11. Capturing and Cultivating Ideas

We examine the abundance of ideas sprouting from unexpected places. With insights gleaned from personal endeavors, we try to peel back the layers of the creative process, shining a light on the forces of ego, surrender, and the art of collaboration that propel our work forward.

Throughout this exploration, we emphasize the significance of capturing every thought, acknowledging that brilliance often lies within the most unassuming ideas.

As we round out our discussion, the dance between artistic integrity and commercial success takes center stage. We navigate the delicate balance between these two often-competing forces, sharing our personal approach to cataloging ideas and the transformative process of valuing passion over profitability.

The episode culminates with a grounding reminder of how, amidst our philosophical musings, real-life responsibilities beckon—unscripted interruptions that anchor us back to the present. So, join us as we weave through the intricate tapestry of creation, seeking to strike that harmonious chord between our dreams and the pragmatic world we navigate daily. - Ai

Show Notes:
The Century of the Self - https://bit.ly/48IPbcy
The Louisiana Channel - https://bit.ly/48IPm7I
The New Yorker - https://www.newyorker.com/
The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin - https://bit.ly/3uWDvEp
Moleskin -

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a rating and/or a review. We read and appreciate all of them. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode.

Links To Everything:

Video Version of The Podcast: https://geni.us/StudioSessionsYT

Matt’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/MatthewOBrienYT

Matt’s 2nd Channel: https://geni.us/PhotoVideosYT

Alex’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/AlexCarterYT

Matt’s Instagram: https://geni.us/MatthewIG

Alex’s Instagram: https://geni.us/AlexIG

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

And it's been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summits. We don't remember what the last? Episode was about. There's been a few recent episodes where one of us and me a couple of times just came in hot.

Speaker 2: 0:36

We're fired up about something, Maybe to like preface. This is the longest gap we've gone in the recording. I mean, it's been what a month probably.

Speaker 1: 0:45

Yeah, I think it's been a month.

Speaker 2: 0:47

And you know, just external circumstances out of our control. But yeah, this has been the longest we've gone without sitting down to record. I'm going to be honest with you.

Speaker 1: 0:56

It's kind of been tough.

Speaker 2: 0:58

Yeah, it was. Well, I think, like the thing is too, like we've been in pretty constant communication. Yeah like we usually talk once or twice a week, we've seen a couple of movies together. We have to coordinate things with releasing clips and obviously on the personal side, but we haven't like sat down and right. I'm interested to see if we're a little out off cadence. Yeah, the ums and the yeah, you know we'll see, but it has been the longest, the longest since we started the podcast, which I guess is coming on five months now.

Speaker 1: 1:34

Yeah, I feel like that's all a blur to me.

Speaker 2: 1:36

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:37

I know it was warm out. I think we started and I just feel like if you told me, like when did we do the first episode?

Speaker 2: 1:44

I have no idea.

Speaker 1: 1:45

Maybe not that pilot episode, but like the first real episode where we started getting consistent with.

Speaker 2: 1:50

I think being on the consistent two week schedule is one thing that it's made me realize is how you know you can get lost and time can feel like it moves really quickly, yeah, but at the same time it makes you realize how the influx and outflux of of thoughts and ideas and concepts and ruminations that you have, yeah, how much comes and goes because, like you said, we'll listen to episodes that we recorded probably 10 weeks ago, yeah, at the most.

Speaker 2: 2:24

And we're like oh yeah, we did talk about that. Oh wow, that's a great idea. Like we're almost viewing these concepts as if they're they're new things that we yeah, that we have no prior understanding. We're learning from ourselves, almost. I think that's an interesting phenomenon to experience over over time.

Speaker 1: 2:41

Well, in this time that we've had off, I really, you know I've been consuming a lot. Right, You've recommended a documentary that was really great, a four part documentary called the Century of the Self. I'll put it in the show notes, I'm not going to go down.

Speaker 2: 2:52

Right now.

Speaker 1: 2:53

Yeah, and you know, I've been going to just kind of been going on the rabbit hole of photography books and watching this Louisiana channel about these different artists, like really getting into this stuff. Not that it's like a central hub of the artistic world, but there's a lot of good articles about things going on in the art world in New York. I've been reading that on the weekend and so I've been noticing a lot of ideas about what we could talk about bubbling up as it pertains to my work, both as on the YouTube side, but then photography and even in the past with screenwriting and the artistic pursuits or creative pursuits I've had in my whole life. And so I've been using the millenote to jot down ideas, and I'll often allow the millenote to be a place where I can. I don't have to necessarily vet an idea. It can be a little bit of a dumping ground and then we can vet it together because I'm not sure like, is this a thing? Is this something we need to talk?

Speaker 2: 3:53

about Is this worth it?

Speaker 1: 3:55

Is this going to be a good topic for the audience that get value from, etc. And I was just fascinated about well, you consume something, you watch something, you read something and it gives you an idea. What, for me, makes me like, oh, I got to write this down, even if I'm not judging it too much.

