Writing a blog has been good for me…for a few reasons. Probably even a few I don’t know about yet.
It causes me to sit down and focus on putting into words, all the things that are floating around in my head. Writing down what I think, feel, and believe helps remind me of what I think, feel and believe.
For me personally, this has been like free counseling. On some level, I don’t care who reads this blog, since it is really just a vehicle for my own process. I figure if you are reading this, and can benefit from it, then that is a huge bonus.
As a technical artist in the local church, writing has put me in touch with how difficult it is to be creative. And writing is a brutal art. When I am reading or critiquing someone else’s writings, it all seems so simple. One person is brilliant and another person can’t write to save their lives. To the brilliant one, just keep cranking out the great content, and to the non-brilliant person, stop writing.
This shines a light on the fact that so much of doing production is about execution: taking someone’s idea and turning it into a thing. While there is technical creativity to make something as good as it can be, I am typically sitting behind a console executing. If it is good or bad, the person who created it takes the glory or the heat.
[Side note: check out my conversation with Blaine Hogan from the Gurus of Tech Conference, where we talk about the dynamic between content and execution]
As a technical artist, I generally don’t live under that kind of pressure. I have my own kind, but I can completely discount the weight that content creators are under. Whether it is a new song, or a message, or a video, the people generating that content go through pains that I would never understand had I not decided to start writing on a regular basis.
Not only is the creative process excruciating and lonely, but then you have to lay your ideas out for everyone to see…and judge. You open up your innermost self to the critique of perfect strangers, and to people who know you really well. Just with these 2 things, it is amazing that anything gets created at all.
As production people, we are designed to figure out how to make something work better. As a result, it is easy for us to point out what isn’t working in someone’s idea before we ever get to what is working about an idea. If I think about it, I tend to assume that people know about the parts that are working, so I skip over them.
Generally speaking, as a group, we need to be better at empathizing with our counterparts who are creating week in and week out. Theirs is not an easy task.
How could we encourage the content creators that we work with each week?
When you huddle up after the first service this weekend, start with something encouraging.
Whether it is the worship leader, the actor in a drama, or the senior pastor, everyone needs to be encouraged to keep creating. And without a steady stream of great content, those of us in production won’t have anything to support.
