Find a show you like and click the 
button. The show will be added to your My Playlist page and updated 24/7 with new videos.
Search Results
0 Views
00:00:42 01/03/12
Last-Place Bachmann: 'I Intend To Be America's Iron Lady'
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 00:00:42 01/03/12
video platform video management video solutions video player
Michelle Bachmann's appearance yesterday on This Week with Jake Tapper was one of her more cringe-inducing performances. Not because she isn't someone incapable of delivering lines and staying on message, but because the content of her message is so obviously boilerplate campaignspeak from someone who's so clearly sliding too far down, too fast to win. Instead, she's promising a "miracle:" >
TAPPER: My next guest sounds just as confident, but her path forward is a lot more murky. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann joins me from Des Moines.
Congresswoman, thanks for joining us, and happy new year.
BACHMANN: Happy new year to you. Great to be on with you this morning, Jake.
TAPPER: So the last time you and I spoke, you had just won the Iowa straw poll. The Des Moines Register poll had you tied for first place with Mitt Romney with 22 percent of the vote. Now that same poll has you with 7 percent of the vote. What happened to your campaign?
BACHMANN: Well, we've had a very good campaign. And I think what's happened is, a lot of candidates have come in, and Iowa voters and national voters have taken a look at all of the other candidates. But we have done I think what no other candidate has done, and that is, after the last debate, we've gone across all of Iowa, all 99 counties, and we've actually done heavy, heavy retail politics where we've gone into cafes and into living rooms of Iowans, and we've made a very strong connection with a lot of people.
And if you look at the polls, it's upwards of 40 percent to 50 percent of Iowans haven't made their decision yet. And I think the polls, what they're reflecting will be very different from what we're seeing on Tuesday night, because people make their decision, quite honestly, in the caucus room. Iowa is very different. People gather in living rooms. They gather in elementary schools and churches, and they make their decision on the spot with their neighbors. And we have done, like I said, what no other candidate has done the last two weeks. We've put over -- almost 7,000 miles on our bus, and we've literally gone from town to town to town meeting with people directly. And we saw thousands of people switch their vote just in the last couple of weeks, so we think there's going to be a very profound shift that people see on Tuesday night.
TAPPER: Well, one of the -- one of the dilemmas that you've had is that a lot of the voters that you are competing for, conservative voters, Christian evangelicals in some cases, are also being wooed by Rick Santorum and Rick Perry. And Santorum has momentum right now. He is at third place in the Des Moines Register poll. And if you look at the last two days, he's in second place. He has strong social conservative credentials. He's fluent in foreign affairs. He won statewide twice in a key swing state, Pennsylvania. So why should voters go for you and not him?
BACHMANN: Well, because I'm the strongest core conservative in this race. There is no comparison with all of the other candidates and my credentials. No other candidate has current national security experience in the race. I sit on the House Intelligence Committee. I am daily involved with the issue of national security. No other candidate is.
And as what we -- what we are seeing happening with Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, that will be a formidable issue immediately with the next commander-in-chief. I'm ready. No other candidate is currently ready in that issue.
Gee, Michelle, I know it makes me feel better that you'll lie about Iran "obtaining" a nuke. It shows you'll say anything at all to win - always a great quality in a president. >
Also, I'm the only federal tax litigation attorney in this race. When it comes to dealing with the number-one issue that's on voters' minds, which is out-of-control spending, I have that credential in spades over any other candidate, because no other candidate was leading on this issue in the halls of Congress or in Washington or nationally. I'm the one that called for saying "no" to letting Barack Obama increase the national credit card limit.
Psst, Michelle honey? Try not to say things like that around sane people. It doesn't help. >
And when it comes to social issues, there's no one who can -- who can compare with my record. I'm a mother of five, a foster mother to 23 children that we've raised, and also I have an unassailable record on life, on marriage, on religious liberty. So when it comes to values and issues, there is no one who comes close to where I am on those issues.
But I think even more so, I'm the one that's been proven and tested in the fires of Washington, and that's why I think you saw people vote for me in the Iowa straw poll, but also it's what we have done on the ground. No other candidate has done more retail campaigning on the ground.
TAPPER: But...
BACHMANN: And I think we'll bear the fruit of that on Tuesday night.
TAPPER: But with all due respect, Congresswoman, this is the same pitch you've been making all summer and all fall and -- and up until today, and you're in last place, according to the polls. And -- and somebody that has similar credentials to you and a similar appeal to you, Rick Santorum, is showing huge momentum. Why you over him?
BACHMANN: Well, again, I think the polls take a few days to catch up. And -- and we have made that incredible deposit of going in every single county. We've drawn 300 people at a stop, 250 people at a stop, and I think a lot of that isn't yet reflected in the polls. And the main thing will be on Tuesday night.
We're looking forward. We're not looking in the rear-view mirror. And what we're seeing going forward, especially with the tremendous outpouring of young people that are coming out to work on our phone banks and to go lit dropping and door-to-door is nothing short of amazing. We're -- we're number-one in the category of enthusiasm. If you look at all of the candidates, which candidate has the most enthusiasm among their supporters, I'm that candidate. I'm number-one with the 18- to 29-year-old voters, which are highly motivated, and they're doing all of the work.
So I think that if you look at my past races, and polling data showed me actually losing and 8 points behind in previous races that I've had when I've run for Congress, and yet I -- I win by 8 and 13 points. So polls don't -- are -- sometimes belie the truth on the ground, and that's what we see. This isn't just about polling. This is about what we're seeing in reality, and I think Tuesday night people are going to see a miracle.
TAPPER: In the last week, your campaign has gotten involved in a big kerfuffle about one of your top supporters, your chairman in Iowa defecting and going to the Ron Paul campaign. I don't want to get into the weeds on that debate. There was a back-and-forth about whether or not he was paid off. He denied that you accused him of doing that. But this is not the first time you've made a charge like this. You've also said this about other supporters with Newt Gingrich in Georgia, with Rick Santorum.
Don't you risk -- making these charges, doesn't that risk voters seeing you as making a final gasp of desperation?
BACHMANN: Oh, for Heaven's sake. Of course not. What this shows is the tremendous momentum that we have out of the last debate. From person after person, they said that I won the last debate in Sioux City, Iowa. And the reason why is because, when Ron Paul made his very dangerous statements, which is he was just fine with Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, or with Newt Gingrich taking $1.6 million from Freddie Mac and he was unable to defend that, I -- I took it to them.
And what people saw during the last debate is that I have the ability, of all of the candidates on the stage, I have the best ability to take it to Barack Obama in the debate and hold him accountable. We had tremendous momentum coming out of the last debate, and we saw it in county after county in our 99-county tour, where people were just appalled by Ron Paul's position. They thought it was dangerous.
That's why we saw literally thousands of people switching their decision on the spot, and that's what you saw, was this crush of momentum. And so we saw some different actions coming out of the Ron Paul campaign. And I think that people will be very surprised at the results on Tuesday night, because I think people will see a lot of defections away from Ron Paul because they see -- especially with the aggressive nature of the actions on the part of Iran in the Straits of Hormuz, people are seeing how important it is that we have a commander-in-chief who is conversant, prepared, knowledgeable, and has good judgment on foreign affairs. And of all of the candidates in the race, I'm best suited for that -- that portion of being commander-in- chief.
TAPPER: Congresswoman, we only have a little bit of time left, so last question. In the interests of candor and being based in reality, positing that you feel that you're going to have a very good night on Tuesday and that all the polls are wrong and you're going to do well, but assuming that the polls are right, isn't that, practically speaking, the end of your campaign if you come in last on Tuesday?
BACHMANN: Well, we've bought tickets to head off to South Carolina. And we are looking forward to the debates. January is a very full month. We're here for the -- for the long -- for the long race. This is a 50-state race. And we intend to participate not only in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, but to go all the way, because I intend to be the Republican nominee and defeat Barack Obama in 2012, because America needs a candidate that will be in the legacy of a Ronald Reagan and of a Margaret Thatcher. That's what I intend to do, is to be America's iron lady.
TAPPER: All right. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, good luck on Tuesday. And hope you have a wonderful 2012.
BACHMANN: Thank you. Same to you and your listeners.
0 Views
00:00:42 01/03/12
Last-Place Bachmann: 'I Intend To Be America's Iron Lady'
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 00:00:42 01/03/12
video platform video management video solutions video player
Michelle Bachmann's appearance yesterday on This Week with Jake Tapper was one of her more cringe-inducing performances. Not because she isn't someone incapable of delivering lines and staying on message, but because the content of her message is so obviously boilerplate campaignspeak from someone who's so clearly sliding too far down, too fast to win. Instead, she's promising a "miracle:" >
TAPPER: My next guest sounds just as confident, but her path forward is a lot more murky. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann joins me from Des Moines.
Congresswoman, thanks for joining us, and happy new year.
BACHMANN: Happy new year to you. Great to be on with you this morning, Jake.
TAPPER: So the last time you and I spoke, you had just won the Iowa straw poll. The Des Moines Register poll had you tied for first place with Mitt Romney with 22 percent of the vote. Now that same poll has you with 7 percent of the vote. What happened to your campaign?
BACHMANN: Well, we've had a very good campaign. And I think what's happened is, a lot of candidates have come in, and Iowa voters and national voters have taken a look at all of the other candidates. But we have done I think what no other candidate has done, and that is, after the last debate, we've gone across all of Iowa, all 99 counties, and we've actually done heavy, heavy retail politics where we've gone into cafes and into living rooms of Iowans, and we've made a very strong connection with a lot of people.
And if you look at the polls, it's upwards of 40 percent to 50 percent of Iowans haven't made their decision yet. And I think the polls, what they're reflecting will be very different from what we're seeing on Tuesday night, because people make their decision, quite honestly, in the caucus room. Iowa is very different. People gather in living rooms. They gather in elementary schools and churches, and they make their decision on the spot with their neighbors. And we have done, like I said, what no other candidate has done the last two weeks. We've put over -- almost 7,000 miles on our bus, and we've literally gone from town to town to town meeting with people directly. And we saw thousands of people switch their vote just in the last couple of weeks, so we think there's going to be a very profound shift that people see on Tuesday night.
TAPPER: Well, one of the -- one of the dilemmas that you've had is that a lot of the voters that you are competing for, conservative voters, Christian evangelicals in some cases, are also being wooed by Rick Santorum and Rick Perry. And Santorum has momentum right now. He is at third place in the Des Moines Register poll. And if you look at the last two days, he's in second place. He has strong social conservative credentials. He's fluent in foreign affairs. He won statewide twice in a key swing state, Pennsylvania. So why should voters go for you and not him?
BACHMANN: Well, because I'm the strongest core conservative in this race. There is no comparison with all of the other candidates and my credentials. No other candidate has current national security experience in the race. I sit on the House Intelligence Committee. I am daily involved with the issue of national security. No other candidate is.
And as what we -- what we are seeing happening with Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, that will be a formidable issue immediately with the next commander-in-chief. I'm ready. No other candidate is currently ready in that issue.
Gee, Michelle, I know it makes me feel better that you'll lie about Iran "obtaining" a nuke. It shows you'll say anything at all to win - always a great quality in a president. >
Also, I'm the only federal tax litigation attorney in this race. When it comes to dealing with the number-one issue that's on voters' minds, which is out-of-control spending, I have that credential in spades over any other candidate, because no other candidate was leading on this issue in the halls of Congress or in Washington or nationally. I'm the one that called for saying "no" to letting Barack Obama increase the national credit card limit.
Psst, Michelle honey? Try not to say things like that around sane people. It doesn't help. >
And when it comes to social issues, there's no one who can -- who can compare with my record. I'm a mother of five, a foster mother to 23 children that we've raised, and also I have an unassailable record on life, on marriage, on religious liberty. So when it comes to values and issues, there is no one who comes close to where I am on those issues.
But I think even more so, I'm the one that's been proven and tested in the fires of Washington, and that's why I think you saw people vote for me in the Iowa straw poll, but also it's what we have done on the ground. No other candidate has done more retail campaigning on the ground.
TAPPER: But...
BACHMANN: And I think we'll bear the fruit of that on Tuesday night.
TAPPER: But with all due respect, Congresswoman, this is the same pitch you've been making all summer and all fall and -- and up until today, and you're in last place, according to the polls. And -- and somebody that has similar credentials to you and a similar appeal to you, Rick Santorum, is showing huge momentum. Why you over him?
