I always found this story both bizarre and inspirational. It’s also incredibly fascinating and gives a glimpse into the passion needed to be a world-famous filmmaker:

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe is a short documentary film directed by Les Blank in 1980 which depicts director Werner Herzogliving up to his promise that he would eat his shoe if Errol Morris ever completed the film Gates of Heaven. The film includes clips from both Gates of Heaven and Herzog’s 1970 feature Even Dwarfs Started Small. Comic song “Old Whisky Shoes”, played by the Walt Solek Band, is the signature tune over the opening and closing credits.

The film features Herzog cooking his shoes (the ones he claims to have been wearing when he made the bet) at the Berkeley, California restaurant Chez Panisse, with the help of chef Alice Waters. (The shoes were boiled with garlic, herbs, and stock for 5 hours.) He is shown eating one of the shoes before an audience at the premiere of Gates of Heaven at the nearby UC Theater. He did not eat the sole of the shoe, however, explaining that one does not eat the bones of the chicken. There are also clips of short interview of Herzog discussing the destructive capitalistic effects of television and mankind’s lack of adequate imagery.

Blank went on to direct Burden of Dreams (1982), a feature-length documentary about Herzog and the making of Fitzcarraldo.Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe is included as an extra on the Criterion Collection edition of the Burden of Dreams DVD.

The story of the making of Robert Rodriguez’ first feature, El Mariachi, is one of those infamous guerrilla filmmaking stories and is chronicled in the excellent book Rebel Without A Crew.

The film was shot in numerous locations in Acuña, Coahuila, located in Northeastern Mexico. Rodriguez had a $7,000 budget, almost half of which he raised by participating in experimental clinical drug testing while living in Austin, Texas. The opening scenes feature a shootout in a jail. It was the local Acuña jail situated on the outskirts of the town. Also, the female warden and the male guard were the real-life warden and guard; Rodriguez thought it convenient because it saved him the cost of hiring actors and renting clothing. The intro bar scene was shot inside the Corona Club, and exterior street scenes were shot on Hidalgo Street. The shoot out was filmed outside at “Boy’s Town” the local red-light district.

Not everyone in Acuña was pleased at first: local journalists Ramiro Gómez and Jesús López Viejo were especially critical of the filming, and to win them over, Rodriguez gave them small parts in the film. Due to the high body count of the film (i.e. people whose characters had been shot could obviously not return), Rodriguez increasingly had difficulties finding adult men to play thugs; for that reason, when the Mariachi meets Moco’s gang in the end scene, the gang consists mainly of teenagers.

On the El Mariachi DVD, Rodriguez devotes both a DVD commentary and an “Extras” section to explaining the tricks of filming a feature-length movie with just $7,000. Rodriguez heavily stresses the need for cost cutting, “because if you start to spend, you cannot stop anymore.” This is why he cut costs at every possible opportunity, such as not using a slate (instead, the actors signaled the number of scene and number of take with their fingers), not using a dolly (he held the camera while being pushed around in a wheelchair), not using on set sound recording equipment (the film was instead shot silent with audio dubbed in post production), not using professional lighting (essentially using two 200-watt clip-on desk lamps) and not hiring a film crew (the actors not used in the scenes helped out). Also, Rodriguez believed in filming scenes sequentially in one long take with just one camera: every few seconds, he froze the action, so he could change the camera angle and make the audience believe he had a couple of cameras at the same time. Also, bloopers were kept in to save film: noted by Rodriguez were scenes when the Mariachi jumps on a bus, where Rodriguez is visible; the Mariachi bumping his weapon into a street pole; him failing to throw his guitar case on a balcony and Dominó twitching her face when she is already dead. Rodriguez spared expense by shooting on 16mm film as opposed to 35mm, and transferring the film to video for editing, avoiding the costs of cutting on film. In the end, he used only 24 rolls of film and only spent $7,225 of the $9,000 he had planned.

Rodriguez also gave insight into his low budget approach to simulate machine gun fire. The problem was that when using real guns, as opposed to the specially designed blank firing firearms used in most films, the blanks would jam the weapon after being fired once. To solve this, Rodriguez filmed the firing of one blank from different angles, dubbed canned machine gun sounds over it, and had the actors drop bullet shells to the ground to make it look like as if multiple rounds had been shot. In addition, he occasionally used water guns instead of real guns to save money. Rodriguez also describes that the squibs they used in shootout scenes were simply condoms filled with fake blood fixed over weightlifting belts.

