Life Aboard

A/N: A new regular Jamie character means I've finally written something!

(gif is mine)

Prompt(s): None

Pairing: Harry King x Reader

Warning(s): None

Word Count: 877

Hope you enjoy it! And as always, feedback is appreciated. :)

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The night air of Cannes was just as humid as the day, the little sea breeze not doing much to alleviate the stuffy feeling as you walked down the boardwalk alongside the boats as they bobbed calmly on the sea. The boat you knew so well was still moored, and despite you checking all day, Harry finally appeared on the deck. A bottle-shaped object wrapped in paper was gripped firmly in his hand as he took a seat on the decking amongst some cushions. He quickly opened the bottle, but even from a distance, you knew it wasn’t his first drink of the day and you were worried about how much he had already put away.

You walked further down and stopped at his boat, “I thought I might find you here.” you said with a friendly smile. Stepping on the ladder of the boat, you managed to let yourself up and you wasted no time to walk over to him and sit next to him on the deck. You placed your chin on his shoulder and the alcohol scent lingered on him but you cared more about the comforting warmth his touch brought you. Harry seemed reluctant to return the touch you attempted to give him but you stayed on his touch and though he didn’t move away, he felt tense.

He took a deep inhale and licked his lips, “Look,” he began, “I’ve been thinking.”

Your chest tightened and though you didn’t want to let go of him, you still did. “Right, I get it.” you replied as you gathered the small bag you had brought with you and stood up, “This is the part you tell me that this isn’t what you want.”

Harry grabbed your hand, “What?” he frowned, his eyebrows furrowed deeply but he wouldn’t let go and he stood up to join you and stumbled a little as he steadied himself. He stared at you for a moment, and despite the darkness of the Cannes night, the sea blue seemed to reflect in his eyes. You wondered whether the alcohol had taken away his ability to speak but he eventually put his glass down, making sure it hit a cushion rather than the boat itself.

“This is where you go on about how you’re a lone wolf and you’re better off alone so you could just...”

“Move in.” he interrupted. You were taken aback, buy you tried your best not to show it, the thoughts running through your head at 100 miles an hour.

Your voice spluttered, longer than intended but you couldn’t compose your words for a few moments, “What? You’re kidding?”

Harry shook his head, “You’re right, it was a stupid idea.” he scolded himself and looked to the ground like a small child who hadn’t got his way.

“No, Harry.” you replied but you knew it wasn’t an answer to his question, “It’s just, I’ve got a flat. You could move in with me, we could have a home, somewhere to build a life.”

“I prefer the boat. It means I can just move around freely, you know?”

You scoffed and took a step back, “You’re planning on leaving? Of course you are.” you said harshly and attempted to move further away, but again, Harry stopped you in your tracks.

“Don’t you get it?” he exclaimed, his voice was quiet but there was both a hint of anger and sadness. “If I go away on this thing, I want you to come with me.”

Harry stepped towards you and took your face in his hands delicately. It was strange, despite being together for almost 3 years, you had never seen him quite like this before. You never had the feeling he was one ready to settle down and even in the 3 years together, you spent a lot of that apart and most of the time together was only here in Cannes. He occasionally took you to Italy for the weekend on the boat, usually on your birthday as he was never into the whole anniversary stuff; though he did send flowers every year on that date, he just never liked to say it as from him, but you knew it was him as he sent flowers only he knew you liked and the colours only he knew too.

He smiled a little, “We can go anywhere you like. Me and you.” he gushed further. His hands left your face and he instead placed them on your hips and pulled you in a little closer to him. “What do you say?”

A smirk appeared on your face, and without any words you nodded calmly. Harry leaned forward and pressed his lips to yours, his stubble brushing lightly against your face which never bothered you and it certainly didn’t now. His kiss lingered longer than any before. Maybe it was the alcohol, but you didn’t much care because for the first time, you felt a connection with him you had craved. His tendency to move around frequently meant that you always wonder if he was fully committed or if he would ever come back to you and though he always did, something was missing; and though you didn’t know what that was, it felt like it had arrived.

El sur

Víctor Erice’s second feature, shot 22 years ago, ten years after his first, El espíritu de la colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive), took as its starting point a 47-page story by Adelaida García Morales that was published two years earlier. I’d recommend reading it after watching El sur, mainly because its last 12 pages allow us to imagine how the film would have developed if Erice had been allowed to shoot his adapted script in its entirety (the story originally concludes in southern Spain). For reasons never sufficiently explained, or openly discussed – though I do have a theory of my own about these complex, deep motivations – the shooting of El sur was halted, allegedly for the Christmas holidays, never to be resumed. Perhaps naïvely hoping to finally be allowed to shoot a second part – which was never intended as such or to be a separate movie – Erice kept diplomatically quiet, and edited a coherent film from the material available to him; it was sent to the Cannes Film Festival where it was hailed as a masterpiece, and the second part was silently but definitely shelved.

Once you know that what you’re going to see, or have just watched, is only half the movie Erice wanted to make, and despite the fact that there are some things which never get explained or fully developed, you should forget this knowledge and enjoy what there is to see and hear, which is plenty. Regardless of the understandable frustration Erice still feels about the issue, while shrinking from others descriptions of the film as a masterpiece, El sur is still substantively a great film like Stroheim’s Greed (1924) or Peckinpah’s Major Dundee (1965). If you haven’t read either the original screenplay or the tale, you might never imagine that the film is not a fully mastered and completed work. In fact, despite its unfinished state, El sur is for me – and others – one of the greatest films ever made in Spain, and perhaps Erice’s most refined and mature work as a director.

