Speed & Creativity

Art doesn't like to wait. It likes to just pour itself out onto whatever medium is in front of you. When you feel something and the vision is clear in your mind the last thing you want is to charge batteries.

Making films is a very time consuming process, and all the more time consuming when we let it. I have a love hate relationship with production for one major reason: Gear. I have to often fight the temptation to be bitter toward gimbals and batteries and wireless transmissions and all of it. The reason is because it's all created in the name of efficiency, but often enough we end up fighting the endless amount of cables and signals and settings instead.

Ultimately I have no problem with gear, in fact I think it's incredible, as long as it's really helping you. And that's the real question. Is this thing you bought really helping you do better work? Or did you buy it because the work you're doing isn't satisfying so you find the fun in playing with cool toys... which of course doesn't satisfy and doesn't last very long at all, and then on to the next purchase with more cables and more technical support and more little things that annoy you about it even though you like most things.

Don't be sucker'd by the enormous business created around holding your camera in one place. There's an endless swarm of people who are willing to sell you their thing.

The point is, is it really helping you do better work? Because creativity doesn't like to wait.

The Hard Work of Creativity

The creative process is like one wild goose chase after another. We've learned to embrace it. I was recently reminded of the famous quote from Stephen King, “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”

Great ideas are king and we fight hard for them. They feel easy when you watch them play out in their final glory but when you're making this work and your perspective of the end is dim and you don't know how to bridge the gap it can feel like reaching into the darkness and hoping you feel something you can grab ahold of. Doing good work is time consuming and hard and it's only made harder when you don't embrace the fact that this is the creative process. 

The sooner you get "comfortable" with the unknown, the sooner you'll stop wandering off the road that leads to your best work.

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