Include a Samurai

One of my favorite songs for a long time has been One Week by The BareNaked Ladies.

“Like Kurosawa, I make mad films

Okay, I don't make films

But if I did they'd have a Samurai”

I feel like this is Tarantino’s approach to filmmaking too. Throw in there whatever you feel like. From Dusk Til Dawn is a classic example. You’re watching it, it’s a western, still a western, still a western.. wait, there are zombies?!

Why not?

Go with what you love. Make something unique and surprising. Find a ‘purple cow’, as Seth Godin puts it - something so surprising that people have to stop and look. It’s been said many times, but make what you want to see or watch or read. Make what you care about. What you care most about creating, not what you think other people will like. It doesn’t mean it can’t be for other people, but the right audience is likely to engage with it far more if you’ve shown how you care about it.

I have to keep reminding myself of this. Because sometimes it just feels enough to make something. Sometimes it is enough just to make something, anything, to keep creating and keep practicing. But too much of just anything will get exhausting.

(Client work can seem like an ‘out’, but even then we should be seeking the clients who care about the same things, whose passions or values we can share and reflect in the work).

Idealistic? To do what we love, to make what we love? Yeah, maybe, I’m always up for a little idealism.