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daveinediting · 2 months

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Don't get me wrong. I can work in a bubble if I have to. I can work far, far away. I can excel with a number of different skill sets and communicate those solely through the cloud.

I can do all those things and do them well.

Remotely.

In my own bubble.

But.

What makes my work emotionally dynamic and exciting, what keeps me coming back...

Is collaborating in person. Planting ideas in each other's minds. Pitching ideas. Allowing those ideas to marinate until one day BAM. A lightbulb over someone else's head. Or a long sought after solution.

There's something about being stuck or unsure and being able to walk over to a colleague and go

Hey. Can you take a look at this?

Sometimes that's for a bit of Show 'n Tell, I won't lie. A few times it's for the tiniest bit of venting. Most of the time it's the thing where I'm stuck or unsure and I need another pair of eyes on the thing that's giving me grief. And the moments I love best are the ones that seem to percolate in the background until they announce themselves right up front and inspiring in-person conversations, troubleshooting, brainstorming, problem solving, advice giving, Show 'n Tell, and yes.

Venting.

It's all part of an experiential recipe, a wonderful dynamic where ideas move between people and something happens. Their brains, their creative minds, do a thing. Often right under the noses of our awareness. Other times something we can almost see.

A process that happens in the space between two people.

It's a helluva thing. It really is.

It's just different, is all. Collaborating in-person with fellow Creatives is a dynamic, amazing experience that never gets old.

Don't get me wrong. I can work in a bubble if I have to.

But man. I don't wanna have to.

🤨🤔😉

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daveinediting · 3 months

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Here's the top of the List of Abilities I'd Prefer To NOT Have In My Wheelhouse:

Working with people remotely.

Don't get me wrong. I can do it and do it well. Unfortunately, the experience has been positively ruined by a show I watch on Amazon called Upload.

Here's the show's Wiki premise:

In 2033, humans can "upload" themselves into a virtual afterlife of their choosing. When computer programmer Nathan Brown dies prematurely, he is uploaded to the very expensive Lakeview, but then finds himself under the thumb of his possessive, still-living girlfriend Ingrid.

There's waaaaaaaay more to the story, of course, but the main innovation's that people in the afterlife can still communicate with friends, loved ones, anyone really, in the physical world.

And how do they do that?

Messaging and video chats top the list. In one episode, the main character and his best friend go on a "walking tour" of New York City. They see and hear the tour through an iPad-like device on which their faces take up most of the screen.

Video chats.

FaceTime.

Zoom.

In my mind, they're all essential parts of a fictional, virtual afterlife that I can now not get out of my head. Which is why now when I work with someone remotely, solely through messaging, voice, or video chat...

When I don't in any way work with them physically...

It's hard to avoid thinking that I'm collaborating with someone in the virtual afterlife so extensively detailed in Upload.

Don't know what to tell you about that.

Upload thoroughly messed up my experience of working with people remotely.

😕🤨🤔🤯

#professional abilities #remote work #upload #communication #messaging #voice #video chat #facetime #zoom #virtual afterlife #collaborating #upload amazon original

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daveinediting · 3 months

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Last Wednesday a friend passed along a TikTok video that featured some crazy new tech. I won't tell you which one it is 'cause there's always crazy new tech.

Take your pick.

The difference about this particular crazy new tech is that it lit up specific ideas for using it in a professional environment. One of my professional environments. Most importantly, it was immediately obvious to me how to pitch this to a client.

Not twenty four hours go by and I'm talking to a producer. The discussion lights up more ideas and possibilities including one out of the box idea that involves costume and special effects make-up.

Coupla hours later I'm talking to my boss, lighting his brain on fire because he too sees possibilities and opportunities and sounds like he's ready to take this new tech out for a trial run... which is the next step regardless.of where we go with this.

Me, I'm now thinking about the profile of the kind of client for whom we would package a service crafted around this tech. There's definitely a lot of questions. Definitely a lot of variables.

The point I'm underlining, though, has nothing to do with crazy new tech or even business opportunities.

It has to do with ideas...

And how to feed them.

Friend of mine sent me a TikTok video that lit up my brain and I marinated those thoughts on my own for a while. Then I talked to a producer who broadened my thinking and inspired more thoughts, more possibilities, more opportunities. And then I spoke with my boss for a pretty lengthy deep dive into how we would use this tech, why we would use this tech, and who we'd pitch it to.

My point is the care and feeding of ideas. Because I didn't have a fully developed idea when I saw the video... I don't have a fully developed idea now.

I do have a better one, though. One that's fleshed out. One that bears more variables and possibilities.

Eventually the process becomes one of narrowing, of crafting something strategic.

At the start, though?

It's about getting every variable on the table and thinking about how each connects with others and what your place in that network is.

No idea, by the way, what's to become of my current mental fishing expedition. What I will say is that even if my efforts come to naught in either the short-term or the long-term, the mental exercise itself is good one for me 'cause ideas and how they connect are my thing.

So...

Does the exercise work?

Well, all I can tell you is that when I was still in school taking a business class, the teacher ran us through a similar exercise involving particular types of companies, how they could work together, and what they might achieve.

I was clueless, by the way. And came up with exactly nothing.

I had nothing while other students managed to come up with pretty slick ideas. Not sure how they came up with those ideas but for me, right now...

Mental exercises make them happen.

😁

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daveinediting · 5 months

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In the beginning, I was a reader.

Actually, I was a listener to stories my parents read to me. I was also a listener to Disney records my parents would play for me. The one I remember most? 101 Dalmatians.

I've still got Cruella's voice in my head from that record.

Reading's a thing that happened in grade school. In class, of course, but also selections from those Scholastic catalogs our teachers would hand out. I remember the first two books I ordered were ghost story collections. Then, later on, I got into DC's horror comics that I'd buy down at the local 7-11. In 1977, I caught Starlog issue 6 out of the corner of my eye at the local grocery store. I bought it and kept buying each new issue.

So.

I was a listener in the beginning who eventually became an avid reader as well.