Rodriguez also noted the use of improvisation. The tortoise that crawls in front of the Mariachi was not planned, but was kept in as a good idea. Similarly, there is a scene in which the Mariachi buys a coconut, but Rodriguez forgot to show him paying for the fruit; instead of driving back to the place to shoot additional scenes, Rodriguez decided to build in a voice-over in which the Mariachi asserts that the coconuts were for free. Improvisation was also useful to cover up continuity mistakes: at the end of the movie, the Mariachi has his left hand shot, but Rodriguez forgot to bring the metal glove to cover up the actor’s hand; he solved it by packing his hand with black duct tape.

In the DVD commentary, Rodriguez describes the acting of Peter Marquardt (who portrayed gangster boss ”Moco”). As the language of the film was Spanish, which Marquardt did not master, he had to learn his lines without understanding what he was saying. The running gag, in which Moco lights up his match using the moustache of his henchman Bigotón, was described by Rodriguez as a means to start and end the film: the end scene is a parody of this scene. Also, Marquardt suffered some physical discomfort in the final shooting scene. When Moco was hit in the chest, his blood squib exploded with such force that he really crumpled to the ground in pain.

Originally, the film was meant to be sold on the Latino video market as funding for another bigger and better project that Rodriguez was contemplating. However, after being rejected from various Latino straight-to-video distributors, Rodriguez decided to send his film (it was in the format of a trailer at the time) to bigger distribution companies where it started to get attention.

When the sequel film Desperado was produced, Banderas replaced Gallardo as the actor for the main character of the series. The filmmakers re-shot the final showdown fromEl Mariachi as a flashback sequence for Bandera’s character in Desperado.

From Wikipedia:

The goal of the Dogme collective is to purify filmmaking by refusing expensive and spectacular special effects, post-production modifications and other technical gimmicks. The filmmakers concentrate on the story and the actors’ performances. They believe this approach may better engage the audience, as they are not alienated or distracted by overproduction. To this end, Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg produced ten rules to which any Dogme film must conform. These rules, referred to as the “Vow of Chastity,” are as follows:

1. Filming must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in. If a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found.
2. The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. Music must not be used unless it occurs within the scene being filmed, i.e., diegetic.
3. The camera must be a hand-held camera. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. The film must not take place where the camera is standing; filming must take place where the action takes place.
4. The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable (if there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).
5. Optical work and filters are forbidden.
6. The film must not contain superficial action (murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)
7. Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden (that is to say that the film takes place here and now).
8. Genre movies are not acceptable.
9. The film format must be Academy 35 mm.
10. The director must not be credited.

Some interesting comments from fabled German filmmaker Werner Herzog during the making of Fitzcarraldo:

“Kinski says [the jungle] is full of erotic elements. It’s not so much erotic, but full of obscenity. Nature here is vile and base. I wouldn’t see anything erotic here. I see fornication and asphyxiation and choking, fighting for survival and growing and just rotting away. Of course there’s a lot of misery, but it’s the same misery that’s all around us. The trees are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don’t think they sing; they just screech in pain. Taking a close look at what’s around us, there is some sort of harmony. It’s the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder. But when I say this, I say this all full of admiration for the jungle. It’s not that I hate it. I love it. I love it very much. But I love it against my better judgment.”

Aronofsky’s debut feature, Pi (also known as π), was shot in November 1997. The film was financed entirely from $100 donations from friends and family. In return, he promised to pay each back $150 if the film made money, and they would at least get screen credit if the film lost money. While visiting Israel as a youth he spent time in anOrthodox yeshiva, an experience that later informed the movie. Producing the film with an initial budget of $60,000, Aronofsky premiered Pi at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, where he won the Best Director award. The film itself was nominated for a special Jury Award. Artisan Entertainment bought distribution rights for $1 million. The film was released to the public later that year to critical acclaim and it grossed a total of $3,221,152 at the box-office.

On March 1, 1976, Coppola and his family flew to Manila and rented a large house there for the five-month shoot. Sound and photographic equipment had been coming in from California on a regular basis since late 1975. Principal photography began three weeks later. Within a few days, Coppola was not happy with Harvey Keitel’s take on Willard, saying that the actor “found it difficult to play him a passive onlooker”. After viewing early footage, the director took a plane back to Los Angeles and replaced Keitel with Martin Sheen.

