Kirby Ferguson Kirby Ferguson

My latest documentary is complete!

After eight years, my latest documentary This is Not a Conspiracy Theory is now complete. While it certainly wasn’t the only thing I worked on for those eight years, it was my primary focus and I think it’s the most important work I’ve done. You can buy the series here. The price gets you the complete series (100 minutes) plus a whole bunch of extras.

If you already bought the series on VHX/Vimeo OTT, you can log-in here.
If you bought on Vimeo on Demand, log-in here.

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Kirby Ferguson Kirby Ferguson

Two Major Announcements

Hey folks in case you missed it, the last episode of the This is Not a Conspiracy Theory podcast features a couple major announcements that might be of interest. Check it out below.

In this episode I make two major announcements about this project and its successor. Visit http://thisisnotaconspiracytheory.com for smaller updates about This is Not a Conspiracy Theory.

You can follow this series at the This is Not a Conspiracy Theory site or via podcast.

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THE END: IN PRAISE OF CREDITS (Transcript)

This is a transcript for the video “THE END: In Praise of Credits.” Click above to watch the video.

Enjoy these videos? Come back me on Patreon!

Endings are special. Endings are those final, fleeting moments before a chapter of our lives closes forever. They’re a small window where we acknowledge that a time has passed and will never return.

In stories, it’s often endings that are the most unforgettable. Endings can be heartbreaking. They can be horrifying. They can be hilarious. They can be chilling. They can be triumphant. They can be melancholy. They can be cathartic. They can create a flash of insight. Or offer a moment of solace.

Endings are a goodbye. They’re a goodbye to the short emotional experience of a story. And occasionally, they’re much more. They can be a goodbye to who we were.

This happens most often when a series you’ve watched for years ends. We say goodbye to not just a show and its characters and its creators, but to an era of our lives as well.

And after these stories end, the screen goes black, the music rises, and the credits roll. And we are left alone. Even when we’re with others, the closing credits are a private moment where we can contemplate and absorb an experience.

Closing credits can be a brief meditation, where you can ponder a mystery, where you can mourn, where you can stare into the existential void, where you can just appreciate how a story has enriched your understanding of life. Closing credits allow us to reflect. You can grow a little bit in these moments while the credits scroll past and the music plays.

These moments don't happen often. Plenty of the time, once the credits roll, you just wanna watch something else. But Netflix in particular seems over-eager for you to queue up the next thing. The closing credits are often reduced to a tiny picture-in-picture while a full screen promo runs. Other times, the next episode of a show will autoplay in five seconds.

Again, very often, this is fine. You do just want the next episode of Making a Murderer.

But in those rare and special moments when it’s not fine, it feels crass and invasive when somebody's software won't just leave you alone. In our increasingly fast and noisy culture, closing credits offer a brief respite.

There's one ending in our lives for which there is no autoplay next. This is the final fade to black. And we all go back to where we came from.

This happens to us all once. But only once.

The rest of the time endings are something more. Ending are also beginnings. They’re beginnings that are imbued with new wisdom and new empathy. We start new chapters of our lives where we might be kinder, be braver, be better. Where we take time to appreciate being here, on the very best world of all for one more day.

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New Video: THE END: In Praise of Credits

Hey everybody, I’ve got a new video! It’s called “THE END": In Praise of Credits” and it’s a celebration of endings and closing credits, and a criticism of autoplay next. I hope you enjoy it!

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MUSIC FEATURED

“Cuckoo!” by Mostly Britten amzn.to/2EVXUPt
“Breathe Me” by Sia amzn.to/2JArGYU
“An Ending, A Beginning” by Dustin O’Halloran amzn.to/2AGPTtI
“Where We’re Going” by Hans Zimmer amzn.to/2RzM5QD
“Any Day Now” by Chuck Jackson amzn.to/2DgtZjj

FILMS FEATURED

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial amzn.to/2JxePGL
Rushmore amzn.to/2RqVxW8
Boyhood amzn.to/2CWLLab
Fargo amzn.to/2CV64Vu
Life of Brian netflix.com/title/699257
You Can Count On Me amzn.to/2Jx3INY
Melancholia amzn.to/2SIiUfw
Ex Machina amzn.to/2JvwSNB
Gravity amzn.to/2CVrrpK
Lost in Translation amzn.to/2Ro7V9i
The Shape of Water amzn.to/2Jv8J9F
The Usual Suspects amzn.to/2SCKbQn
Moonlight amzn.to/2JuLkVU
The Graduate amzn.to/2DgX9Pp
Withnail and I amzn.to/2Rr1PFl
Mad Men amzn.to/2JxglIK
Six Feet Under amzn.to/2SD2QLY
The Wire amzn.to/2JvbBUh
Breaking Bad amzn.to/2RtvltY
The Sopranos amzn.to/2RuMKCJ
Being John Malkovich amzn.to/2Jv9sHV
Cabaret amzn.to/2CVqZrK
The Big Lebowski amzn.to/2AGllrW
Twin Peaks: The Return amzn.to/2SD68P9
The Walking Dead amzn.to/2Rth6FD
Synecdoche New York amzn.to/2SzW75z
The Shape of Water amzn.to/2Jv8J9F
Tokyo Story amzn.to/2Om6aHQ
Game Night amzn.to/2JvN6WU
Making a Murderer netflix.com/title/80000770
Citizen Kane amzn.to/2qvlTet
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind amzn.to/2CUOfWI
Her amzn.to/2Rtiecl
Carol amzn.to/2JytFg7
Atlanta amzn.to/2SFyRCS
Frances Ha amzn.to/2RqYvtK
Inherent Vice amzn.to/2Jx7siu
The New World amzn.to/2RtiJ6d

