronted” with that question, which I guess for most people is easy to answer; “I’m a lawyer” or “I’m a social worker.” (Here’s my standard answer, in case you are curious.)

I enjoy doing so many different things that the answer mostly relies on who am I talking to and the context. I am a visual storyteller, I edit, I shoot, I write. I also teach, and consult for several different companies. But I also love learning about wine, and history. My background is architecture, which I still love. I like photography, but as of late have been learning as much as I can about sound design. Most of the book I read are about finance, and biographies. The podcast I subscribe to go cover the whole spectrum from Radiolab, to Freakonomics all the way to TED Talks.

So, what do you do? On a fascinating conversation between Cal Fussman and Simon Sinek they discuss this topic in a very refreshing and insightful way. I took the liberty to extract a couple of minutes from their interview, but I encourage you to listen to the whole thing!

“If you want to define me by anything, you define me by who I am.”

Simon Sinek

Sinke’s “Start with Why” book and TED Talk (below) are also worth your time.

Grit and Ira Glass.

I just finished a fantastic book called “Grit” by Angela Duckworth. The book is SO good that I actually read it twice, back to back. The first time I extracted some awesome quotes like these:

“Each of the basic requirements of deliberate practice is unremarkable: A clearly defined stretch goal, Full concentration and effort, Immediate and informative feedback, Repetition with reflection and refinement.”

Angela Duckworth

“To be gritty is to keep putting one foot in front of the other. To be gritty is to hold fast to an interesting and purposeful goal. To be gritty is to invest, day after week after year, in challenging practice. To be gritty is to fall down seven times, and rise eight.”

Angela Duckworth

“Gritty people do more deliberate practice and experience more flow.”

Angela Duckworth

The second time I read the book, I took the time to pause during certain moments and really reflect on how Duckworth’s advise could be applied to my own professional life.

“Passion for your work is a little bit of discovery, followed by a lot of development, and then a lifetime of deepening.”

Angela Duckworth

I’m going to grow up to love my work as much as you love yours. I won’t just have a job; I’ll have a calling. I’ll challenge myself every day. When I get knocked down, I’ll get back up. I may not be the smartest person in the room, but I’ll strive to be the grittiest. In the long run, grit may matter more than talent.

Angela Duckworth

One of the most interesting exercises was to think who represents Grit to me. And Ira Glass, the well-know host of “This American Life” was the first one to come to mind.

I’ve watched this video by Glass endless times. I’ve used it on some of my “Storytelling” online courses and workshops. And I’ve shared it with more students than any other video. Why? Simply because in 5 minutes we condenses the process all creative people go through, not only once or twice, but pretty much every time we push ourselves, get our of our comfort zones and try new things.

On a more recent interview on “Without Fail“, the host Alex Blumberg (who worked for Glass for many years) shared a little bit of Ira’s process. If there’s no “Grit” on that, I don’t know where to find it!

If you want to learn more about Ira Glass and his creative process, I’d highly recommend watching this hour-long interview at Google.

And last but not least, I’ll leave you with one more quote by Angela Duckworth:

Grit has two components: passion and perseverance. This consistent pattern – perseverance scores more often topping passion scores – is a clue that passion and perseverance aren’t exactly the same thing.

Angela Duckworth

The Sound of A Star is Born.

I didn’t like “A Star is Born” as much as my wife and sister (best movie ever!!!!!). I certainly found some parts of the story interesting, but the nerd in me was very curious about the movie’s sound design.

After watching some scenes more carefully I realized that the sound followed the characters and specially the instruments, especially during the live performances scenes.

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My findings where finally confirmed when I came across these two episodes on the Soundworks Collection podcast.

It is a well know fact that sound is a HUGE part of any video project. But the more projects I shoot and produce, the more I realize that sound design might be THE key element in making a video project successful or not.

Of course, if there’s no story, or the story sucks, sound might not be able to save the day. But an ok story with ok images and ok editing with engaging sound might be enough to grab the viewers attention.

Here’s the complete interview. Enjoy!

The Color of Incredibles 2

I very often listen to the fantastic podcasts from the Soundworks Collection. The amount of cool “behind the scenes” info that directors, producers and composers share about their movies is mind boggling.

On an episode from earlier this year with Brad Bird, the director of Incredibles 2 and Nicole Paradis Grindle, its producer, the briefly touched the topic of “color.”

I took the liberty to extract two short sections on the topic of color below, but I highly recommend listening to the complete podcast and subscribing to Soundworks.