THE WRITERS TAKE: Building that Creative Engine.
Creativity is infectious.
Creativity IS infectious.
Have you ever felt that feeling when someone walks into a room and their presence dominates the room? I am sure you have, I am sure you’ve felt that on the screen from certain performances of certain movies… Joaquin Phoenix, The Joker… Bad example? Nah, he was incredible in it. The point is, we can feel it when someone’s presence is larger than life. We can feel it too, when someone is fostering a creative sandbox. So today, I wanted to take some time and talk about how creativity can be INFECTIOUS. How it can mold our outward relationships and how it can be a super power in not just creating, but in managing teams of creatives.
It all starts with attitude, the attitude that has worked for me is daring to dream. Daring to challenge the creative norm, and to go further, lean harder and be bolder. A problem that occurs quite often is that there are “norms,” that there is “a way to do it.” I think that this hurts almost every creative, let alone person, to think within that construct. Everything that is worth anything was made in an unconventional way, and that's why it worked. So there is no correct way to get from the village to the castle but there are many wrong ways to promote the path.
The hidden secret to all of this is simple: Creatives are crazier than they let on; crazier in the best way possible. Crazy enough to envision a world of art and inspiration, but are fearful of their leaders not seeing the world in their way, and feeling rejection, which is why they always go present work that may be less magical than they envision. They rather stay the line, then feel rejection. Obviously some artists are not like this, and move past that fear, but generally speaking it is paramount to Inspire them to be bolder, to be more themselves, inspire them enough that they are daring to dream of the future they see.
Sure Matt, this is easier said, but how do you do it?
Push every creative thought to the extreme. Push every collaborator, every artist, writer, imagineer (sue me Disney), to the extreme, always ask “But what if we went further, more unhinged, more outside the box, how would that look?” Give your creative team the authority to be the most aspirational version of themselves, not the most tamed.
Ben Affleck has probably the greatest quote in the history of creative collaboration. “I want to hear everything, the best ideas and the worst ideas, because while we are brainstorming never judge me on my worst ideas, only judge me on my best.” It’s the single most inspiring sentence I’ve heard in regards to how to get to “excellent.” Because to make something incredible, you usually start with something shitty, something undefined but with a vision and slowly you nurture it into something beautiful. That is true creative freedom.
So next time you're writing with a group, or leading a team, think to empower those members around you to dream bigger, to work weirder and to aspire for that childhood wonder that everyone is chasing. I know it sounds preachy here but I can’t stress enough the importance of having your creative powerhouses feeling like anything is possible with 3 ways to make this happen.
Always tell them they can go crazier with an idea. This should be your default response to all ideas.
When an idea is presented, always ask “If you weren’t doing this for “x” how would you do it?” So many times ideas get self stifled because the team thinks a client or a producer or an executive wants something and they self correct for it. Break those shackles and see what the team is really thinking, that is the best way to get the most inspired ideas.
Infect your team with excitement, go see a movie, go for happy hour, create an environment of trust. Everyone wants greatness and inspired ideas, but that can’t happen without any rapport built. Put in the time, build the relationships, build the trust, and then you’ll be able to thrive with points 1 and 2.
Infect your team with creativity, reach further than you thought possible, and breathe excitement into everything you do. Because at the end of it all, it's the moments where you didn’t push to the outer limit, where you played it safe that will haunt you, not the ones where you went for it and failed, those will hurt, but wondering if you could have tried harder, those will haunt.
ICONIC ARTS, GUNGNIR and other musings…
I wanted to take a moment during our intermission here to shamelessly and directly promote my two companies. Gungnir Entertainment, (www.Gungnirbooks.com) a genre-focused publishing company with best-selling titles from yours truly hitting shelves nationwide this Fall. With books focused on classic sci-fi ideas like “What does it mean to be human” and “is the bible right?” “Adventures throughout the stars” are just a few of the prompts for the books you can dive into with Gungnir. Gungnir’s website will launch this summer, and you can stay up to date on the forthcoming titles on my Instagram, @matthewmedney, or at my author page on Simon & Schuster.
And then there is Herø Projects. The Perennial leader in custom comics and animated services, Herø is a state-of-the-art creative studio that has worked with talents such as Bobby Wagner and the NFL, Floyd Mayweather, Shaggy, Nghtmre, and brands such as Remi Martin, Live Nation, and Rolling Loud. If Branding through storytelling isn’t your thing you can check out our original titles, the Onyx line with books such as Stable, Remnant, and Best Selling Comic The Red. To learn more about Herø Projects visit us at heroprojects.io.
Iconic Arts is a next gen IP and franchise studio leveraging the best story-tellers and technologists to reinvent how stories are told. www.IconicArts.com