BACHMANN: Well, again, I think the polls take a few days to catch up. And -- and we have made that incredible deposit of going in every single county. We've drawn 300 people at a stop, 250 people at a stop, and I think a lot of that isn't yet reflected in the polls. And the main thing will be on Tuesday night.
We're looking forward. We're not looking in the rear-view mirror. And what we're seeing going forward, especially with the tremendous outpouring of young people that are coming out to work on our phone banks and to go lit dropping and door-to-door is nothing short of amazing. We're -- we're number-one in the category of enthusiasm. If you look at all of the candidates, which candidate has the most enthusiasm among their supporters, I'm that candidate. I'm number-one with the 18- to 29-year-old voters, which are highly motivated, and they're doing all of the work.
So I think that if you look at my past races, and polling data showed me actually losing and 8 points behind in previous races that I've had when I've run for Congress, and yet I -- I win by 8 and 13 points. So polls don't -- are -- sometimes belie the truth on the ground, and that's what we see. This isn't just about polling. This is about what we're seeing in reality, and I think Tuesday night people are going to see a miracle.
TAPPER: In the last week, your campaign has gotten involved in a big kerfuffle about one of your top supporters, your chairman in Iowa defecting and going to the Ron Paul campaign. I don't want to get into the weeds on that debate. There was a back-and-forth about whether or not he was paid off. He denied that you accused him of doing that. But this is not the first time you've made a charge like this. You've also said this about other supporters with Newt Gingrich in Georgia, with Rick Santorum.
Don't you risk -- making these charges, doesn't that risk voters seeing you as making a final gasp of desperation?
BACHMANN: Oh, for Heaven's sake. Of course not. What this shows is the tremendous momentum that we have out of the last debate. From person after person, they said that I won the last debate in Sioux City, Iowa. And the reason why is because, when Ron Paul made his very dangerous statements, which is he was just fine with Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, or with Newt Gingrich taking $1.6 million from Freddie Mac and he was unable to defend that, I -- I took it to them.
And what people saw during the last debate is that I have the ability, of all of the candidates on the stage, I have the best ability to take it to Barack Obama in the debate and hold him accountable. We had tremendous momentum coming out of the last debate, and we saw it in county after county in our 99-county tour, where people were just appalled by Ron Paul's position. They thought it was dangerous.
That's why we saw literally thousands of people switching their decision on the spot, and that's what you saw, was this crush of momentum. And so we saw some different actions coming out of the Ron Paul campaign. And I think that people will be very surprised at the results on Tuesday night, because I think people will see a lot of defections away from Ron Paul because they see -- especially with the aggressive nature of the actions on the part of Iran in the Straits of Hormuz, people are seeing how important it is that we have a commander-in-chief who is conversant, prepared, knowledgeable, and has good judgment on foreign affairs. And of all of the candidates in the race, I'm best suited for that -- that portion of being commander-in- chief.
TAPPER: Congresswoman, we only have a little bit of time left, so last question. In the interests of candor and being based in reality, positing that you feel that you're going to have a very good night on Tuesday and that all the polls are wrong and you're going to do well, but assuming that the polls are right, isn't that, practically speaking, the end of your campaign if you come in last on Tuesday?
BACHMANN: Well, we've bought tickets to head off to South Carolina. And we are looking forward to the debates. January is a very full month. We're here for the -- for the long -- for the long race. This is a 50-state race. And we intend to participate not only in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, but to go all the way, because I intend to be the Republican nominee and defeat Barack Obama in 2012, because America needs a candidate that will be in the legacy of a Ronald Reagan and of a Margaret Thatcher. That's what I intend to do, is to be America's iron lady.
TAPPER: All right. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, good luck on Tuesday. And hope you have a wonderful 2012.
BACHMANN: Thank you. Same to you and your listeners.
52 Views
15:30:57 05/04/11
Conversation with Herb Sutter: Perspectives on Modern C++(0x/11)
[LESS INFO] 52 VIEWS | ADDED 15:30:57 05/04/11
I was lucky enough to catch up with Herb Sutter not too long after the FDIS announcement (Final Draft International Standard is complete).
As usual when talking to Herb, the conversation is all about C++ (well, we do talk about C# for a little while, but in the context of C++. Why?).
See below for the specific questions that were asked. You can simply click on a link to move directly to that point in the conversation. I do, however, strongly recommend that you watch the entire thing . I also recommend that you don't get used to this level of categorization in my videos (it takes a fair amount of time to do this sort of thing, so enjoy the times when I actually do this, but don't expect me to do this all of the time ).
It's always great to talk to Herb and get a glimpse of what goes on in the C++ Standards Committee (which Herb chairs). In this specific conversation, it's uplifting to see how excited Herb is for the future of one of the world's most capable and widely used general purpose programming languages. C++ is a modern programming language for power and performance, but it's also a highly abstracted general purpose language for building user mode applications, mobile apps, etc. The amazing part is how C++ can provide rich general programming abstractions and also ensure that your code can run at machine speeds. We talk about this, of course.
Tune in. Learn. Go native!
1:37 -> What were the goals of the C++0x standard, at a high level?
2:40 -> Language and Library abstractions and performance (how high can you go and still be fast as possible?)...
5:23 -> C++ as an application development language (in addition to the traditional C++ is a systems programming language meme)...
07:17 -> C++0x or can we now call it C++11?
09:21 -> Standards committees and real world user representation...
10:39 -> Who comes up with the new features that get standardized (or not...)?
13:01 -> What were the goals of the C++0x standard (non-canned answer)?
14:21 -> What does Bjarne mean by C++0x being a better C++ for novice programmers?
15:51 -> Why can't C++ look more like C#?
18:50 -> At the end of the day, everything(in terms of programmer-controlled computing) boils down to memory, right?
23:12 -> What are some of the most significant new features in C++0x?
25:05 -> What can VC++ developers expect to see in terms of C++0x implementation in Visual C++ next?
27:09 -> C++ and type safety...
29:05 -> C++0x and backwards compatibility: any big breaking changes?
34:16 -> C++0x in the Standard Library...
37:01 -> Any thinking in the Committee about doing much more frequent experimental releases of C++?
39:04 -> Are their features that didn't make it into the standard that you really wanted to be standardized?
41:45 -> Are you comfortable with C++'s current state? Is it modern enough?
43:22 -> Conclusion (or Charles doesn't end the conversation when his farewell begins - where does it go from there? )
24 Views
15:30:57 05/04/11
Conversation with Herb Sutter: Perspectives on Modern C++(0x/11)
[LESS INFO] 24 VIEWS | ADDED 15:30:57 05/04/11
I was lucky enough to catch up with Herb Sutter not too long after the FDIS announcement (Final Draft International Standard is complete).
As usual when talking to Herb, the conversation is all about C++ (well, we do talk about C# for a little while, but in the context of C++. Why?).
See below for the specific questions that were asked. You can simply click on a link to move directly to that point in the conversation. I do, however, strongly recommend that you watch the entire thing . I also recommend that you don't get used to this level of categorization in my videos (it takes a fair amount of time to do this sort of thing, so enjoy the times when I actually do this, but don't expect me to do this all of the time ).
It's always great to talk to Herb and get a glimpse of what goes on in the C++ Standards Committee (which Herb chairs). In this specific conversation, it's uplifting to see how excited Herb is for the future of one of the world's most capable and widely used general purpose programming languages. C++ is a modern programming language for power and performance, but it's also a highly abstracted general purpose language for building user mode applications, mobile apps, etc. The amazing part is how C++ can provide rich general programming abstractions and also ensure that your code can run at machine speeds. We talk about this, of course.
Tune in. Learn. Go native!
1:37 -> What were the goals of the C++0x standard, at a high level?
2:40 -> Language and Library abstractions and performance (how high can you go and still be fast as possible?)...
5:23 -> C++ as an application development language (in addition to the traditional C++ is a systems programming language meme)...
07:17 -> C++0x or can we now call it C++11?
09:21 -> Standards committees and real world user representation...
10:39 -> Who comes up with the new features that get standardized (or not...)?
13:01 -> What were the goals of the C++0x standard (non-canned answer)?
14:21 -> What does Bjarne mean by C++0x being a better C++ for novice programmers?
15:51 -> Why can't C++ look more like C#?
18:50 -> At the end of the day, everything(in terms of programmer-controlled computing) boils down to memory, right?
23:12 -> What are some of the most significant new features in C++0x?
25:05 -> What can VC++ developers expect to see in terms of C++0x implementation in Visual C++ next?
27:09 -> C++ and type safety...
29:05 -> C++0x and backwards compatibility: any big breaking changes?
34:16 -> C++0x in the Standard Library...
37:01 -> Any thinking in the Committee about doing much more frequent experimental releases of C++?
39:04 -> Are their features that didn't make it into the standard that you really wanted to be standardized?
41:45 -> Are you comfortable with C++'s current state? Is it modern enough?
43:22 -> Conclusion (or Charles doesn't end the conversation when his farewell begins - where does it go from there? )
10 Views
17:46:49 04/11/10
Date Night starring - Steve Carell and Tina Fey
[LESS INFO] 10 VIEWS | ADDED 17:46:49 04/11/10
Action-comedy maestro Shawn Levy, the director of the blockbuster “Night at the Museum” franchise, teams up with two of the comedy world’s biggest talents, Steve Carell (“The 40 Year Old Virgin,” “The Office”) and Tina Fey (“Baby Mama,” “30 Rock,” “SNL”) for an adventure that turns a run-of-the-mill married couple’s date upside down – way upside down, in DATE NIGHT.
Phil (Carell) and Claire Foster (Fey) are a sensible, loving couple with two kids and a house in suburban New Jersey. The Fosters have their weekly “date night” – an attempt at re-experiencing the spice of the dates of yesteryear, involving the same weekly night out at the local Teaneck Tavern. Their conversations quickly drift from barely-date talk to the same chore-chat they have at the dinner table at home. Exhausted from their jobs and kids, their dates rarely end in fore- or any other kind of play, let alone romance.
After seeing two of their best friends – another married couple with kids in suburban New Jersey – split apart from living the same life they themselves lead, Phil and Claire begin to fear what may lie ahead: a state of bland indifference and eventual separation.
In an attempt to take date night off auto-pilot, and hopefully inject a little spice into their lives, Phil decides a change of plans is in order: take Claire into Manhattan to the city’s hottest new restaurant. The Fosters, however, don’t have reservations. Hoping to be seated sometime before the clock strikes twelve, they steal a no-show couple’s reservations. What could it hurt? Phil and Claire are now the Tripplehorns.
The real Tripplehorns, however, it turns out, are a thieving couple who are being hunted down by a pair of corrupt cops for having stolen property from some very dangerous people. Forced on the run before they’ve even finished their risotto, Phil and Claire soon realize that their play-date-for-parents has gone hilariously awry, as they embark on a wild and dangerous series of crazy adventures to save their lives. . . and their marriage.
The ritual “date night” dinner is something all too familiar to most married couples – even directors of blockbuster movies. “I was in the process of making the second Night at the Museum film,” recalls filmmaker Shawn Levy, “and, as is kind of our ritual, once a week, my wife and I go out to dinner.”
At one such dinner, the Levys found themselves sitting at the restaurant they frequented, ordering the same food, talking about the kids, what’s coming up that weekend, who’s going to buy the gift for which birthday party, etc., etc. “In the middle of all that, I said to my wife, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to do a movie about a date night, where you just did one thing differently? And, from there, you have an unraveling of everything, to the point of it threatening your life and your marriage, with all kinds of crazy stuff going on. But, in the midst of all that crazy stuff, you end up recapturing the vitality that date night was invented in the first place to preserve.’”
The next morning, Levy came in to his production company office and told his staff, “Okay, we’re going to do a movie called DATE NIGHT, and here’s what it’s about, and let’s get a writer. Let’s go.”
Levy’s search for a writer didn’t take very long. “I had written a small, quirky film, called ‘(Saint) Peter,’ which Shawn had read and fell in love with, recalls screenwriter Josh Klausner. “Shawn was determined to find something for us to work on together. He very graciously took a big chance and had me fly out, and we started brainstorming.”
Levy and Klausner met at Levy’s bungalow on the Fox lot, where they quickly broke the story. “We are both in the same stage of life,” Klausner says. “We both have children and go out on date nights, knowing what they’re supposed to be, but realizing they never end up being that anymore because there are so many other things that get in the way. So we started talking about those experiences.”
