In Appreciation of the Creative Process

I recently wrapped up reading this book. It’s a very different kind of book. It’s a book that is written by an author about another author writing a book! Recommended to me by an ardent Reacherhead who has a missionary zeal about - no prizes for guessing - Reacher. (I happen to be one of the many converts to the Reacher fold, thanks to her.)

The book is like a meta book. It has Andy Martin  shadowing Lee Child  over a period of 8 months while Lee Child goes about writing his next Jack Reacher book titled ‘Make Me’. Shadowing to a point where as a reader you feel he is being intrusive thanks to the cheek-by-jowl arrangement and the nature of the project. Martin is perennially standing right behind Child, peeping into his computer monitor, while Child goes about his job of writing.

Reading Martin’s book reminded me of this visual from Ramanand Sagar’s famous Vikram Aur Betaal series.

So used to was Child to Martin’s presence alongside him for such an extended period of time that in a tete-a-tete published in The New York Times about the book (the meta book, I mean), Child does mention that when he commenced writing his next after ‘Make Me’, he wrote the first sentence and turned around to check about the placement of a comma with Martin.

Reading the book about the writing of a book was a further affirmation of the vagaries of the creative process. Child seems to be made of sterner stuff that he is not much affected by the presence of a virtual stranger shadowing him at all times of his working day. Rather he seems to be enjoying it, and actually thrives on it. Child’s creative process is a unique one where the draft that he writes is the only draft. So imagine his level of focus that he is able to go about his writing while fully aware of the presence of another individual writing about his writing.

‘Reacher Said Nothing’ in a way also reminded me of my own training period in my first agency straight out of business school. Actually what me and a couple of other interns did for the first three months after joining was akin to shadowing people from different departments of the agency – creative, studio, production, films, media, and even finance.

It was while reading the book that I realised how painful we must have been for the various departments. Like Andy Martin, we were being paid to observe, to intrude, to ask questions, to understand what goes on in the minds of our subjects, to attempt to do what they did, to appreciate the process, to try and contribute. The difference between Martin and us was that Martin knew what he was doing and seeking, we didn’t. So he knew when he was becoming overbearing, which Child himself acknowledges complimenting Martin by saying in that same chat that “you had a knack of getting out just before I started to feel physically oppressed”.

We were told that those three months were our official license to be stupid – long before the brand Diesel made it their tagline. And we took it to heart in letter and in spirit. We became betaals jumping from one departmental Vikram to another. I cringe when I think of some of the stupid questions I had asked my colleagues then. Questions like ‘what are you thinking about?’, ‘how do you think about a creative line?’, ‘how do you decide on a particular font?’ ‘why is this in red and not blue?’ ‘what if you are not able to come up with a line within the deadline?’, ‘do you like working alone?’, ‘do you work better in the day or at night when mostly everyone has left? … you get the drift? I think most of the creative people would wait for one of us to ask them ‘do you want us also to think about the brief?’. That was one thing they immediately latched on to just to get us off their backs. It was at this point that we realised what an arduous task creating something is.

What I now realise is that we were trying to get into their minds to unlock how they conjure up such magic. I realised then that there is a lot of work, patience, self-criticism, doubt, confidence, thorough understanding of their craft, keeping abreast of all that’s happening in the world in general and in their world in specific, and there is the everydayness of chipping away, finetuning, sculpting, and polishing of an idea so that it is made to look and sound magical. The biggest learning that I got out of our training period besides the fact that we became jack of all trades and masters of none was that I became truly appreciative of the creative process.

It made me aware how differently built people are. Of how only a certain kind of people are able to visualize – not just in the visual sense, but aurally as well. How directors are able to visualize films on the basis of written words.

Try this as an experiment – read the screenplay of a movie that you haven’t seen, and read the screenplay of a movie that you have seen. You will realise that in the case of the movie that you haven’t seen you are not able to see it as a series of moving images, or see some specific actors playing specific characters. But in the case of the screenplay of the movie that you have seen you are able to see the entire movie unfold in your mind’s eye. Which tells us what powerful visualizers directors are to be able to not just see how those words will play out on celluloid, but also which actors to cast for which role.

Case in point being The Godfather where Coppola exactly knew that he would settle for no one other than Pacino to play Michael – to a point where he was willing to scuttle the project if the studio didn’t acquiesce. Closer home we are familiar with how Ramesh Sippy didn’t know who in his mind fit the role of Gabbar (Danny said no as he had other commitments), but knew well enough to know who would NOT be Gabbar. So out went the stars who wanted to play Gabbar, eventually ending up being Jai, Veeru and Thakur.

The ability to visualise musical notes from written words or moving images is even more astounding for me.

Check out these two examples of the same sequence – one which is the original with minimal background score to help the viewer focus on the intensity, and how the same footage takes on a completely different meaning with another track. It’s hilarious.

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It has left me spellbound every time I have had the privilege of being in a sound studio when the track for one of my ads is being composed basis an offline edit. Especially because I have lived through the entire process right from issuing a brief to the script presentation, to the Pre-Production Meeting, to the shoot, and right down to the edit. It is only then that the music director comes in. And boy … are they able to just raise the level of the film to an altogether different level!

‘Reacher Said Nothing’ also reaffirmed another aspect of creativity – that every creative person has a different way of working.

Lee Child’s way is to start on his next book on September 1^st every year and deliver the first (and only) draft by March/April the next year for publishing. He doesn’t have any idea of what shape the story will take when he writes the first line. But he writes it, and decides on the title and then goes building from there, diligently writing every day. He claims he doesn’t know how the book is going to end either, but intrinsically knows when the end of the book is near.

