The Power of Doing
Over my last several years of huge agency life, I’ve come to learn there’s only a few types of creatives out there: the doers, the thinkers, and the posers. The doers for all intents and purposes are production artist in most cases. The thinkers can’t make anything, but are highly concept driven and think of things the doers can make. And the posers, well, they’re good at climbing corporate ladders with smoke and mirrors and are generally worthless. I think it’s high time to introduce a relatively new creative to the masses: the world dominators.
The world dominator can think of an idea, and make it happen, with or without help. They don’t need to steal ideas from smarter people, and they’re technically skilled enough to A) know what they’re talking about and B) can throw down when it needs to get done.
I come from small agency and post production land, where everyone wears a bunch of hats, sharpens their skill sets so they don’t fall by the way side, and gets shit done. People who live there are great problem solvers and vary on conceptual strength. Some are content to just make. They hone their craft to an extent that they’re hired by WETA or PIXAR or North Kingdom and make “teh awesome”. Others who live there do the same thing to a lesser degree, but their ADD kicks in and they start staring at the butterflies out of the window, dreaming up ideas they wish they had time to make. I believe I fell into the latter category, and that’s how I found myself moving over big agency side.
Now when I began moving over to giant shops, I found that my advanced technical skill set, set me back. It made me a “doer”. I say set me back because I’m a big thinker, who just happens to know how to “do”. It turns out, the bigger the agency, and the less you know how to do something, the further you get. “Retarded” is probably the nicest word I can think of to describe that notion. It must have been thought up by a really clever poser so he could flourish in a world of better peers.
In a time where the world is literally changing on a daily basis, nevermind the industry, it’s the hybrid who should take the helm and drive the future. People who are ridiculously strong conceptually, and know how to make things. You should know my thoughts on integrated thinking by now, and those who could realize those ideas will be the “World Dominators”. So go buy a 5D Mark II. Learn how to frame a shot. Take a creative writing course. Learn some code. Start a Tumblr. Explore color theory. Do some figure study. Sit under a tree and think up worlds you can create. Then go make them.