The Weekly - Creative Direction
On cheaper robots, staying on the tools and a Valentines bouquet for you.
Welcome to the Happy Medium newsletter, where I share inspiration and bite-sized musings on creative business each week(ish). Enjoy!
Quick thoughts
Musings on business, creativity, psychology and more.
Practitioner to Founder
I recently watched this movie called The Creator. It’s pretty good but what is really impressive is the movie cost $80m to make. Considering it’s about robot-humanoids, involves spaceships and explosions, and that most movies of similar technical ambition cost over $250m, that is pretty impressive.
The effectiveness of this movie comes down to two factors that are relevant for any practitioner turned founder; knowing how to do things and knowing what matters.
Knowing how to do things
The Director, Gareth Edwards, used to be a visual effects artist which meant that he knew exactly what would be easier to do IRL and what will be more effective digitally. Understanding the limitations of the visual effects software meant he could play to the strength of the technology and avoid it’s limitations. It also meant he knew where the shortcuts were, where the money pits lie and where other films get caught out.
When making the leap from practitioner to founder, or from do-er to manager, it can feel like you suddenly need to wear a lot more hats - and you do - but having the experience of how things work ‘on the ground’ is more valuable that you might think.
A deep-enough knowledge of the tools and the work involved empowers you to make efficient decisions, knowing where experimentation is relevant and where hidden time sinks lie.
Know what matters
The best visual effects in the world won’t matter if the story is tedious or the script feels unnatural. Knowing what matters is about having a vision, then making all the small decisions that add up to that vision.
It’s the difference between intentionally crafting every shot to move the story forward vs getting coverage of a bunch of angles so someone can work it out later.
Knowing what matters means being decisive about the elements that will contribute to the cohesive whole. This is where the creative direction is important, maintaining the balance of all the elements to tell a story that feels layered and alive.
When you’re transitioning from ‘doing’ to ‘directing’, it’s important to give yourself the time to use these skills in balance - too much time on the tools and you get bogged down in detail; being too high-level you end up wasting your team’s time on unnecessary rabbit holes.
Your unique creative vision, combined with knowledge of how it comes together, that takes a career a build. Plus it might save you a couple million bucks.
Inspiration
Things that have inspired me this week.
VFX Artists React to Bad & Great CGi 126 (ft. Gareth Edwards)
Corridor Crew
For a detailed breakdown of the efficient decision making behind The Creator. A masterclass in knowing how to do things, and what actually matters.
Happy Valentines Day
Link Bouquet by Marc & Los
I hope you all had a lovely Valentines Day! My gift to you is bouquet of links that don’t really fit anywhere but are enjoyable, sweet, poetic or just kinda interesting.
Want to empower your team to be more efficient …
…in a let’s-spend-our-money-and-time-on-things-we-care-about way (not a let’s-ruthlessly-milk-every-minute-for-maximum-$$-way) check out Problem Solving Mini.
That’s it for this week!
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