Since it is useless to lament what is not there, one should act realistically, and see that there is much that is of the greatest beauty on the screen, much more than one can usually find in most fully realised films. Since it was not cut, there is no more footage to be found, nothing to search for. It is a half-realised project, or a partly unrealised one.

El sur does not tell a particularly extraordinary tale. But the tale it does tell is rendered in quite original and moving ways, and in tones much more subtle and deep than its literary source. This does not mean it is a contrived, sophisticated, obscure or intellectual movie, even if it avoids sentimental trappings or “easy-to-make” political readings.

El sur, as it is, tells of a young woman who recalls her father’s mysterious figure and fate, trying to understand why he acted as he did. Estrella is played as a young girl by Sonsoles Aranguren, and then, as a teenager, by then newcomer Iciar Bollaín, who became a well-known actress and now is also a director. Both girls do not really resemble each other, but we can believe they are one and the same character since they have been directed with respect to how growth can affect character and gestures. Both are so good and convincing that one does not miss either in corresponding scenes.

From the opening sequence – in my recollection the most impressive since Dreyer’s Ordet (1964) and Ford’s The Searchers (1956) – one gathers that everything in this picture has been thought through and carried out with extreme care and precision; that there can be no loose ends, only cut threads owing to the film being only half of what Erice intended at over three hours. If the South announced in the film’s title remains a felt, mythical presence, almost dreamt but never reached or seen (only glimpsed on postcards while accompanied by the chords of Enrique Granados’ piano music on the soundtrack), it nevertheless remains a key reference, a significant motif in the film’s narrative. Although uncompleted, El sur is a much more accomplished, richer, deeper, complex and moving picture than El espíritu de la colmena. It marks a decisive step forward in Erice’s progression as a filmmaker. El sur is much more dense and allows us to get much nearer to several of the characters; its silences are not of the same kind as those that are so significant in El espíritu de la colmena. There is more interaction, and much more feeling and confrontation too, in El sur. In contrast, most adults in El espíritu de la colmena, even the parents – who never exchange a word – are kept mainly at a distance, in a different, separate world from that inhabited by the two sisters who are so alone that they are ready to see ghosts. The relationships in El sur are more real and painful.

El sur reveals Erice’s increasing ability to cut directly to the essentials, without rejecting, in the process, spontaneity or humour, or any of those picturesque traits that can give life to even the most briefly shown characters. The key to his way of looking at things and showing them is rhythm. Things are shown to us at a very quiet and deliberate pace; not slow – there are not dead or void spots – but at a pace that simply allows us to look attentively at the players’ faces and read into them, so as to guess their deepest feelings. Although El sur doesn’t truly resemble Jean Renoir’s The River (1951), they do share the same kind of “breathing”, just as, regardless of the absence of cinéphilic“quotations” in Erice’s film, there is something in the shot/reverse-shot scenes between couples – usually Estrella and her father – that recalls the pauses in such Nicholas Ray films as They Live by Night (1948), In a Lonely Place(1950), The Lusty Men (1952), and Rebel Without A Cause (1955).

The almost whispered, confidential tonality of Erice’s narration, which avoids explanations as well as set-pieces, only heightens our concentration on every word, every gesture, every gaze: few films have more elegantly invited us to think about what one is looking at in every shot, whether it is of rather short duration or an improvised-on-the-spot, second-best alternative to a sequence that should have been set and shot outdoors in the month of May (in this instance there was no time or light available when it was actually filmed, in late December after a snowfall, so Erice shot the whole sequence in a single, continuous crane movement, with Estrella and her father dancing to a pasodoble). It is one of the most unforgettable moments in the whole film, encapsulating the then mainly wordless relationship between the young girl and her rather mysterious father in such a way that it is instantly recalled when, years later, during their last conversation, the same piece of music is heard in a restaurant.

Miguel Marías

http://sensesofcinema.com/2006/cteq/sur/

Thumbnails 7/20/18

Thumbnails is a roundup of brief excerpts to introduce you to articles from other websites that we found interesting and exciting. We provide links to the original sources for you to read in their entirety.—Chaz Ebert

1. 

"Why Bo Burnham's 'Eighth Grade' Gets It Right": At Indie Outlook, I share my thoughts on the best film I've seen thus far in 2018.

“Nothing angered me more as a teen than high school movies that failed to take my pain seriously. Despite its memorable soundtrack, ‘Grease’ was a sanitized nostalgic fantasy populated by adults with a troubling case of arrested development. Even films I adored, such as ‘Dead Poets Society,’ contained stereotypical nerds with thick glasses, ever-present allergies and zero social skills. ‘Eighth Grade’ doesn’t have an ounce of condescension, and the laughter that it generates—which is plentiful—arises out of recognition rather than ridicule. (Fisher’s under-the-breath delivery of ‘Who cares?’ while forcing a banana into her mouth is uproarious.) Burnham avoids any hackneyed melodramatic plot developments because he’s well aware that the life of a middle schooler is dramatic enough. Of course, no honest film about junior high could be made without it getting slapped with an R rating by the MPAA for—in this case—‘language and some sexual material.’ What the ratings board, in their famously limited wisdom, appear to have forgotten is that junior high itself is rated R. No parent, teacher or guardian can prevent a sixth grader from rapidly losing their innocence bred in elementary school as they enter a volatile community preoccupied with puberty and four-letter words. This transition would be less extreme if schools simply housed grades kindergarten through eighth grade under the same roof, a prime motivator for students to be better role models. It’s so easy to feel detached from the rest of existence while imprisoned in junior high, and every single person currently enrolled in it is entirely of age to see this movie. This is a rare instance in which sneaking a purchase with a fake ID could prove beneficial to your mental health.”

