In the trifecta of good, fast, and cheap, you can only have two. If there is a ton of money being spent, you can have it good and fast because numerous folks who are very good at what they do are being well compensated for their work and things are thus expensive. If there is no money, you can have it good and cheap, but it will take a long time. That’s how our personal work, our best work, has been made.
Yet, If a client is well compensating and thus expecting quick progress, then one aspect of the trifecta is fast. So in that regard, we innerstand. Sticking to strict schedules and rigid deadlines has its place. For he who has the gold makes the rules. This applies in the machine levers of commerce. Containing assembly lines of collective worker bots. With gears grinding one down in the levers of drudgery and often, but not always, blandness. Carpal tunnel generating repetition which would actually probably be good to have robots take over doing. It’s the modern war trenches of the professional working world. All under the clock. Where the majority of the money flows.
We once had someone predominantly featured in one of our documentaries, along with another fellow filmmaker they were collaborating with on a later project, ask us for some of our footage to share for that project, and we certainly agreed to be helpful. Yet, since there was no money involved and they were asking for something, for free, which had taken us some difficulties and a long time to acquire, we said we would be able to do it, yet it wouldn’t be for a couple months. This was intentional for this reason. To make them wait for it.
In terms of real creative outputs, ones which are done for the joy of the process and personal accomplishment, through self-expression, the most non-negotiable element of these three - good/fast/cheap is the good. For whatever you do, in order to be a positive force in the world, it must be excellent in quality. So when little to no money is involved, and you are aiming for quality, that means being fast or quick must inevitably drop off in terms of priority.
There is a great deal to be had for setting goals and accomplishing them. Or honoring a schedule, not letting things slide, and getting things done efficiently. But those are the gears of productivity, not creativity. This is why the creative side starts things and a less creative side helps with the work to finish them. Both are needed. So, sometimes it's time to crank while other times are for deeper contemplation and inspiration.
We have found that anytime we set a rigid schedule for things, on a recurring pattern, the daily jive may be okay, or even daily “pretty good”. For one is lucky if they moderately like what they do for their profession, let alone really enjoy almost all aspects of it. But those times do not produce anything amazing and by no means anything genius. Genius comes with long development times, years or decades, and flashes of insight. For creative gnosis arrives in unusual ways at odd times. In the morning when you are in that twilight state of still seemingly still asleep or maybe a tiny bit awake. When the veil of the unconscious is still flowing through. Before it starts to just spill a bit as you are first waking. And then through a busy day of life’s chores or responsibilities it may only be a tiny drip drip drip. So it’s important to be there to capture it.
Grabbing that requires personal time with a healthy work life balance. Franz Kafka was a Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as a major contributor of 20th-century literature. Yet, his primary profession was that of a lawyer working for an insurance company. And he created the vast majority of his writings while still working his day job. For him, he found a way to set a personal schedule with the time allotted. For schedules, and planning from others for the dollar may pressure or strangle creativity, but those same things can help it when set up for oneself. So personal time, to oneself, or in close collaboration, should be given plenty of oxygen. For creativity is not a talent, for anyone is capable of it. Instead it is more a way of operating.
When operating for a longer form project, we may be a bit off the radar for numerous years, but with short form outputs those can be seen on a monthly basis. At the time of this penning, we finished our first feature film a few years back and since then, have spent the last couple years working on more short form projects. With fairly regular consistency. Yet as this is being finalized, we’ve gone through a quite larger gap than usual releasing some of our outputs. Mainly because we’ve gotten certain signs to do so. With some things wintering while other things are summering.
We are so incredibly grateful to those listening who are supporters of our work. To access this you have had to pay a little something. Yet, to date, monthly contributions from our patrons compensate us to the tune of less than half of a day of work in what is our various professional freelance capacities. So we still very much do freelance to make a living. Ideally, like any artist, we would love to just have our creative outputs support us exclusively, but that time has not yet come. And longer gaps of output are the inevitable result.
When something is not done primarily for financial reasons, it’s most mentally and physically healthy to not be on strict, iron schedules of output, so we’ve learned to very much inform folks who support our work, which may involve a set amount per month, that there is still no regimented rigid timetable in which we output content. And always encourage others to adopt a similar mindset. Which regarding an exchange of funds, does mean that some months or years will have less output than others. There is a factor of those who put in some resources just to help support a creator, but a larger percentage do it to support a creator while also getting some sort of return on their investment. And we are conscious of that and aim to find somewhat of a middle ground regarding.
It’s important, outside of a profession, to not put oneself in a position where they have to output something by some date because it’s expected, required, or worst of all, contracted. Folks who are trying to make a living by uploading video content to a channel on a certain primary video website on the internet which, outside of steamy porn of course, is responsible for like ⅕ of all internet traffic, know that various algorithms expect you to upload a new video on a weekly schedule. Or else they assume your work is dropping off and your outputs on their platform are your past and not part of your future. Which is short term doable, but to be honest, in the long run only encourages plateaus and burn out.
We have personally known a few podcasters who are so stringent about outputting something by such a date. One podcaster who was so methodical about getting a show out in their usual weekly slot they released a fill in episode at that time just to tell the audience they had no podcast that week. Also podcasters who feel their need to apologize to their audience because they haven't output something by such time. Also podcasters who suffered from establishing a strict schedule of something that did not provide full time employment, and then we’re not able to maintain it, innerstandably, and then, rather than announcing they would go to a much more manageable schedule for the resources, instead decided to completely end it.
We do none of these things and we never plan on doing so. Going so far as to remove rough estimates on our website as to how often we output things. So there is not some sort of up front hidden contract that by sharing this much resource you are expecting this much return. That way we know things will last and the momentum will continue. Slow, but certain. And we highly recommend that for yourself, for your creative ventures, you do the same.
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