VIDEO: Perfection is Not the Point
Sometimes, you just need to get a show out the door.
In Animation, we are all at the mercy of the schedule. Especially if you are working on animated series like myself, you will know the familiar song of not enough time to RnD, project ramp up, doing overtime, and so on.
As much as we would like to be able to measure twice and cut once, we are often developing our shows on the go. Though we all try our very best, not every show is going to be a hit, nor is every shot or asset going to be demo-reel worthy. Sometimes we just have to get the show out the door.
In Production, we need to stay as agile and flexible as our artists as things change at a rapid pace, particularly on shows that may be especially chaotic. Perfection is not the point when things move fast, and at some point we have to let a process or project run its course, doing what we can to maintain order and efficiency. To this end, Andrew Hill with John Wooden offer the advice on screen from their book Be Quick - But Don’t Hurry!:
“Executives and leaders in every business should strive for quickness in their work. Nothing holds back progress and deflates morale more than the slow and never-ending “maybe.” Commit to answers quickly and your staff will feel empowered to move forward. Affirmative responses always boost morale, but even if you decide not to move forward, your team will understand they need to develop a new strategy, and they will keep moving forward. Mistakes are inevitable, but mistakes made because you cannot commit to a path of action are unforgivable. Of course, part of this requires that you be equally quick to admit that you have made a mistake and then you must work as quickly as possible to rectify the problem.”P.74-75 Be Quick - But Don’t Hurry!: Finding Success in the Teachings of a Lifetime by Andrew Hill with John Wooden
Like Hill and Wooden, Twyla Tharp, renowned choreographer and author of The Creative Habit warns against taking too long to pick a course of action or to address an issue. We may want time to pause and reflect deeply on a matter, people may go on vacation or take sick days, but as we say in Animation, the train keeps moving with or without us.
Tharp says, “Another trap is the belief that everything has to be perfect before you can take the next step [...] I know it’s important to be prepared, but at the start of a process this type of perfectionism is more like procrastination. You’ve got to get in there and do.”
Tharp continues this train of thought saying,
“A good manager in business knows that there’s never a moment in the business cycle when a company’s objectives and resources are in perfect harmony [...] you always have more phone calls to return or paperwork to handle than time to get it all done. Good managers know this instinctively, so they never plan on an ideal harmony they can’t achieve. It’s better to go than to wait until you are perfectly ready.”P. 125 of The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it for Life by Twyla Tharp
I personally believe that just like our crew and clients, a show has its own life; it's its own beast and the rest of us help shape it and see it through, but a show is its own entity aside from all of us, kind of. No one show will be perfect, and some shows you will definitely remember as being more or less enjoyable to work on.
I’ll say again that perfection is not the point, and leave you with this quote from David Whyte who says in The Three Marriages,
“Being enlightened does not mean we assume supernatural powers or find a perfection that exalts us above the daily losses other human beings are subject to; enlightenment means we have accepted thoroughly our transience, our vulnerability and our imperfections and live just as robustly with them as without them.”from The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self, and Relationship by David Whyte
FURTHER READING AND RESOURCES
The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self, and Relationship by David Whyte
The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it for Life by Twyla Tharp
Be Quick - But Don’t Hurry!: Finding Success in the Teachings of a Lifetime by Andrew Hill with John Wooden
