Posts tagged “Walter Murch

Field Notes: Sounds Extreme

Posted on December 10, 2017

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Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum I frequently recommend the Cooper Hewitt across age groups. In addition to the Designing with Sound exhibit during my October visit, I saw an excellent exhibit on Design in the Digital Age, and an interesting Virtue in Vice exhibit with objects categorized across the seven deadly sins. My previous visit to the Cooper Hewitt led to writing about Pixar. Notes on Max Neuhaus, Times Square Considering the foot traffic through Times Square, this is probably the most visited art installation in America. It just so happens the vast majority of visitors don’t realize they’ve visited. Neuhaus said, “I want at least fifty percent of the people to be able to walk through it without noticing, without hearing it.” By my observation across at least five visits,…

Pattern or Prison

Posted on January 2, 2016

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I often see patterns in my clients’ (and my own) actions. While mental shortcuts may be helpful to speed decision-making and reinforce comfort zones, they can lock you into unnecessarily tight boundaries. At worst, extremely patterned behavior imprisons thinking, actions and results. Let’s consider three patterns – deferring to planning, precedent or power – that often entrap decision-makers. “What you do as an editor is search for patterns, at both the superficial and ever deeper levels – as deep as you can go…Putting a film together is, in an ideal sense, the orchestration of all those patterns.” –Walter Murch Prisoner of the Plan This prisoner spends an inordinate amount of time setting an overly complex plan, and once it’s set, he never changes it. So much…