Finding vision is hard
October 21st, 2006I’m currently going through set designs to determine if the overall concept is right of the scene(s) they relate to and if the designs are in enough detail to determine shot selections.
Don’t you find its often easier to see whats wrong with something then to imagine what it can be. When a project of any kind starts, by definition everything is undone. A project in process is just one big set of uncompleted tasks and issues to address. Does it really take much ability to create a scorecard that tallies everything wrong with a project?
The aspect of media production I didn’t anticipate going in was how difficult it is for everyone to find a vision. When you think about it, its not too surprising. Highly paid movie professionals over look gems and produce garbage all the time because they had a mistake of vision from reading nothing but a script. How then can we ask a community with less relative experience to read a script as the primary method of visualizing what we have in mind for a film?
My own life experience has taught me that its a much harder task and a higher calling to be able to see what’s right about a project and envision what it can be if given a chance. A collaborative media project has the added dimension of having to envision what the outcome can be with ones own high performing contributions within a reasonable scope for one person, while trusting that others will bring their game just the same.
My free (so you know what its worth,) advice? Use every means possible to communicate your vision and utilize every resource available to understand the vision of the people you are working with. That could be the script, personal conversations, supplementary media… anything. In the end you are producing media and the focus should be on the vision that the media itself portrays and not on isoteric analysis of the tools used to communicate that vision along the way.
Dominic Lino by Dave Jenkins