In third grade, our teacher, Mrs. Lohse, gave us opportunities to write our own "books". We'd write a story, turn it in, after which it was typed up by a parent who left room for pictures on some of the pages. We'd then add a thin cardboard cover to those pages, title and illustrate the cover, add illustrations where there was room on the typed pages, staple down the middle three times, fold the pages and cover right over the stapes and voila!

A book.

I was absolutely hooked.

And so I became a writer, too. I don't remember much more writing in grade school but I do remember analyzing stories like "The Price of the Head" in Mr. Allen's Language Arts class, the first time I remember discussing the craft of writing. Then Mr. Hodges in High School, one of two Creative Writing classes I took in High School with more writing analysis like Contemporary Lit in college as well as more creative writing. And then more in-depth analyses on books like Nancy Freedman's "Joshua, Son of None" and Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein". And then a coupla plays, high school satires about our class which my friends read at lunch.

I got all the laughs I was going for. Which only got me more hooked.

Then in college I picked up more game in Copywriting and Advertising Campaigns while pursuing my university major. The two classes between them involved a combination of persuasive writing and creative writing.

Okay now rewind a bunch. Because I was also a musician. Or, at least, my parents signed me up for piano lessons when I was in grade school. I remember basic music classes in school, by the way, rudimentary music theory (Tah, Tah, Tee-Tee, Tah) and actual play performances. The top two plays that come to mind are a big deal lead role in a play put on by my Boy Scouts troop at my grade school... and The Ghost of Christmas Past in A Christmas Carol.

My parents made sure I rehearsed. Know what I mean? They would record the entire play except for my lines so, as I followed along listening, they would pause the recording so that I could say my line for that moment, and then un-pause it until my next line. In the Boy Scouts play, I had a ton of lines so it was pretty easy to know where they went.

I still remember how excited our den mother was at my performance. Either because I the best actor ever, or...

Her expectations weren't super high to begin with.

Either way, that kind of excitement over something I'd done was addicting.

Definitely memorable.

Somewhere in there, I also joined the boy choir at church that later turned into being a member of the adult church choir. So yeah. Music music music. Choir choir choir. Rehearse rehearse rehearse. Perform perform perform.

All these activities continued through Jr. High and High School in different variations. The music. The singing. The musicals. And then around Junior or Senior year in high school, my parents helped me buy a basic synthesizer. Shortly after, I saved up and bought another one that could do more. And then not long after that my parents gave me a multitrack cassette recorder for Christmas. A friend of mine who was a guitar player (relentlessly practicing Pete Townshend's guitar parts from classic Who songs, mostly "Pinball Wizard") jumped right into the opportunity and we started writing and recording songs. And then later I'd rent more advanced synths from American Music in order to write and record even more complex songs. Even later still, a friend of ours who was a drummer with his own kit and his own backlog of songs joined in.

The writing and recording continued through college where I took to a major in Advertising with the intent of starting a career in that endeavor within the local advertising community at an ad agency. Not long after I graduated, though, I realized I didn't want a career in advertising.

Whoops.

Later that same year, I caught a flyer in the mail about The Art Institute of Seattle, went to their open house, and was into my first quarter of the Music & Video Business program that December.

Around that same time, my Advertising Campaigns professor hooked me up with his contact at Instructional Media Services on campus that started me working as a cable channel operator and turned into a position on the production crew at IMS.

At The Art Institute, I picked up the basics of editing which was fortunate because I also picked up an opportunity to be an assistant editor for one of the producers at IMS who was starting his own production company to produce travel shows for public television. It's for that company that I later became an editor and then much later a composer and then somewhere in there a pinch-hitter for motion graphic design.

Same deal at IMS that eventually became UW Video.

And also now on projects for which I do the one-man band thing in my home studio. Editing. Graphics/motion graphics. Music.

I'm still an avid reader, by the way. And I'm still an even more avid writer.

It's how I process my thoughts across a number of arenas personal, professional, and a few things on the outside.

All of that experience, by the way, centered me in a particular way: music. That and writing were my thing. Therefore musicians and writers were my people. Which was fortunate because in my career path, writers were also most often producers in need of editors. So it was helpful to share some of the same headspace. And musicians,well...

A lot of people in my life are musicians in some way. Which is how it was in school. Most of my friends were in choir. So music's how I identified. Music's how I thought of myself. It was the context in which I thought of myself.

It's the way I engaged the world.

So.

The other day I was in a conversation about school districts, budget cuts, fine arts and performing arts. We were discussing how the arts in general are understood to be elective, accessories if you will, to serious education. And how the one school district was down to one full-time music teacher.

One.

Which tells you just where the school district's cutting back.

It also brought to mind everything I wrote about just now. It brought to mind the question of what my life would be if I didn't have that thread of music classes and opportunities running through my education. If I didn't have an environment of creativity in which to engage the world in the way I'm wired to engage the world.

I was definitely ADHD boy in school. "Hyperactive" was another word for it. As was "distractible". "High energy" would be a very nice way to put it. "Verbal" would be another.

Of course "talks in class" is how it was typically phrased on my report card. And not in a good way.

Definitely definitely definitely I wasn't for every teacher going back to first grade. Not every teacher could handle me. I got in trouble a bunch. My parents got notes a bunch. I was graded down because of my "citizenship". And a number of teachers yelled.

However.

There were other teachers, Thank God, who could or knew just how to manage me. My guess is that they were either wired similarly or simply knew what they were doing. Of course the ones who contributed the most to who I am were language and literature teachers and music teachers who also consistently modeled a professionalism I didn't recognize until later.

It's not nothing, is what I'm trying to say, the Arts.

They're defining.

They take you places. They connect you to certain people immediately.

And yeah.

You can build your entire life on them.

😁

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daveinediting · 6 months

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When my daughter was in high school she had some friends who placed logic on such a high pedestal that they found little use for the creative mind. They judged it chaotic and distracting. Yet they were all profound Star Wars fans.

I always found their fundamentalism ironic given the good folk at Industrial Light & Magic who were responsible for wrangling the vision of George Lucas onto the big screen, for manifesting the look of alien worlds and fantastic creatures, for designing and crafting all the ground vehicles, space ships, and battle gear... and for creating the sounds for all of it.

