what production can learn from Winston Churchill

Churchill announces iron curtain
photo credit: judy_breck

I was reading an article about the 71st anniversary of Winston Churchill’s first speech in parliament as Prime Minister after the German’s had run the British out of France.  I’m a sucker for most things involving British history and I am inspired by the example of Winston Churchill, so much so that I follow The Churchill Centre on Twitter and often listen to recordings of Winston Churchill speeches…they make me cry.

Anyway, @churchillcentre tweeted about this article and it had the following statement:

Churchill did not value the British armed forces for their own sake. He valued them because they protected a nation he cherished, values that he believed in, allies he supported, and a political system that he praised as the finest in the world.

Read more:  http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/05/13/churchills-lessons-war-peace-ring-true-today/#ixzz1MLFX3OrN

That first sentence caught me by surprise.  I immediately identified with it.  As a technical artist, sometimes I feel like people think I like production for its own sake.  That I like flashing lights, just to flash lights.  Or that I like loud music because it’s loud.  Or that I love shots from a handheld camera because they look cool.

Not unlike how Churchill felt about the armed forces, production by itself isn’t the point.  Production has to be used to achieve an end.

A couple of posts ago, I quoted the Willow Production mission statement:

to create life changing moments through the fusion of the technical and performing arts.

Just by the wording of the statement, you can see that production alone isn’t enough, it has to be done in conjunction with something else.  Production without content is just flashing lights, loud music and dutch angle video shots.

How can we help change the perception of the non-technical people we work with, that our goal isn’t production for the sake of production, but it is for the larger impact of production used in collaboration with a life-changing idea?

Todd Elliott

Todd Elliott

Todd is a writer, speaker, technical artist in the local church and founder of FILO.

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