“We talked about our marriages,” Levy adds. “And we found that there are certain commonalities in trying to sustain a vibrant, romantic relationship,” and not simply becoming roommates. “It’s the question of in the midst of grownup life, how do you keep couple-hood fresh?”
DATE NIGHT was originally conceived as more of a suburban story centered around a parent-teacher conference night, but quickly evolved into, as Klausner calls it, “the perfect ‘North by Northwest’ setup” of mistaken identity.
“Shawn and I really wanted what spurs on the evening to be something that we all might do,” Klausner continues. “Phil and Claire simply can’t get a seat at a restaurant, and, since nobody’s answering the call for a reservation, they just decide, ‘What’s the harm in taking it?’ And it leads them down the rabbit hole. From there, they end up on the worst night of their lives, which ends up being the best night for their relationship.”
Levy describes the film as being “in the spirit of action comedies I remember fondly, like ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ or ‘48 Hrs.’ DATE NIGHT has a real hybrid tone, because it’s first and foremost a comedy. It also has a hefty dose of action, as well as a lot of heart, because it’s about the things that people deal with in relationships.”
For Levy, DATE NIGHT is a change from the family-friendly hits he’s helmed, like “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “Pink Panther” and “Night at the Museum.” DATE NIGHT is more of an adult-skewing comedy,” Levy points out. “In a way, it’s the other side of the movies I’ve done, which have been focused on the child-parent relationships. DATE NIGHT is focused on the marriage side – what happens after the children go to sleep.”
Levy was keen to keep the emotional side of the story intact through the mayhem experienced by the characters. “If you’re making a movie about relationships and being a married couple, it must be more than just funny, because life doesn’t work that way,” the director explains. “This movie has some surprising moments of poignancy.”
“A lot of comedies these days feel like a compendium of gags tied together to follow a narrative story,” notes Klausner. “DATE NIGHT, at its heart, is about marriage and being in love with somebody, but at the same time, life gets in the way. It’s honest, which is something Steve and Tina wanted, too. I’m proud that this movie has preserved that soul.”
When Levy learned that Steve Carell and Tina Fey were hoping to find a project on which they could work together, he knew he had found his DATE NIGHT duo. “We got an early draft of the screenplay to Tina and Steve, who always struck me as the dream pairing for a movie about marriage,” Levy says. “They said, ‘Yeah, we relate to this, we want to do an action comedy that’s also honest about relationships.’ So they said they were in.”
While Levy usually takes a break between completing one feature and beginning the next, he found himself prepping DATE NIGHT while editing “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,” in order to take advantage of his stars’ availability. “Steve’s and Tina’s series commitments [on, respectively, “The Office” and “30 Rock”] provides only a limited window for feature film work,” Levy explains. “They told us, ‘Look, we want to do this, but we’re free now, and we’re not going to be free in six months – what do we do?’ I said, ‘Well, we make the movie right now!’ I didn’t get a break between films, but I got a comedy with Steve Carell and Tina Fey, who are two of the most intelligent, interesting people working in comedy today. So a lot of my job was to come up with the idea, get the two perfect actors for the movie, and then get the hell out of the way.”
While slight alterations to the script were made to match the stars’ comedic voices, DATE NIGHT was essentially tailor-made for the pair. “It felt like the film was written for them,” says Klausner. Adds Levy: “Three minutes into this movie, you buy Steve and Tina as a married couple. They have a powerful chemistry together. They clicked completely on screen.”
Phil, says Carell, “feels underappreciated by his friends and family, but he sort of keeps that feeling close to his chest. He’s a very loving guy, but he and Claire have reached a plateau in their relationship. He needs to snap himself out of it, if possible. And the night that he and Claire experience together is a defibrillator for their marriage.”
Carell’s comedic skills, along with his ability to stir audiences’ hearts, made him the perfect choice for the role, Levy says. “Steve is super funny, and his chops as an actor are fantastic. He not only carries entire comedy sequences on his back, but three scenes later, he’s moving you to an emotional place with such sincerity and nuance. There’s no end to what he can do.”
Carell says his own date nights, like Phil Foster’s (and Levy’s and Klausner’s), leave much to be desired. “Sometimes the worst part of date night is actually leaving for the date – when you see your babysitter sitting down, getting all cozy, turning on the TV. That sometimes seems much better than the night that lies ahead.”
Fey, like Carell, has the ability to be riotously funny while still portraying the emotional side of her character realistically – to turn down the volume on jokes and simply allow them to happen. For example, in response to a nudge for sex from her husband, Fey’s Claire offers a very normal, ‘Yeah, hang on a minute” moment as she pulls out her dental mouth guard in preparation for sex with her husband, with enough drool to instantly turn off her mate.
“Besides being obviously really pretty and intelligent, Tina has a complete willingness to make an ass out of herself,” says Levy. She’s completely up for goofing on herself and being the butt of the joke, and that’s very charming.”
Fey describes Claire as “a working mom of two kids, who, like almost everyone I know, is just a little worn out by the day-to-day life of raising your kids, getting them out the door, getting them to school, having a job, keeping a house clean. She’s a good person who is just kind of worn into the ground a little bit. I certainly identify with how just physically tiring it is to be a parent and have a job – sometimes it feels like a real effort to just be present for your spouse.”
So which would be scarier – being in a boring marriage or being chased by the mob (both of which the Fosters experience in the film)? “I would say that being married to a person in the mob would be the scariest,” Fey jokes.
Along their night-from-hell journey, Phil and Claire encounter a cavalcade of characters on both sides of the law. Levy’s casting choices for these roles was sometimes unexpected – and always spot-on. His intent was to provide the story with a “Wizard of Oz”-like experience. “You’re with your heroes, but along the way, they’re being affected and changed by the people they meet, and I just thought wouldn’t it be fun if at every turn of the road, you’re surprised all over again by who has suddenly appeared in this movie. And the cast members fit the roles perfectly.”
The surprise apparently wasn’t limited to the audience. “I read the script,” says Fey,” and I thought, ‘Oh, these are really good parts for somebody.’ I never thought we would get this lucky to have that caliber of people in all these different parts.” Having what otherwise would have appeared to be small roles portrayed by big name actors only helps bring them alive, Carell notes. “When you see them acted out, they’re even better than they were on the page.”
And getting high-powered stars to join the DATE NIGHT team wasn’t just a matter of coincidence. “So many people were so keen to find a way to work with Steve and Tina – they just found a way to make it work,” says Levy.
Mark Wahlberg portrays a former real estate client of Claire’s the pair turns to in the middle of the night. “I play a guy named Holbrooke Grant, who is a security expert who Claire and Phil come to for help,” Wahlberg explains. “They just catch Holbrooke at a bad time – he’s with his beautiful Israeli girlfriend.” The pair ends up turning Holbrooke’s night upside down, as well.
Wahlberg had the simplest costume in the entire cast. “There is no wardrobe – just a pair of silk genie pants,” he recalls, noting that he regularly found himself freezing on the air-conditioned set. That the top half of his costume was missing (except for an ample supply of makeup covering Wahlberg’s countless tattoos), was a fact not lost on the female members of the cast and crew. “Mark was shirtless for three or four days,” Fey says, prompting a noticeable increase in the number of women who suddenly had additional tasks to address on set on the days he was on the job. “I had friends texting me, ‘Can I get on the Fox lot and visit you today?’” Fey laughs.
Also coming to the aid of the beleaguered couple is Taraji P. Henson, an Oscar® nominee for her work in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” who plays NYPD Detective Arroyo, who, though she doesn’t exactly believe the Fosters “chased by bad guys” story, begins to become suspicious of a couple of her colleagues. “She’s sort of a hero,” the actress says.
Playing thugs Collins and Armstrong, who are after the Fosters (whom they believe are the Tripplehorns) are Common and Jimmi Simpson. Common is a familiar face to audiences for his role as a murderous cop in “Street Kings” and for his work as a musical artists (his hits include “Love of My Life” and “Testify”). Simpson has made occasional appearances as Lyle the Intern on “The Late Show with David Letterman.”
Common describes the duo as “one of the many catalysts to get this mundane couple out of their comfort zone – mainly by shooting guns at them.” The two are essentially hunters, he adds, noting, “I’m the muscle.”
Collins and Armstrong’s formidable boss is gangster Joe Miletto, from whom the Tripplehorns have apparently stolen something of importance that he wants back. The casting of acclaimed actor Ray Liotta as Miletto delighted Carell and Fey. “We were shooting a scene with Ray one night,” recalls Carell, “and Tina looked over and said, ‘I feel like I am in a 3D version of ‘Goodfellas. Ray Liotta is actually walking up and talking to me.’ It was like a ride at a theme park.”
Playing a heavy in a comedy, particularly for actors used to appearing in dramatic films, requires a special knack, one which DATE NIGHT’s group of toughs embraced with gusto.
“It’s really in the writing, so it’s dependent on your commitment to it,” explains Liotta. “If the situation’s just a little more heightened, you’re going to laugh.” Common agrees: “Shawn expressed to us from the beginning – you’ve got to keep it real. The more real it becomes – because you’re playing off Steve and Tina – the funnier it becomes.”
Portraying the “real” Tripplehorns – actually a drug dealer named Taste and his wacky stripper girlfriend, Whippit – are James Franco and Mila Kunis. Despite their different life circumstances, the pair has much in common with the Fosters, being in the same spot in their relationship as their clean-cut counterparts. Notes Josh Klausner: “Whether you’re a drug dealer or a suburban husband, you still feel the pangs of ‘You never look at me the way you used to’ and ‘You don’t have time for me.’ What the two couples are going through is exactly the same,” making the exchanges between the two couples both hilarious and poignant at the same time.
Kunis describes the pair as “very passionate – when they’re angry, they’re very angry, and when they’re happy, they’re madly in love.” Whippit, specifically, she describes as a “psycho, who is very up and down. She goes through three different emotions within two and a half script pages.”
The name “Taste,” Franco says, is left over from an earlier concept of the character – a 6 ft. 7 in. bald man with “TASTE” tattooed on his forehead. “So when they asked me to be in the movie, I said, ‘Well, I’m certainly not that.’” The character’s description was then rewritten, but the name stuck. “I was up for facial tattoos, too,” Franco says with a laugh. “We just went for the cheesy ‘Grim Reaper.’”
Kristen Wiig and Mark Ruffalo play the Fosters soon-to-be-splitting couple friends, Haley and Brad Sullivan. “Their parting brings up the question about getting bored with your spouse and moving on, or just sticking it out,” says Wiig. “I think Haley plants the seeds in Claire’s mind.”
Also taking on key roles are “Gossip Girl’s” Leighton Meester as the Fosters’ babysitter Katy, and “The Dark Knight’s” William Fichtner as district attorney Frank Crenshaw.
All the cast members appreciated Levy’s ability to balance action and comedy, which in turn allowed his actors the freedom to come up with their own gags. “That’s the only way you can afford to have time to play around or to improvise and do extra takes,” notes Fey. “That only happens if everyone – especially your director – really knows what they’re doing.”
For Levy, there’s a method to the potential madness of improv. “Sometimes, after we’d get what I want, Steve and Tina would come to me and say, ‘You know what? Could I get one more take? I’ve got an idea that might lead somewhere.’ Sometimes we couldn’t use it, but more often than not, it was gold and it ended up in the movie,” such as the duo’s restaurant shenanigans game of guessing what’s up with the couple sitting across the way.
“Every person in any field wants to go to work and feel respected for what they do,” says the director. “So when you say to an actor, ‘We’re going to do the script that I’ve written for you, but I want to hear what’s in your head. I actually think that the ideas you come up with might be as legitimate or better than what we scripted,’ it makes your actors feel like partners and collaborators, and not mouthpieces. It makes them feel like part of the creative team, rather than a piece of machinery.”
MEET THE TWINS
While attempting to escape their pursuers, the Fosters “borrow” Holbrooke Grant’s car, the much-too-powerful-for-Phil Audi R8. When Phil inadvertently smashes into a taxi cab, the two vehicles’ bumpers become hopelessly locked together. Nonetheless, the chase continues, the conjoined twin automobiles smashing their way down Manhattan streets.
The complicated sequence came about when Levy and Klausner were brainstorming ideas for a chase scene. Concerned about repeating the oft-used, cliché urban car chase, Klausner recalls, “I remember sitting in a room with Shawn, telling him, ‘You know, do we really have to do a car chase, because how many times have we seen a car chase in these movies? How interesting can that be?’”