Typhoon Olga wrecked the sets at Iba and on May 26, 1976, production was closed down. Dean Tavoularis remembers that it “started raining harder and harder until finally it was literally white outside, and all the trees were bent at forty-five degrees”. One part of the crew was stranded in a hotel and the others were in small houses that were immobilized by the storm. The Playboy Playmate set had been destroyed, ruining a month’s shooting that had been scheduled. Most of the cast and crew went back to the United States for six to eight weeks. Tavoularis and his team stayed on to scout new locations and rebuild the Playmate set in a different place. Also, the production had bodyguards watching constantly at night and one day the entire payroll was stolen. According to Coppola’s wife, Eleanor, the film was six weeks behind schedule and $2 million over budget.

Coppola flew back to the U.S. in June 1976. He read a book about Genghis Khan to get a better handle on the character of Kurtz. After filming commenced, Marlon Brando arrived in Manila very overweight and began working with Coppola to rewrite the ending. The director downplayed Brando’s weight by dressing him in black, photographing only his face, and having another, taller actor double for him in an attempt to portray Kurtz as an almost mythical character.

In the days after Christmas 1976, Coppola viewed a rough assembly of the footage he had to date but still needed to improvise an ending. He returned to the Philippines in early 1977 and resumed filming. On March 5, 1977, Sheen had a heart attack and struggled for a quarter of a mile to reach help. He was back on the set on April 19. A major sequence in a French plantation cost hundreds of thousands of dollars but was cut from the final film. Rumors began to circulate that Apocalypse Now had several endings but Richard Beggs, who worked on the sound elements, said, “There were never five endings, but just the one, even if there were differently edited versions”. These rumors came from Coppola departing frequently from the original screenplay. Coppola admitted that he had no ending because Brando was too fat to play the scenes as written in the original script. With the help of Dennis Jakob, Coppola decided that the ending could be “the classic myth of the murderer who gets up the river, kills the king, and then himself becomes the king — it’s the Fisher King, from The Golden Bough“.

A water buffalo was slaughtered with a machete for the climactic scene. The scene was inspired by a ritual performed by a local Ifugao tribe which Coppola had witnessed along with his wife (who filmed the ritual later shown in the documentary Hearts of Darkness) and film crew. Although this was an American production subject to American animal cruelty laws, scenes like this filmed in the Philippines were not policed or monitored, and the American Humane Association gave the film an “unacceptable” rating. Principal photography ended on May 21, 1977 and everyone headed home.

This story comes up in numerous NLP sources, where it’s used primarily as a metaphor for NLP. I also see it as a metaphor for many aspects of filmmaking. So I post it here for those who have not yet had the pleasure of stumbling across this work.

From The Magus by John Fowles:

Once upon a time there was a young prince, who believed in all things but three. He did not believe in princesses, he did not believe in islands, he did not believe in God. His father, the King, told him that such things did not exist. As there were no princesses or islands in his father’s domaines, and no sign of God, the young prince believed his father.

But then, one day, the prince ran away from his palace. He came to the next land. There, to his astonishment, from every coast he saw islands, and on these islands, strange and troubling creatures whom he dared not name. As he was searching for a boat, a man in full evening dress approached him along the shore.

“Are those real islands?” asked the young prince.

“Of course they are real islands,” said the man in evening dress.

“And those strange and troubling creatures?”

“They are all genuine and authentic princesses.”

“Then God must also exist!” cried the prince.

“I am God,” replied the man in full evening dress, with a bow.

The young prince returned home as quickly as he could.

“So you are back,” said his father, the King.

“I have seen islands, I have seen princesses, I have seen God,” said the prince reproachfully.

The king was unmoved.

“Neither real islands, nor real princesses, nor a real God, exist.”

“I saw them!”

“Tell me how God was dressed.”

“God was in full evening dress.”

“Were the sleeves of his coat rolled back?”

The prince remembered that they had been. The king smiled.

“That is the uniform of a magician. You have been deceived.”

At this, the prince returned to the next land, and went to the same shore, where he once again came upon the man in full evening dress.

“My father the king has told me who you are,” said the young prince indignantly. “You deceived me last time, but not again. Now I know that those are not real islands and real princesses, because you are a magician.”

The man on the shore smiled.

“It is you who are deceived, my boy. In your father’s kingdom there are many islands and many princesses. But you are under your father’s spell, so you cannot see them.”

