Build your own. Your own reel, your own art. 
Too often people can get caught up in frameworks of dependency. 
Relying or wishing on others to complete the picture for them. 
In truth, this is not the most effective way. 
You must build momentum yourself. 
Build your own bridge forward as you walk. 

Personally, when I was learning how to be an artist, I just created. 
It was pencil and paper and simplicity and all of the time in the world stretched to fit my will. 
As I moved into film I found a bit of a divide. 
Due to much of this being a collaborative process, I started to slow down. 
I created but much more frequently in my books than on recorded film / digital media. 

From now, I’m setting out to change that. It may take a simple push. 
It may take the form of restructuring my projects. 
It may take me moving to the other side of the planet. 
Whichever way it will be done. 

In truth, this is why this space was created, Manikk Realm. 
It’s a home, a place for my mind and yours to meet and talk. 
Welcome. 


​

Brutal patience and sensitivity. In film we control the flow of time. You can pull at the strings of one's soul.

The more that I create, the more I come to understand this. It takes a specific type of bravery to guide the spectator and make them an active participant. Brutality in patience is knowing that you have the room to lock one’s gaze or free them. Cutting away isn’t always the best answer. Speeding things up isn’t always the best answer. In deciding how you’d like to feel while sitting in front of a sequence of events, you can better decide how to call your cuts and what shots to hold.

Sensitivity is necessary as it allows us to access varied levels of awareness. The audience, the participants in the project’s creation, and the cultural context that the media is enjoyed ( or hated ) in is only accessible once you attain a reasonable degree of sensitivity. At times you might not even understand why you feel something , but as long as you know that its there , you can put it to use as a compass in creation.

It’s a great gift, time. Being able to manipulate the perception of time is powerful, so feel free to take your active participants on an adventure. It may just change some lives, yours included. Also remember to play. Remind THEM to play.

-MANIKK-


“It was a musical thing, and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played. “- Alan Watts

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A shot from a long gone era. On that day we found art. Or it found us. 

Behind the scenes of the last shoot I shared at Porsche, I decided to run a little test on my camera. 
This is a quick moment of my friend Rich. 
You can find his work here ( https://www.releasetheshutter.com )
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My Current Favourite Camera : Fujifilm X-T3 -  https://amzn.to/2E9dxjD
Lens: Sigma Art 18-35 F1.8  https://amzn.to/2YtVhJC
Lens Adapters I use :(Fringer Ef - FX ) https://amzn.to/2EbofpR
(Nikon to FX ) https://amzn.to/2Yx34Gn
Microphone: https://amzn.to/2W3Hr2W
ND Filter: https://amzn.to/2E6OQEw

FOR MORE , GO TO: https://www.manikkrealm.com

FOLLOW ME:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/manikkrealm/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/manikkrealm
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattieau.st.cyr


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 Today I went out with a friend and my brother to shoot at Porsche in Toronto. 

At times the subject matter feels like impressionistic art. Focusing on shapes and a vibe as opposed to
simply framing faces makes it much more of a therapeutic process. 
From there I started to get a sense of each car's personality.  

I took these with my Fujifilm X-T3, and the Sigma 18-35mm lens. 
Really enjoying this kit so far. 

​-MANIKK-


THE GEAR I USE: 
My Current Favourite Camera : Fujifilm X-T3 -  https://amzn.to/2E9dxjD
Lens: Sigma Art 18-35 F1.8  https://amzn.to/2YtVhJC
Lens Adapters I use :(Fringer Ef - FX ) https://amzn.to/2EbofpR
(Nikon to FX ) https://amzn.to/2Yx34Gn
Microphone: https://amzn.to/2W3Hr2W

FOLLOW ME:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/manikkrealm/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/manikkrealm

A new friend named Ian.I met him near the Royal Ontario Museum, singing to raise some cash for school. He's an opera singer, days away from getting throat surgery. From today it should be about 8 days left. From then he won't be able to speak for a week or so.

