Creating Universes

Fiction is a big part of our everyday life. Are there schemes good stories should follow? How do you create fictional stories, and what has changed in comparison with the past? How relevant is the process of creating fictional stories for their messages? What makes good stories worth reading in the long run?

Speakers:

• The Brazilian author Paulo Coelho has sold over 100 million copies, which makes him one of the most popular and influential present writers. Right now, his novell "The Witch of Portobello" is turned into a movie by internet users.
• Carolyn Porco is the leader of the Cassini Imaging Science Team and director of Ciclops at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. On the 17th of January, she was awarded the Isaac Asiimov Science Award of the American Humanist Association
• David Silverman is one of the mot famous cartoon animators. He designed well-known cartoons, such as the Simpsons, Monster Inc. and Ice Age.
• The Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani gained world wide attention with his unorthodox and provoking motives for the United Colors of Benetton ad campaign.

Paulo Coelho opens his speach saying that it's important for him to have eye contact with the people - so he likes being on the conference. He poses the question: How does internet affect the book world?

He refers to three points: language, copyright and community

Language: "I was always a fan of the democratization the internet brings", he says, "and the easier abbreviations of internet language". For example: "4U" for "for you". "So, internet influences our language. 20 years from now we will have this new language, that will make our lifes easier or more difficult, we'll see."

Copyright: When he puts up a song on myspace.com, three days later it got deleted by request of the artist. But why? He was just a fan. "This drives me crazy. Why can't we just share the songs with our friends, our peers."
Coelho mentions an experience he made with his book "Stories for father, children and grandchildren", written in 2000 on the internet. In 5 months the book was downloaded over 1 million times. And up to today, he never got a comment on the book. "You download it but you don't read. You just want to have it, but you don't read. When people want to read, they buy books!"
In Russia his book "The Alchemist" had problems with distribution: Only 1000 copies where sold, so he put it online. The next year, 10.000 books were sold, the year after 100.000! The free download helped. "In the third year, we had 1.000.000 copies. This is fantastic: You give the reader the possibility to read the book and decide whether he wants to buy it or not." So he created a site to download the book in different languages. The sellings of the book increased.
Coelhos conclusion: "There is no conflict between having something for free and wanting people to buy it. Free download stimulates the people to buy it."

Communication: "Writing is such a lonely thing to do. You sit in front of your computer, and you sell 100 million copies, but who am I refering to? Which one of the 100 million readers shall I address myself? And I only know one fairly well, that is me! So I write the books to myself. But over the internet, I can interact with my readers.
Internet does not destroy language. Language is a living thing!"

Coelho throws a party every year on the 30th of March. On his blog he wrote he'd invite the first 10 people who emailed him to the party. People wrote from everywhere on the world. And the fastest ones actually came. For a Japanese woman, it was the first time to actually leave Japan. He will do it again this year.

"This is the blessing of internet", Paulo Coelho says, "to get in contact with some of the 100 million readers."

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David Silverman, answers the question: "What makes The Simpsons so popular?" Silverman's short answer: "I don't know!" (laughs). The main thing that really made it work: Matt Groening wanted a TV family watching TV, absorbing and absurding popular culture. There were many episodes with the Simpsons on the internet."

Then Silverman shows examples of what makes The Simpsons so popular:

First of all a clip of "Homer goes crazy" with the Flintstones Song made in "Simpsons"-style. Then Homer in the land of chocolate, skipping around like an elf, following chocolate bunnies, losing complete control over where he is.

By the way: Matt wanted the Simpsons to be yellow because he didn't want to paint a hair line for Lisa and Bart.

What was new about The Simpsons? Silverman explains: "For the first time, animation was written by people who normally write for sitcoms, for grown-ups. That made it so new when it came out in 1989."

(He wants to show more Homer episodes, but the computer wasn't cooperating.)

So he goes on talking: "It's a long process to make an episode", he explains, "it takes about six months. Including the production it takes 9 months. It takes six weeks to write an episode. One writer has an idea, the next adds, and it goes from one writer to the next, it gets re-written all the time, and they see what they laugh at and what they don't laugh at. That's one of the keys of success. "We are never satisfied, we always work on it."

(Somebody trys to help with the computer, but no success.)