2. 

"Of Their Age: Olivier Assayas on the Making of 'Cold Water'": In conversation with Criterion's Hillary Weston.

“‘Cold Water’ was a turning point. I’ve always had a hard time with scoring movies. It’s something I did on my first and second features, and I was not so happy with the results. I did it on my third feature,  ‘Paris Awakens,’ and though the music was by John Cale and considerably better than the music on my previous films, I was still not happy with the way music connected with emotions and within the images. The movie I made right after that, ‘A New Life,’ had no music at all. So ‘Cold Water’ was a way of going back and building a new relationship with music. What was fascinating about it was that, for the first time, I was using only music that I loved. The way I approached that very long party scene was by structuring it with music, with tracks that would cover the specific emotions and the way they change during the night. Ultimately, the songs ended up becoming one with the narrative—they say something that’s beyond the story. I think that people who have experienced the seventies are connected by that music, so all of a sudden it’s a universal language. In many ways, the soundtrack to Something in the Air is much closer to the kind of music I loved at that time. I was very much into British underground. But the way I approached  ‘Cold Water’ was a little different. It doesn’t have the music I was actually listening to; it’s the music kids at that time were listening to.”

3.

"Europe's rising nationalism is putting pressure on film directors and the stories they tell": According to Jeffrey Fleishman on The Los Angeles Times.

“‘There is now a blacklist of books, theater directors and filmmakers,’ Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski, whose ‘Ida’ won an Academy Award for foreign language film in 2015, told the press in May at the Cannes Film Festival, where he won the director award for ‘Zimna Wojna (Cold War).’ ‘I have the honor to be on this list. With the new [Polish] government, which has taken control of public television, it is just like under communism.’ Polish authorities have denied a blacklist, but ‘Ida,’ the story of a Jewish orphan raised by Catholic nuns after her parents were killed in World War II, touches on the sensitive question of Polish complicity in the Holocaust. The nationalist government, controlled by Law and Justice Party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, amended a bill last month, making it essentially a civil violation to accuse Poland of having had a role in those horrors. It was part of a broader effort by the establishment to whitewash any hint of transgression and celebrate Polish identity. ‘They are obsessed with rewriting history,’ said Agnieszka Holland, a Polish director and Academy Award nominee. ‘They want to change the history into this heroic, nationalistic legend where all Poles are wonderful and all others are guilty of everything.’ She added that the government explored the ‘quite naïve idea’ of producing an epic film on Polish history — spoken in English — that would be distributed by Hollywood.”

4. 

"'I Like Being Aggressive in the Storytelling...': Michael Dinner on His CBS James Ellroy Adaptation, 'L.A. Confidential'": Another great interview conducted by Jim Hemphill at Filmmaker Magazine.

“The conversation with the director of photography began with what I didn’t want to do. The cliché in film noir is hard lights coming in through blinds, so we shot everything with soft light. And then there’s a conversation about lenses — we shot on wider lenses that had a shallower depth of field. In general I tend to shoot on the two extremes of the lens; I like being aggressive in the storytelling and taking the audience by the neck and saying, ‘Pay attention to this.’ There’s a scene in the pilot early on where a guy pulls a gun, shoots a cop, gets in his car, speeds away, does a U-turn, and then he’s T-boned. My thought was, I’m going to shoot this the same way I would shoot this scene today, it’s just that they’re in period outfits in period cars. There would have been a way of shooting that 50 or 60 years ago – even 20 years ago – where the camera wouldn’t be as aggressive. I wanted it to be as kinetic as possible, so I turned to the visual effects people and said, ‘I don’t want to be limited.’ The great thing about Broadway in downtown Los Angeles is that there’s architecture to hang shots on, and then you just have to somehow remove the little signs and meters and lines on the street and things like that. I wanted to make sure I could rotate around 360 degrees and clean it up, because that to me makes it less of a museum piece. So that was the approach: how can we tell this story so that there’s an emotional pop to it, and it’s aggressive in modern terms, but still assimilates noir filmmaking? It was tough, because we don’t preserve architecture in Los Angeles. Trying to recreate 1952 L.A. is like doing a science fiction movie set on the planet Xenon.”

5. 

"Terry Gilliam and his 'Don Quixote'": Cineuropa's Susanne Gottlieb reports from the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival about the exuberant director's latest polarizing feature.

“Gilliam has a natural aversion to awards and the big limelight. In Karlovy Vary, he jokingly pushed the narrative that he achieved something that the legendary Orson Welles couldn’t. Welles, whose films also got caught up in production complications, was opting for an adaption of the Don Quixote material that never materialized in its final form. But while Gilliam is a fine director, none of his work reaches Welles’ cultural legacy. The comparison is a bit farfetched. Has the master of fantastic worlds simply grown too bitter with the business? Gilliam hopes he hasn’t become Toby. ‘There are so many talented filmmakers that make their first film and then they get dragged into the seductive world of commercials,’ he says. ‘They never come back, so this movie is a warning to young filmmakers.’ Having himself shot commercials, Gilliam is familiar with the instant financial gratification of the money paid in that sector. In an early scene in the director’s latest feature, Toby’s loss of vision and purpose as a filmmaker becomes apparent when he watches the student version of his own ‘Don Quixote,’ a piece of art with an aura he is trying to replicate in a big budget production. Glued to the DVD Player, he gets lost in the film, dissecting its soul but coming up empty. If that was the warning that would reach the young filmmakers in Gilliam’s own audience loud and clear, one might cherish the lesson learned and move on, even if it took a very uneven movie to get there. Unfortunately, that is not the only lesson Gilliam’s film advances. The convoluted mess that is ‘The Man Who Killed Don Quixote,’ a miscellaneous mix of ideas, sends out another warning even clearer: sometimes, it is better to kill your darlings.”

