#3.43.1 – The Creative Process

First published on 8th of September 2011. #1.39

This week in celebration of Gravity’s release (finally!) into cinemas (in most of the world, save the UK where we’ll have to wait until November to see it), I’ll be re-publishing cards from the last two years about the film I was fortunate enough to be a part of.
This card was written a month after I’d started work on the film, facing the mountain we had to climb, feeling the pressure of the supervisors’ and director’s expectations.

 

sent from: The High Street, Esher, UK. destination: Long Beach, California, USA

As I struggle to address the number of comments in time to present work to the director next week, feeling the sense of judgement and disappointment as I present ever-improving but not-yet-perfect works in progress, I happened to listen to the screenwriter for Toy Story 3 [Michael Arndt] talk about the long process of shaping the story Pixar had devised into a workable screenplay. It took many months of writing and re-writing, of getting stuck on problem areas, of fortuitous accidents, of tiny inspirations and collaborative ruminations, a process no one would consider unusual. Yet, as I push into areas that could truly be considered largely uncharted waters, somehow progress must be immediate, predictable and utterly without flaw. Something’s wrong with that picture.

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