In the first season we had five locations, then every season there are new locations and new characters, new facets of the Simpson world. Silverman tells small jokes from several Simpsons' episodes where new characters are introduced. "Sometimes characters meant for one joke only re-appeared later. Every part of the process feeds on the final creation of the thing."

Then he shows a clip from The Simpsons episode from Helloween, where Homer turns into a blob. Silverman asks, how many people saw the movie. Several people raise their hands, a woman behind me gasps: Oh my god!

What about the future of the Simpsons: "We will use more digital media. The last show with painting cells was produced in 2004, now we produce digital and have many more possibilities with colour presentation. The Simpsons are now on the air for almost 20 years, but they keep going, there is still an audience!

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Lights go down, Carolyn Porco shows images - "A story about the inhabitants of a small rocky ocean-covered planet: The inhabitants of the planet refused to accept limitations, letting their imagination go extremely wide, became masters of gravity and went into space. They did this in response to their biological drive to explore, to seek answers: How is it that their little planet came to be?"

Performing this search over the past 50 years, human beings have been to all planets, to many asteroids... "How do the planets fit in the scheme of universal existence?" Going to Saturn will help to answer this question. Spaceshuttle "Voyager" has been there, but until Cassini went there, there had been not much knowledge about Saturn. Cassini travelled for 7 years.

There are sixty moons at Saturn, from 60 kilometers to the size of the United Sates.

All the moons are made of ice. One looks like a sponge. Then she shows a movie - "the most challenging movie we made" - of a Saturn moon that has a white and a black side, with a mountain chain 200 km high around the equator. "When ice evaporates, dark stuff (dust, organic material) comes out, and the darker it is, the warmer it gets, the quicker it melts", she explains. "A mystery has been solved that is 350 years old."

Then she shows a picture of a cliff that is 15 km high.

She tells about how great it was to be in Darmstadt, witnessing the first time a human made a landing on a moon that was not the moon of the earth. "A true union of nations did that", she says, "in this case to undertake a mission mankind has never been on before. A landmark event!"

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Oliviero Toscani holds a advocates for creativity, with a dramatic voice. During his whole speech pictures made by him flicker over the screens on his sides, changing every one or two seconds. It's hard to follow, also because he is reading his manuscript, not holding a free speech. Great pictures! Some impressions of his speech:

"Back to earth", says Toscani, "to see what humans can create! We can talk about technology", he says, "but behind techonology, there is creativity."

He was in art school 1963. Burda people came to get young blood, so he came to Burda, and there was art hanging on the wall. Burda wanted him to come to Burda after school to be the art director. But he didn't because he wanted to be free.

"The human race is divided in two classes. People who are creative and people who are not creative. Creative people are in direct competition with God, so they don't care whether God exists. For them it is enough to be creative."

"People of power are consumed by envy. Creativity requires energy and courage. Religion and the state tend to limit creativity. Only true creative people have no fear of creativity. The army of non-creative people is huge. They exist to cut down every idea that is stupid enough to gain consensus. That's why all newspapers look alike, all cars look alike, and so on."

He continues with talking about what creative people are capable of doing, how they should not respect the limits that are given to them by the powerful, non-creative people like the Church.
"Art is the highest expression of human communication. It is always at the service of power, like religion."

"Creativity is communication..."

"Creative people are not content to serve."

"Most of the pictures in media are stupid and repeat themselves all the time."

"Missing in the world of communication is courage!"

"We live in the past, because the past is more secure. With technology, we are all becoming very lazy. Many people have phones, are online, 90% of people will be born in Africa, European population will shrink, African will be three times larger..."

"So much money is spent on hysteria of secuirty and defense from terrorism."

Then he talks bad about Coca Cola without naming it: "It's addictive, like many kinds of food.
Brand is a membership card in the global club. Brands do not nourish society, they are nourished by society."

"Difference becomes the enemy. Artists should have the power to free themselves of their fear.
Creativity has always to be subversive. Do the contrary of what the system wants you to do.
We do not reproduce creativity, but conformity."

"Against profit. Dialogue, not mono-brain, not monophobe, monoculture."

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January 20, 2008 · 05:42 PM

Creating Universes

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