Levy then related to his writer a story from his teenage years. “He was just learning to drive, and was trying to park, but he ended up smashing into another car in front of him and getting stuck on that car. His father just drove by and shook his head.” Thus was born the idea of conjoined cars.
But just having two cars barreling down the street wasn’t enough. “Shawn wanted to do something that nobody had ever seen before,” says 2nd unit director and stunt coordinator Jack Gill, who planned and executed the sequence. “Once we got the basic idea of conjoining the cars, we began figuring out not only how to build the cars, but how to make it work comically. I then started adding eccentricities, like spinning them around in circles and having characters fire guns at them.”
Besides having six different cars that, each of which handled a specific aspect of the chase stunts, Gill built a 40 foot frame, upon which the Audi and cab bodies were placed. “So there’s just one rigid frame,” he explains. The stunt driver was situated at the leading end of the conjoined vehicles. “So when the cab is facing forwards, with the Audi ahead of it facing the wrong way, the stunt driver is actually driving from inside the Audi’s trunk, looking out the back so he can see where he’s going and drive around corners.” In addition, for most shots, the rig’s rear wheels – those under the rear end of the conjoined vehicles – could also steer, in the same manner as those of a hook-and-ladder fire truck.
Needless to say, don’t try this at home on your own Manhattan street.
New York City ordinances limited the production to the types of stunts that could be filmed on Manhattan streets. So following a week of night work in New York, the stunt team moved to downtown Los Angeles to complete the sequence.
“We had about six blocks to work with on Broadway, which was great,” Gill recalls. “We needed a long stretch locked down, because when you conjoin two cars together, you’ve got a thing that’s forty feet long – getting it up to speed and shutting it all down can be tough. You can’t just do it in two blocks.” The sequence was filmed with up to six cameras, including a special “balloon cam,” with wheeled buoys on each corner, which allowed the camera to be sent into the path of the speeding car pair and getting hit head-on, without damaging expensive camera equipment.
Carell did actually drive the R8 himself for a number of shots. “We wanted the car to have way too much power for a guy like Phil to handle,” says Gill. “So I asked Audi to disconnect the all-wheel drive, which meant putting all 560 horsepower into the rear wheels.” So what was Carell’s impression? “He said it felt like somebody hitting him in the back of the head with a shovel when he stepped on the gas.”
In one shot, Phil must make his way to the cab while Claire is driving the Audi at high speed. “We did all the transfers across the hood with doubles – that was all real,” notes Gill.
Close-ups of Carell and Fey were done against a green screen set at Twentieth Century Fox. Since the chase acrobatics had already been filmed, besides their scripted lines, Carell and Fey filled in the gaps with their gut-busting ad-libs. “I’d show them footage and explain to them, ‘Here’s what we did last week downtown with the real cars – what do you think?’” Gill says. “And we’d bounce off ideas until something really clicked. And then Shawn was always there to say, ‘You’re right on track here – that’s really funny!’ It really helps when you have a collaboration where everybody can talk ideas out.”
Even with all the excitement, Levy kept the scene’s theme on track. “Once we had the concept of having the two cars stuck together, then we could find a way to thematically tie it in to what the movie’s about, which is this couple that has to learn to communicate to survive,” he explains.
Indeed, even with all that happens to them on this fateful night, the Fosters achieve their goal: to reinvigorate their relationship and reconnect with the love and excitement that brought them together in the first place.
“DATE NIGHT is kind of like a fable,” says Levy. “It takes place over a very short period of time, but in some way, it’s timeless, because it’s a story about a journey two people make in their relationship. And we leave the night feeling like they will go back to their lives and no one except for the people involved that night might ever know what happened. We’ve watched them experience this crazy night, but the real adventure of their married life, now that they’ve found each other again, is just about to begin.”
“They’re comfortable enough again with each other to be able to say ‘Knock it off’ and ‘I love you’ within the same five minutes,” says Steve Carell.
Tina Fey has just one last piece of relationship advice: “Go on a date night and see DATE NIGHT.”
ABOUT THE CAST
STEVE CARELL (Phil Foster) has emerged as one of the most sought-after comedic actors in Hollywood. First gaining recognition for his contributions as a correspondent on Comedy Central’s Emmy® Award-winning “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” Carell has successfully segued into primetime television and above-the-title status in the film world with equal aplomb.
Carell currently stars as Michael Scott, the pompous and deluded boss of a Pennsylvania paper company, in the Americanized adaptation of Ricky Gervais’ acclaimed British television series “The Office.” Now in its sixth season, the show continues to flourish in ratings and has earned Carell three Emmy Award nominations and four Golden Globe® nominations for his work on the show, and earned the Golden Globe in 2006. In the last two years, the show has won the Screen Actors Guild Award® for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.
Carell opened his first lead feature, “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” which he co-wrote with director Judd Apatow, at #1, a spot it remained in for two straight weekends. The surprise hit of 2005 went on to gross more than $175 million worldwide and had #1 openings in 12 countries. The film generated over $100 million in DVD sales in North America alone. On an award level, the film was honored with an AFI Award® named one of 10 Most Outstanding Motion Pictures of the Year and took home Best Comedy Movie at the 11th annual Critics’ Choice Awards®. The film also earned Carell and Apatow a co-nomination for Best Original Screenplay by the Writers Guild Association.
In 2008, Carell starred as Maxwell Smart in the much-anticipated action-comedy “Get Smart,” opposite Anne Hathaway and Alan Arkin. The film grossed over $230 million worldwide. A sequel is due in 2011. He also lent his voice as “The Mayor of Whoville” in Twentieth Century Fox’s animated film “Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!” based on the children’s book written by Dr. Seuss. Directed by Jimmy Hayward (“Finding Nemo,” “Monsters, Inc.”), Carell played opposite Jim Carrey, and helped launch the film as an international success earning over $295 million worldwide.
In 2006, as part of an ensemble, he starred in “Little Miss Sunshine,” which earned an Academy Award® nomination for Best Picture and won the SAG Award™ for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. The black comedy also starred Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette. Previous film credits for the actor include “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” “Bewitched, and “Dan in Real Life.” Carell’s feature film breakout role in “Bruce Almighty,” opposite Jim Carrey, led to a sequel starring Carell in 2007, “Evan Almighty.”
Carell recently announced the start of his new production company, Carousel Productions. Carell’s endeavors and successes in acting, writing and producing were an organic segue in the creation of Carousel Productions. Born in Massachusetts, Carell now resides in Los Angeles with his wife, actress Nancy Walls (NBC’s “Saturday Night Live”), whom he met while at the Second City Theater Group in Chicago, where both were members. He is the proud father of a daughter and a son.
TINA FEY (Claire Foster), one of the most visible and popular figures in television today, writes, executive produces and stars in NBC's three-time Emmy Award-winning comedy series “30 Rock,” a workplace comedy which takes place behind-the-scenes of a live variety show. Her performance as head writer Liz Lemon on the fictional “TGS with Tracy Jordan” has earned Fey an Emmy, two Golden Globes, three SAG Awards, and a People’s Choice Award®. This year alone, “30 Rock” won five Emmy Awards and was nominated for many others.
Prior to creating “30 Rock,” Fey completed nine seasons as head writer, cast member and co-anchor of the “Weekend Update” segment on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” Fey is an Emmy winner and two-time Writers Guild Award winner for her writing on SNL, also receiving an Emmy for her spoof of vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
Since her transition to being in front of the camera, Fey has won much acclaim, including being named one of Entertainment Weekly’s Entertainers of the Year, People Magazine’s Most Beautiful People (three times), and one of Time magazine’s Prestigious Time 100.
Other awards include, in 2008, a Producers Guild Award and a Writers Guild Award for Outstanding Comedy Series for “30 Rock.” She has also won two Gracie Awards and a Made in New York Award and has been nominated for a People’s Choice Award for Choice Comedy Actress and a SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
Fey expanded to feature films in spring 2004 as both a screenwriter and an actress opposite Lindsay Lohan in the hit comedy “Mean Girls,” which earned her a nomination for a Writers Guild Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Most recently she starred alongside “Saturday Night Live’s” Amy Poehler in the film “Baby Mama” for Universal Pictures, which exceed the $50 million dollar mark at the U.S. box office. Fey also starred in the Ricky Gervais comedy “The Invention of Lying,” released in 2009.
MARK WAHLBERG (“Holbrooke Grant”) earned Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for his standout performance in Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed drama “The Departed.”
Wahlberg’s remarkable film career began with Penny Marshall’s “Renaissance Man” and “The Basketball Diaries” with Leonardo DiCaprio, followed by a star turn opposite Reese Witherspoon in the thriller “Fear.” He has enjoyed playing diverse characters for visionary filmmakers such as David O. Russell, Tim Burton and Paul Thomas Anderson.
Wahlberg’s breakout role in “Boogie Nights” established him as one of Hollywood’s most sought-after talents. He later headlined “Three Kings” and “The Perfect Storm” with George Clooney, and “The Italian Job” with Charlize Theron. He followed those with “I ♥ Huckabees,” “Four Brothers” and the football biography, “Invincible.” He then appeared in “Shooter,” based on the best-selling novel Point of Impact. Wahlberg reunited with “The Yards” director James Gray and co-star Joaquin Phoenix in “We Own the Night,” which Wahlberg produced.
In 2008, Wahlberg starred in M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Happening,” and in “Max Payne.” He recently appeared in director Peter Jackson’s adaptation of “The Lovely Bones.” Due out this year is “The Fighter” for director David O. Russell and “The Other Guys,” with Will Ferrell.
Wahlberg is an executive producer on “The Fighter” and “We Own the Night,” as well as on the HBO series “Entourage” and “In Treatment,” which have received six Golden Globe and three Emmy nominations.
Future projects include the new HBO series, “Boardwalk Empire,” with Martin Scorsese and “How to Make it in America,” along with other feature film projects. A committed philanthropist, he founded The Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation in 2001 to benefit inner city children and teens.
TARAJI P. HENSON (“Detective Arroyo”) earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress portraying Brad Pitt’s mother in David Fincher’s highly acclaimed “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” Most recently, she starred in Tyler Perry’s “I Can Do Bad All By Myself,” which opened to number one at the box office.
For three years, Henson starred as Raina Washington, the youngest female detective on Lifetime’s “The Division.” She was also a regular on David E. Kelly’s “Boston Legal” and had a recurring role on ABC’s “Eli Stone.” Henson appeared in featured roles on “ER,” “Strong Medicine,” “CSI,” “House,” among others.
Henson received rave reviews for her role in Focus Features’ “Talk to Me” opposite Don Cheadle. Henson was named Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Feature Film at the 2005 Black Movie Awards and received the Best Actress nod at the 2006 BET Awards for her performance as Shug in the gutsy drama “Hustle & Flow,” produced by Oscar-nominated filmmaker John Singleton. She received two nominations at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards™ including Best Breakthrough Performance.
Upcoming films include “Karate Kid” opposite Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan, which filmed on location in Beijing for Columbia. Henson plays Rainn Wilson’s love interest in the upcoming indie comedy “Peep World,» also starring Sarah Silverman. In the indie drama “Once Fallen,” Henson stars with Ed Harris and Brian Presley. She starred in Sony’s “Not Easily Broken” opposite Morris Chestnut, and opposite Forest Whitaker in “Hurricane Season.” She starred in Tyler Perry’s “The Family That Preys” with Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard.
Born and raised in Washington, D.C., the Howard University grad has a strong passion for helping disabled and less fortunate children and reveals, “I always stress to kids to have faith in themselves—the greatest recipe for success is self confidence.”
COMMON (Collins), a Grammy Award® winning artist, made his big screen debut as a musical performer in “Dave Chappelle’s Block Party,” in 2006. In January 2007, he made his acting debut co-starring opposite Jeremy Piven, Ben Affleck, Alicia Keys and Ryan Reynolds in “Smokin’ Aces.” Since then he’s co-starred opposite Denzel Washington in “American Gangster,” directed by Ridley Scott; David Ayer’s “Street Kings,” starring Keanu Reeves and Forest Whitaker; and “Terminator Salvation,” directed by McG, starring Christian Bale.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
SHAWN LEVY (Director/Producer) is one of the most commercially successful film directors of the past decade. To date, his films have grossed over 1.5 billion dollars worldwide. Levy has honed his craft, seamlessly weaving comedy and heart into captivating stories that resonate with audiences. His youthfully enthusiastic approach to filmmaking is evident in the storylines and characters he creates – reflecting his joyful intensity for each project at hand.