Oh suuuuuure.

That was absolutely all the product of pure logic.

My snarky point here is that we all enter into the world in different ways. Like we're wired to. We see it, process it, and engage with it differently from one another. And it's not for me to tell you how you should enter into the world just as it's not for you to tell me how I should enter into the world. We are each on our own path of optimizing the human beings we are.

Only... there are roadblocks along the way.

The other day I was in a conversation about school districts, budget cuts, fine arts and performing arts. We were discussing how the arts in general are understood to be elective, accessories if you will, to serious education.

Why?

No idea. But they are reliably the first to be thrown overboard when money gets tight. I would submit, however, that this choice isn't a simple question of perceived seriousness of educational purpose. It is, in fact, an act of defining the world for children.

Wait. What?

If a child is a Creative, removing the Arts is a de facto means of devaluing the child by devaluing the manner by which they enter into the world.

Now, I'm not concerned at all with hurt feelings. I'm not working myself up to outrage. I just know that there's a straight line from performing arts as a child all the way to and through my career as an adult. In retrospect, it's straight up performing arts with a creative writing chaser from grade school through college that optimized me into the version of me I am today. The one who's a verbal processor, a writer, a video editor, an intermediate with graphics and motion graphics tools, a professional composer with a daughter who's an even more professional composer, a producer, a performer, a sound engineer, who's in a couple bands, in the process of teeing up her own music brand.

We're all Creatives, you see. Verbal processors, each one, including my wife. And, unfortunately, one of the things we neglected to tell our daughter when she was growing up is that not everyone's a verbal processor. So she grew up thinking that everyone's like us and then couldn't figure out why so many people she met in the world were effectively opaque.

Whoops. Our bad.

So as a way of making up for that parental oversight, I remind her now on a pretty consistent basis that not everyone's a verbal processor. Not everyone can express themselves through writing. Not everyone has a passion in life they're pursuing. And not everyone's a Creative.

It's a difference that makes all the difference, my friends.

So.

During my conversation about school districts, budget cuts, fine arts and performing arts, my point was that school budget choices don't map at all onto types of human beings. They're based on an assumption. As if I could just as easily serve a non-creative purpose. As if I could just as easily excel in the hard sciences. As if I could just as easily be someone I'm not when, in fact, Creatives and non-Creatives, writers and non-writers, verbal processors and people who can't process verbally, passionate humans and non-passionate humans... are different species.

Absolutely different.

Species.

After all, it's not only men and women who are separately from different planets like Venus and Mars. The differences can be so profound at an individual level as to evoke the differences between Mercury and Pluto.

And yes. Pluto the planet, dammit. 🤨

These differences can be so alien, in fact, that they can be perceived as something wrong. As if because I don't connect with a subject in exactly the way others do... there's something wrong with me.

Tune into this example for a coupla minutes. I think you'll get what's up.

youtube

In the end, we are not all the same person with the same wiring but with different preferences. We're wired differently. And the requirements for optimizing each different human being varies by circumstance.

In the context of valuing or not valuing the Arts, we are not all the same human who can do Arts if there's money for it and can settle for everything but Arts when there's not. We are breathtakingly different human beings who each come into our own when there's money for it but are set adrift when there's not. As if...

There's something wrong with us.

When.

There's.

Not.

😑

#learning styles #processing styles #individuals #personality types #education #school budget choices #children #school #creativity #logic #reason #Youtube

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daveinediting · 6 months

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There's nothing like sharing in a moment where genuinely gifted individuals realize their giftedness.

Or, for the first time, acknowledge they are gifted.

And own it.

Friend of mine recently explained it to me this way: "People would tell me how talented I am but all I could think was yeah, but who am I?"

They also put it this way:

"Who am I to deserve that talent?"

And, by extension, who are they to take advantage of the opportunities that talent unlocks?

So they do nothing with it.

They don't pursue it.

They may shine a little from time to time but they don't allow their gift to become a lifelong professional passion.

In the meantime, there are people who wrongly overestimate their own abilities. They have such a dysfunctional self-awareness that they wield a breathtaking confidence to which people actually respond in a positive way.

Turns out confidence alone can take you a long way in this world. Not gonna lie.

In some ways these people feel like a modern riff on "The Emperor's New Clothes" by Hans Christian Andersen. In this case, there is no there there.

It's all attitude. No talent.

Yet.

Hidden away in the corners, along the sidelines, are the legitimately gifted. The marvelously talented.

There are, of course, many many many reasons why they are where they are. I can't presume to say I know all the reasons or understand each one fully. I only know what I've been told by incredibly talented people who live outside the spotlight. Bear in mind, too, that causes can be multivariable. There doesn't have to be just one cause. There can be several that, for lack of a better way of putting it, collaborate. As I understand them, there's a spectrum of mental health challenges, there's substance use prompted by all kinds of circumstance, there's trauma, PTSD, and then the factors of friend groups, income, neighborhoods and communities, opportunities, and families of origin.

Families of origin, by the way, is a full spectrum deal. There can be trauma there, yes. There can be physical, mental, sexual, emotional abuse, yes. There can be neglect. There can be family biases toward certain professions and away from others so that everyone knows what's expected when they become adults, yes. There can be dysfunctional relationships, you bet.

However.

There can also be this:

Creatives who are born into families that are not.

And yeah. People who aren't creatives, who are quite concrete individuals, often find it impossible to either understand creatives or value and delight in those things in which creatives value and delight. Definitely, people who aren't creatives don't process the world around them in the same way. A verbal processing creative in a family that can't similarly engage... is merely one example. And in that kind of mismatch within a family environment, the lack of encouragement is nothing more than a lack of understanding. Of not getting it.

Or.

It's a straight up inability to engage. As opposed to a choice not to.

Again. There's no enmity here. No ill will. No intent or condescension.

Just different personalities with different values focused on different areas of life.

