I I’m here tonight to talk to you about
being weird when someone calls you weird
it’s usually because you’re doing
something or saying something that
someone else isn’t like here’s a bit of
an example it’s not a replica of me it’s
actually a story that I did I’m an
architect a filmmaker and author and in
visual effects on an animator so I’ve
done a bunch of things and in each of
those things I’ve always focused on
doing something that’s different outside
of the box and figuring taco is one of
those things it’s a story of two
Japanese salary men who go into a sushi
bar one night and one of them eats a
live sushi and his head transforms to
the shape of pufferfish and he has to
live with that and finds out that
especially not as bad as what he thought
so I’m gonna show you the film now good
boy but damn it wait a minute it alright
alright come on
oh my layout James thank you Oh do that
[Music]
to whom the check heartily to Seamus car
[Music]
so they might be wondering how an
australian makes a film about a guy
whose head turns into a pufferfish and
see Japanese was long story but we’ll
get to that at the end I’ve been called
a defector an expatriate
an outsider maverick in there since a
bit of a freak and it’s because I do
things differently and so tonight I’m
gonna talk about embracing your inner
weirdness I grew up in a park near
Guinea it’s a small island and then
north of Australia it’s a very primitive
country I I was an expatriate there and
for people who don’t know what an
expatriate is it’s a person who’s living
in a foreign country or living in exile
depending on your perspective and as a
child I you know I was an outsider but
it didn’t feel unnatural to me it felt
it felt normal you know Papa New Guinea
was was very primitive and colliding
with the modern world and in a sense
inventing itself and finding a new
identity and and so as I and the
expatriates there were collectively
weird that we just didn’t know it we
were kind of growing up in a in a bubble
outside of our historical birthplace so
we were able to be whatever we wanted to
be in in essence it was like the village
wasn’t raising the child and then I
moved back to Australia and it was like
moving back to a whole other village
there I was a widow and and widow is
like Australians didn’t put an O on
everything if you’re named Shane you’re
gonna be called Shane oh and and and so
I was a widow and and a little bit weird
and I didn’t fit in and as a creative
now you know being a filmmaker and an
architect and working in in films and
other things that’s perfectly fine for
me I feel like as a creative it’s such
an essential core part of what I do and
and just sort of getting outside of the
box even standing in this like red
circle right now is a bit weird I’m I
feel much more comfortable sort of you
know off on the edge you know looking in
being an outsider that’s a that’s a
place where I like to be and I’m not
saying fitting in is bad I think it can
work for some people but it does mean
that
there’s a there’s an inherence do is
sort of a conformity to a set of rules
you you you said it setting yourself up
in a way to be in a place that’s
comfortable and it’s safe essentially
and that’s a place where I think it’s
very hard to progress and move forward
and make discoveries pushing yourself
outside of the circle if you like forces
you to see things in a different way and
that’s an essential part of growth it’s
essential part of being creative and
essential part of being weird so that’s
how I kind of challenged myself I was
speaking a friend of mine the other day
who’s also an architect and he’s in in
artificial intelligence and robot design
and he’s working with a falconeer and a
falcon II as a person who trains a bird
to fly off and hunt and has a simple set
of commands it raises the raises the
hood off the of the burden and the bird
goes but only has a limited memory you
can only remember the command for a
certain amount of time so he’s trying to
gain something from that you know he’s
looking outside of his gamut looking
outside of his small set of parameters
that he’s working with and trying to get
something from the outside that
influences it and his next subject is
the donkey donkeys don’t want to fall
off cliffs that goes for the Grand
Canyon without any fuss they don’t get
in holes they’re very stubborn and
that’s something that you want in a
robot you don’t robot to fall over and
so he’s you know between a robot a
falcon and I and I and a donkey you’ll
probably end up with a amazing working
rumba that’ll sweet someone’s carpet but
in essence I think that the the the
point of the story is that he’s he’s
breaking through his set of parameters
and looking outside and seeing one
outside influence can do he’s
experimenting and when I was studying at
university as an architect we used to
draw our designs with ink pen and paper
and I was really terrible at it
we would have to scrape off the mistakes
with with razor there was no undo button
in those days and so I would present my
plans and hold them up and they’d look
somewhat like the Dead Sea Scrolls with
all these
of patches and holes and things in them
and I thought it has to be an easy way
and computers were just sort of coming
into the fray in terms of design now it
sounds kind of crazy because were also
used to computers today but 20 years ago
the the university I was going to didn’t
want any drawings or concepts or design
development done in computers they felt
like if you had a computer then somehow
you were cheating that you were the
computer was doing the work which seems
like a marvel now but that was the
current that was the thing at that time
and so I went and got some pirate
software and decided to teach myself and
by night I was sort of hacking away on
the computer and figuring out ways to do
these designs and discovered that I
could actually do these designs and
created a completely different way of
visualizing my creative process and and
architecture as a result and it led to
me actually in my final year my Master’s