Levy is currently developing several films to produce through his production company, 21 Laps, which is housed at Twentieth Century Fox. These projects include “The Ten Best Days of My Life” (with Amy Adams), “Neighborhood Watch,” “The Devil You Know” and “How to Talk to Girls” for Fox; “Factracker” for MGM; “The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp” and “The Cutlass Islands” for New Regency, “Men of Magic” for Universal; “The Berenstain Bears” for Walden; and “The Spectacular Now” and “Table 19” for Fox Searchlight.
Currently, Levy is in pre-production on the futuristic father-son boxing drama, “Real Steel,” starring Hugh Jackman, for Steven Spielberg’s Dreamworks.
Levy’s 21 Laps recently produced the 2008 comedy «What Happens in Vegas,» starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, which went on to earn over $200 million worldwide.
Levy both produced and directed the blockbuster “Night at the Museum,” starring Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Ricky Gervais, Dick Van Dyke and Mickey Rooney, which grossed over $580 million worldwide and “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,” starring a wide array of today’s most notable comedic talent including Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Jonah Hill, Bill Hader, Hank Azaria, Owen Wilson, Ricky Gervais and Steve Coogan, which grossed over $400 million worldwide.
He directed the successful 2006 comedy, “The Pink Panther,” starring Steve Martin, Kevin Kline, Beyoncé Knowles, and Jean Reno and served as the executive producer of “Pink Panther 2.” Levy also directed “Cheaper By The Dozen” starring Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, Ashton Kutcher and Hilary Duff, which went on to gross more than $200 million worldwide.
In 2002, Levy directed both the hit romantic comedy “Just Married,” starring Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy, which grossed over $100 million and the family comedy “Big Fat Liar,” for Universal Pictures, with Frankie Muniz, Paul Giamatti and Amanda Bynes.
Levy graduated at the age of 20 from the Drama Department of Yale University. He later studied film in the Masters Film Production Program at USC, where he produced and directed the short film Broken Record. This film won the Gold Plaque at the Chicago Film Festival, in addition to being selected to screen at the Director’s Guild of America.
JOSH KLAUSNER (Screenwriter) attended Princeton University, where he was involved in the theater community as an actor, playwright and director, and studied theater luminaries Bobby Lewis and Albert Innaurato. Klausner’s thesis play, “Scratch,” received the Francis LeMoyne Page Prize for Excellence in Theater. After graduation, Klausner co-created the short “Season of the Lifterbees,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1992, and won the Time Warner Grand Prize at the Aspen Shortsfest and a regional AMPAS Student Academy Award for Best Dramatic Short.
In 1994, Klausner began working as an assistant to the Farrelly Brothers, on their first film, “Dumb & Dumber,” moving on to work as 2nd unit director on the Farrellys’ hit 1998 film, “There’s Something About Mary” and again in 2001’s “Shallow Hal.”
In 2000, Klausner wrote and directed HBO’s “The 4th Floor,” starring William Hurt, Juliette Lewis, Austin Pendleton and Shelley Duvall. He did additional screenplay work on “Shrek the Third,” and wrote the original screenplay and storyline for DreamWorks
Animation’s upcoming “Shrek Forever After,” to be released later this year.
Klausner is currently working on a number of feature film projects, including a live action adaptation of “Thomas the Tank Engine,” and an adaptation of Adena Hapern’s The Ten Best Days of My Life for Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps, which will star Amy Adams. He is also collaborating with Sir Paul McCartney on “High in the Clouds,” an upcoming animated feature film based on the former Beatle’s children’s book.
JOE CARACCIOLO, JR. (Executive Producer) began his career in film as a production manager on director Sidney Lumet’s “Running on Empty” and “The Verdict.”
Caracciolo executive produced the hit comedies “Marley & Me” starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston, “What Happens in Vegas” starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher (for 21 Laps), and “The Devil Wears Prada” starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway. His other executive producing credits include “Just My Luck,” starring Lindsay Lohan, “Hide & Seek,” a psychological thriller starring Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning, and “Uptown Girls,” a comedic New York fairy tale starring Brittany Murphy and Dakota Fanning. Additionally, he produced the teen thriller “Swimfan,” directed by John Polson.
Caracciolo’s other feature film credits include James Foley’s “Glengarry Glen Ross,” Jon Amiel’s “Copycat,” and “The Man Who Knew Too Little,” and writer-director John Waters’ “Serial Mom,” “Pecker,” and “Cecil B. Demented.”
JOSH McLAGLEN (Executive Producer) has worked as an assistant director on dozens of blockbuster films alongside some of Hollywood’s top directors. He has been 1st AD on “Tango and Cash,” “Alien 3,” James Cameron’s “Titanic,” “The X-Files,” “Cast Away,” “The Polar Express, and “Beowulf,” the latter three for director Robert Zemeckis, and again for Cameron on “Avatar.”
In 2002, McLaglen began wearing a producer’s hat, working his way from associate producer (“The Polar Express”) to co-producer (“Beowulf,” “Avatar”) to executive producer. In 2006, he began working with director Shawn Levy, as both 1st AD and co-producer on “Night at the Museum,” becoming executive producer for that film’s sequel, “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,” as well as for “Date Night” and the upcoming “Real Steel.”
TOM McNULTY (Executive Producer) is the president of production at 21 Laps, a production company based at Twentieth Century Fox in Los Angeles. McNulty joined 21 Laps at its inception with the company’s principal, director Shawn Levy and has set up over a dozen film projects at Fox, Universal, Warner Brothers and New Line. 21 Laps films include “Cheaper By The Dozen 2,” as well as the hit comedy “What Happens In Vegas” starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, “St. Peter” starring Elizabeth Banks and Sam Rockwell, and “The Rocker,” the latter marking their first producing effort together.
Prior to joining Levy, McNulty was the executive vice president of production at Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions for over six years. There, he oversaw the development of the entire slate of films, notably “Mr. Deeds,” “Anger Management,” “50 First Dates,” “Are We There Yet,” “Click” and “Dickie Roberts Former Child Star.”
Prior to joining Happy Madison, McNulty was an executive at Out Of The Blue Entertainment, where he was an executive on “Big Daddy” and “Deuce Bigalow Male Gigolo.”
McNulty arrived in Hollywood as an actor, appearing in “Boys on the Side” opposite Whoopi Goldberg and “Escape from L.A.” with Kurt Russell. McNulty grew up on Long Island and attended The Catholic University of America in Washington DC.
DEAN SEMLER, ACS/ASC (Director of Photography) began his career in his native Australia, lensing “Mad Max 2” (aka “The Road Warrior” in North America) in 1982 for George Miller, for which Semler received an Australian Film Institute (AFI) nomination. Semler reteamed with Miller for “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.” Semler won both the AFI and Australian Cinematographers Society awards for the Aussie thriller “Razorback.”
By the late ‘80s, Semler was serving as director of photography on several U.S. productions, including “Cocktail” with Tom Cruise and Bryan Brown, and the western “Young Guns.” The following year, he returned to Australia for “Dead Calm,” starring Nicole Kidman and Sam Neill, for which Semler won the AFI award.
After filming the “Young Guns” sequel in 1990, Semler shot Kevin Costner’s “Dances With Wolves,” for which Semler received multiple honors, including an Academy Award and American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Award. He reteamed with Costner in 1995 for “Waterworld.”
Throughout the ‘90s and into the following decade, Semler shot the comedies “City Slickers,” “Nutty Professor II: The Klumps,” “Bruce Almighty,” and “Get Smart.” He also filmed Mel Gibson’s epic “Apocalypto.”
Most recently, Semler was director of photography on Roland Emmerich’s “2012,” and on “Secretariat,” starring Diane Lane and Scott Glenn.
DAVID GROPMAN (Production Designer), after working in television and independent films, designed the studio features “Of Mice and Men,” “Waiting to Exhale,” and “The Cider House Rules,” for which he was nominated for an Oscar.
Gropman received an Art Directors Guild award and BAFTA nomination for his design for “Chocolat.” Gropman worked on John Waters’ “Hairspray,” for which Gropman was nominated for a Satellite Award. The Art Directors Guild once again recognized Gropman with a nomination for period film design for “Doubt,” which takes place in the 1960s.
CHRISTOPHE BECK (Composer) reunites with Shawn Levy, after composing the scores for the Levy-helmed projects “Just Married,” “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “The Pink Panther. Recently, Beck reteamed with director Chris Columbus on “Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief,” after composing the score for Columbus’ “I Love You, Beth Cooper.”
The Montreal native started piano lessons at age five and was writing music for his first-ever band, Chris and The Cupcakes, before his teen years. During high school, Beck studied flute, saxophone, trombone and drums, and performed in rock bands. While studying music at Yale University, Beck had an epiphany, discovering that his talent for composing exceeded that for performing. He wrote two musicals with his brother Jason (a.k.a. Chilly Gonzales, the Berlin-based hip-hop recording artist), as well as an opera based on The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe
Upon graduation from Yale in 1992, he moved to Los Angeles to attend USC's prestigious film scoring program, where he studied with Oscar winner Jerry Goldsmith, among others. Beck was immediately attracted to the creative challenges unique to the marriage of music and picture, and a personal recommendation from the head of the USC Music Department led to his first professional assignment, the Canadian TV series “White Fang.” Soon thereafter, he was asked to score a new TV series (then in its second season), “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer,” based on the 1992 cult classic film, for which he received the Emmy for Outstanding Music Composition during his three seasons with the show.
The prolific talent has scored 40+ feature films and nearly twenty television shows since 1993. His film compositions include a wide array of projects and genres including the action films “The Sentinel” and “Elektra,” the comedies “The Hangover,” “Drillbit Taylor,” “What Happens in Vegas,” “Charlie Bartlett,” “Pink Panther 2,” and “Bring It On,” and the dramas “Under the Tuscan Sun,” “Year of the Dog,” “Phoebe in Wonderland” and the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury nominee “The Greatest.”
Beck has also composed scores for “The Seeker: The Dark is Rising,” “School for Scoundrels,” “License to Wed,” “Fred Claus,” “We Are Marshall,” “Confidence,” “Yours, Mine and Ours,” “Taxi,” “A Cinderella Story,” “Saved!,” “Garfield” and its sequel, “Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties” “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “American Wedding,” “Post Grad,” and “All About Steve.”
MARLENE STEWART (Costume Designer) earned her first credits working on music videos, including memorable designs for fashion-forward pop superstar Madonna. Stewart created image-shaping costumes for 11 Madonna videos, including “Vogue,” “Material Girl,” “Like a Prayer” and “Express Yourself.”
Stewart’s film work spans a wide variety of genres, periods and looks. She has collaborated with an intriguing array of directors, ranging from Alejandro González Iñárritu on “21 Grams” to Oliver Stone on “The Doors” and “JFK” to Michael Mann on “Ali” and Beeban Kidron on “To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar.”
Most recently, Stewart designed the costumes for Ben Stiller’s “Tropic Thunder,” Nancy Meyers’s romantic comedy “The Holiday” and Kimberly Peirce’s drama “Stop-Loss.”
Her credits also include Andy Tennant’s “Hitch,” James Cameron’s “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” and “True Lies,” Mary Lambert’s “Siesta,” Joel Schumacher’s “Falling Down,” James L. Brooks’s “I’ll Do Anything,” Curtis Hanson’s “The River Wild,” Joe Pytka’s “Space Jam,” Rob Bowman’s “The X Files,” Tony Scott’s “Enemy of the State,” Dominic Sena’s “Gone in 60 Seconds,” David McNally’s “Coyote Ugly,” and Antoine Fuqua’s “Tears of the Sun.”
After earning a degree in History at the University of California, Berkeley, Stewart studied at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles. She received the Bob Mackie Award for Design for her student work and began her design career by launching her own women’s clothing line, Covers. A Boston native, Stewart designed the costumes for three Madonna tours as well as tours for Cher, Paula Abdul, and Gloria Estefan. She created music video looks for Janet Jackson, Rod Stewart, Bette Midler, Debbie Harry, Smashing Pumpkins, the Bangles, and the Eurythmics, and was the first recipient of the American Music Awards’ Best Costume Design Award for the video “Material Girl.”
