A Quote by Carrie Mae Weems

I don't like directing a lot of people. So trying to keep things really simple and elegant is my preferred way of working. — © Carrie Mae Weems
I don't like directing a lot of people. So trying to keep things really simple and elegant is my preferred way of working.
I'm making a record that's half stripped down acoustic which is the way I perform a lot and half of it is very produced. It's really hard to keep music simple but I was trying to keep it simple and focus on one or two instruments and vocals.
Beauty means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. A lot of different ways in which things can be beautiful. But this really has a very specific meaning and which is more along the lines of elegance which is that we say an idea is beautiful or elegant in mathematics or physics if a very simple principle or a very simple idea, or simple set of ideas, turns out to be very powerful and leads to all sort of unexpected structure and unexpected predictions.
Some people don't like my songs because they think they're too simple or easy or not that thought-out. I feel like the way I write is pretty simple, in some ways, because I'm trying to connect. I want a lot of people to hear it, and be moved in some way.
I like it when people are kind and I like people who are looking for collaborators. Sometimes you can feel like a moving prop, and that could be amazing, you can be a prop in somebody's incredible vision, but I'm more interested in people who are looking for actors they can collaborate with and make something together with. I like stretching myself, I like trying new things out, but I'm really interested in working with directors who have a very specific style and a unique way of working.
When I'm directing, I'm pretty much not writing, but when I'm not directing I am writing a lot. It's strange: people have asked me what my schedule is and what is my process like, and I can't even answer it. I don't keep regular hours.
I like to see photographs: I like to see my family. To me, when I open a basic browser, and it's that very elegant silver simple user interface, I am unhappy. I don't need elegant and silver and simple!
I have come to terms with a lot of things, because, when all's said and done, there's really very little one can do about a lot of things. You just accept them. The point is you just have to keep on working and you just have to keep on living.
Working with the actors, working with production designers, working with the creative people who surround the process is really fun, it's really inspiring and I take great pleasure in working with them. That's what's most fun about directing.
When I'm working as a director, I might have an idea of my own but I'm also trying to get great ideas out of my actors. Directing is much more psychological - it's a lot like being a general. And you have to be organized. While you're making a film, you have between 2 and 500 people asking you a billion questions.
When you start looking at a problem and it seems really simple, you don't really understand the complexity of the problem. Then you get into the problem, and you see that it's really complicated, and you come up with all these convoluted solutions. That's sort of the middle, and that's where most people stop... But the really great person will keep on going and find the key, the underlying principle of the problem - and come up with an elegant, really beautiful solution that works.
We have literature indicating that overwhelmingly, health is influenced by a very short list of modifiable behaviors topped by three: tobacco use, physical activity and dietary pattern. You could modify those three things; you can change people's fate. I wanted to change those. Smoking cessation, important but relatively simple - a lot of people are working on that. Physical activity: important to me, important to health but also relatively simple. I like nutrition. It's complicated; you really need to learn a lot of stuff to be an expert there.
I just keep trying and failing and I will continue to keep trying to see what I can do to try to keep people engaged in the conversation about our Lord and Savior, man. Really that's all I'm trying to do.
A lot of times I had some problems, but I always had the passion and the personal motivation to keep going, to keep working hard, keep fighting for the things that really motivates me. That's all.
Do people think we eat, like, gold cereal in the morning? We're really simple, simple, simple people. We grocery shop; we wash our own dishes. We do most of the things that most people do.
Very quickly I realized that directing is a combination of things: It's visual, it's directing the actors, it's telling a story. And people don't always mention this part of directing, but it's also knowing how to really edit something into something that makes sense.
I love collaboration. I love working with people to come up with something better than what I initially thought. With directing, you have to be controlling in a lot of ways, but I find myself trying to battle against that, to not be controlling, because that's when great things can come about, beyond how great you think you can be.
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