In contrast to this, he's finding himself. Finding his voice. He's going through changes, but reaching clarity. 

https://www.iansabourin.com

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The gear I used. 
My Current Favourite Camera : Fujifilm X-T3 -  https://amzn.to/2E9dxjD
Lens: Sigma Art 18-35 F1.8  https://amzn.to/2YtVhJC
Lens Adapters I use :(Fringer Ef - FX ) https://amzn.to/2EbofpR
(Nikon to FX ) https://amzn.to/2Yx34Gn
Microphone: https://amzn.to/2W3Hr2W
ND Filter: https://amzn.to/2E6OQEw

Boil it all down. 
When there's nothing to take away , you've reached perfection.

In pursuit of anything worth while, you'll face moments of hardship.That's normal.

Usually you'll go through several steps in reaching a resolution.

First you've got to accept absolute responsibility.
Everything that you have done up until this moment has gotten you exactly where you are. 
If you want a different life, then you have to become something different.

Next you've got to see that there's a lesson in everything. There's a way to turn most things into a win.
It's not easy, but you'll have to adopt the idea that everything works to your advantage. 

Finally, you've got to remember that there is nobody that needs to save you. 
You're your own hero. You were born with the ability to grow, and to learn everything that you need in order to get to the next stage. You can seek advice, but the power required to actually do the work ( the work of changing and developing yourself) is solely up to you.


-MANIKK- 

This has been a test in tracking a 3d object. 
I did a quick build based on an older mecha design and learned how to track it into real world 3d space. 

I'm finding it more important to show what's going on under the hood of this realm. 
As the ideas flow and things get built, it serves little purpose to operate in a vacuum.

This is scene 1 of 10 or so. 
Prototypes for stories that need to be told start like this. 
I first come up with a little sketch on paper or digitally, then I refine the idea a little further with a 3D block in. 
Due to my past work history I've built up a small library of assets that I can modify ,re simulate and populate my projects with. 

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​ 

You can actively cultivate luck. 
Prepare and seize the opportunities within your reach.


As wild as it may seem, luck, good fortune, whatever you may call it is certainly an attainable and tune-able skill. Just as any physical activity is something that can be trained in , luck itself can be honed in upon over time and with deliberate practice. Although some may mention that their natural state is unlucky, one could argue the same for said physical tasks. As an infant , one is not born into this world being able to run the 100 meter in any capacity.

Actionable steps: 

1. Understand what it is that you wish to attain. 
2. Understand with your entire being that many things move and take place far outside of your radar. 
3. Understand that your awareness shapes your vision. If you are told to think of a Yellow car, day in and day out for a week, the odds of you catching onto them when out and about raises significantly. It's not that there were none of them around you before, it's that by being brought to the forefront of your awareness you are now able to seize the opportunity of seeing them. 
4. Try. You must try. Shoot your shot. If you never try, you'll never attain anything. You will miss very often but your hit rate will also go up. Most of the lucky breaks that I caught were due to simply trying more than most. Many of the things that you desire are one Ask away, one Reach beyond where you currently sit. 
Go out and act upon this world. 


-MANIKK-

All cycles must be completed. Energy flows and although matter is not destroyed , it remains in motion. We may very well chase eternity, though until now , the means by which we achieve it are unknown. Even still our pursuits are endless, and the attempt to become more than human remains a most human pursuit.
Cherish every second. We know this gift of life through contrast. 

Take hold of your present and in turn your future. The fire necessary to create and grasp our fate lies within us all. Ambition dampened is often due to a lack of raw belief. Understand that your destiny is woven by thoughts. Make it ritual to stoke the flames of your ambition. Daily, weekly , monthly and yearly, you must be relentless, for no other can craft your story.

​

A code spoken among a group is relative. Universal frames of morality are for the most part inconsistent across humanity. There are core values that do thread among the masses, though situations and context dictate how these lines are drawn and redrawn throughout time.

All serves self preservation.

​

In pursuit of furthering the collective knowledge base that is the internet, I'm going to share a little bit of what I've been learning recently. On the road to creating this realm, I've been studying a ton and working to lock down a lot of the major story aspects that have to be resolved. 

Manikk Realm is a portal to worlds. 
In each of these worlds there are locations and characters that must be fully realized. 
In order to get this done right, I've been digging into a few books. 
Some of which are about story and structure, 
some about characters and personality traits that we come across in the real world. 