walking away from architecture and and
going off in a different direction I
started animation at that point and
became more involved in that and and it
was very sort of you know leap frogging
that I did throughout my career but
always in the search of doing something
different challenging myself and I
rightly I now teach architecture
students in their masters at Sayaka and
UCLA about new ways of envisioning
architecture so it’s kind of had a full
circle and you know maybe I should be
teaching them how to scratch on pen and
paper in any case I think one of the
things that I’m saying is that having
that determination that that ability to
push yourself outside of your boundaries
and and take those risks is really
important and I think once you’ve done
that once you’ve stepped out like I did
and stepped out of that and felt
committed to what I had to do in order
to have a progression in growth there
was no turning back and improperly
guinea to have a saying and it’s called
gone penis which sounds like go on penis
but it was very confusing for a child
but it actually means going Finnish and
and that means going home so for
expatriates that were in partner Guinea
they were going finished I want to go
back home and when they went back home
they discovered that
things hadn’t changed that much at home
but they changed the process of being
away a play process of leaving their
birthplace their place of safety if you
like had changed them the experiment of
doing that to change them and and they
just couldn’t go back in terms of their
progression and their ideas so I think
that’s something that I always encourage
people when I’m working with them to
push outside of those boundaries so like
if you your head changed into a puffer
fish pretty hard to go back so when I
first came out with that idea to make
the film I was in a place I was I had a
lot of success as a director and I was
working with radical media and I had my
own visual effects company and oil
accounts I should have been really happy
and in some ways content but that just
wasn’t in me that wasn’t who I was that
nurture that sort of yearning to push
myself further and go outside those
barriers were still present and I
decided I needed I needed to step out of
that and try to have a new journey and
and almost like to be like that expat
ëi expatriate again when I was a child
I wanted to go overseas so I thought
I’ll either go to US Canada or the UK
which is not very exotic places there’s
no cannibals to speak of least ones that
I know and and so I thought I’ll make a
film that stands out and and something
that’s international so I come out with
that idea
most people thought I was crazy they
thought that no one’s going to get it
it’s it’s kind of too ridiculous that
sort of spurred me on even further and
at the same times is a films in Japanese
and I don’t speak a word of Japanese so
that was equally kind of crazy to to all
my friends and associates and so they
were really encouraging me not to do it
don’t do this this weird thing isn’t
going to work out but I pressed on and I
made the film and his incredible
discovery that I had making the film and
working with the actors was watching
them perform in Japanese I no longer
needed the words I didn’t need to listen
because as a director you quite often
you’re listening for the actors and are
they getting the dialogue and you know
is everything being performed as
scripted things like that but I couldn’t
understand a word and but there was
there was a kind of crystal clarity that
came over me in terms of understanding
what was happening on a human level on a
very night level and a very instinctual
level and that was a very transformative
moment for me informed both me as a
director and a creative in terms of
approaching things and being open to
that and taking risks and and and
discovering that an experiment can
actually push you into a place of
finding out something that you had no
idea about before and can change you in
ways that will follow you for the rest
of your life and that’s certainly what
happened for me while I made that film
so it brought me to the u.s. I had
another unexpected thing when I came
here I met a whole bunch of other
experts who had a similar view they
wanted to do things differently and and
bring together their collective
experiences and and step outside of
their safety zones to create great
things and in essence you know I was
exposed a child and expertos and as an
adult and I felt like either coming here
I’d found my tribe and I made another
film this is the second in three films
they’re all kind of weird but this one’s
titled freaks
I got teased a lot at school other kids
but mom always said it I had a really
good eye it started to grow when my
grandfather told me to listen to things
and I realized of course that I are I
was some much much more capable of my
hands and the other children primarily I
was the kid that always was able to put
two fists in my mouth you know generally
one kid one face so you just learned to
cover it up
massive eye
[Music]
I may even eyes my granddad just say
home
I’ve got one and you know it’s been it’s
put me in good stead all my life so yeah
people face you know it’s got such a big
mouth he never shuts up it’s always
talking we know you can’t help it
that’s the problem I don’t go out much
but all my friends know about
the people I mean
and I think we all have our own
interesting quirks things make us unique
it’s good to be around other people that
are creative that have the same vision
creative is not actually that same
actually
so suitably weird but I think now you
know one of the things of being an
outsider or doing things differently
being an expatriate or nonconformist in
many ways means that it implies that
you’ve got to go it alone but the
reality is there are people out there
there are like-minded people that can
encourage you along the way and
challenge you to even push yourself
further so that’s something that I
encourage everybody and that’s certainly
experience I’ve had coming to the United
States thank you
[Applause]