The prince returned pensively home. When he saw his father, he looked him in the eyes.

“Father, is it true that you are not a real king, but only a magician?” The king smiled, and rolled back his sleeves.

“Yes, my son, I am only a magician.”

“Then the man on the shore was God.”

“The man on the shore was another magician.”

“I must know the real truth, the truth beyond magic.”

“There is no truth beyond magic,” said the king.

The prince was full of sadness.

He said, “I will kill myself.”

The king by magic caused death to appear. Death stood in the door and beckoned to the prince. The prince shuddered. He remembered the beautiful but unreal islands and the unreal but beautiful princesses.

“Very well,” he said. “I can bear it.”

“You see, my son,” said the king, “you too now begin to become a magician.”

Following up from this post on Loving The Process earlier this week, just wanted to make a few clarifications after getting some interesting email on it.

I’m not trying to insinuate that someone HAS to be working on their filmmaking four times a week in order to get good. I was just suggesting a framework that will ensure you get good (IF, of course, you actually put in the practice in a constructive way).

So much of this is momentum. I consider sitting down and writing (working on a screenplay or treatment) as part of the four times a week. It’s balance and perspective. You don’t want to over-do it and you don’t want to burn out. At the same time, you want to keep a place for other things in your life. Single minded focus is great, as long as you don’t wind up getting yourself burnt out and give up on goals and commitments before you’ve seen them through.

Without Commitment, You Got Nothing

Clearly, four times a week is a MASSIVE investment in time. Not only are you spending a MINIMUM of three hours actually working on constructive goals, but then you have packing away, driving to and from places, etc to consider. For someone who is getting up early to work the next day, this is a critical investment in time, so you have to be careful.

I understand where people are coming from when they say “I’m always working on my ideas, even when I’m at work.” They’re right. It’s just another outlet for improving your craft, and you can daydream about ideas and jot down notes and more when you’re at work. But you’ll learn the best skillset out in the field, whether that be on an official set, or just anywhere you find yourself with a camera in your hands,

Build an impressive skillset by putting in your time, and you’ll notice a huge leap in your successes in ALL aspects of life. Somehow finding the time to put a camera in your hands is the best way to learn these skills. It’s up to you to find the time. Your skills will go through the roof if you put in the time and effort!

…One More Thing

I also want to make the point that so much of directing, or just being on set in some capacity, is non-verbal stuff that you can only gain from intensive practice of filmmaking around other people – bodylanguage/tonality subtleties/gestures/facial expressions and more.

In fact, I should post about these more, because these are the pieces people miss out on. It’s great focusing on directing the camera, but if you want to get good at directing actors, then you better get good at the stuff I mentioned above!

These are the building blocks that allow you to get the most out of your actors…and your film. The bodylanguage/tonality subtleties are the things that so many people miss out on, and they can be the most effective parts of your filmmaking arsenal.

You know, every day I think about filmmaking, and I have some wacky distinction that changes the way I perceive things.

The crazy thing about filmmaking is that it’s the only artform in which you have to REALLY get out of your comfort zone to practice.

I mean, you want to learn to play tennis, you get out on the court and you start hitting balls. You want to learn physics, you get in a classroom and get studying. You want to learn to drive a car, you get in a car and start figuring it out.

Okay, the last one was a slightly bad example.

But the point is that filmmaking requires a MASSIVE shift in the way you think in order to learn it – you’ve got to FORCE yourself out of your comfort zone. You’ve got to really make that effort in order to practice even just the basics.

Tennis requires just getting onto a court. The basics would be hitting some balls lightly. The basics of physics will require some books. Driving a car, simply getting in one and having someone teach you the basics of the pedals and what they do.

But to practice the basics of filmmaking? You’ve got to actually find at least SOME money in order to shoot. To interact with a film camera using even the basics can seem like a lengthy step compared to pulling out that book and studying, or hitting that court for tennis lessons.

So this isn’t to belittle other endevours and the trials and tribulations that people go through to achieve success with these various pursuits. You only need to watch the any collection of days from the 2 weeks of Wimbledon any year to see just how mentally strong a tennis player has to be! I just wanted to illuminate the struggle of learning filmmaking from the ground-up. Finding the funds to get any sort of project off the ground is something many of us struggle with.