18 Views
15:30:49 09/26/09
Dr Karl Morris – Episode #12 Part 2
[LESS INFO] 18 VIEWS | ADDED 15:30:49 09/26/09
In this episode I am joined by Dr Karl Morris one of Europe's top golf "mental game" coaches. Karl works with the following players: Darren Clarke, David Howell, Lee Westwood, Paul McGinley, Graeme McDowell, Richard Finch, Phil Archer, Alison Nicholas and Trish Johnson.
Here is the transcription of our 20 minute interview.
Andy: Hi and welcome to episode 12 of Home of Golf TV. Today I’m joined with Dr Karl Morris, one of Europe’s leading golf mind coaches. Welcome Karl to the show.
Karl: Hi there Andy, thanks.
Andy: Now Karl, you’ve worked with Lee Westwood, Darren Clarke, Paul McGinley, Graeme McDowell, all the top players in Europe over a fantastic career you’ve had so far, helping them with their coaching. What tips can you give the viewers, takeaways from their games?
Karl: I think the big thing that I’ve found over the years is that the individual is sacred and what works for Darren Clarke certainly wouldn’t work for David Howell or Paul McGinley. So it’s very much about finding your own way of playing the game. And one of the big things I’ve worked in the last couple of years and it’s such a simple understanding about the game, but I think its so relevant for everybody that there’s really only two things in golf that you’re trying to control. You’re trying to control the golf ball and you’re trying to control yourself.
So that obviously, everybody, they need to keep working on the technical side of the game. They need to find a golf swing and a method that they can trust, but also there’s gonna be an element of what do you need to do to control yourself? What are the things that you let yourself down with on the golf course because from Ben Hogan, Tiger Woods, downwards, everybody hits bad shots occasionally, so you’re always willing to work on the second part as well as the golf swing.
Andy: And the dialogue you would have with Darren Clarke obviously would be different to Lee Westwood I suppose.
Karl: It would be completely different. I mean, Darren is probably one of the most gifted players I’ve ever seen, if not the most gifted. He’s very much a feel orientated player; plays his best golf in a very non technical approach to the game. Darren gets bogged down by theory occasionally, whereas Lee’s far more, more of a structured way of approach. He needs to know why he’s gonna do something. If there’s a good reason for doing it, Lee will go and do it, but very, very different in the plays.
Andy: I think you were saying earlier that Paul McGinley he’s now looking at practicing so he can recreate the anxiety you would have on the course.
Karl: Yeah, Paul McGinley, Graeme McDowell in particular this last two years, last year was a particularly good year for Graeme. He played in the Ryder Cup for the first time. But one of the things that we did in the whole of last year was really try and make sure that there was an element of his practice that was trying to simulate golf. And one of the big mistakes I see golfers making is aimlessly hitting golf balls on the range, hitting it well and it doesn’t represent anything that’s gonna happen on the golf course.
Andy: Karl, how long have you been in the industry for, teaching golf psychology?
Karl: My background originally was as a player, but I’ve probably been involved in the psychology side of things for about ten years now and it’s been a really interesting journey. One of the things I’ve tried to develop over the last few years, I’ve done a lot of work with the PGAs around the world. I’ve been fortunate to speak to the Australian PGA, the Swedish PGA, South African PGA as well as the Europeans.
And my real passion has always been to try and pass on some of these things that have worked tour players to the golf coach, because I really believe that the coach of the future will be able to teach not only the technical side of the game, but he’ll also have an understanding of how the mind works, as well, so that we can bring the two things together. I think the problem with golf has been that there’s almost been two camps. There’s been technical coach to work on the range and so well, you’re swinging it a lot better than this mind coach who says “Well just go out there and don’t think about it” and it never really comes together.
And I really passionately believe that good coaching in the future will develop both of those sides probably as well being able to define mechanics, as well. I think a great coach in the future will be much more rounded, perhaps, than we’ve all been in the past.
Andy: Oh yeah, I mean, I can see that happening ‘cause as a kid, that never happened.
Karl: Yeah I think we’ve all had the experience of having a golf lesson. The pro stands there, we’re maybe working on something in the swing. We start getting it perfectly on the range, start flushing it. The pro say’s, “Right go away take that to the golf course.” He thinks that you’re gonna go and play well. You think you’re gonna go and play well and then you have to make a phone call to him and say, “That was dreadful. I hit it all over the place.” And that, to me, is where this necessity to understand the mental game is so important, because if you can repeat an action on the range over and over again, and then on the golf course it’s terrible, that’s not just your golf swing. There is an element of the mind side going on there.
Andy: Like you, I probably get bogged down with so many swing thoughts and so, how many swing thoughts should I have as I sort of prepare myself?
Karl : The interesting thing again, with all this is what really frustrates me is when I hear the phrase "golf’s 90 per cent mental".
Andy: Yeah, you hear that all the time.
Karl: Well it isn’t. You hear that golf’s 80 percent, 90 percent. Well it isn’t because when it’s doing well, golf is not a mental game. Golf is a physical game. It’s a physical club, a physical ball, a physical body and actually, you play your best golf with a reduction in thinking rather than thinking too much. I think that if there is one sport in the whole of the world that we’re not short of things to think about it, it's golf. I read somewhere once that we’re drowning in information but thirsting for knowledge.
And in answer to your question, to me it’s paramount that a golfer should never have more than one swing thought and rather than looking at it as a swing thought, I look at as a place where you’re occupying your mind. You’re placing your attention. One of the things that the human mind does and in the East they call it the ‘monkey mind’, it jumps from one thing to another. And that’s the classic the golfer’s mistake, that he stood over the ball and he’s thinking about this, thinking about that and thinking about something else, “Don’t go left, don’t go right don’t go in the water.”
Actually a really effective focus brings your attention to one point and to one place and that should be the goal for everybody, to actually keep your attention in one place throughout the motion of the golf swing. That then gets the best out of your swing thought, but also occupies your mind.
Andy: And when you’re teaching the pros, do you teach them pro routine where they would have a swing thought and then they, like Darren Clarke, for instance, then he can play his natural game?
Karl: Yeah. One of the most effective things that we’ve used over the years is something we’ve called the thinking zone and the playing zone whereby, if you can imagine that you’re playing golf now and if your golf ball is here, just behind the golf ball is a line. Now anything behind the line is what I call the thinking zone. So that’s where you would do your process, you would maybe visualize a shot.
You would program in the movement that you feel is essential for your golf swing. You would in effect be using the left side of the brain, the analytical part of the brain, doing all the thinking. Once you’ve done all of that though, you see this line and you literally step over that line and I call that ‘Nike golf’, then because you step over the line and you literally just do it.
Andy: Just do it, yeah.
Karl: You get into the golf ball and actually, what this does is the reverse of what most people do in a sense, that they spend very little time here, especially if they’re playing on their golf course all the time, “Oh, it’s the six iron ‘cause it’s the 12th”. They step over the line and then they start to think.
Andy: I know it's weird why they do that.
Karl: And then they freeze. So what this does is actually prepare you here in the thinking zone, but you get over the line and then just relax a little bit more, so the game becomes, actually striking out, much less of a mental process and much more of a physical one.
Andy: We all go to the range. We see everyone hitting the ball, hitting the ball and really they’re not concentrating on their mental game, are they? Is there takeaways that we can use?
Karl: I honestly think on that, I would never ever have had a role in golf the way that I have, if golf was practiced correctly. It’s the number one reason why there’s a huge frustration in between what people see that they can do on the range and then what actually comes out on the golf course. We’ve all gotta understand golf is incredibly unique because there are a very few games where you’re trying to score as low as possible.
Most games, football, cricket, whatever it is, you’re trying to get as many as possible, whereas golf you’re trying to get as little as possible, and yet, with practice, we equate a good session, I even hear it on the TV, as I hit 1,000 balls. Well the only thing that you can guarantee if you hit 1,000 balls, is that you trained yourself to hit a 1,000 shots. And as far as I am aware 1,000 wouldn’t be that good a return on a golf course, you need to split your practice into two segments.
One part of your practice, yes, you should be working on your technical side that you’re working on with your method or your coach or whatever it is, but a part of your practice should simulate a game. And the only way you can simulate a game is to add in consequence. There needs to be a consequence to each shot. I get all the players, they’ll hit a certain number of balls where it’s a particular game that they’re playing and what they’ve got to do is hit the shot and then they’ll note down the scores for that particular game.
Andy: So that reduces the anxiety out on the course.
Karl: The very act of being in practice is actually having to take a notebook out and writing the score down that you do in practice, simulates that sort of competitive element in the real game. And I would say less than one percent of golfers do this. So I think that for the viewers, really ask yourself, “Am I hitting a lot of shots? Or am I getting better at golf?”
Andy: Because one thing that you can commit to is a routine. That’s what Harrington has said in the past.
Karl: Yes. It’s a great point, that, because all golfers hear the phrase, “Well you need a routine” and I sit down with players and it’s “Oh, yeah, I’ve got a routine.” And I film them on the golf course and they haven’t got a routine. They think they’ve got a routine. The routine is as fundamental to the mental game as the grip is to the physical game. To develop a routine, you’re actually giving yourself something that you can genuinely rely on under pressure.
The mind needs a series of steps to follow under pressure. That’s the reason why in an aircraft they give you the drill, the safety procedure before you take off. I’ll never forget Harrington saying that, I heard him once say, “There’s no way I can swing it well every day, but there’s no excuse for not having a good routine every day.” And I think these great players reflect that.
Tiger Woods has been working on the mind side of things from the age of 11 and everybody assumes he’s just this born entity, but he’s not. It’s something his father was in the Special Forces. His father made him practice in a certain way and Earl Woods said to him, “When you get in competition, the training will take over.” And I take that as being that his practice was very geared to simulating the game.
Andy: It’s a really big takeaway, isn’t it?
Karl: I think the first question for the viewers would be to really ask yourself, are you getting better with the practice that you do? And it wasn’t a golfer but I think Einstein said the definition of insanity was to keep doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result.
Andy: That’s brilliant Karl. So the next time I’m the range, I’m going to be spending at least 25 percent on the mental game. Karl, is there any way that I can conquer my first tee nerves? I mean, we all get it to some degree. What’s your take on that?
Karl: The take that we’ve had the last few years that seems to have worked well with all of the plays is the concept of what is nervousness? Well, nervousness is actually a feeling in your body. It’s a sensation running through your system. Now, as kids we were all told, “When you get to the first tee and you’re feeling these things in your body, it’s ‘first tee nerves’. And immediately, the perception is that these feelings are bad.
Well, just imagine as a kid if you were told that when you get to the first tee, these feelings that you get are actually first tee energy? All of a sudden, you’d actually look forward to those feelings. It’s actually resisting the feeling that’s the problem. You know, Tiger Woods, when he’s walking to the first tee in the Masters, I guarantee you he’ll be getting certain feelings through his body. But what he’s learned to do, he’s learned to channel those feelings and not see it as a bad thing.
I remember years ago reading that Jack Nicklaus talked about it. He said that he didn’t win majors. He waited for other people to lose them. But he said, “Just give me that feeling on the back nine of a major. That’s what I hit all the balls for.” He didn’t say, “Give me that feeling of nervousness.”
Andy: Just give a feeling.
Karl: So in his mind he created a label that this feeling was a good thing. So that would be one of the things to reframe the actual term ‘nervousness’ as an energy, but also then learn how to control it a little bit more. And one of the most effective ways is breathing. And centuries old advice has been around far longer than any of us have, a lot of the Eastern traditions talk about this.
It’s pretty much impossible to maintain a state of nervousness and breathe correctly. And nervousness, you actually have to be in the future thinking about what might happen to be nervous. Now, when you bring your attention to your breathing, not only are you physically starting to calm down, but mentally, you’re right back here in the now, in the moment. So, just that simple process of focusing on breathing. And we’ve all heard it, but very few people do it and in practice it’s really profound.
Andy: Right. Karl, a big problem I have is I tend to surround myself with people that in the clubhouse afterwards, talk about their bad shots. “I had a 70, I had an 80, but the triple bogey on #14, that sort of conversation. The conversations doesn’t sort of go on to, “Yes, but I did this part and you know, single putts on these five greens.” It’s a funny sort of conversation us golfers get into. I want to almost get away from it because I think that must be better for my golfing.