being weird when someone calls you weird
it’s usually because you’re doing
something or saying something that
someone else isn’t like here’s a bit of
an example it’s not a replica of me it’s
actually a story that I did I’m an
architect a filmmaker and author and in
visual effects on an animator so I’ve
done a bunch of things and in each of
those things I’ve always focused on
doing something that’s different outside
of the box and figuring taco is one of
those things it’s a story of two
Japanese salary men who go into a sushi
bar one night and one of them eats a
live sushi and his head transforms to
the shape of pufferfish and he has to
live with that and finds out that
especially not as bad as what he thought
so I’m gonna show you the film now good
boy but damn it wait a minute it alright
alright come on
oh my layout James thank you Oh do that
[Music]
to whom the check heartily to Seamus car
[Music]
so they might be wondering how an
australian makes a film about a guy
whose head turns into a pufferfish and
see Japanese was long story but we’ll
get to that at the end I’ve been called
a defector an expatriate
an outsider maverick in there since a
bit of a freak and it’s because I do
things differently and so tonight I’m
gonna talk about embracing your inner
weirdness I grew up in a park near
Guinea it’s a small island and then
north of Australia it’s a very primitive
country I I was an expatriate there and
for people who don’t know what an
expatriate is it’s a person who’s living
in a foreign country or living in exile
depending on your perspective and as a
child I you know I was an outsider but
it didn’t feel unnatural to me it felt
it felt normal you know Papa New Guinea
was was very primitive and colliding
with the modern world and in a sense
inventing itself and finding a new
identity and and so as I and the
expatriates there were collectively
weird that we just didn’t know it we
were kind of growing up in a in a bubble
outside of our historical birthplace so
we were able to be whatever we wanted to
be in in essence it was like the village
wasn’t raising the child and then I
moved back to Australia and it was like
moving back to a whole other village
there I was a widow and and widow is
like Australians didn’t put an O on
everything if you’re named Shane you’re
gonna be called Shane oh and and and so
I was a widow and and a little bit weird
and I didn’t fit in and as a creative
now you know being a filmmaker and an
architect and working in in films and
other things that’s perfectly fine for
me I feel like as a creative it’s such
an essential core part of what I do and
and just sort of getting outside of the
box even standing in this like red
circle right now is a bit weird I’m I
feel much more comfortable sort of you
know off on the edge you know looking in
being an outsider that’s a that’s a
place where I like to be and I’m not
saying fitting in is bad I think it can
work for some people but it does mean
that
there’s a there’s an inherence do is
sort of a conformity to a set of rules
you you you said it setting yourself up
in a way to be in a place that’s
comfortable and it’s safe essentially
and that’s a place where I think it’s
very hard to progress and move forward
and make discoveries pushing yourself
outside of the circle if you like forces
you to see things in a different way and
that’s an essential part of growth it’s
essential part of being creative and
essential part of being weird so that’s
how I kind of challenged myself I was
speaking a friend of mine the other day
who’s also an architect and he’s in in
artificial intelligence and robot design
and he’s working with a falconeer and a
falcon II as a person who trains a bird
to fly off and hunt and has a simple set
of commands it raises the raises the
hood off the of the burden and the bird
goes but only has a limited memory you
can only remember the command for a
certain amount of time so he’s trying to
gain something from that you know he’s
looking outside of his gamut looking
outside of his small set of parameters
that he’s working with and trying to get
something from the outside that
influences it and his next subject is
the donkey donkeys don’t want to fall
off cliffs that goes for the Grand
Canyon without any fuss they don’t get
in holes they’re very stubborn and
that’s something that you want in a
robot you don’t robot to fall over and
so he’s you know between a robot a
falcon and I and I and a donkey you’ll
probably end up with a amazing working
rumba that’ll sweet someone’s carpet but
in essence I think that the the the
point of the story is that he’s he’s
breaking through his set of parameters
and looking outside and seeing one
outside influence can do he’s
experimenting and when I was studying at
university as an architect we used to
draw our designs with ink pen and paper
and I was really terrible at it
we would have to scrape off the mistakes
with with razor there was no undo button
in those days and so I would present my
plans and hold them up and they’d look
somewhat like the Dead Sea Scrolls with
all these
of patches and holes and things in them
and I thought it has to be an easy way
and computers were just sort of coming
into the fray in terms of design now it
sounds kind of crazy because were also
used to computers today but 20 years ago
the the university I was going to didn’t
want any drawings or concepts or design
development done in computers they felt
like if you had a computer then somehow
you were cheating that you were the
computer was doing the work which seems
like a marvel now but that was the
current that was the thing at that time
and so I went and got some pirate
software and decided to teach myself and
by night I was sort of hacking away on
the computer and figuring out ways to do
these designs and discovered that I
could actually do these designs and
created a completely different way of
visualizing my creative process and and
architecture as a result and it led to
me actually in my final year my Master’s
walking away from architecture and and
going off in a different direction I