Again, there are any number of reasons for a creative to not blossom. It takes a lot to grow 'em. It's no surprise then, that many never emerge from their cocoon. They never combine their mind boggling gifts with breathtaking confidence. And they never grab hold of opportunities in the relentless pursuit of a lifelong career.

They never step into the spotlight.

So there is.

There's nothing like sharing in a moment where genuinely gifted people actually own their giftedness. Where they realize who they are, what they're capable of and, most importantly, how rare they are.

How rare.

They are.

There's nothing like being there to unequivocally validate that feeling and relentless encourage them.

It's a moment that's all kinds of reasons for applause and cheers. And we will continue to normalize the idea that when you're gifted...

You don't have to be anyone.

You're already as much as you need to be. All that's left is to know that's who you are. For real.

And be that person in the world.

😊

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daveinediting · 6 months

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Continuing yesterday's observations about creative process, I'm trying out some other creative processes in a different arena. Yesterday was a non-exhaustive go at songwriting. The day before was a similar go at playwriting. And today it's...

Video editing.

Okay.

How we create what we create has enormous power over the shape of what we create. That is, different creative processes produce different creative outcomes. So if you want to create something you never created before, do what you do differently.

Use a different process.

For example, once upon a time technology only allowed editors to edit in sequence. You started from the start, worked your way through to the end.

Done.

Later, technology did a massive reset and now we could start anywhere and end anywhere. So, of course, when this happened I started at the start and worked my way through to the end.

Done.

If and when I wanted to skip over a section of a show, that was doable but I had to commit to a length for that section I was skipping. Typically, I'd skip the beginnings of shows as they tended to be best of sequences and I'd have a better idea of a show's best shots after I finished the show. I'd music and narration to determine the length of that section and start cutting for real afterward.

Later it hit me I really could start anywhere so I started with a section of show that caught my attention, that seemed like a fun sequence to build. Then I'd move to another part of the show that would be fun to build and so on and so on until I finally filled everything in.

Now, for any sequence in question, there were any number of ways to go about it. I could lay in narration and soundbites, then lay in the video, and then add the music.

Or.

I could lay in the music and narration and then add the video.

Or.

I could do a kind of combination where I started with music then added a line of narration, then added video and sync sound and, depending on how what I'd just done hit me, maybe I'd continue with the music. Maybe I'd continue with the video. Maybe I'd continue with the narration. I'd leap frog around like that until I had a finished sequence.

Later, I threw myself into watching every piece of footage, tagging what I loved most, what I thought was strongest. The effort allowed me to visualize the show. To think of it, imagine it, before conjuring it into the real world.

Later still, I wouldn't even be in the edit suit. I'd be entirely someplace else. Outside even. I'd just read the script over and over and over and over. I'd imagine the kind of show that went with that script. I'd imagine the video and music. I'd imagine the sections where there was no music at all... just the sound of being there.

And so on.

All that imagining gave me an interesting sense of right and wrong once I started putting a show together.

In the end, when it comes to editing, especially editing against the clock, I've done it every which way. From a completely blank screen with no plan to an effort that's thoroughly plotted out in advance. For every element of a show, I prioritized each one at different times. I allowed each one to take the lead, in that way directing how the others should be involved. I made music my priority. I made the sound of being there my priority. I made the narration my priority.

Each of these approaches (and others) created different shows. They created different sections of shows. They changed things up. I don't know better or worse... but I do know absolutely different. And yes. Some were fast and easier to accomplish than others which was a factor. When I didn't have time, I'd prioritize narration. When I did have time, I'd allow for personal discovery.

So.

During the course of my editing career I absolutely chased different outcomes.

By using different creative processes.

😊

#creativity #creative process #creative strategy #prioritizing #editing #music #narration #sync sound #linear editing #nonlinear editing

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daveinediting · 6 months

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After finishing yesterday's observations about creative process, it occurred to me to try it out in a number of different contexts. Yesterday was a non-exhaustive go at playwriting. Today...

Songwriting.

Okay so.

How we create what we create has enormous power over the shape of what we create.

One more time with a twist: different creative processes produce different creative outcomes.

Or this: If you want to create something you never created before, do what you do differently.

For example, were I to undertake writing a song, I could write about something that's intensely on my mind. Let the words and music flow from that inspiration.

Or.

I could create or craft the music first and then sculpt lyrics to and around that music.

Or.

I could write the lyrics first and then sculpt music around and under those lyrics.

However.

From where does the inspiration for the words, music, or words and music spring?

Well...

The words can spring from our own experience.

Or.

The words can spring from something purely fictional.

Or.

The words can take their inspiration from something we read.

Or.

The words can flow from the sights, sounds, the rhythms of daily life. The streets. The stores. The conversations. The ambience of real life.

Or.

The music can take its inspiration from something we heard before.

Or.

The music can take its inspiration from a particular sound or instrument.

Or.

We can begin writing the music on a keyboard.

Or.

We can begin writing the music on a guitar.

Or.

We can begin writing the music to a particular rhythm.

Or.

We can imagine the music.

Or.

We can imagine the finished song.

Or.

We can write the music directly into a blank score.

Or.

We can write the music in the studio.

Or.

We can write the music on our back porch.

Or.

We can write the music on the shores of a lake.

Or.

We can write the music on the bus.

And so on.

Each of these approaches (and others) creates different songs. I don't know better or worse... but I do know absolutely different.

So.

Wanna different outcome?

Use a different creative process.

:-)

#creative process #creative strategy #songwriting #lyric writing #composing #creativity

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daveinediting · 6 months

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How we create what we create has enormous power over the shape of what we create.

One more time with a twist: different creative processes produce different creative outcomes.

For example, were I to undertake writing a play, I could create a number of characters, place them into a particular situation, and document the narrative that flows.

Or.

I could determine what the play's about from the get-go, plot the whole thing from beginning to end, and then write my way through, scene by scene.

Or.

I could get a group of actors together to workshop character and relationships and scenes to work through the story organically.

Or.

I could give myself a month of personal experience with friends and family and strangers, at home, at work, and everywhere in-between. I would write down any dialogue that caught my ear, any stories that caught my ear, and situations that caught my eye, any ideas that arose. After that month, I'd give myself another month, and then after that month I'd look at my notes from the month of experiences to see if a story can be conjured from what I observed and what I heard.

