I’m not sure I agree with this, but it did make me think when I read it:
Great male leaders success can be traced directly to women who aroused the creative faculties of their minds and sexual stimulation. When men deviate from that is when things go south.
(Cross-posted on my new film production blog.)
Lately I’ve been very interested in the film industry. I don’t have aspirations to actually write or direct a film. Rather, I’m interested in learning more about the nuts and bolts behind the creation of the film product.
This started a couple months ago when I heard this interview with Julie Delpy (one of many actresses I’ve crushed on over the years). This part in particular jumped out at me:
It’s a hard thing, because, you know, I think directing is very much about problem-solving, and it’s very rational. You know, you have to wake up at this time, you have to know your shot list, you have to know what scene you’re [doing] — I mean, you have to know your stuff. It’s not something you can take lightly…
You know, when I know I have to make a movie, I really think of the money that I’m spending, I’m really thinking of the time that I’m spending. I’m pretty rational when I start working on a set as a director. I don’t feel that creative when I’m directing, I’m just really, really, really focused on making everything work. Just like any other business, you know; I feel like I’m dealing with doing business.
I realized as I was listening that she was describing a the life of an entrepreneur. Problem solving, money, managing people with diverse skill sets. And while the film industry is very mature in terms of output – the experience of a movie hasn’t changed much over the last 100 years, it’s just a higher fidelity – I suspect that every movie that gets made goes through a very unique process.
The typical startup story includes things like lightbulb moment, founder recruiting, prototyping, iteration of product until you reach MVP stage, raising capital, growth and company culture. Practically all of these apply in filmmaking, the only difference being that the vast majority of revenue comes in a very tight window of 4-8 weeks.
Another commonality is obsession with the product. Steven Soderbergh touches on this in an interview:
Filmmaking is the best way in the world to learn about something. When I come out the other side after making a film about a particular subject, I have exhausted my interest in it. After Contagion, I’m still going to be washing my hands, but I don’t ever—I’m not going to pick up another book or article about Che as long as I live.
As an entrepreneur, I’ve many times come in the grip of an idea. I wake up in the middle of night and scrawl notes on a pad, or I spend days reading books and blogs about an industry. I bend the ear of everyone I know asking them what they think of it.
I bet there are a lot of would-be Steven Soderbergh’s out there who feel the same way when a great script comes their way.
On Thursday in New York, I was walking on 7th avenue to the post office so I could recharge my cell phone. There was a girl standing outside a bodega having a fairly animated conversation on her cell phone. She said:
I’m losing battery and the desire to live, so let’s wrap this up.
As I was going to say before I got sidetracked by Hurricane Sandy…
Literally the day before Sandy hit, I was reading this Atlantic profile of Michael Bloomberg. One quote really stood out to me:
In medicine, or in science, you go down a path and it turns out to be a dead end, you really made a contribution, because we know we don’t have to go down that path again. In the press, they call it failure. And so people are unwilling to innovate, unwilling to take risks in government …
In the tech startup world, failure is almost a badge of honor. While everyone would prefer success, the default result of most things humans do is failure. Got a business idea? Me too. We all do. Most of them are no good, but most of them at least sound good at first. The only way to find out is to try it. It will probably fail, but we all learn so much from the attempt (especially now that companies are more willing to share their failures publicly on the web).
Bloomberg understands this. In the course of making his billions, he knows that he made an awful lot of wrong decisions. But he learned from them and integrated them into the he way he operates. More importantly, he integrated the idea of failure into the way he thinks about problems.
Most politicians don’t come from that place: take a risk, fail, learn, move on.. Instead they come from a world where failure is about right and wrong and usually seen through an ideological lens. So when Bloomberg does things like the soda ban, they skip the questions around “how can we fight obesity?” and instead turn it into a Constitutional crisis worthy of Patrick Henry.
So even though I’m a little skeptical of the soda ban, I’m glad he tried it. It may not work, it may have unintended consequences, but Bloomberg is the kind of guy who will say “okay, we tried that, it didn’t work, let’s try something else” and not care what they say about him on CNN or Fox News or whatever.
My representative is Jared Polis, a mega-successful entrepreneur who nonetheless has experienced many failures. (Okay, I admit the video on his site is a little hokey; I never said he was a comedian.)
My governor is John Hickenlooper, a successful brewpub entrepreneur who has a reputation for being more results-oriented than ideological.
I hope both of these gentlemen run for president someday. Politics needs more entrepreneurs.
I was in New York during the hurricane. I was supposed to leave Monday , but my flight was cancelled and I ended up staying there until Friday morning. I just got back to Boulder a few hours ago.
I don’t have anything especially insightful to share and didn’t really get any good pictures. But I did have some interesting experiences.
First, I was staying in Chelsea and we did lose power. I stayed in the hotel anyway for three more nights. Without electricity. I didn’t have a flashlight but my phone did the job quite nicely. It was spooky, but in a fun way.
Second, I was staying literally around the corner from this building:
In the daylight it looked like some kind of art installation, or a giant dollhouse.
I didn’t even notice it at first. I was standing on the corner looking at a CNN truck that had a crush of people around it. For a moment I thought maybe Mayor Bloomberg was there. But after observing more closely I realized that the crush of people was there to charge their phones; CNN had politely put a bunch of power strips out. They kept the truck running there day and night for about 72 hours.
A passerby got a laugh when he said “this is New York’s version of Haiti. Instead of water trucks we have cell phone trucks.” Right now I feel a little guilty about laughing given the destruction, but then again I’m thankful we live in a nation that even in a disaster still suffers mostly from first world problems.
Some other memories:
I met and spent time with lots of interesting people. A few that come to mind:
I actually initially intended this to be a short post about Michael Bloomberg, but as I started writing I realized I wanted to get this all down before I forget it. On to Mayor Bloomberg.
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