Image of the Day

Chas Allen, one of the real-life subjects of "American Animals" (portrayed in the film by Blake Jenner), chats with Sam Fragoso on his indispensable Talk Easy podcast.

Video of the Day

Alexis G. Zall, the veteran YouTuber who spent her adolescence uploading splendidly sardonic and insightful videos to her channel, shares 20 nuggets of wisdom she's learned during her 20 years on this planet.

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Kanye West: Inside His Creative Agency DONDA

The brand the everyone wants to create but no one really knows what it is...

Kanye West’s first creative agency, DONDA, still remains as a mystery to most of us. They continue to crank out album covers and projects, but no one really knows who is exactly behind the work. Obviously, Virgil Abloh is down, but who else? VIBE discovered that a former Mercer Kitchen waitress by name of Hanna Christian was one of the first employees and helped hire others. However, she is no longer on-board. So who else is down? VIBE investigates…

The rest of the DONDA stable is virtually anonymous. And West has a tradition of cobbling together a rotating cast of collaborators, which makes it tough to distinguish who’s actually part of the core clique. Liner notes on Yeezus list Joe Perez as DONDA graphic designer and Justin Saunders as art director. Those who are believed to have worked with the company consistently include West’s longtime barber and style consultant Ibn Jasper, art directors Matthew Williams and Guido Callarelli and graphic designers Nathaniel Brown and Alex Milsom. Perez declined to be interviewed, and the others did not respond to requests. Before Abloh could even be contacted, he sent a pre-emptive refusal: “We appreciate the interest, but our staff is not doing interviews at the moment. If our stance changes, we will be in touch.”

BEFORE HANNA CHRISTIAN started working for Kanye West, she was a waitress at The Mercer Kitchen. The exclusive restaurant serves as the cornerstone of New York City’s Mercer Hotel, where West and Jay Z camped out in early 2011 to record their album, Watch the Throne. When West returned in October of that same year to take a series of meetings, Christian, then a 21-year-old college dropout and aspiring visual artist, struck up a conversation. For a week, West picked her brain about everything from architecture to fashion to art. He invited her to a Watch the Throne tour stop in New Jersey. She came back to work the next day raving about the elaborate stage design. Noted visual artist Es Devlin (a frequent West collaborator who’s also worked with Lady Gaga and Rihanna) projected video of sharks and Rottweilers onto enormous cubes that doubled as podiums for West and Jay Z during the show. After gushing about the design elements, Christian went for broke. “I love The Mercer,” she blurted out to Kanye. “But I want to work with you!”

Christian was hired on the spot as West’s personal assistant. And within 24 hours, she was attending the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show at the Lexington Avenue Armory in NYC. Three months later, he announced his latest venture, DONDA, an experimental design agency named for his late mother. Christian transitioned to office manager, interviewing applicants and helping to build the company’s early infrastructure.

She’s bubbly and effusive when she talks about her big break into the entertainment industry. But when asked something seemingly as innocuous as where the DONDA offices are located, Christian shuts down. “I can’t talk about it,” she says firmly. “It’s in my confidentiality agreement.” A confidentiality agreement with a clause about office headquarters? Sounds ludicrous. But no one does private and mysterious like Kanye West. And for a potential entity born out of one of his legendary Twitter rants, it almost makes sense. Almost.

In January 2012, West laid out a series of tweets, highlighting his plan to create a firm with more than 22 departments staffed by a bevy of experts in divergent fields. He name-checked everything from architects, video game developers and nutritionists to doctors, lawyers and what he called “app guys,” plotting to house them under DONDA.

His master plan reads like a stream-of-consciousness riff that becomes an epically ambitious screed (think Jerry Maguire’s infamous manifesto). There will be summer school programs with filmmaker Spike Jonze! An overhaul of the prison system! Nutritional consultation on achieving energy balance! Amusement parks! West tweeted: “We want to create, advertise and produce products driven equally by emotional want and utilitarian need.”

The kicker was that he intends to not just turn a profit or join the billionaire’s club. He wants to change the world through design and fill the void of late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs. A bit extreme, sure. But Kanye’s bombastic statements are expected. And for a man who secretes naked ambition and pretentious overtones from his very pores, it almost makes sense. Almost.

DONDA may sound slightly absurd, but the idea wasn’t completely random. Even before his Twitter proposal, he fantasized about launching a creative clique to those in his inner circle. In 2008, during a New Zealand press conference promoting 808s & Heartbreak he talked about building art installations. Four years later, he aimed even higher. “I want to work on cities [and] amusement parks,” he said while premiering his short film, Cruel Summer, at Cannes Film Festival. “I want to change what entertainment experiences are like.”

