If you are on a film set for even just a short time you will hear these words –
“We will fix it in post.”
This phrase is Latin for “I don’t know how to solve the problem right now so I will just throw money at it later on.”
A film set can be a crazy and chaotic place. Ideally, you plan everything out beforehand you start filming, but life always has a way of making things interesting.
The magic of the post process is that you can use digital wizardry to create something out of nothing, however, a story functions on substance not style to move us emotionally.
Solving the problem there and then, with creativity is the challenge. Throwing resources at the problem, time, money, people, doesn’t solve the problem, it just pushes it down the road for someone else.
Creativity doesn’t happen with an abundance of resources, it is born from the presence of constraints.
What does this mean for you?
Anyone can look like a genius if they spend their way out of a problem.
When you are faced with a challenge you should try to think about it cleanly.
- How do you reduce the challenge to its simplest form?
- What is the actual challenge you are trying overcome?
- What is the least you can do to be successful?
- Can you approach the issue from another paradigm or point of view?
- How would another field/disciplne approach it?
Constraints are amazing. They make you have to be creative. People often worry that the box will trap them, the structure will stifle their genius, the irony is that it is the exact opposite.
The box unleashes your genius, if you have it in you.
Luke McMeeken-Ruscoe 