Those that we admire tend to be a great influence on us. But what happens in a time when almost everyone is influenced by the creations of people who were influenced by those that came before them. Let's take a look at films as an example. The 1920's through 1950's or 60's was a period of time filled with movies that influenced the greats like Coppola and Scorcese. Now what about the guys today, influenced by the likes of Scorcese? It's like when in 4th grade, they had the kid in the back row tell the kid next to him a specific story. Then that kid would tell the kid next to him, and that kid the kid next to him, and so on until the kid in the front row heard the story. The kid in the front row's version of the story is going to be a lot different than the original. Is it better or worse? Well, the point of the story is probably going to change quite a bit, but I don't know if you can say that it is definitely better or definitely worse.

I don't know. I hear some of my favorite directors talk about their influences, and you can see it in their films. They got an idea for this shot from that movie, another idea from this movie, and so on. Whenever I try to watch these old movies.. most of the time I'm bored. I hate that I'm bored, I feel like I should be in awe or at least engaged in the story.. but I usually end up turning off a lot of "classics" 15 minutes in. Intellectually I can understand why the movie is so loved and influential.. but, I can't figure out why, watching them bores me. I don't think I have a short attention span or am especially needy.. I can watch 2001: A Space Odyssey without too much difficulty, I consider that to be the ultimate attention span test. Maybe my expectations for those old movies is unreasonable. For those guys I admire, they've had many years for their appreciation for the movie to build, and I'm expecting to get that same feeling the first time I watch it. Or maybe you just had to start seeing these movies when you were young and more easily shaped. While I was seeing Ace Ventura, guys like Tarantino were seeing "Bringing Up Baby." And that's frustrating because I really love their films, so I feel like if I don't have similar influences to them, I could never create something like that.

I could be just looking at all of this the wrong way. You don't have to fill your movie with pop-culture references or scenes inspired by (ripped-off) the movies you love. That method can be very fun to watch if done well.. but the majority of movies I really enjoy don't seem to do this.. or at least they hide it better. But then again, where would you get your ideas from, if not from other movies? Thinking about it really makes me admire the pioneer filmmakers that not only had to figure out how to make an entertaining movie, but were still figuring out how to make a movie at all.

Another thing in movies is the music. My favorite movies always have really good soundtracks. And usually you find out the director had the idea for what music to use in what spots long before the movie was made. Now, I've never tried making a movie, but I just cannot imagine thinking that way. My musical knowledge isn't that vast, I don't really have any way to discover the great older stuff because everything on the radio is 50% commercials (or more, depending on the station), 30% talking, and 20% music. And when they do play music, almost every station plays the same shitty new music(I'm not saying all new music is shitty, there are quite a few bands today that I like, but I don't think any of them would work in a movie). Where's a guy supposed to go to find his influences these days?

Supposedly in this day and age of the internet, we have access to every kind of information we could ever want. But what use is it if we don't have a guide to tell us what's good and what isn't? Everything is so unfiltered, you can't make any sense of it.

I feel like I was born in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I guess we all have to work with what we've got whether we like it or not.

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