Kanye’s fight for creative control is long-standing. Collaborators describe him as a hypercritical presence on photo shoots and film edits. So it’s no surprise that with DONDA, he was looking to circumvent middlemen who might dilute his vision. “They wanted to eliminate the person who has to interpret the idea to the brand,” says Marc Moran, who cofounded the Chicago-based RSVP Gallery with West’s longtime right-hand man Virgil Abloh.

Post-rant, West moved quickly. Just a day after the online proclamation, his attorney Brad Rose filed the first trademark papers for DONDA. The list of goods and services sounds more profit-based than the good works and lofty world improvement goals in his mission statement. Expect to see the DONDA name on “toys and playthings, plush toys, teddy bears… home furnishings, bedding and linens…”

He also tweeted an e-mail, [email protected], for like-minded aspiring trailblazers to pledge DONDA. Thousands of applicants poured in, according to Christian, who left the company in May 2012 and now works as a creative assistant for actor Jason Sudeikis. “We moved forward with quite a few people who submitted portfolios,” she says, refusing to reveal who made the cut.

Essentially a future funnel for West’s obsession with his legacy, DONDA is poised to be the ultimate vanity project. And yet, he barely references it by name. Rather than a string of credits on an official Web site, DONDA projects are denoted by album liner notes, cryptic tweets, hashtags and Instagram photos (“NUMBERS ON THE BOARDS. NO ARTWORK. DONDA,” @virgilabloh) from his inner circle. Will this mysticism carry on to a true vision with results? Some experts are doubtful.

“When [Kanye] talks about Apple and those other companies, [he] has a very clear mission or statement in mind,” says Andres Nicholls, a partner in the brand and marketing consultancy Prophet, which lists GM, BMW and Visa as clients. “I tried to find a Web site. I couldn’t find any. He needs to formalize the vision of the company if he wants to expand to a broader consumer.” In addition to no website, DONDA no longer has a brick-and-mortar presence. Christian followed up her interview several weeks later to give an update on the DONDA office in New York: it no longer exists. “When I was there, we were just starting to set up shop, so I’m not surprised that so much has changed since I left.”

Expanding to a broader consumer may prove difficult for West, considering his desire to keep everything he does under tight wraps. During a June listening session for his newest album, Yeezus, at New York’s Milk Studios, a black van was parked outside, projecting a video of Kanye (shot by his go-to director Nick Knight) rapping the lyrics to his single “New Slaves” onto the side of a building. The screenings were part of a larger, international guerilla-marketing scheme— Kanye’s idea—that initially took place in 66 cities. When pressed for info on the installation, a woman operating the video offered a non-committal smirk and riddled responses:

Are you a member of DONDA? “We don’t have any input in the content. We’re just hired to project it,” she said.

What’s the name of the projection company? “I’d rather not say.”

Did Def Jam or DONDA hire you? “I’d rather not say.”

Following West’s lead, the DONDA collective hasn’t done interviews regarding their affiliation. LinkedIn profiles and liner notes help piece together a rough masthead, but there’s no clear consensus on who’s involved. One source suggested finding Virgil Abloh because “he is DONDA.”

Abloh’s credited title has varied from head creative director to art director for DONDA. It’s easy to see why the Chicago native and former architect would be Kanye’s right-hand man when it comes to DONDA. Abloh has the holier-than-thou hipster vibe down cold. He’s a Birkin-bag-carrying dude who owns a clothing boutique that sells $200 T-shirts. He drops obscure style references, like waxing poetic about the genius of German industrial designer Dieter Rams.

The rest of the DONDA stable is virtually anonymous. And West has a tradition of cobbling together a rotating cast of collaborators, which makes it tough to distinguish who’s actually part of the core clique. Liner notes on Yeezus list Joe Perez as DONDA graphic designer and Justin Saunders as art director. Those who are believed to have worked with the company consistently include West’s longtime barber and style consultant Ibn Jasper, art directors Matthew Williams and Guido Callarelli and graphic designers Nathaniel Brown and Alex Milsom. Perez declined to be interviewed, and the others did not respond to requests. Before Abloh could even be contacted, he sent a pre-emptive refusal: “We appreciate the interest, but our staff is not doing interviews at the moment. If our stance changes, we will be in touch.”

Whoever’s pulling the strings, the overall theme seems to be minimalism. And so far, DONDA’s work still falls in the domain of hip-hop: album artwork stage sets (West’s Atlantic City Revel Resort shows); promotional apparel; and visuals for Ye’s G.O.O.D Music compilation, Cruel Summer. With the interactive video for West’s “Black Skinheads,” DONDA has been focusing on multimedia projects. They were also hired to re-edit the trailer for The Canyons, starring Lindsay Lohan.

The DONDA-designed cover for I Am Not a Human Being 2 spotlights a lone butterfly on a black background. And instead of a cliché mean-mug close-up, 2 Chainz’s Based on a T.R.U. Story features two chains draped over a black backdrop. Some say the DONDA design style currently on display is a brilliant respite from hip-hop’s often-aggressive literalism. Some say it’s basic. “Because hip-hop has been so literal, esoteric things excite people. But it doesn’t mean that it’s good,” says Joseph Buckingham, aka Joe Buck, a graphic designer whose album artwork includes the classic De La Soul Is Dead cover. “That seems to be the trend now, to just be beyond hip-hop. Kanye plays that game well.”

The abstract approach can be vexing for the executives who write the checks. “The label wants to go with what’s obvious and marketable,” says Courtney Walter, a creative director who’s designed packaging for Chris Brown (Fortune) and Miguel (Kaleidoscope Dream). “If it’s conceptual, sometimes you’re pushing boundaries that make more of a statement than you need to.”