Karl: It’s a crazy thing, Andy, really because I think we’ve almost been conditioned that misery loves company. I do call it the ‘but syndrome’, I shot 68 but! And you know the number of times I’ve sat with very good players and they almost love to tell me how bad they’ve putted. You know, “I hit the ball so well, but I three putted four times” or whatever, almost as though that’s a badge of honor that they’re wearing.
And I think it’s something that we should all look at in the way that we talk about the game because there’s no question, one of the things I’ve become fascinated with over the last few years is how memory plays such a big role in our performance. You know, the certain shots that you stand over that you just know that you’re gonna hit a good shot, because a memory has been triggered of a previous result that you’ve had in that situation.
And I always think back to the lovely story about how Harvey Penick that Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite were sat with him many, many years before they went out on tour. I think it was Tom Kite said to Mr. Penick, he said, “If there was one single piece of advice that you would give us out on tour, what would it be?” And Harvey Penick just said, “Make sure that you go to dinner with good putters.” And in effect what he was saying, he was being a great psychologist in that moment. He was saying, “Make sure you hang out with and be with people who hole putts, who talk about holing putts rather than ones who just drag us down into the sort of misery of what should’ve been.”
One practical thing that the viewers might want to think about is something that’s been really successful with players over the last few years is something that I call the three shot diary. And literally, what the three shot diary is that when you finish playing golf, what you do, maybe after you’ve got back, you’ve gone home, you actually sit down and think about the three best shots that you’ve hit that day and actually then, write them out. Write them out in detail what you were thinking, what you were feeling.
There are a couple things are happening with this simple process. One is by writing the shot out, you’re solidifying the memory of that, strengthening the memory, but the other thing is, you’re going to start to find a pattern of what you do when you play good golf. You know, people go for a golf lesson, the first thing they say, “Tell me what I’m doing wrong.” Which we’ve gotta look at our faults, or actually, what do you do when you do it right?
Andy: Yeah, and what you consistently do right.
Karl: What do you consistently do when you do it right? You know, I once said, “Success leaves behind a trail”, but you’ve gotta look for that trail. And I think that good plays do this. Tiger Woods, he said he felt that the secret to the game was to instantly recall past success and to let go of failure. Most people do the opposite.
Andy: Exactly, yeah. That’s human nature, I guess.
Karl: Probably the best example I’ve ever seen about this and mental toughness was Bernhard Langer when he missed that putt at Kiawah Island. A four foot putt to win the Ryder Cup, he missed it. You imagine that impact that could’ve had on him, but Langer went away. He said, “I went through a routine. I did everything I could. I shot the putt the right way. It didn’t go in. It just didn’t go in.”
And then the very next week he went over to Germany and he won the Mercedes Masters the next week. I just think that’s incredible. It just shows you, he had the ability to let go of what happened, get the best out of it and move on.
Andy: Yeah, incredible story and that’s one takeaway for all of us. Langer, back in ’91. Can you imagine that?
Karl: The world’s watching.
Andy: The world’s watching. Everyone doubting that he can hole a putt and then two weeks later he goes and wins the Mercedes Masters. Incredible story there. Something we can all learn from. That’s fantastic Karl. So much advice there. I really appreciate your time. If there’s anyone out there that wants to find out more about what you’re doing with the players or just to help their own game, where can they go to find out the information?
Karl: There’s a couple of websites and one of the websites is GolfTrainingProducts.co.uk and if people go to that site they can get some free videos, some downloads and some things that we’ve talked about here today. The other website is Golf-Brain.com and anybody signs up there they get a free monthly newsletter that keeps them informed of what’s going on with the players and some of the courses that I run, etcetera. The product that’s worked really well this last 12 months, a new product is a CD called 5 Shots Lower Without Changing Your Swing .
Andy: Oh, we all want that, yeah.
Karl: Something that you can play in the car, a series of tools that you can use, similar to what we’ve talked about today. This stuff needs reinforcing. We all fall back into our old patterns and our old habits. And you know, we’re so keen on being warmed up physically, but we need to be warmed up and tuned in mentally.
Andy: This is a CD you can put in the car?
Karl: A CD you can put in the car and you can listen to it at home, you know, the players that I’ve worked with say that they keep listening to it over and over and just to keep their mind, the mental stages in all of it, like I say five shots lower without changing their swing.
Andy: So, hope you thoroughly enjoyed the show with Karl. I have. Thanks very much for coming Karl.
Karl: My pleasure, Andy.
Andy: Hopefully we’ll talk in the near future.
Karl: Look forward to it.
Andy: Okay. Well that’s the end of the show. I hope you thoroughly enjoyed it.
More about Dr Karl Morris
Free Golf Mind Factor Video Training Course
5 Shots Lower Without Changing Your Swing
The Mind Factor
Finally, the Question of the Day:
What’s the biggest mental challenge in your game? Leave your comments below and we’ll have fun reading them!
3 Views
00:12:24 08/21/09
Dr Karl Morris – Episode #12 Part 1
[LESS INFO] 3 VIEWS | ADDED 00:12:24 08/21/09
In this episode I am joined by Dr Karl Morris one of Europe's top golf "mental game" coaches. Karl works with the following players: Darren Clarke, David Howell, Lee Westwood, Paul McGinley, Graeme McDowell, Richard Finch, Phil Archer, Alison Nicholas and Trish Johnson.
Here is the transcription of our 20 minute interview.
Andy: Hi and welcome to episode 12 of Home of Golf TV. Today I’m joined with Dr Karl Morris, one of Europe’s leading golf mind coaches. Welcome Karl to the show.
Karl: Hi there Andy, thanks.
Andy: Now Karl, you’ve worked with Lee Westwood, Darren Clarke, Paul McGinley, Graeme McDowell, all the top players in Europe over a fantastic career you’ve had so far, helping them with their coaching. What tips can you give the viewers, takeaways from their games?
Karl: I think the big thing that I’ve found over the years is that the individual is sacred and what works for Darren Clarke certainly wouldn’t work for David Howell or Paul McGinley. So it’s very much about finding your own way of playing the game. And one of the big things I’ve worked in the last couple of years and it’s such a simple understanding about the game, but I think its so relevant for everybody that there’s really only two things in golf that you’re trying to control. You’re trying to control the golf ball and you’re trying to control yourself.
So that obviously, everybody, they need to keep working on the technical side of the game. They need to find a golf swing and a method that they can trust, but also there’s gonna be an element of what do you need to do to control yourself? What are the things that you let yourself down with on the golf course because from Ben Hogan, Tiger Woods, downwards, everybody hits bad shots occasionally, so you’re always willing to work on the second part as well as the golf swing.
Andy: And the dialogue you would have with Darren Clarke obviously would be different to Lee Westwood I suppose.
Karl: It would be completely different. I mean, Darren is probably one of the most gifted players I’ve ever seen, if not the most gifted. He’s very much a feel orientated player; plays his best golf in a very non technical approach to the game. Darren gets bogged down by theory occasionally, whereas Lee’s far more, more of a structured way of approach. He needs to know why he’s gonna do something. If there’s a good reason for doing it, Lee will go and do it, but very, very different in the plays.
Andy: I think you were saying earlier that Paul McGinley he’s now looking at practicing so he can recreate the anxiety you would have on the course.
Karl: Yeah, Paul McGinley, Graeme McDowell in particular this last two years, last year was a particularly good year for Graeme. He played in the Ryder Cup for the first time. But one of the things that we did in the whole of last year was really try and make sure that there was an element of his practice that was trying to simulate golf. And one of the big mistakes I see golfers making is aimlessly hitting golf balls on the range, hitting it well and it doesn’t represent anything that’s gonna happen on the golf course.
Andy: Karl, how long have you been in the industry for, teaching golf psychology?
Karl: My background originally was as a player, but I’ve probably been involved in the psychology side of things for about ten years now and it’s been a really interesting journey. One of the things I’ve tried to develop over the last few years, I’ve done a lot of work with the PGAs around the world. I’ve been fortunate to speak to the Australian PGA, the Swedish PGA, South African PGA as well as the Europeans.
And my real passion has always been to try and pass on some of these things that have worked tour players to the golf coach, because I really believe that the coach of the future will be able to teach not only the technical side of the game, but he’ll also have an understanding of how the mind works, as well, so that we can bring the two things together. I think the problem with golf has been that there’s almost been two camps. There’s been technical coach to work on the range and so well, you’re swinging it a lot better than this mind coach who says “Well just go out there and don’t think about it” and it never really comes together.
And I really passionately believe that good coaching in the future will develop both of those sides probably as well being able to define mechanics, as well. I think a great coach in the future will be much more rounded, perhaps, than we’ve all been in the past.
Andy: Oh yeah, I mean, I can see that happening ‘cause as a kid, that never happened.
Karl: Yeah I think we’ve all had the experience of having a golf lesson. The pro stands there, we’re maybe working on something in the swing. We start getting it perfectly on the range, start flushing it. The pro say’s, “Right go away take that to the golf course.” He thinks that you’re gonna go and play well. You think you’re gonna go and play well and then you have to make a phone call to him and say, “That was dreadful. I hit it all over the place.” And that, to me, is where this necessity to understand the mental game is so important, because if you can repeat an action on the range over and over again, and then on the golf course it’s terrible, that’s not just your golf swing. There is an element of the mind side going on there.
Andy: Like you, I probably get bogged down with so many swing thoughts and so, how many swing thoughts should I have as I sort of prepare myself?
Karl : The interesting thing again, with all this is what really frustrates me is when I hear the phrase "golf’s 90 per cent mental".
Andy: Yeah, you hear that all the time.
Karl: Well it isn’t. You hear that golf’s 80 percent, 90 percent. Well it isn’t because when it’s doing well, golf is not a mental game. Golf is a physical game. It’s a physical club, a physical ball, a physical body and actually, you play your best golf with a reduction in thinking rather than thinking too much. I think that if there is one sport in the whole of the world that we’re not short of things to think about it, it's golf. I read somewhere once that we’re drowning in information but thirsting for knowledge.
And in answer to your question, to me it’s paramount that a golfer should never have more than one swing thought and rather than looking at it as a swing thought, I look at as a place where you’re occupying your mind. You’re placing your attention. One of the things that the human mind does and in the East they call it the ‘monkey mind’, it jumps from one thing to another. And that’s the classic the golfer’s mistake, that he stood over the ball and he’s thinking about this, thinking about that and thinking about something else, “Don’t go left, don’t go right don’t go in the water.”
Actually a really effective focus brings your attention to one point and to one place and that should be the goal for everybody, to actually keep your attention in one place throughout the motion of the golf swing. That then gets the best out of your swing thought, but also occupies your mind.
Andy: And when you’re teaching the pros, do you teach them pro routine where they would have a swing thought and then they, like Darren Clarke, for instance, then he can play his natural game?
Karl: Yeah. One of the most effective things that we’ve used over the years is something we’ve called the thinking zone and the playing zone whereby, if you can imagine that you’re playing golf now and if your golf ball is here, just behind the golf ball is a line. Now anything behind the line is what I call the thinking zone. So that’s where you would do your process, you would maybe visualize a shot.
You would program in the movement that you feel is essential for your golf swing. You would in effect be using the left side of the brain, the analytical part of the brain, doing all the thinking. Once you’ve done all of that though, you see this line and you literally step over that line and I call that ‘Nike golf’, then because you step over the line and you literally just do it.
Andy: Just do it, yeah.
Karl: You get into the golf ball and actually, what this does is the reverse of what most people do in a sense, that they spend very little time here, especially if they’re playing on their golf course all the time, “Oh, it’s the six iron ‘cause it’s the 12th”. They step over the line and then they start to think.
Andy: I know it's weird why they do that.
Karl: And then they freeze. So what this does is actually prepare you here in the thinking zone, but you get over the line and then just relax a little bit more, so the game becomes, actually striking out, much less of a mental process and much more of a physical one.
Andy: We all go to the range. We see everyone hitting the ball, hitting the ball and really they’re not concentrating on their mental game, are they? Is there takeaways that we can use?
Karl: I honestly think on that, I would never ever have had a role in golf the way that I have, if golf was practiced correctly. It’s the number one reason why there’s a huge frustration in between what people see that they can do on the range and then what actually comes out on the golf course. We’ve all gotta understand golf is incredibly unique because there are a very few games where you’re trying to score as low as possible.
