How To Make Sure You Are Ready For The Coming Sh*tstorm
aka Navigating Change In The Producing Realm
How To#4: On Wednesday May 12th, Brian Newman and I discussed how to navigate all the changes coming our way in the FKATFB on a zoom with 400 people hosted by the Sundance Collab program (use the link to check it out). I had a good time, but there was so much more I wanted to discuss. But that’s how it always is. Too much to say and do in this short life. We better get to it!
The truth is that to navigate the change, you need to develop a specific part of your professional and creative practice precisely for that purpose. And it requires constant maintenance. If I was to design one course to offer you that would essentially be it, but I think we’d need twenty or so sessions. Tick tock and who has the time? Boom.
What’s the price of not addressing it all though? Maybe not getting some of the stuff you could've done, done! Once you’ve started down the path of a creative life, I’d think that’s too high a price for anyone to pay, so we might as well focus on the how right now, right?
I’ve been fortunate to have been a critical part of many, many movies, and I would attribute a great deal of that luck to my “creative process”, some of which is part of the list I share below. Even more than the films, I am particularly pleased with the various people whose careers I’ve helped to launch. I’d put my past assistants up in a scrimmage against anyone’s. Game on.
I’d like to think they memorized this sort of list even before I wrote it down — and that’s a lot harder that reading it now. The fact is you can look at such a list but if you don’t live it and be it, it will never help you or others. You have to do it. And do it constantly.
Repetition builds instinct. Instinct breeds character. Character determines all.
Navigating Change In Producing Realm: 30+ Recommendations
Refuse to accept the status quo. Recognize it doesn’t have to be this way.
Take a holistic approach: you are in a system and need to examine how the system is in you. The way you build it and use it, determines what the it is.
Be a good person. You will make better movies. You will have a better time. You will find more allies.
Free yourself from the tyranny of competition and measurement.
Don’t do it for wealth — there are so many easier & better ways to make money.
Prepare for opportunity & thus engineer serendipity.
Build a road map for Utopia, particularly for your industry.
Develop pattern recognition.
Consider new & old era models, big & small.
Examine prior era’s innovations as well as what did not catch on and why.
Build fantasy league dream team from your circle of relationships. What could you accomplish and why? Build list of all your relationships for future collaboration.
Look for gaps. What’s missing? Capture those — help fill & build them.
Being willing to fail often and fail better. Experiment.
Make Operational Improvements.
Recognize (via OpImps & gap filling) that you can improve things and make things better.
Develop (& then promote) your distinguishing & defining characteristics.
Develop a new skill now.
Get something lasting done, but do it now.
Plan for long haul; develop shell of tenacity, persistence, & patience.
Keep the good ones close (closer than ever).
Plan how not to get jaded.
Plan not to get bitter — how will you feel better in 15 years than you do today.
Determine your Rules For Living — and due your best to live by then.
Determine your own creative process, set a creative practice and follow it.
Recognize the things you love (and why)
Define world, nation, industry, community, relationships, self.
Determine you own Qualities of Better Film.
Select the provocations & disruptions you most favor and plan accordingly (if only for play).
I have already written about many of these and have linked to some of them, but I am sure you see these themes running wild through my writing (and films too if you look close). If there are specific numbers here you’d like me to expand upon, just let me know in the comments below.
Keep on keeping on. We can build it better together. Thanks for showing up and reading. I really appreciate it.
Thanks Ted. I share this with my team and ALL our project collaborators. It‘s THE list to base all other lists on. What I add as the base layer is to take care of body, mind and soul. Especially in these volatile times.
95. Read scripts. Even if you have the best coverage person on Earth, pick a few out of the pile and read them anyway. It will keep you current on what writers are thinking.
96. Write a script. Rewrite it. Send it off for coverage and proofing. Rewrite it again. You will never think of low balling a writer again.
97. Submit your script anonymously to other producers. Swallow 100 rejections--just to start. This is only a small taste of what writers go through. It will increase your empathy and motivate you to implement step 95 as part of your weekly process.
98. When hiring assistants/coverage readers for your company make sure they are not just thinking about what will make you a boatload of money. If you want art, instruct your readers to look for art.
99. Similar to non-GMO stickers on food, if you want humans to write the scripts you use, insist that any work using AI in any way be labeled as such before submission to your company. Blatantly lie that you can tell the difference in nuance, tone and quality.
100. Give comedy scripts a chance--especially, smart, clean ones. It is a dying art form. Help bring it back to life. The ghosts of everyone from Shakespeare to Neil Simon will thank you!