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Many journalists tend to be deadline-oriented. Sometimes we write feature stories, or make radio shows, in as little as an hour. Ok, our deadlines aren't usually that ridiculous, but they are always looming, always part of the landscape. How does that intense pressure affect our creativity?
It's a question many filmmakers in Oregon faced last weekend. A total of 56 teams participated in the horrendous (and yet also glorious) pressure-cooking event known as the 48 Hour Film Project. Cinema Syndicate, which won best film in the international competition in 2006, was one of the teams to have a mere 48 hours to make a four to seven minute film. Those films will begin screening on Wednesday at the Hollywood Theatre and winners will be announced at the end of the month.
The Missoula Children's Theatre is another example of creativity under fire. They just swept through Baker City, where producers put on a musical with just five days of rehearsal. This week, they're in Sherwood doing the same thing. Producer David Cross says it's an adrenaline rush he wouldn't trade for anything. And most of the kids MCT visits don't have access to other theater programs, so it's a thrill for them as well.
But of course, people can also crack under pressure. And there's pressure and then there's pressure. If you're a surgeon and you need to get creative when things don't go as planned, it could literally be life or death.
Does your job or hobby demand that you're creative under pressure? How does stress help or hinder your creative process? Why do you think that is? What is it about a deadline that fires you up or immobilizes you?
GUESTS:
- Sean McGrath, Team leader, Cinema Syndicate
- Courtenay Hameiser, Writer, Cinema Syndicate
- Loren Jenkins, Orthopedic surgeon, Kaiser Permanente Sunnybrook Medical Office
- Leather Storrs, Head chef and co-owner, Noble Rot Wine Bar
Tagged as: cooking · creativity · film · surgery
Photo credit: Erica_Marshall / Creative Commons
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How do you prepare for a 48 hour film project?
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I would love to join the discussion - I live in Portland and founded and produce the International Documentary Challenge - an event where filmmakers from around the world have 5 days to make a short doc. The winning films premiere at the Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto. To confirm that good work can be done under pressure, one of our winning films received a national Emmy nomination! Check it out at http://www.docchallenge.org
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How does accomplishing projects quickly affect your longer-term projects?
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It makes you appreciate them more!
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At the front of my middle school classroom is a poster that reads, "Make Mistakes." Skateboarders and snowboarders know that in order to get better that they need to fall and crash a lot. Writing is the same, but we have so many voices in our heads that start to filter before the pen ever hits the paper.
My job as a teacher is to help young people let go of all the doubt that swirls in their heads and write with speed. I once heard Sherman Alexie say that he writes about a hundred poems for every one poem that is actually any good. If Alexie struggles that much, why shouldn't the rest of us?
National Write a Novel month is one of those exercises that forces you to throw away the filter and scramble to get 1667 words a day for thirty straight days. At the end of November, you'll have a lot of garbage, but there will be a few gems in there too.
Charles
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I participated in a 48 hour film competition in college. It was so much fun and it was just amazing to see what people came up with! The project included specific thematic elements that must be included in each film as well as the incorporation of a few words and phrases that were brainstormed as a collective group.
These film projects rely on strong team connections where everyone knows what they are doing and use their individual best to enhance the overall project.
I took from my experience the notion that even when a task seemed daunting to me, there would be someone on the team that looked at it with a very different vision and made it happen!
As for the question of creativity on a time limit...we do it all the time. There is always a deadline to meet and projects to finish. This is just part of what keeps life moving forward.
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I completely agree! Very nicely put.
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Being a musician, I'm often improvising on the fly.
Many times, it's been my experience that during the actual
performance, I'm thinking that it's not really sounding
good or grooving or whatever. But when I've listened back
to a recording of it a few days later, I have a different perspective of it.
A lot of times it actually sounds good or at least better than I thought and maybe even something I'm
proud of.
Do you ever have any similar experience with this project?
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I'm a producer, photographer, and bookbinder -
I find that I am less likely to produce any work at all without a defined deadline, and yet, as the deadline becomes shorter, I become more resentful that I don't have enough time to do everything I want to do for the project. It's an interesting relationship - and the shorter the deadline, the more proud of the work I become in the weeks and months after the project is complete.