Most games, football, cricket, whatever it is, you’re trying to get as many as possible, whereas golf you’re trying to get as little as possible, and yet, with practice, we equate a good session, I even hear it on the TV, as I hit 1,000 balls. Well the only thing that you can guarantee if you hit 1,000 balls, is that you trained yourself to hit a 1,000 shots. And as far as I am aware 1,000 wouldn’t be that good a return on a golf course, you need to split your practice into two segments.
One part of your practice, yes, you should be working on your technical side that you’re working on with your method or your coach or whatever it is, but a part of your practice should simulate a game. And the only way you can simulate a game is to add in consequence. There needs to be a consequence to each shot. I get all the players, they’ll hit a certain number of balls where it’s a particular game that they’re playing and what they’ve got to do is hit the shot and then they’ll note down the scores for that particular game.
Andy: So that reduces the anxiety out on the course.
Karl: The very act of being in practice is actually having to take a notebook out and writing the score down that you do in practice, simulates that sort of competitive element in the real game. And I would say less than one percent of golfers do this. So I think that for the viewers, really ask yourself, “Am I hitting a lot of shots? Or am I getting better at golf?”
Andy: Because one thing that you can commit to is a routine. That’s what Harrington has said in the past.
Karl: Yes. It’s a great point, that, because all golfers hear the phrase, “Well you need a routine” and I sit down with players and it’s “Oh, yeah, I’ve got a routine.” And I film them on the golf course and they haven’t got a routine. They think they’ve got a routine. The routine is as fundamental to the mental game as the grip is to the physical game. To develop a routine, you’re actually giving yourself something that you can genuinely rely on under pressure.
The mind needs a series of steps to follow under pressure. That’s the reason why in an aircraft they give you the drill, the safety procedure before you take off. I’ll never forget Harrington saying that, I heard him once say, “There’s no way I can swing it well every day, but there’s no excuse for not having a good routine every day.” And I think these great players reflect that.
Tiger Woods has been working on the mind side of things from the age of 11 and everybody assumes he’s just this born entity, but he’s not. It’s something his father was in the Special Forces. His father made him practice in a certain way and Earl Woods said to him, “When you get in competition, the training will take over.” And I take that as being that his practice was very geared to simulating the game.
Andy: It’s a really big takeaway, isn’t it?
Karl: I think the first question for the viewers would be to really ask yourself, are you getting better with the practice that you do? And it wasn’t a golfer but I think Einstein said the definition of insanity was to keep doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result.
Andy: That’s brilliant Karl. So the next time I’m the range, I’m going to be spending at least 25 percent on the mental game. Karl, is there any way that I can conquer my first tee nerves? I mean, we all get it to some degree. What’s your take on that?
Karl: The take that we’ve had the last few years that seems to have worked well with all of the plays is the concept of what is nervousness? Well, nervousness is actually a feeling in your body. It’s a sensation running through your system. Now, as kids we were all told, “When you get to the first tee and you’re feeling these things in your body, it’s ‘first tee nerves’. And immediately, the perception is that these feelings are bad.
Well, just imagine as a kid if you were told that when you get to the first tee, these feelings that you get are actually first tee energy? All of a sudden, you’d actually look forward to those feelings. It’s actually resisting the feeling that’s the problem. You know, Tiger Woods, when he’s walking to the first tee in the Masters, I guarantee you he’ll be getting certain feelings through his body. But what he’s learned to do, he’s learned to channel those feelings and not see it as a bad thing.
I remember years ago reading that Jack Nicklaus talked about it. He said that he didn’t win majors. He waited for other people to lose them. But he said, “Just give me that feeling on the back nine of a major. That’s what I hit all the balls for.” He didn’t say, “Give me that feeling of nervousness.”
Andy: Just give a feeling.
Karl: So in his mind he created a label that this feeling was a good thing. So that would be one of the things to reframe the actual term ‘nervousness’ as an energy, but also then learn how to control it a little bit more. And one of the most effective ways is breathing. And centuries old advice has been around far longer than any of us have, a lot of the Eastern traditions talk about this.
It’s pretty much impossible to maintain a state of nervousness and breathe correctly. And nervousness, you actually have to be in the future thinking about what might happen to be nervous. Now, when you bring your attention to your breathing, not only are you physically starting to calm down, but mentally, you’re right back here in the now, in the moment. So, just that simple process of focusing on breathing. And we’ve all heard it, but very few people do it and in practice it’s really profound.
Andy: Right. Karl, a big problem I have is I tend to surround myself with people that in the clubhouse afterwards, talk about their bad shots. “I had a 70, I had an 80, but the triple bogey on #14, that sort of conversation. The conversations doesn’t sort of go on to, “Yes, but I did this part and you know, single putts on these five greens.” It’s a funny sort of conversation us golfers get into. I want to almost get away from it because I think that must be better for my golfing.
Karl: It’s a crazy thing, Andy, really because I think we’ve almost been conditioned that misery loves company. I do call it the ‘but syndrome’, I shot 68 but! And you know the number of times I’ve sat with very good players and they almost love to tell me how bad they’ve putted. You know, “I hit the ball so well, but I three putted four times” or whatever, almost as though that’s a badge of honor that they’re wearing.
And I think it’s something that we should all look at in the way that we talk about the game because there’s no question, one of the things I’ve become fascinated with over the last few years is how memory plays such a big role in our performance. You know, the certain shots that you stand over that you just know that you’re gonna hit a good shot, because a memory has been triggered of a previous result that you’ve had in that situation.
And I always think back to the lovely story about how Harvey Penick that Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite were sat with him many, many years before they went out on tour. I think it was Tom Kite said to Mr. Penick, he said, “If there was one single piece of advice that you would give us out on tour, what would it be?” And Harvey Penick just said, “Make sure that you go to dinner with good putters.” And in effect what he was saying, he was being a great psychologist in that moment. He was saying, “Make sure you hang out with and be with people who hole putts, who talk about holing putts rather than ones who just drag us down into the sort of misery of what should’ve been.”
One practical thing that the viewers might want to think about is something that’s been really successful with players over the last few years is something that I call the three shot diary. And literally, what the three shot diary is that when you finish playing golf, what you do, maybe after you’ve got back, you’ve gone home, you actually sit down and think about the three best shots that you’ve hit that day and actually then, write them out. Write them out in detail what you were thinking, what you were feeling.
There are a couple things are happening with this simple process. One is by writing the shot out, you’re solidifying the memory of that, strengthening the memory, but the other thing is, you’re going to start to find a pattern of what you do when you play good golf. You know, people go for a golf lesson, the first thing they say, “Tell me what I’m doing wrong.” Which we’ve gotta look at our faults, or actually, what do you do when you do it right?
Andy: Yeah, and what you consistently do right.
Karl: What do you consistently do when you do it right? You know, I once said, “Success leaves behind a trail”, but you’ve gotta look for that trail. And I think that good plays do this. Tiger Woods, he said he felt that the secret to the game was to instantly recall past success and to let go of failure. Most people do the opposite.
Andy: Exactly, yeah. That’s human nature, I guess.
Karl: Probably the best example I’ve ever seen about this and mental toughness was Bernhard Langer when he missed that putt at Kiawah Island. A four foot putt to win the Ryder Cup, he missed it. You imagine that impact that could’ve had on him, but Langer went away. He said, “I went through a routine. I did everything I could. I shot the putt the right way. It didn’t go in. It just didn’t go in.”
And then the very next week he went over to Germany and he won the Mercedes Masters the next week. I just think that’s incredible. It just shows you, he had the ability to let go of what happened, get the best out of it and move on.
Andy: Yeah, incredible story and that’s one takeaway for all of us. Langer, back in ’91. Can you imagine that?
Karl: The world’s watching.
Andy: The world’s watching. Everyone doubting that he can hole a putt and then two weeks later he goes and wins the Mercedes Masters. Incredible story there. Something we can all learn from. That’s fantastic Karl. So much advice there. I really appreciate your time. If there’s anyone out there that wants to find out more about what you’re doing with the players or just to help their own game, where can they go to find out the information?
Karl: There’s a couple of websites and one of the websites is GolfTrainingProducts.co.uk and if people go to that site they can get some free videos, some downloads and some things that we’ve talked about here today. The other website is Golf-Brain.com and anybody signs up there they get a free monthly newsletter that keeps them informed of what’s going on with the players and some of the courses that I run, etcetera. The product that’s worked really well this last 12 months, a new product is a CD called 5 Shots Lower Without Changing Your Swing .
Andy: Oh, we all want that, yeah.
Karl: Something that you can play in the car, a series of tools that you can use, similar to what we’ve talked about today. This stuff needs reinforcing. We all fall back into our old patterns and our old habits. And you know, we’re so keen on being warmed up physically, but we need to be warmed up and tuned in mentally.
Andy: This is a CD you can put in the car?
Karl: A CD you can put in the car and you can listen to it at home, you know, the players that I’ve worked with say that they keep listening to it over and over and just to keep their mind, the mental stages in all of it, like I say five shots lower without changing their swing.
Andy: So, hope you thoroughly enjoyed the show with Karl. I have. Thanks very much for coming Karl.
Karl: My pleasure, Andy.
Andy: Hopefully we’ll talk in the near future.
Karl: Look forward to it.
Andy: Okay. Well that’s the end of the show. I hope you thoroughly enjoyed it.
More about Dr Karl Morris
Free Golf Mind Factor Video Training Course
5 Shots Lower Without Changing Your Swing
The Mind Factor
Finally, the Question of the Day:
What’s the biggest mental challenge in your game? Leave your comments below and we’ll have fun reading them!
0 Views
18:34:49 06/18/09
Grady Booch at RSC 2009
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 18:34:49 06/18/09
While at RSC 2009 this year, I talk with IBM's Grady Booch, who you might recall from our discussion at RSDC 2009.We start out talking about the carpet design in the room, a sort of "early, gothic, bordello." Next, we continue a conversation we'd been having before filming about, in Grady's words, "the presence of software abundance in the face of economic scarcity," which raises the question, as Grady puts it: "how does one attend to economic scarcity in the face of software abundance?" Put another way, software can be an easier to get resource than others in tough times to get an edge in business.Launching off from this discussion, I wind my around asking Grady about the business/IT alignment talk that I've been having with other IBMers at RSC 2009.Next, having over-heard Grady talk with someone in the hallway about time management issues being a big deal for him now, I ask him for any coping tips he might have to share with other people who has these problems - like everyone in the modern work world. As part of managing his time better, Grady says he's done around 50 presentations in SecondLife in the past year. Keying off this, I ask him to tell us what's been going on in SecondLife in the past year or so.Generalizing this a bit, I tell Grady that I'm usually a very plain text oriented guy so I often don't "get" people's desire to use visual communications like video. Nonetheless, I was interested to hear what he thinks things like SecondLife and video conferences add; his answers are pretty compelling.We then wrap-up by talking about an IBM Research project called MASTOR that Grady showed off during his keynote.Disclosure: IBM is a client and sponsored this video.
2 Views
14:34:49 06/18/09
Grady Booch at RSC 2009
[LESS INFO] 2 VIEWS | ADDED 14:34:49 06/18/09
While at RSC 2009 this year, I talk with IBM's Grady Booch, who you might recall from our discussion at RSDC 2009.We start out talking about the carpet design in the room, a sort of "early, gothic, bordello." Next, we continue a conversation we'd been having before filming about, in Grady's words, "the presence of software abundance in the face of economic scarcity," which raises the question, as Grady puts it: "how does one attend to economic scarcity in the face of software abundance?" Put another way, software can be an easier to get resource than others in tough times to get an edge in business.Launching off from this discussion, I wind my around asking Grady about the business/IT alignment talk that I've been having with other IBMers at RSC 2009.Next, having over-heard Grady talk with someone in the hallway about time management issues being a big deal for him now, I ask him for any coping tips he might have to share with other people who has these problems - like everyone in the modern work world. As part of managing his time better, Grady says he's done around 50 presentations in SecondLife in the past year. Keying off this, I ask him to tell us what's been going on in SecondLife in the past year or so.Generalizing this a bit, I tell Grady that I'm usually a very plain text oriented guy so I often don't "get" people's desire to use visual communications like video. Nonetheless, I was interested to hear what he thinks things like SecondLife and video conferences add; his answers are pretty compelling.We then wrap-up by talking about an IBM Research project called MASTOR that Grady showed off during his keynote.Disclosure: IBM is a client and sponsored this video.