Once these aspects are more heavily integrated, the worlds that are created will tie in better to the one that we currently share. 

I'll start simply with story structure. Got a little help from some talks by Will Smith on these. 

When writing stories, at a point the story itself gets out of the way. 

We know that all stories are about a protagonist, and they're faced with a few key questions,
more so , we as the audience are.   

We must ask: 

What do they want?
Why do they want it?
​What will happen if they don't get it? 
What are the obstacles stopping them from getting it? 

The most powerful moments in the story are when the external obstacles cause the most internal difficulty.

If these are solved and arranged well the story should hold ok. 

The next bit is the emotion.If we focus on the main human emotions : Hope,fear, love, hate, we can paint in broad strokes and then become more specific and more nuanced as we refine out works. 

The third piece of information that's useful when creating stories is to Make It Honest. 
In creating stories it's tempting for us to dream and venture off into all kinds of worlds, but in order to most effectively tell the stories in a believable way, we must speak from a point deep within ourselves. 

Speaking from your own experience even if transposed into a different context will work far better because you know how things actually work. Sharing bits of insider knowledge , and "speaking the language" of your viewer or reader, will do two things. It will let them know that you actually know what you're talking about, and it will create a more complete world without awkward information gaps. If you were to write a story about dancers but had never been a part of a dance community in any capacity, then it would become a more daunting task. It would do you better to involve yourself and to consult people who live that lifestyle to more accurately portray it. 

Doubling back to an earlier point ​

​When writing stories, at a point the story itself gets out of the way. 

The function of the research and key questions and the honesty, is that they form into a flow. This flow takes the reader from the beginning through to the end of the story in a clear way. They're driven forward, asked questions that they need to solve. They'll keep pushing through or be pushed from event to event in a way that just makes sense. 

One other very important thing that I've picked up in terms of story is to eliminate the " Why don't they just...?" questions. If you can ask yourself this question throughout the story and pull the chords that lead the protagonist down any of these routes, you'll save yourself from quite a few plot holes. Put simply, burn the boats behind your characters. The only way that they can go is forward. In story this can be done with figurative lateral steps, but as a whole, if they can't just stop, or not participate, the reader and the audience will mostly likely be more heavily invested in seeing this journey through. 

So, to recap. 

KEY QUESTIONS. 
KEY EMOTIONS.
MAKE IT HONEST.
​BURN THE BOATS. 

Keep these things in mind and your storytelling journey will be a little easier. 

BONUS: Actionable Steps - Go watch 3 of your favourite movies and make notes on where each of these tips comes into play. Ask the Key Questions, Figure out the important emotional pulls at play , Look into who wrote and directed the work. Find a behind the scenes reel if you can and see where their point of honesty came from, and finally note the key moments where they " burned the boats" . 

- MANIKK - 

Tools are simply tools. It’s the wielder that decides their fate. Our technology is simply a means for us to modify and use systems and principles of the material world around us. What we once thought to be magic or impossible becomes commonplace. Reality is constant but our rational bounds are constantly being expanded.

Our tools often serve our basic drives. Survival being the primary. As we move through time this inevitably leans against our societal moral framework. In pursuit of longevity, the means that we come to use will change, and with that , what we know and accept as palatable will also change further.

​

​Know that you are luck itself.
The spark is when your dream and your decision meet belief.
​It's truly a bizarre and irrefutable law. 

We operate from within our own heads. Our systems are built up through our experiences, our physicality and our chemistry. What you deem normal may not be normal. That is neither a good or bad thing. It is simply a thing to understand. Know that you must build systems to function in a world with other people, and you also need to build systems and routines that will foster your growth, and nurture the specific framework that you operate in. Mental health is as physical health. Train and maintain yourself. If you have one shot at this or many , health and longevity is key. It’s a marathon and a sprint at the same time. Move sharp and quickly on the day to day, but know that you must look to the future and set a pace to your actions to ensure a desirable result.

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    Expectations and patterns are everywhere. Understand that most people do not achieve what they set out to do. The societal norms may or may not be to your benefit. Carefully study them and hold them against your own core values. Question if obligation is programmed into you, and if you see fit, move past them. Understand where you really want to be, and who you want to grow into, and then ask yourself why. After this is made clear, take the necessary steps to become that which you seek. It doesn’t matter what others around you are doing, as long as you know that you can not be influenced in ways to your detriment. Stay cautious. Stay free. Stay creative.