Therese Gietler - producer Cinema Syndicate
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Working on any project, I break it into a period of intense pre-production followed by the actual production.
The pre-production phase allows me to do everything I can to previsualize, prepare and work out the technical issues. This frees me up to be more instinctive and reactive during the creative process.
It's about absorbing as much as possible to prepare and then let it all go during the shoot.
-andy batt
photographer & filmmaker
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Hi Andy,
I totally agree with your comments: As a Food Stylist/ Photo Art Director, I like to be involved in a project as early as possible. Experience has consistently shown a smooth production is strategically anticipated and implemented as a team collaboration. It's all about staying in communication and open minded. Veterans of the business accept that the creative process can be stressful and conflicts arise: The first rule of improv is to answer yes; enabling us to spring board off of the parameters which will push the vision. Accepting this builds confidence and trust which in turn allows us to be more instinctive and perceptive to the possibilities. I truck a full kit of tricks in preparation to play with the unexpected. Working with a skeleton vision allows the creative process to unfold until the process is fully realized.
Carolyn Schirmacher_ Food Stylist/ Photo Art Director
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If you happened to miss the 48 Hour Film Project you can participate in the National Film Challenge, the sister competition to the 48HFP (which is based in Portland!). The National Film Challenge is an exhilarating worldwide filmmaking competition from the creators of the 48 Hour Film Project and KDHX Community Media. The Premise: Participating teams have just one weekend to write, shoot and edit a short film or video.
Just like in the 48HFP, you'll receive a character, prop, line of dialogue, and a genre through the NFC website at 7pm local time, October 23rd. Then you'll have to mail the film in on October 26th. In the following weeks the top films (determined by a national panel of judges) will be available for viewing (and voting!) on the NFC website. The winning films will screen with the 48HFP City Winners at the next Filmapalooza, the 48HFP's end of year event at the NAB Show in Las Vegas. In addition, there are cash prizes for the winning films!
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If you want to participate in National Novel Writing Month you can check it out at www.nanowrimo.org There's nothing better than working under a crushing deadline with thousands of other people! It's even more fun as a Municipal Liaison, or local herder of authors. Organizing writers can be like herding cats sometimes!
It really is an incredible event. I said it when I called in and it's true - if you write with no expectations, with complete acceptance that you could be writing complete bunk, inevitably you end up getting jewels in there somewhere. It's certainly not going to be a finished product, more of a "zero" draft than a first draft, even, but it'll be done, on paper. Editing is its own hurdle but you can't ever get to editing if it's not on paper first!
I have a friend who starts so many, many stories and never seems to get past the planning stages. She plans and plots and builds worlds and the story itself just dies. I consider myself blessed to have 2 1st drafts completely done and one more within a few chapters of finished. Before Nanowrimo i had never gotten that far.
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And in case you're curious, here's a list of books that started as Nanowrimo novels and got professionally published.
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This year was the first year our small film company In the Red Films participated in the 48 HFP and we're definitely looking forward to next year!
We started planning two months in advance hunting general locations and making sure we'd be ready for an intense weekend of no sleep and around the clock filmmaking. Ultimately, nothing prepares you for doing a project that should take at least a week or more and instead, cramming it into two days, but it's amazing how as a team, you pull together and support each other through thick and thin. I was incredibly proud of my team and as a director, couldn't have asked for better support. In a time cruch like this, you find out what people's true work ethic and personlity is! (And trust me, you want great team players when you're under THIS much pressure.)
Making a film in this short of time requires one to be an amazing decision maker when it comes to managing a team of people, making changes on the fly, and letting go of all your preconceived ideas of what kind of film you thought you were going to make. In the end, it's worth it though and it's amazing to see what you can push yourself to do.
Thanks for supporting independent film makers!
-Jennifer Collier
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I want to know Courtenay and Sean's worst and best story about creativity under pressure during their past 48 hour films.