Creative professionals today work under such pressures, of time, budget, and creative restraints, that remote workflow processes all too often take the place of traditional face-to-face, client/creative collaboration.
There is good and bad to be said about both styles. And, what works for one firm may not work for another. Collaboration, in itโs truest sense means โworking together to achieve a goal.โ It is a recursive process in which two or more people, or teams, work together to realize shared goals that are creative in nature.
The word โcollaborationโ has a deep impact on a singular vision and how creative expression happens. I studied fine arts at school, where there was very little collaboration, but this afforded me an opportunity to develop my own creative language for future solo and group endeavors. Having a personal POV, an individual aesthetic perspective, is key to any successful collaboration. The goal is to find right-minded people who are able to push the boundaries to achieve oneโs creative vision.
This is the most important aspect of our collaborative processโfinding the right person(s), which is sometimes difficult. Most of my successful collaborations have been with people who are interested in and knowledgeable about art and music; they go hand in hand especially when talking about tone and motion. A recent success was a film title project for a documentary, Run to the East by Henry Lu, a director at Moxie Pictures. Since I wrote the treatment, the task was to find a designer to take the concept and realize it, which we achieved with designer/animator Salih Abdul-Karim.
After sending him the treatment, we had a meeting that lasted about 15 minutes when we found we were โon the same page.โ From that moment forward the process was extremely efficient, especially when as to the dynamics of the look and motion of the titles. This does not happen all of the time, and in some ways, I enjoy learning and pushing myself when the dynamics are slightly off. There is something in the creative puzzle that, in person, can provoke successful collaboration.
Today, with Skype, Facetime, IM, email, and the like, too often collaborations are mediated. However, in my humble experience, this remote workflow fails for several reasons. The first is time, and loss of the immediacy, the spontaneity, of working together in the same physical space. The second reason is direct, face-to-face communication about the design, animation or file. Often circular conversations happen on the phone, or via IM, sometimes even in the same suite, which can quickly be cleared up, perhaps by simply pointing. The third reason is the higher quality of work that results from collaborating in person.
More importantly, working in the same space fosters bonds that forge memorable experiences, which generates new thoughts, ideas and approaches. This is a true โcollective.โ
Inspiration is subjective and to be found everywhereโin books, magazines, fabrics, plants, maps, music, food, wineโand when personally shared become the roots of inspiration that pushes a project beyond the initial creative and drives it to the best possible solution.
So indeed go forth, face to face, into the creative horizon.
A Nomination Tradition: DGA Award, Best Director Oscar Discrepancy Continues
The awards season norm has seen the nearly annual occurrence of at least one difference between the lineups of Best Director Oscar and the DGA Award nominees. In only five of the 77 years of the DGA Awards have the Guild nominations exactly mirrored their Academy Award counterparts. This time around Edward Berger and Coralie Fargeat are in line with the predominant history. Fargeat earned a Best Director Oscar nomination this week for The Substance (MUBI). Berger, who didnโt make the directorial Oscar cut, earned a DGA Award nomination for Conclave (Focus Features). Four of the five directors vying for the DGA Award and the Outstanding Achievement in Directing Oscar are in sync this year: Jacques Audiard for Emilia Pรฉrez (Netflix) Sean Baker for Anora (Neon), Brady Corbet for The Brutalist (A24), and James Mangold for A Complete Unknown (Searchlight). On the flip side of tradition, if Fargeat were to win the directing Oscar, that development wouldnโt be aligned with but rather bucking history. Only eight times has the DGA Award winner not gone on to win the Oscar. That happened most recently in 2020 when Sam Mendes won the DGA Award for 1917 while Bong Joon-ho scored the Oscar for Parasite. Fargeat has already made a bit of history, scoring just the 10th Best Director Oscar nomination ever for a woman. The Substance is up for five Oscars--the other nominations being for Best Picture, Leading Actress (Demi Moore), Original Screenplay (Fargeat), and Makeup & Hairstyling (Pierre-Olivier Persin, Stephanie Guillon, Marilyne Scarselli). Even without a Best Director nomination, Conclave tallied eight Oscar nods--for Best Picture, Leading Actor (Ralph... Read More