​

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I'm seeing it daily. People are becoming slaves to social media. They're becoming slaves to keeping up with the joneses. The obsessions with always showing up and always being in the mix is at a level quite dangerous. People are more concerned with posting every single day and always being around but they're no longer thinking about what they're actually trying to say. Of course there are efficient models of production that allow us to keep turning out posts or content daily. Methods like prepping a bunch of pieces ahead of time and setting them for an auto rollout is very effective. But, there's a point where we have to think about what we're creating.

The larger purpose of what we're creating means much more than showing up every single day with little bits of random nothings just to stay on the minds of viewers. It becomes a drug.

I've made a personal shift because this problem affected me for a while. I was finding myself tired, and worn down for no specific reason. I realized that it equated to running around in circles. All of the content that I'd see day to day would be a mix of funny little things, and interesting little notes, and quotes but none of it had any contribution in terms of what I actually had to do with my life. I want to create stories and films and make a difference in the world, but participating on social media had little part to play in it.

Of course all things are simply neutral tools and there are great advantages to using them correctly, but in large part the apps and sites that are used by most eventually turn into more of a time sink than a productivity machine.

THINK OF IT IN TERMS OF FLOW.

Management of the in and out flows of information are key. Compound this with the idea of direction and it all becomes clearer. We can ask ourselves, does this lead me closer to my goals or farther away? Am I supposed to be doing this or is this something that I know is keeping me back from something on my schedule that I should be taking care of?
When the directions are made clear, our time and our actions can help us become more efficient even when we're less visible. It's better to do important things and show up less, than to show up every day doing nothing of importance.

A SHORT STORY

Some years ago I was in animation school. It was a part of the industry culture to push yourself until you burn out. This was common. If you're not drawing you're a failure/lazy/etc. Due to this I saw many of my classmates get destroyed, both mentally and physically. They overloaded themselves and some of them ended up with irreparable damage to their hands , wrists and elbows. A few even had to leave the school and give up on their dreams of becoming artists. All of this to uphold an image, an image that they were working hard and they were dedicated to their craft, and that they could "do whatever it takes" to make it.  It's poison really.

 At a point I was going through a bit of the same , and I realized that it made no sense to train consistently in that manor beyond the point of unconscious competence. There's a point where the skills and the patterns and lines become ingrained in your mind and your hands just flow. You can create what you want at a level that your conscious mind no longer has to work over.  After that point you actually start to learn faster by not drawing.

It would serve you better to just take the 80/20 rule into consideration and figure out what the little things are that make the most change. By going out and taking photos and video, and by moving the camera around, my direction got better. By reading through anatomy books and watching actual athletes move around, my sense of structure got better. By actually getting out there and training in dance, my animation ability improved, because it wasn't just a drawing, I was now physically connected to the movement. I could work out actions in my head. It was to the point that when I completed my thesis film, people asked if it was rotoscoped. The natural flow became intuitive.

The core of all of this is that, you can develop a deeper sense of understanding and competence in anything without always breaking your body. There is no need to die for your art. You can be efficient. It's allowed. It's ok. Forget all of that noise that people tell you.

You may very well find that you improve faster by actually thinking before doing something. I know , magic right?
 
-MANIKK-

The family that you stay with is not always the group that you were born into. People grow and change, and many don’t. Understanding that it’s a dynamic balance between many creates a much clearer picture. You’re not obligated to be close with anyone. Don’t force it. Understand all involved as best you can, and let go of anything resembling resentment. The aim is to heal and grow. Understand reality, and understand the ideals and projections that we are awash in on the day to day. Family can most certainly be found, though it’s done through speaking and living honestly. The balancing elements will naturally sit around you, though it also takes a measure of discipline to hold onto that authenticity.

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I often feel like life is some beautiful sick joke. Having moments where the seams show has me laughing in a blend of confusion and wonder. I'm enjoying it and haunted by the horrifying potential 

​-MANIKK-