If only it was something we could practice on our own in order to get really good, we’d have exceptional filmmakers everywhere! Whereas the physicist, the tennis player and the wannabe driver can practice ON THEIR OWN, the filmmaer-to-be needs real life expensive cameras on which to practice!

How To Get Out There and Really Improve

So I’ve been trying to get out and shoot something four times a week. Anything. Maybe there’s not a desperate need for an expensive camera. I know deep down I down need a Canon XH-A1 to practice with in order to get good at this craft.

The field is king in this game. Once a week isn’t enough.

Too many people just do the weekend thing. I know their on job commitments and family commitments and all the other commitments, but there’s a way to find time for all this. You MAKE time rather than find time. It’s there if you want it.

Can’t find time to shoot in the day due to work commitments? How about the night? The night will suffice. Just stick up your china ball lights (very cheap, afterall) and you’re good to go!

This weekend thing, it loses your flow. Really. Even if you have a good weekend, by the time the next Saturday rolls around, you’ve lost all the momentum you worked so hard to achieve the week before!

It needs to be hardcore and sustained practice to create the snowball of progress we all desire to get really good at this stuff.

Four nights a week. At least. Get a journal. Write in that journey about your progress after every shoot/experiment/mess around with a camera session. Write down everything and anything. Get a blog like this one. Talk about your successes and failures – exagerrate them if you like, but talk about your progress. That’s the main thing here – you need to get in touch with your creativity and then analyse it CREATIVELY afterwards. That’s powerful.

That’s a journal or note taking session after EVERY day of handling a camera. Every experience should be charted and examined. Even if you’re not posting all your experiences on the net, having a journal is really useful. Not only can you go back and look at it months on to see just how far you’ve come, but you can chronicle your current ideas and experiments so that you know where you’re at!

Above All It’s The Process

It’s the process. I think you’ve got to love the process. When you have a bad day (and I’m not just talking about filmmaking here) and you go home feeling down and wanting more for yourself, you have to LOVE the process in order to be free. To pick yourself back up. To continue.

You have to do it for the process, become enamoured with just doing it mechanical like as a constant series of shifting states.

No state is permanent. You’ll see many many changing states in your journey.

But you have to rely on the process. Trust in the process. Know that even if you have a bad day that, a rejection, a lapse of focus; it’s all part of your plan, your longterm plan to get REALLY good. That you have tomorrow and the next day, not to mention the next week and month, to make up for that bad day!

The field may be king, but the PROCESS…the process is princely!

It All Comes Down To State

What the heck is a state!? I talk about it a lot on this site. As far as I can see, state (as I use it in this form) was brought to the forefront of the self-development community by Richard Bandler and John Grinder (the co-creators of NLP) in the 1970s. I use state in my writings to reflect the state of MIND that one’s in – be it positive or negative. Sportsmen know all about state. That golfer who hits a terrible shot off the tee and then has to take the long walk to where his ball now lies…he knows all about state. He can walk through the baying throng of fans and keep his composure ready to take on the next shot. He clears it out of his mind. That’s state. That’s powerful!

I see my state as twisting and ever-changing these days. I’ll have the odd day when I feel down about something, but I see it as part of the masterplan of sorts. It can’t get to me. It will soon fade into the positive state that is shortly following it.

Just like seeing through the matrix of the world all around us, I start to see patterns emerging all around. I’ve begun to see these same pattern repetitions in my states.

It’s important to realise that your next GREAT state is only a thought away. And that’s no new age mumbo jumbo. We ARE what we think and we can change it at any time!

This is key.

It’s late and these are my current thoughts on self development and filmmaking. I realise this may be a little esoteric and some readers may wonder where I’m coming from with all this. But hopefully people who are actually out in the field can relate to this and pull something from it.

It’s good to have an outlet for attempting to describe thoughts and personal breakthroughs.

NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) is an incredible tool to use in all areas of your life, including filmmaking. But what areas of filmmaking can NLP be used in? Ever heard of failure? What about negativity? Getting caught in a rut and feeling like you’re just not getting anywhere?

So you want to re-frame failure and negativity?

Joseph O’Connor and John Seymour’s book Introducing NLP offers a great Six Step Reframing Process. Here is the blueprint of the process from the book, with my notes about how it can be used to reframe failure, negativity and other unproductive states:

1. First identify the behaviour or response to be changed.

You want to banish negativity thoughts and feelings (especially concerning your filmmaking goals), but you don’t know where to begin.