Or.

I could comb for ideas on the internet, news papers/websites, and magazines for ideas, topics, and characters to fictionalize.

Or.

I'd write or sketch ideas in a location that's most like a location I foresee as part of my story.

Or.

I'd do all my writing outdoors. Even just the part where I'm getting the story on its feet.

Or.

I'd sketch characters, ideas, and scenes in an art journal.

Or.

I'd lay out the initial characters and scenes in a comic strip format.

Or.

I'd imagine myself sitting in a darknened theater moments before my play's to start and ask myself Okay. What happens next?

What do I see?

What do I hear?

Why does it happen?

What does it mean?

What happens after that?

And so on.

Each of those approaches (and more) creates different stories. I don't know better or worse... but I do know absolutely different.

So.

Wanna different outcome?

Use a different creative process.

I live by that, by the way.

Never fails.

:-)

#creative process #creative strategy #creativity #creative hack

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daveinediting · 6 months

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We are not.

Who we are right now.

Forever.

We are not who we are right now forever.

Thank God.

Especially as Creatives, we can't be locked into one way of doing what we do indefinitely. Because we grow we change we meet new people we hear new things we learn new things our brains make new connections our brains play around with these new connections and BAM.

In the spirit of the coming holiday, we adopt different masks, different identities, as we grow confident in our super powers.

We are not now.

Who we were.

A week ago.

Or a month or two ago. Or a year.

We level up, is what I'm getting at.

Oh sure, we obviously get better throughout our careers bit by bit. But there do come times when our experience builds to a critical mass and we, yeah.

We level up.

I worked with a producer for a good chunk of my life who's aware of the leveling up that transpired in my professional career.

And when it transpired.

That leveling up's a helluva thing, by the way. You're a different Creative with different superpowers and a different Creative identity, in a way.

You don't roll the way you previously rolled.

You're confident in a way you weren't.

And you're brain's different. Wired differently.

Thank God.

A few days ago, I noticed a fellow creative had leveled up and suggested they take another pass at something they'd done before they leveled up.

Why? they asked.

Because you're a different person I said.

No idea why, by the way. They just are. And this person, this different person will approach the same work from a higher elevation with a different skill set and a different mind set.

We all have access to the same tools, of course. It's how we use those tools that pins us to a specific level of ability and creative prowess. And on such occasions we sense that leveling up, it's completely worthwhile to visit, re-visit our latest work from a previous level.

Because that work, too, can level up.

It can.

Thank God.

😊

#creative ability #growing up #learning #brain connections #collaborating #confidence #creative super powers #ability levels #creative process

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daveinediting · 6 months

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The key is: how do we want to spend our time?

Okay so lately, the topic of boundaries has come up interestingly often, though not in the way I'm used to.

Usually, I think of boundaries as keeping out toxic people or intrusive requests. What's come up lately is about creating space for better professional experiences. Which also means letting go of specific work in order to pursue more satisfying and rewarding work.

In one case the client/service provider relationship was a brutal mismatch. One of the parties was unpredictable, disrespectful of schedules, and undermined decisions already made even when those decisions were actively being implemented until finally...

One of the parties had enough and respectfully backed out of the relationship.

How do we want to spend our time?

Professionalism aside, if we're going to pursue a career across years and decades, what do we want that experience to be? Because I won't lie. Dysfunction abounds. Lack of communication skills, lack of social skills, lack of management skills is rampant.

Not every client is worth having.

Not every service provider is worth hiring.

What do you want.

Your experience to be?

Tied into knowing what you want is also knowing your worth. A lot of that's your experience, your resume, of course. A lot of it's the opinions of co-workers and past clients. A lot of it's comparing your work with the work of your cohort. Not just the final product but also the client service, your communication skills, your social adeptness, your ability to manage your client toward a win-win.

From the other side of the counter, the hiring end, knowing what you want can be just as straight forward as knowing what you want. It can also be about comparing notes with your cohort, with people who're in your shoes, with mentors. Because you're not only looking for the right person or company to do the job, you're looking for the right person or company to do the job.

What.

Do you want the experience to be?

And don't settle for anything else.

It's important to take a hard pass on dysfunctional working relationships because they're so rampant in the work environment.

Now, the other conversations that come to mind that dance with boundaries are similar to my first example while being more preemptive. They all involve work that the professionals in question don't want to do anymore. This isn't about bailing in the middle of projects. It's about no longer accepting projects from certain clients.

This is a complicated call to make, by the way. Especially early on when any paid job in our industry is the objective. Or especially when you've got something that's got to get done. Definitely in the early going of my career I took everything. No questions asked. I kept working everything. And there was stuff in there that wasn't healthy... but I overlooked it so I could keep having a job in my industry.

Whoops.

Because just as there's such a consideration as quality of life, there's also such a thing as quality of work life.

And it's important to get that right because a poor quality of work life can be demoralizing. It degrades our best work and our best professional selves. And it can convince us we don't want to do what we've been trying to do this whole time. Or that maybe we're not good enough. Or maybe we just don't belong.

There's only so much of our lives we can dedicate to work, you see. And if 100% of it sucks then...

100% of it sucks. If 80 then 80. If 50 then 50. And so on.

The question is, how much of our careers do we allow to suck? How much negative experience do we allow to rob us of our Muchness? How much dysfunction do we allow to color our lives?

These are all personal calls, of course. I would only suggest that working in such circumstances is not sustainable. Like any other pressure that bears down on us, we can't bear this pressure indefinitely. Because day after day that pressure transforms us into lesser versions of ourselves.

Lesser versions.

Of ourselves.

So.

The ball we've gotta keep our eye on is What kind of professional experience do I want to define my career?

Not joking, by the way. The job itself is not enough. If it were, then there wouldn't have been any people in my first jobs who had to attend mandatory anger management classes. There wouldn't have been any people who were habitually triggered into public displays of anger including shouting profanities, yelling at coworkers, throwing items from pens and pencils to furniture, and pouring gasoline over already existing dysfunctional work relationships.