West is already barreling full steam ahead with his own music. Yeezus is the musical equivalent of a splash painting. From the anti-packaging to the loony American Psycho–inspired commercial starring two Kardashian family affiliates. He does what he wants (and more importantly, corporate bigwigs allow him to do what he wants) because it’s profitable. Kanye’s audience is built-in and primed to respond to whatever he’s pumping out, even if it’s a pair of $245 Nike Air Yeezy’s, which once sold for $90,000 on eBay.

“Marketing is usually so much about ‘reach,’” says Patrick Ehrlund, creative director of B-Reel, the company that produced West’s 2012 commercial for the Cruel Summeralbum. “Because Kanye West is such a strong brand, you don’t necessarily have to worry about reach, because it will always reach people. So it’s about how you affect people. Visuals have become a much more permanent and visible part of hip-hop. I think it’s amazing that artists are exposing people that might not be exposed to these kinds of artistic things.”

It may be unrealistic to expect DONDA to run like a traditional business and actually attempt to attract media attention. Especially since Kanye has become more paranoid about his message being misinterpreted. The true test will be marrying his laissez-faire approach with the eventual need to gain investors if he’s serious about turning DONDA into a conglomerate.

“From a funding point of view, it can be a challenge when you have people who aren’t used to thinking outside the box,” says Jessica Irish, director of academic affairs at Parsons’ School of Art, Media and Technology.

West’s ambition to succeed Apple is clearly a stretch. But he may have the ultimate business consultant in Steve Wozniak, who cofounded the iconic tech brand with Jobs. They met this year and discussed Kanye’s top-secret plans. When contacted for comment on DONDA, Wozniak stated via e-mail: “I have opinions about it, but they would be personal between myself and Mr. West.”

West isn’t alone in his determination to push the margins of the entertainment industry. From Nicki Minaj and Drake to Jay Z and Pharrell, rappers are expanding their résumés beyond endorsements and fragrances. Ten years ago, vanity labels and clothing lines were compulsory. Now, it’s about creative direction for major brands. West can certainly transform DONDA into a lucrative movement. He’s defied odds before.

In February 2012, four months after the lukewarm reception to his women’s collection, West started work on the first official DONDA endeavor—the Cruel Summer short. He commissioned three design firms and a post-production company and scored funding from the Doha Film Institute in the Gulf state of Qatar, where the film was shot. The team spent four months constructing an unprecedented seven-screen display and a white tented pyramid to contain it.

That May, his 30-minute movie about a car thief and an Arabian princess (He even consulted with a local Arab woman on wardrobe) screened at the Cannes Film Festival. The verdict from most media outlets: flawed, but ambitious. The movie has yet to be released on DVD or screened anywhere outside of Cannes. It hardly matters. Kanye pulled it off, and his first step to achieving what he wants with DONDA was complete.

Whether DONDA becomes another told-you-so moment or a pipe dream remains to be seen. Limitations exist in the corporate world, but from the looks of it (the ambiguous anti-business business plan), West wants to see just how much he can break the rules. As DONDA progresses, he’ll have disciples and cynics, either blindly following or silently skeptical, but never counting him out.

Story By Clover Hope

S1, E1: "Pilot: Part 1"