I read a feature on A.R. Rahman where he believes in working in isolation at night. He likes familiar surroundings and so he owns a place in every city that he regularly visits for work. Each of these places in different cities resemble each other so that there is a sense of familiarity in the décor as well as the equipment. Inspiration to him happens in about 20-30 minutes. He records those notes, gets his assistants to build upon them and then turns them into masterpieces late into the night in the home studio.

To get a better feel of the mundaneness of the creative process, watch Peter Jackson’s documentary “Get Back” on The Beatles. It is just four guys grinding away day after day. Their creative process is unique in the sense that they treat what they do as a job, and after their fixed hours together they just shut shop and go their own ways and are back the next morning at a fixed hour. Hard to imagine one of the biggest bands as regular office-goers, right? But it seemed to work for them.

Part of Michelangelo’s creative process involved the illegal act of conducting autopsies since he wasn’t a trained medical practitioner. He did those only so that he could learn about the inner workings of the human body in order to make his art come to life. He desired more lessons in the human anatomy before he felt he could create the greatest sculptures and paintings. Any wonder then that we gape at his works because of their sheer authenticity of the human form in all its splendour!

“I created a vision of David in my mind and simply carved away everything that was not David.” - Michelangelo

George Bernard Shaw preferred writing in isolation as well. He had himself built a rotating summer house in his country estate’s garden – a Lazy Susan with a house on it. That was his writing refuge. His reason for having a rotating house – so that he could turn it so that it always faced the Sun. It was sparse, and the only luxury (luxury for that era) he afforded himself was having a telephone that was connected to the dining table in his main house so that he could check if lunch was ready. And in typical Brit humour he called it London so that when someone came calling for him, the maid could tell them that Mr. Shaw was in London.

Essentially inspiration can come from anywhere, unannounced. It can come from one’s surroundings. Or from having noticed something that can help connect the dots to their task at hand. One just needs to be patient.

I have seen creative directors stare into nothingness.

I have seen them with their eyes closed for so long that it could be mistaken for extended naps.

I have seen them listen to music at high volume and writing or designing, but getting distracted by others who happen to chat around them.

I have seen them cooped up in closed meeting rooms and emerge like enlightened beings with a look of satisfaction of having cracked a great idea.

I have seen them enjoy a couple of drinks or a spliff or two before getting down to work.

I have seen some play video games or watch some videos while thinking.

I have seen many write/scribble, scratch it out, write/scribble, scratch it out, and repeat it umpteen number of times before zeroing down on something that appeals to them.

I have seen some of them gather a room full of people to be surrounded by and bounce off ideas, invite ideas, rejecting many, accepting some and then come up with something altogether different that is still on brief but hasn’t come out of any of the ideas that had been tossed around over a few hours.

The brilliant thing about the creative process is that it is as true about what are called ‘creative’ endeavours as it is about the scientific method as well. Or just about any endeavour that involves creating something from absolutely anything with the same set of tools available to everyone. Just replace the protagonists in the above paragraph with scientists and you will know what I mean. It is their creative processes that are seen as quirky. Some of the greatest scientific discoveries have stories that are legendary – the apple falling from the tree, Archimedes’ eureka moment, Pavlov and his dog, etc etc… So are so many inventions that have happened in laboratories. Examples about the ‘eccentricities’ of scientists, innovators and ideators like Einstein, Tesla, Jobs … right up to Musk abound popular lore.

It is equally true of architects and engineers. These are creative people who see solid structures, palaces, manufacturing plants, machines, assembly lines, and mega factories in place of an empty stretch of land. They see suspension bridges where others see a wide chasm. Or take the case of medical practitioners. Their techniques of ways and means to heal and save lives can also be called creative since lesser mortals only see wounds and despondency. Ever seen a video of a coronary artery bypass graft, bypass surgery as it is popularly known? It is as much a work of art as any other, with a heart pumping while it is being operated upon no less.

All of these, and I am sure I have missed many more such examples, are people who at their core are creative people - they have a passion for creating something tangible from an intangible imagination. And they all have their own creative processes that are not as publicised as the ones that we get to read or hear about. And casual observers might have an opinion or point of view about how they come across as.

Untrained observers of this creative process can’t be blamed for thinking it’s all a show that is being put on to live up to the perceptions others have about the notion of creative people. That it is mandatory for creative people to be eccentric. That it is all part of the image. Not that some of them are not guilty of playing to the gallery. But having been an empathetic observer as well as participant to the process, I can only say that many of us don’t possess that extraordinary wiring to see and feel the same things differently and then possess the ability to bring them to life.

The fundamental reality about the creative business is that it’s lonely. You spend all your time creating something out of nothing, and then spend the rest of the time wondering whether what you just created is any good.

As Lee Child says, “The beginning of a new book feels like stepping off a cliff into the abyss. A long free-fall. One of these days I’m going to end up flat on my face. Or not, as the case may be.” Just replace ‘book’ in the previous sentence with painting, movie, artwork, tune, experiment, theory, dish, product … anything that doesn’t exist yet, but is about to be brought from imagination into reality, and you will know that all creators are always fighting their own ‘betaals’ (ghosts) all the time. Least we could do is cut them some slack and not become real life ‘betaals’ for them.

Be braver. Be kinder.

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For Keep Watching I am sharing the trailer of one of the most creative films I have seen in the recent past - Everything Everywhere All At Once. It is such a force of creative that I found my limited ability of reviewing it woefully inadequate. How does one even begin to explain such a complicated screenplay of such a complex plot! I can’t even begin to imagine how the scriptwriter thought about it, how the screenplay writer converted it into a screenplay, how the director came up with the visual treatment … ufff! Just too many superlative things about it. Rightful winner of all the awards it mopped up in the awards season last year.

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