What kind of professional experience do you want to define your career?

You achieve it by relentlessly seeking out and working jobs that are professionally fulfilling with people who bring out your best.

Which means letting go of jobs that are professionally debilitating. Getting them out of our lives as quickly as possible because the cost of not doing so is steep. They undermine our professional quality of life and eventually compromise our straight up quality of life.

Letting these jobs loose indefinitely in our careers is like tolerating cancer.

It does nothing, they do nothing but metastasize.

Now I said before the key is: how do we want to spend our time?

The answer to that question is absolutely defining. It addresses such a huge area of our lives that it demands an answer. And, with that answer in mind, we're enabled to draw to ourselves the right experiences and throw away the wrong ones.

It's not a simple task, mind you. I don't want to give the wrong impression.

But it is the most important action we take on our own behalf to manifest careers that are not only fulfilling but also contribute to bringing about our best selves...

And our best lives.

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daveinediting · 7 months

Text

Rolling the Dice

I had the opportunity the other day to take a look at footage for an as yet to be completed documentary.

I was being asked how long it would take to cut and, after discussing with the producer the client's project goals and sampling the footage to date, my best professional advice was that the shooting wasn't yet done. For very specific reasons I articulated, the shooting wasn't done yet. There were still more interviews to shoot with specific aims in mind to fulfill what I understand so far to be the purpose of the story that's trying to be told.

Aside from that, I took a look at the previous work of the production company that was crafting content for this client. A very impressive body of work. Big shoes to fill.

My primary takeaway from the one documentary they produced so far was a profound admiration for how they used music. But for one time in my career, I never employed music in the manner I observed in their previous documentary.

And I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.

The obvious move, Magic Box 1, is to use the composer/musician/band that's credited in the previous documentary.

In Magic Box 2, the move is to seek out the band I used that one time in my career through the efforts of a producer with whom I still work.

And in Magic Box 3...

Okay this is rolling the dice. Which is laying out my objective to a local producer I know and asking them how they would approach this challenge.

Of course the question is super premature since there's nothing for them to actually look at, nothing for them around and through which to imagine music.

So why roll the dice when the obvious course is right in front of me?

Because there's time.

Time?

Yeah. Time for a wildcard. Time to get someone else's thoughts on how to approach what I'm thinking about. Someone with more experience in this area who has a much better handle on what can be done.

Not just what I imagine could be done.

Like I said, there's time. And when there's time, there's plenty of latitude to dance with the possibilities.

Even when you don't know what those possibilities are.

So long as you know someone who does.

☺️

#creativity #creative process #documentary

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daveinediting · 8 months

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"One big happy family" isn't one of my favorite sayings nor is it imagery of which I'm particularly fond.

However.

I was reminded yesterday that we are connected in random and unexpected ways.

Seriously.

Random.

And unexpected ways.

Even for me who, within the last few days, pitched someone on the idea of professional community... I was absolutely taken by surprise. I was taken by surprise even knowing the how of moving through a career in tandem with a network of others whose skills are complimentary. People who are in a position to hire. People who are in a position to be hired. And people who are colleagues with whom to collaborate.

A professional community moving through individual careers in sync with each other.

And how do these professionals find one another?

The most natural way is a school cohort. After that, a cohort that's drawn to the same work in the same location. After that, my suggestion to this person starting out on their career was to fully throw themselves into growing their talents while pursuing every opportunity to put those talents in play with others. It's a way of naturally gravitating toward birds of a feather who almost never do just the one thing. So they might play golf, you might play golf, and it turns out you're both veterinary students. Or it turns out you're a screenwriter and your golf partner is a director. Or it turns out you're a vocalist and your golf partner is a composer.

And so on.

In the case of the person I was encouraging, they're a vocalist, play a coupla instruments, and compose music. So my advice was lean into each of, all of those passions because the last composer I worked with was plucked out of a choir by a producer who was also a member of that choir.

No joke.

You use your skills, talents, and passions to enter into the world and filter from it people who are much like yourself. Who become your professional community.

Your network.

As I said before, though, I was reminded yesterday that we are connected in random and unexpected ways.

And those ways, regardless of how random and unexpected, still bear fruit. They still contain opportunities.

So what happened?

I was at a restaurant where, about a half hour in I was recognized by someone whose path I crossed while I was doing some shooting and editing once upon a time. And our experience catching up turned into a shared interest over something on which I'm now working and to which they can open a door or two. This is more than ten years later, by the way.

It's definitely on the extreme end of random and unexpected, I won't lie. But even from such things are professional communities made and grown.

Back in the day, when the idea of networking was explained to us, it seemed very... phony. Inauthentic. It also seemed calculated. Too calculated.

The thing is, though, at the time I was judgemental about the idea, I was already doing it. I was already working at a studio with a group of others who were a de facto network. Of course the school at which I learned about networking, the one in which we were rubbed the wrong way by the concept, well, we were a cohort. I met my first production partner there and we continued forward from that moment into our careers. And during the course of our careers we met people and met people and met people.

Not always in the context of production, mind you. But always in the context of something about which we were passionate.

So there I am indulging these thoughts when it comes to me that it's gonna be tough for someone who's an introvert.

It's gonna be tough for someone who's committed to doing it all on their own. It's gonna be tough for someone who's looking for magic beans or a magic bean to conjure a full-blown career from thin air. It's gonna be tough for someone who wants to just post that thing that'll make everyone want to hire them.

Those may be fair things to want for some careers but not for creative professionals who work with other human beings on a daily basis. And whose careers can blossom as they become known within their network both for what they can do...

And how they do it.

We are connected in random and unexpected ways.

Which is not something to be frustrated by or afraid of.

It's an opportunity. A unique path toward not only building a career... but building a life.

#connections #networking #professional community #career #talents #abilities #cohorts #passion #creative professionals #collaboration #life

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daveinediting · 8 months

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As always, once I start focusing my thoughts on a specific creative challenge, at some point something somewhere inside my brain starts connecting the dots and expanding the canvas.