(Scene 1: CIA Headquarters. Langley, VA. 06:07:42 November 11th, 2016) A brunette, donned in a white pencil skirt, a red blouse and red heels, clanks her way across the exterior courtyard in front of the building before her. She slips into one of the front doors, holds out her arms long enough for a guard to move a metal detecting wand over her body before reclaiming her keys and hustling across the lobby. Her personal identification badge is attached to a clip on her hip with a long retractable cord connecting the two pieces. She extends the cord enough to place her badge over a scanner that's located before a metal turnstile. "You're late!" One guard yells at her. "I know!" She shouts back, clearly frustrated with herself. There's a beep as the scanner glows red and the security guard's monitor reads 'ACCESS DENIED'. "Seriously?!" The brunette cries out. (OPENING TITLE: INTELLIGENCE Created By: Candice Cornell) (Scene 2: Targeting Officers Division [TOD] inside CIA HQ) The not-quite-punctual brunette from the lobby, Mikayla Waters, enters the department she's been assigned to through glass double doors. The floor is filled with desks laid out like a perfect grid and the walls are nearly covered by large screens displaying various pictures, videos and other intel. Mikayla spots an office that is closed off from the other desks. It's incased in glass so it's a relatively transparent space. There are blinds that offer privacy should the inhabitant of the office choose it. Mikayla makes eye contact with the woman in that office brought the glass, and the woman stands from her desk. That woman is Joanne 'Jo' Jones, Director of Operations overseeing the CIA's Targeting Officers. She exits her office space and crosses through the hustle and bustle of her agents to greet Mikayla with a handshake. "Waters, I assume?" "Yes, ma'am" Mikayla responds while ending the handshake. Jo sighs. "On the farm, they told you to be respectful. That's cute. Here, we work as a team. I oversee the operations, I make sure you come back alive, I offer assistance when you ask." Mikayla smiles eagerly at the idea of being in charge. "But you choose your missions, you choose your assets, you plan your moves," Jo continues. "This is a department of doers. Utilize whichever analysts and resources you deem necessary." The older brunette nods her head towards the floor behind her. "Now go. Be a doer. Do." Jo isn't even able to swallow after that impersonal welcome before she's being summoned by a field agent working alongside a tech analyst. "Hey, Jo! We got a hit on Chekov!" Jo smiles as she nods to both of them before turning back to look at Mikayla. "See? Doers," with that Jo turns and walks off to check in with the two who have intel on this Chekov target, leaving Mikayla alone on the floor without so much as a freshly sharpened pencil or slightly used swivel office chair to ease her into her first day. That's life as a field operative. The brunette takes the time to wander around, inspecting the way the people in this division function and work together. Nearly every field agent seems to be paired up with a tech analyst. In some cases, there are two or three field agents working alongside one tech analyst. Then she sees him. A lone tech analyst is clicking away on his keyboard, not seeming to be actively assisting anyone. Mikayla approaches him slowly and stands in front of his desk, laughing when she seems to go unnoticed. The man, wearing a button up collared shirt and thick rimmed black glasses, doesn't look up from his screen once. Mikayla finally clears her throat to break the silence. "I'm not ignoring you, I'm just busy," the man, Garrett Parker, says. Mikayla places her hands on the edge of his desk. "Doesn't mean you're not ignoring me." "You're right," Garrett says before removing his glasses and setting them beside his keyboard. "I should trust the queen of ignoring people on what is and isn't ignoring somebody." The techie rises from his seat. "Oh, come on," Mikayla starts, not believing the reaction she's getting. The brown haired, blue eyed male walks right past her without so much as another look. "Garrett!" she calls after him, finally establishing that she knew him prior to today. She starts to follow after him, so he begins to speak while still carrying onward. "Jo's right. This isn't the farm anymore," he begins, referencing the confidential training grounds for CIA field operatives. "So go be a doer and do something that doesn't involve me." This is the moment Garrett becomes the second person to leave her dumbfounded and lost today. He is away long enough for Mikayla to look around the entire room once before he is hurrying back in her direction and grabbing her by the arm. "You busy?" he asks as he escorts the woman back to his desk. "Uhm." Mikayla looks confused. "Did I miss something in those ten seconds you disappeared?" Garrett reclaims his seat in his chair while Mikayla perches herself on the corner of his desk. "This is Langley. A lot can happen in one second. Ten seconds can change the whole world," Garrett says as he begins typing on his computer once more. "You don't think that's just a bit of stretch?" Mikayla questions. The surprisingly fit nerd withdraws his phone from his pocket and shows the screen to Mikayla. It reads: 'CNN BREAKING NEWS: PATRIOT GUARD RIDERS ATTACKED ON VETERANS DAY RIDE' "Oh, shit" is all Mikayla can manage to say. "Like I said," Garrett says as he takes his phone back. "A lot can happen in ten seconds." "But that said it was in Virginia. Shouldn't Homeland be dealing with this?" Garrett laughs while shaking his head. "Someone attacked veterans on Veteran's Day. Highly organized, likely not committed by U.S. citizens." Garrett's glasses reflect the images that are on his screen. Mikayla can see a database pulled up. "If they attacked veterans, active military might be next. And with close to 800 military bases spread across 70 countries, there's a lot of possibilities and not a lot of time." Mikayla's forehead wrinkles as she begins to think. "Has anyone taken credit for the PGR attack or submitted a viable threat against the bases?" Garrett just shakes his head. "Not yet, but they will. And we're going to know before the Pentagon." (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (Scene 3: Amelia's Office inside MI-6 HQ) A very tall, muscular brunette man stands with his back to the camera and his arms crossed over his chest. On the TV monitor mounted to the wall above him is a Sky News broadcast showing footage of the attack on the Patriot Guard Riders. On screen, the motorcyclists are cruising along a Virginia interstate when the sound of gunshots ring out. "My God," Alexander, the male, gasps. "They've asked for our help on this," a curly haired woman seated behind a desk chimes in. "Amelia, you know I'm always down and ready for a new op. And this is very horrible but this is rookie stuff. This isn't even an international incident." Amelia sighs as she lets her hand fall to the remote control beside her. She uses it to change to source on the TV to HDMI2 so that it now displays what is appearing on her computer screen. Alexander begins to read the caption aloud: "United Kingdom's 'Patriots MC UK' Involved in US Attack". He narrows his eyes. "Well shit." Amelia sets the remote down on the table before standing in front of it. "It was a way to promote solidarity between nations. Someone took the opportunity to attack two of them at once. The Prime Minister was in the White House at the time." With purse lips, she gives her shoulders a shrug before her British accent is flowing from her mouth once more. "Needless to say he is already onboard Cam Force