started animation at that point and
became more involved in that and and it
was very sort of you know leap frogging
that I did throughout my career but
always in the search of doing something
different challenging myself and I
rightly I now teach architecture
students in their masters at Sayaka and
UCLA about new ways of envisioning
architecture so it’s kind of had a full
circle and you know maybe I should be
teaching them how to scratch on pen and
paper in any case I think one of the
things that I’m saying is that having
that determination that that ability to
push yourself outside of your boundaries
and and take those risks is really
important and I think once you’ve done
that once you’ve stepped out like I did
and stepped out of that and felt
committed to what I had to do in order
to have a progression in growth there
was no turning back and improperly
guinea to have a saying and it’s called
gone penis which sounds like go on penis
but it was very confusing for a child
but it actually means going Finnish and
and that means going home so for
expatriates that were in partner Guinea
they were going finished I want to go
back home and when they went back home
they discovered that
things hadn’t changed that much at home
but they changed the process of being
away a play process of leaving their
birthplace their place of safety if you
like had changed them the experiment of
doing that to change them and and they
just couldn’t go back in terms of their
progression and their ideas so I think
that’s something that I always encourage
people when I’m working with them to
push outside of those boundaries so like
if you your head changed into a puffer
fish pretty hard to go back so when I
first came out with that idea to make
the film I was in a place I was I had a
lot of success as a director and I was
working with radical media and I had my
own visual effects company and oil
accounts I should have been really happy
and in some ways content but that just
wasn’t in me that wasn’t who I was that
nurture that sort of yearning to push
myself further and go outside those
barriers were still present and I
decided I needed I needed to step out of
that and try to have a new journey and
and almost like to be like that expat
ëi expatriate again when I was a child
I wanted to go overseas so I thought
I’ll either go to US Canada or the UK
which is not very exotic places there’s
no cannibals to speak of least ones that
I know and and so I thought I’ll make a
film that stands out and and something
that’s international so I come out with
that idea
most people thought I was crazy they
thought that no one’s going to get it
it’s it’s kind of too ridiculous that
sort of spurred me on even further and
at the same times is a films in Japanese
and I don’t speak a word of Japanese so
that was equally kind of crazy to to all
my friends and associates and so they
were really encouraging me not to do it
don’t do this this weird thing isn’t
going to work out but I pressed on and I
made the film and his incredible
discovery that I had making the film and
working with the actors was watching
them perform in Japanese I no longer
needed the words I didn’t need to listen
because as a director you quite often
you’re listening for the actors and are
they getting the dialogue and you know
is everything being performed as
scripted things like that but I couldn’t
understand a word and but there was
there was a kind of crystal clarity that
came over me in terms of understanding
what was happening on a human level on a
very night level and a very instinctual
level and that was a very transformative
moment for me informed both me as a
director and a creative in terms of
approaching things and being open to
that and taking risks and and and
discovering that an experiment can
actually push you into a place of
finding out something that you had no
idea about before and can change you in
ways that will follow you for the rest
of your life and that’s certainly what
happened for me while I made that film
so it brought me to the u.s. I had
another unexpected thing when I came
here I met a whole bunch of other
experts who had a similar view they
wanted to do things differently and and
bring together their collective
experiences and and step outside of
their safety zones to create great
things and in essence you know I was
exposed a child and expertos and as an
adult and I felt like either coming here
I’d found my tribe and I made another
film this is the second in three films
they’re all kind of weird but this one’s
titled freaks
I got teased a lot at school other kids
but mom always said it I had a really
good eye it started to grow when my
grandfather told me to listen to things
and I realized of course that I are I
was some much much more capable of my
hands and the other children primarily I
was the kid that always was able to put
two fists in my mouth you know generally
one kid one face so you just learned to
cover it up
massive eye
[Music]
I may even eyes my granddad just say
home
I’ve got one and you know it’s been it’s
put me in good stead all my life so yeah
people face you know it’s got such a big
mouth he never shuts up it’s always
talking we know you can’t help it
that’s the problem I don’t go out much
but all my friends know about
the people I mean
and I think we all have our own
interesting quirks things make us unique
it’s good to be around other people that
are creative that have the same vision
creative is not actually that same
actually
so suitably weird but I think now you
know one of the things of being an
outsider or doing things differently
being an expatriate or nonconformist in
many ways means that it implies that
you’ve got to go it alone but the
reality is there are people out there
there are like-minded people that can
encourage you along the way and
challenge you to even push yourself
further so that’s something that I
encourage everybody and that’s certainly
experience I’ve had coming to the United
States thank you
[Applause]
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