I have no idea how that works, it just does. 🤔

Anyway, I've been at this for the last coupla weeks, considering how a particular stage production should manifest itself. How it should look, feel, and sound to an audience. And a few days ago I managed to set some objectives and strategies to the endeavor: the kind of experience being crafted... and some specific tools that could be used to craft the experience. An essential first step.

Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the album release party for a local band. It was profoundly energized from start to finish, a show fit for even larger concert venues with its huge production value both in visuals and sound. I paid attention to my experience, how I responded to each song performance in the moment... and I paid attention to how the audience, packed wall to wall, front to back, responded. Which is basically me observing what excels, how performances land, the energy dynamic of the audience across the entire show, what the different experiences between the song performances are... and why.

The concert definitely gave me a heightened appreciation for production value and the impact it has on audience experience.

So then a coupla days go by and I'm hanging out with a friend who's a musician. They're sharing some music with me that's absolutely captured their reverence. So we listen to the songs and I realize some things.

The first is that some songs work better than others in concert. Because "in concert" is a wild sonic environment. It's not an environment made for appreciating subtleties and details. It's a crafted experience. And within that experience, certain things are possible and certain things are not.

I listened to one song that was simple in its production that would definitely land in a concert environment (which caused and still causes me to remember another such song that failed in that environment but I know why it failed). I listened to another, quite different song with spoken vocal loops and complex rhythms that would also fully land in a concert environment. And we did talk about the kinds of songs that wouldn't work as well and why. Among which are songs that are dense in language that doesn't get processed in real time when competing with complex music arrangements and just the energy of the room.

In a live environment, each word of a song can land and land hard... as opposed to other songs where the music might not be memorable and most of the words can sort of mentally slip by without leaving evidence of having been heard.

Or even written.

We kept listening because suddenly I was learning a lot. Having an insight-fest. As in traditionally what's crafted for record is performed for a live audience. The best recordings, of course. The most popular. Which makes sense in a prior world with older technology and different assumptions.

But how about this?

Certain creative endeavors are best experienced as recordings

Certain creative endeavors are best experienced live, and

Certain creative endeavors can exist at their best in both circumstances either as is or in some variation.

Meaning...

Release some efforts for recording only. Release some efforts for live experiences only. And release some efforts for both.

And then a fully formed experience came to me.

Why?

I'm guessing because of the critical mass developing during this moment of insight upon insight. So now I have an idea for the stage production I've been considering the last coupla weeks. Doesn't have to be the beginning of the show... but it can be.

The idea is based on one of the songs in the stage production that references the city of Paris. Which made me think of traveling. Which made me think of family vacations. Which made me think—because I'm of a certain age—of family vacation slide shows of old. Or family vacations as captured on 8mm film and shown in the living room with a projector.

And so on.

Later, I was talking to the composer of the stage show, pitching them my idea on how that piece of the show could work. And then they had an idea of how they thought what I described could be performed another way, each idea leaning into a different objective for the audience experience. Which is great. Because they're trying to craft an audience experience. And where the song lands in the overall performance and what the demands of that moment are...

Will determine the how of how the song should be presented.

Anyway... it was a helluva morning.

The kind I love most.

😁

#creative #creativity #creative process #creative strategy #black box #creative challenge #focus #critical thinking #diffuse thinking #audience experience #objectives #strategies #performance #production value #audience response #show dynamic #inspiration

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daveinediting · 9 months

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You can, I can, we can... through the sheer force of imagination, conjure from thin air music, lyrics, experience, and emotion in the service of something greater.

Wait. Greater?

For example, I've been giving a considerable amount of thought to solo acts. Not bands but performances that are centered on a single individual who, through technical prowess, conjures a fully arranged and orchestrated sound.

Unfortunately, such solo acts always feel like a DJ. When you see them on stage, you think...

DJ.

So the question is: how do you not?

If that's you on stage delivering a highly produced musical performance on your own...

How do you avoid coming across like a DJ?

The obvious answer to me is that this can't be a performance structured as if this was a band instead of a single individual. It can't be the usual audience experience because it's not the usual audience experience unless the dynamic of a full band's involved.

It also can't look like or feel like a DJ. So it can't just be someone introducing songs and then performing them.

Hmmmmmm. Isn't that the heart of a solo performance with full arrangement and orchestration?

Sure. But solo performances only work as such when one instrument's involved. Once we delve into a number of sounds and instruments that a single individual cannot produce in real time... that's when we're in DJ territory.

So then what?

Then we have to reach for something bands typically don't or can't do. We have to reach for another category of performance that makes sense. That it makes sense the experience is being guided by a lone individual.

"Guided" is a good word, by the way. "Personal", a word implied by the idea of a single individual, is also a good word.

So that's where we begin: a personal, guided tour.

Of what, though?

We'll get to that in a moment. Why? Because we've not satisfied the idea of something full band's either don't or can't do. Of course I'm sure that's a category of many possibilities for a multitude of reasons.

Here's what pops for me, though:

Spoken word.

And multimedia.

What?

Lemme reiterate. A single musician producing more sounds and instruments than is possible in real time comes off as a DJ. Or worse: someone engaged in Karaoke.

Therefore.

The challenge becomes one of elevating the reality of being a solo performer in command of a whole arsenal of instruments, sound design, vocal effects and layering... into something that can only be done by a single individual with access to actual and virtual instruments, prerecorded individual music tracks, and sound effects.

The challenge is to create a performance that should only be done but a so-equipped individual.

How?

By treating the entire performance as if it's a single performance. Stand-up comedy comes to mind here. Dramatic monologues come to mind. As do one-person shows like Carrie Fisher's "Wishful Drinking" in 2009 or Whoopie Goldberg's "Direct from Broadway" in 1985.

Since tech makes it possible, the spoken word can play against sound design moving underneath. Of course words can also play against both still and motion imagery. As can the actual music performances. So when I said earlier "in the service of something greater", this is what I had in mind: reaching for a higher level of performance.