One". Alexander's face contorts in confusion. "Are we still calling it that?" "They haven't renamed it yet, so yes." The British male tucks his hand into his pockets before exhaling through barely parted lips. "New Prime Minister's first week on the job. Congratulations, here's an intercontinental mass shooting." The woman just glares at him. "Which is exactly why we want you on this. So are you in or not? I can always pull Smith or Craig out of Turkey if you're too good for this-" Before Amelia can finish or Alex can respond, the door swings open. In steps a woman dressed in a very revealing top and a pencil skirt quite a few inches above the knee. "Hey, boss lady. I-" her voice cuts out the second she sees Alexander. He turns to see the source of the voice, his face taking on a look of pure disgust as his jaw drops just slightly. "Sorry, I didn't know you were with someone. He-hey. Surprised you're back from Saransk so soon," she says, her voice showing how uncomfortable she feels around the male in the room. He just scoffs. "Yeah. Surprised no one 86'ed you in Cannes." He turns away with so much as another look at the woman before locking eyes on Amelia. "When do I leave?" (Scene 4: Streets of Washington DC South East Boulevard, One Block from The White House) Mikayla has her foot her up on a bike rail, her fingers occupied with the mundane task of tying her shoe. With her grey tracksuit on, her hair in a ponytail and her white earbuds stuffed into her ears, she appears just like any jogger. In a montage of clips, we see her run with groups, then stop, switch to another group of runner and tourists, stop again, an it seems to repeat. Finally her eyes open wide as the montage ends and we can actually hear the voices of the people she's following instead of the soundtrack of the show. "And these lunatics still don't think guns are the problem," a woman says as she sparks a rant from her more fit looking friend. "They'll never learn. Until they're the ones getting shot, they'll never learn," the friend babbles, her voice shaky from the way the rub has affected her breathing. "Oh my God, Deb, you can't just say things like that. We're not in Nebraska anymore. People here listen! They're always listening!" The camera catches a smirk on Mikayla's face, her red lips accentuated by beads of sweat starting to line them. She peeks down at her phone, relieved to see that it is still in fact recording. The ironic moment passes and the montage picks up again in two-times the normal FPS to create fast motion. It gradually slows until it's normal speed again, Mikayla wandering off from a group of tourists before sitting on the same bench she has many times in the montage and taking a deep breath. She begins playing back the last recording just as she's done with every one prior. It's typical Asian tourist talk. She listens to a few words before deciding it's Korean. She's honed in on translating the words, her eyebrows arched inward and downward out of habit. There's an argument going on about a wrong turn somewhere, shown to the audience in English subtitles. Suddenly something is heard that is neither in English nor in Korean. It doesn't translate for the viewers at home but the horrified expression Mikayla makes and the way she hastily rewinds the audio clip indicates that whatever it is, it's not good. Her thumb drags the bar back across the red seismic looking lines before pressing play again. This time, subtitles accompany the Russian speakers. The subtitles appear first in Russian then flip over one word at a time into the English translation, a nice visual effect for fans of this new show. SUBTITLES: Voice 1: "The target wasn't the Prime Minister?" Voice 2: "Not yet, but soon." Voice 1: "Then why attack the bikers? Symbolism or something?" Voice 2: "To get the Prime Minister back to the U.K." Voice 1: "I knew the bikers were too random. Now we're stuck here on a no fly list and he's going to send in one of those pricks over there to finish it." Voice 2: "Keep your voice down." She stops the audio and begins to survey her immediate surroundings. There's a class field trip which surprisingly has not been cancelled despite today's horrific events. There seems to be a cluster of various family's trying to peek at The White House from the now blocked off corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and South East Boulevard. Her thumb is dialing as she begins to walk, her sight instantly locking on two men not far behind the Asian tourists from before. "Careers in Telemarketing and Call Center Sales, how may I help you?" the perky voice of Garrett on the other end asks. "Hi, do you have any openings for Big Red gum?" Mikayla instantly regrets using that as her tip but she was limited in what she could say over the phone. "How many pieces?" "Two for sure. But I've heard there's a whole pack somewhere in like London or something," her breath freezes in the chill air as her free hand finds its way into her windbreaker's pocket. "Okay, let me check on our openings and we'll get back to you." The conversations don't always make sense, and sometimes they don't have to. What's important is not getting caught and making sure the correct information is relayed. Mikayla inches closer and closer to the two men. When she's within arms reach, her phone rings. Fortunately it only draws their attention for a split second. She earns a look over, not one of concern but of desire before they face back forward and continue to walk. She looks repulsed. "Hey, what's up?" she muses casually into the phone. "That gum is way too hot. You don't want any piece of it." "Can't I just try it? For a little bit?" She asks. "Too hot. Sorry. Maybe later!" Garrett counters. Mikayla looks flustered, her voice deeper when she speaks again. "But I want it," she insists. "Fall back, Waters. That's an order," Joanne's voice suddenly appears on the line. Mikayla hangs up and veers off path toward a nearby parking garage. "Dammit!" she screams as she slams her palms against the concrete wall. With her hands firmly on her hips she begins to pace the small enclosure at a rather rapid speed. One hand comes up into her hair, her ear warmer being pulled off at the same time. We cut to a scene of her getting to a landing in the staircase, specifically one marked P3, before she begins searching for her car. Her phone rings again and she answers with a sigh. "What?" Mikayla enters her vehicle and slams the door shut. (Begin SPLIT SCENE: Mikayla in her car and Garrett behind his desk) Garrett spits unhappily. "Oh, come on. You owe me more than a 'what?' I got you this lead," he brags. Mikayla slams her head back against the head restraint of her seat and rubs the tension out of her forehead. "You know what, Garrett, you sat behind a desk all day while I ran at least fifteen miles up and down the same goddamn street listening to conversations about the dumbest shit. I really don't have time for-" The sound of tires screeching behind her draws her attention away from the conversation. "Hello, were you gonna finish tearing me a new one, or?" Garrett jokingly encourages her to continue. She shushes him. Looking in her rear view mirror, she awaits to see the source of the sound. When the car comes speeding around the corner and Mikayla recognizes her two admirers from earlier, she throws her gear shift into reverse. "Garrett, I'll call you back." "Mik, whatever you're thinking about doing... Please don't do it." "Don't call me that," she says angrily before hitting the end button and tossing her phone onto the passenger seat and speeding out of the parking garage herself, the camera fading out on a closeup of her tire kicking up dirt. TO BE CONTINUED...