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New Video: Palette Power

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The Story Grid by Shawn Coyne

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TRANSCRIPT:

A palette is a selection of colors from which an artist paints. But palettes don’t just apply to visual art. They apply to just about any kind of creative work.

For instance, the selection of instruments in a song is a palette. Two guitars, a bass, drums and a vocalist is a classic rock palette. If you start plucking a harp half-way through a rock song, it’s probably gonna sound out of place.

Another example, a film’s genre is a palette. When people go see a thriller, they expect certain conventions, like a moment where the hero is at the mercy of the villain. This is an obligatory element of the genre. You can—and should—bend and twist and subvert these rules, but you can’t simply ignore them. If you do, much of the audience will be frustrated with your film and they won’t know why. It’s because you didn’t stick to the palette or at least acknowledge it. For more on this, read Shawn Coyne’s The Story Grid.

Palettes are recurring styles and elements within your work. They simplify your aesthetic and make it feel more unified and cohesive. They can also help organize and structure your work.

Palettes aren’t just for visuals artists. Whatever it is you’re working on, see if you can incorporate the power of palettes.


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Multiyear project coming to close

Six years later, my doc series "This is Not a Conspiracy Theory" is finally entering its last phase of production. This is an exciting time and I've started an audio diary podcast about the whole experience. This is Not a Conspiracy Theory can be purchased here.

You can listen to the first episode above. See below to subscribe to the podcast.

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NEW VID: WHY DIVERSITY WINS

Find out how diversity makes us more innovative, more productive and smarter, while ultimately making us stronger. 

TRANSCRIPT:

When people say “diversity” they’re generally referring to three things: race, sex, and sexual orientation, and increasingly, people are referring to gender identification. But diversity is also about something else that it’s important we remember. It’s also about thinking differently, about looking at the world in different ways.

This kind of diversity -- diversity of thought -- is the hidden advantage of diversity because it better enables us to solve complex problems. Complex problems come in lots of different forms: How do I grow grow my business? How do we decrease poverty in our county? How do we reduce carbon emissions? All of these are complex problems -- they’re incredibly stubborn and difficult to solve. These kinds of problems are so difficult that they have not been solved and most efforts to will fail.

The key to solving problems like these is to try lots of different tactics until you finally find something that works. And that’s what diversity gives us -- it gives us lots of angles from which to attack problems.

So how do we think more diversely? By incorporating different paradigms. A paradigm is how you see the world, it’s your outlook. So a politician, a writer, a technologist all interpret the world in different ways -- that’s their paradigm.

People with different paradigms use different tools, different problem solving methods. So a politician thinks in terms of policies and public support, a writer thinks in stories, a technologist thinks in hardware and software -- so they use these kinds of tools to solve problems.

So diverse thinkers have different paradigms -- different ways of looking at the world -- and this means they use different tools to solve problems.

But diverse thinkers and diverse groups have more advantages because they can also cooperate and compete with each other.

So for instance, if Business A doesn’t have one kind of tool, it can tap into another business who does -- they can cooperate. And Business A also has to compete with Business, B, C, D and so on. And the winner of this contest will likely be better, cheaper and/or faster.

Now what’s sometimes forgotten about diversity is that it incorporates different, conflicting ideologies -- people with different paradigms who may not get along very well.

So it’s liberals, conservatives, libertarians, socialists, the religious, the non-religious, all finding ways to peacefully compete and cooperate. Each will win at different times because their tools will be better suited to certain problems. And if they can’t win enough, their paradigm will be phased out over time.

Diversity is the strength of democracies, free markets, and open platforms. Diversity tends to beat less diverse rivals. And it doesn’t win because it’s right, because it’s just, or because it’s moral. It might be all those things, but that isn’t why it wins. Diversity wins because it is a better way to solve complex problems.

It’s more innovative, it’s more productive, it’s more adaptive, and it’s smarter. It makes us stronger because it allows us to cooperate with some groups, while forcing us to compete with others.

When you’re trying to solve difficult, complex problems beware of groupthink and echo chambers. Consider how you can become more diverse, how you can incorporate different paradigms and different tools.

 

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