This isn't all about tech, though. It's guided... by the personal. The tech serves an experiential, emotional narrative with a beginning, middle, and end. Even before the actual start of show, where audience members are taking their seats, even that experience can be underscored with sound design much like Pink Floyd's 1977 tour in support of their newly released album "Animals". Which brings to mind all the sound design and dialogue baked into "The Wall" and baked into "The Final Cut".

It's a balancing act, all these elements. For sure. Definitely it's easy to be overwhelmed by the possibilities. But only those possibilities that serve the experiential and emotional story arc, the spine of the entire performance... are the ones we care about.

Everything else?

We ignore.

We absolutely ignore.

That being the case, it's natural to start easy even if it's just determining the sound design while the audience is taking their seats. It's a straight up exercise of imagination to think about what the sound design should be and why. And the ideas that arise from that thinking inevitably act as a hand-off to what comes next.

Songwriting, like many forms of writing and performance, is a merging of the fictional and non-fictional. At the very least it's a dramatization of human experience with certain liberties taken for the sake of rhythm and reason and emotion. Which means we can exert a tremendous amount of control of what happens and how it lands. Which also means that, from an audience's point of view, the measure of their experience isn't in whether a thing is fiction or non-fiction... but how it plays, how it hits, and where it hits.

Think of "Hamilton" for example.

So yeah.

There are a lot of ways to approach creative challenges. There are lots of ways to create something from nothing. Mostly, I employ variations centered on my own point of view. Recently, though, I've been thinking about the role, what role the audience should play in that process.

After all, we're crafting this experience for them.

🤔

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daveinediting · 9 months

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Yesterday, as a different way to approach creative challenges, I described the process of putting myself in the audience's seat and asking one of two questions:

1) what is the experience they're having, and

2) what is the experience I want them to have.

These are not mutually exclusive questions, by the way. They can work in tandem if I want hem to. They can bounce off each other. They can collaborate.

It's weird how that works (or even that it can and does work) but the only important thing to understand is that this process is real. It produces results.

It creates something from nothing.

And that something it creates can be pretty tasty. I won't lie.

That's the only time I've used that process, by the way. The only time it ever came up was in a non-professional context.

Recently, though, the process came back to mind. The first time was in the context of songwriting, the idea being not to write for the album but to write for the performance.

To write.

For the performance.

Without having composed a single note, written a word of lyrics, the idea's to place yourself in the venue, whichever venue you're most likely to play. Put yourself in the seat and ask—

What's the experience you're having?

Or perhaps approach it from the opposite direction: what experience do you as a writer and composer, as a fellow human being, want the audience to have. What's the dynamic? What's the narrative of the performance itself.

By the way, the narrative doesn't have to be plot-driven. It can be a thoroughly emotional journey. One that's easily recognizable to any human being of your generation and society.

Of course if there's an emotional journey, there's gonna be an experiential journey as well. You get a narrative whether you want one or not. So, from the moment members of the audience take their seats, the question's what kind of journey do you want them to experience? What's the adventure on which you're guiding them?

As you're contemplating music, as you're contemplating words, as you migrate your own life experience into dramatic form, you can, if you so choose, allow yourself to be led by the emotional journey on which you want to guide other human beings. You can bake the dynamic contours of the concert experience right into the songs as you create them.

Or not. As I said before, you can use any process you wish. You can use them in tandem. You can work each against the other. You can combine the different ways in which you work in a sort of collaborative effort. You can also, through the sheer force of imagination, conjure from thin air music, lyrics, experience, and emotion...

In the service of something greater.

Which we'll get to tomorrow...

#creativity #creative process #creative strategy #composing #music #lyrics #words #emotion #emotional journey #plot #experience #experiential journey #guide #adventure #story arc

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daveinediting · 9 months

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Over the years I embraced a lot of different ways of approaching projects. I deployed a lot of different creative strategies. There is one, however, I never put in play professionally that's coming to mind more and more.

I backed into it many years ago when I was contemplating writing a play without actually having a play to write. For whatever reason, instead of jumpstarting any kind of writing process, I imagined a space. At the time, the most likely space for my unwritten, unimagined play was a black box theater. So I imagined sitting in the audience of that black box theater with the lights just dimmed to blackness.

So.

What happens then?

What I knew about this particular theater is that there was a stairwell directly behind it that let out near the main doors in the back of the black box. At the moment I thought of that, I imagined hearing two people arguing as they came down those stairs.

Make sense?

Audience in the dark.

Sound of argument coming down the back of theater.

The doors swing open.

Two figures enter the theater as the argument continues down the main aisle and a spotlight fades up, illuminating a small area at the front of the stage.

Okay.

I'm sitting in the audience while this is happening and I'm trying to figure out what these two people are arguing about. Which leads me to this:

Who are the people doing the arguing?

The answer comes immediately: a father and daughter.

So now they're center stage under the light where we all get a good look. The argument's ramping up. I know, by the way, what they're arguing about but I don't actually want the play to be about that.

So the father drops dead.

Right there. Center stage. Act I, Scene I.

Okay what just happened?

My brain had the answer to that question, believe it or not. And that answer is what my play's about. I didn't set out to write it. It didn't just come to me. I somehow backed into it by mentally placing myself in a darkened theater and asking the questions that were begged. And then accepting the answers that were there when I reached for them. Which is interesting because obviously those answers are in my head. It just took this reverse engineering process, in this case, to pull them out into the real world.

My point, though, is that one way to create something from nothing is to put myself in the audiences seat and ask one of two questions:

1) what is the experience they're having, and 2) what is the experience I want them to have.

These are not mutually exclusive questions, by the way. They can work in tandem if I want them to. They can bounce off each other. They can collaborate.

It's weird how that works (or even that it can and does work) but the only important thing to understand is that this process is real. It produces results.

It creates something from nothing.

And that something it creates can be pretty tasty. I won't lie.

That's the only time, by the way, I've used that process. The only time it ever came up was in a non-professional context.

Recently, though, the I've been thinking about that process.

I'll tell you why tomorrow...

😉

#creativity #creative process #creative strategy #author driven #audience driven #discovery #diffuse thinking #experience #questions begging to be answered #imagination

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