Nervous creator

This blog post is inspired by the following Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino) quote:

“If it makes you nervous, you’re doing it right”

I find there are levels of risk when it comes to creativity.

An example of a tiny amount of risk is when a sitcom decides to have the same characters get up to their usual antics but in a different country.

It’s quite likely going to work and I imagine the writers don’t get too nervous about it.

Then there are huge risks like ‘2001: A Space Odyssey‘.

If you haven’t seen it and you want to see it, major spoiler alerts ahead.

The first two acts are good they move the plot along nicely, as a viewer you are invested, you’re eager to see how this tension will be resolved.

Then we get to the third act and it is a complete departure from the rest of the film.

There is no dialogue at all.

It is purely visuals.

And not just any visuals but some of the most abstract visuals you’ve ever seen and I’d say 99% of viewers have no idea what happened.

I myself have no idea what happened and I’ve never seen any movie like it.

It’s like Stanley Kubrick went ‘ok let’s give them two thirds of a movie and then I’m just gonna mess with their heads with weird and wacky colour schemes’.

Now for an ending like that Kubrick must have been nervous about how it would be received.

There must have been some voice in his head telling him he was going to ruin his career taking such an unproven risk.

What’s interesting is there seems to be something of a correlation between risk and audience reactions.

For the low risk creativity the usual reactions are you either like it or you’re indifferent to it.

But the most common reactions to the big risk creativity pieces seem to be you either love it or you hate it.

Whilst ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ has its critics.

One guy online said:

“it’s less a visionary masterpiece than a crackpot Looney Tune, pretentious, abysmally slow, amateurishly acted and, above all, wrong.”

The flip side is that it is considered one of the greatest movies of all time and has inspired generations of filmmakers.

So to bring it back to the Childish Gambino quote, nerves can be a good thing.

The nerves are probably stemming from the thought that ‘This might not work’.

Good!

The bigger the unproven nature of your work the bigger the potential reward.

Just look at how Stanley Kubrick is revered.