From the reframing process itself: “It is usually in the form: ‘I want to…but something stops me.’ Or, ‘I don’t want to do this, but I seem to end up doing it just the same.’

Take a moment to express appreciation for what this part has done for you and make it clear that you are not going to get rid of it. This may be difficult if the behaviour (let’s call it X) is very unpalatable, but you can appreciate the intention, if not the way it was accomplished.”

2. Establish communication with the part responsible for the behaviour.

Perhaps you feel an actual physical pain when you attempt your filmmaking/writing goals. Maybe there’s a pain in your stomach, tightness in your shoulders, a dry mouth, etc.

Is there a sound that goes off in your head before you sit down to write, for example. Maybe an alarm bell going off in your own head.

Maybe there’s an image that runs through your mind before you get on set.

Find out what that feeling is; what it looks like, sounds like, feels like.

I was initially confused about this stage. The reframing process in the book describes this step as, “Go inside and ask, ‘Will the part responsible for X communicate with me in consciousness, now?’ Notice what response you get. Keep all your senses open for internal sights, sounds, feelings. Do not guess. Have a definate signal, it is often a slight body feeling. Can you reproduce that exact signal consciously? If you can, ask the question again until you get a signal that you cannot control at will.”

3. Separate the positive intention from the behaviour.

Realise that your anxiety and negativity is there for a reason.

The positive intention of your negativity about writing/filmmaking could simply be the fact that it is saving you from potential rejections or embarassments.

Whatever it is, get in tune with it. Understand it’s reasons and thank it.

The reframing process describes this as: “Thank the part for co-operating. Ask, “Will the part that is responsle for this behaviour let me know what it is trying to do?’ If the answer is the ‘yes’ signal, you will get the intention, and it may be a surprise to your conscious mind. Thank the part for the information, and for doing this for you. Think about whether you actually want a part to do this.

Go inside and ask the part, ‘If you were given ways that enabled you to accomplish is intention, at least as well, if not better than what you are doing now, would you be willing to try them out?’”

4. Ask your creative part to generate new ways that will accomplish the same purpose.

If your negativitys intention is to save you from potential rejections or embarrassments (as in the example above), find OTHER WAYS to protect yourself against that.

Realise that rejections aren’t rejections of you as a person. Separate yourself from the outcome.

If the negativity’s purpose is to protect you from rejection or embarrasment, let your creative side come up with new ways to achieve this that doesn’t involve having the negativity. For example, get into character being you walk on set, or even sit down to write!

Your negativity was there for a reason. But that reason has now become obsolete. You have new, more empowering ways to dealing with potential rejection and embarrassment.

The reframing process states: “There will have been times in your life when you were creative and resourceeful. Ask the part you are working with to communicate its positive intention to your creative, resourceful part. The creative part will then be able to make up other ways of accomplishing the same intention.”

5. Ask the X part if it will agree to use the new choices rather than the old behaviour over the next few weeks.

The book says: “This is future pacing, mentally rehearsing a new bahaviour in a future situation.

If all is well up to now, there is no reason why you will not get a ‘yes’ signal. If you get a ‘no,’ assure the part it can still use the old behaviour, but you would like it to use the new choices first. If you still get a no, you can reframe the part that objects by taking it through the whole six step reframing process.”

6. Ecological check.

Make sure this new behaviour is in tune with the rest of your life.

The reframing process describes this as: “You need to know if there are any other parts that would object to your new choices. Ask, ‘Does any other part of me object to any of my new choices?’ Be sensitive to any signals. Be thorough here. If there is a signal, ask the part to intensify the signal if it really is an objection. Make sure the new choices meet with the approval of all interested parts, or one will sabotage your work.

If there is an objection you can do one of two things. Either go back to Step 2 and reframe the part that objects, or ask the creative part, in consultation with the objecting part, to come up with more choices. Make sure these new choices are also checked for any new objections.”

——————-

From the book:

“Six step reframing deals with several psychological issues.

One is secondary gain: the idea that however bizarre or destructive a behaviour appears, it always serves a useful purpose at some level, and this purpose is likely to be unconcious. It does not make sense to do something that is totally contrary to our interests. There is always some benefit, our mixture of motives and emotions is rarely a harmonious one.

Another is trance. Anyone doing six step reframing will be in a mild trance, with his focus of attention inwards.

Thirdly, six step reframing also uses on skills between parts of one person.”