Speaker 2: 4:15

Well, boy, do we have the podcast episode for you. Wait a sec, do you feel the?

Speaker 1: 4:19

same way. What is your approach to ideas? When do you decide to?

Speaker 2: 4:23

write them down. I love this topic because you know, like you said, the last couple of episodes we've come in either side, fire up about something and we'll distill that into something that's relatively out of time and then try to discuss it. But I think this is something that you know, especially with having a consistent schedule it's something you kind of have to figure out where do ideas come from? I used to have this conception of ideas that there's a finite amount of ideas out there, you run out of them.

Speaker 1: 5:01

Yeah, you can, if you get a good one.

Speaker 2: 5:03

I think that's, you know, looking back. Obviously that's a pretty naive way to look at things, but pretty stupid.

Speaker 1: 5:10

Yeah, I'm so dumb.

Speaker 2: 5:12

Wow, I think if you're open to it, ideas are just everywhere. I have too many ideas, you know. They're all great, they're all good ideas. I've never had a bad one. Big winners.

Speaker 1: 5:27

Yeah, huge winners. It's just how do you pick what's like the absolute best one, right? Yeah, they're just all so good.

Speaker 2: 5:34

So I just don't do any of them because I don't want to make the other ones feel bad. That's right.

Speaker 1: 5:38

No, I think it's just sitting neutral.

Speaker 2: 5:41

So you know we're getting into it there idea capture. Then, once you have the idea, how do you distill what's good and what's not? How do you expand on an idea? Because sometimes, maybe in the idea, ideas are such a weird. Maybe we should just come up with a working definition, yeah, and then I think we should come up with a way to understand the rest of this, because when you talk about ideas, you don't. It's not always necessarily the same thing, but I definitely think we talk about idea capture, how you distill ideas, how you figure which ones are worth pursuing, and then how. I think maybe it's also important that we talk about and maybe we start here is what is an idea?

Speaker 2: 6:26

You know, we tend to rank ideas on. This is a good one. This is a great one. I kind of, over the last several years and especially like as I've started to work within more creative collaborations and things like that I've started to come to the idea or the settle down.

Speaker 1: 6:48

I've used the topic in the explanation.

Speaker 2: 6:50

I've started to come to it, to an understanding that ideas kind of just are and they can come from everywhere. They can come from any person. There's no prerequisite of experience to come up with a great idea. Sometimes having experience helps and you know, sometimes it's hard to come in and come up with a novel idea and something if you don't understand the context or the history. But good ideas can come from anything and the secret, the secret, the. In my opinion, the way to get to the best ideas is to kind of abandon this mindset that I'm gonna have the best idea or the best. There is a best idea, it's just you keep Refining, yeah, until it is right.

Speaker 2: 7:38

Mm-hmm and what it? What did they say it like? It's like porn, right? You know when you see it. You know when you see it, you know the idea is right when you see it. And you know keep going until you find it.

Speaker 1: 7:49

I'm gonna have to search for the reference show. Don't click that link, boys. Larry Flint thing. We're kind of goofy today. I was a little wild in my live stream.

Speaker 2: 8:04

There was some energy there it's like I'm bringing it right now. Yeah, yeah, this is. This is interesting.

Speaker 1: 8:10

Everybody's just so happy that we're recording a podcast.

Speaker 2: 8:12

I think we're just pumped up but I think that's the thing about ideas is. You hear this whenever you you listen to interviews with, I Guess, our field great photographers, great directors, great writers, they're just, they're almost agnostic, mm-hmm, they're just Observing ideas as they come and go. Yeah, and this was a big part of the the Rick Rubin Right book that that both you and I have read in the past year.

Speaker 1: 8:40

And just you, you, you always be open, observe them as they come and go, and listen listen because anything could be an idea and right, and it's not listen to people speaking, it is like listen to the source, listen to the universe have that openness intuition that you have.

Speaker 2: 8:58

if something is Just, even if it's just a mild little, that's kind of interesting. Oh, that's, I'm excited, that's exciting. Yeah, that's. Oh, I want to look into that more. Right, it's worth, it's worth doing there might be something there you might hit at that end. Who cares? You're right back where you started.

Speaker 1: 9:15

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:16

Um, but you're more experienced.

Speaker 1: 9:18

That's right.

Speaker 2: 9:19

Um, I think you know we have it right here Expectations. You can have expectation when you're, when you're dealing in ideas, when ideas are the currency, you can have an expectation that you know you're gonna be the best. And if you're directing a team of people or if you're working with a team of people, it shouldn't be you right, it has to come from.

Speaker 1: 9:45

It has to come from just, and that, to me, is about surrender. Yeah, surrendering to, especially if you're in a collaborative state. Yeah and I think, even if you're curating individually, like street photography, let's say, on your own, surrendering to All of the ingredients, yeah, bringing that best idea drop the ego.

Speaker 2: 10:04

Yeah, we're exactly.

Speaker 1: 10:05

Drop the ego, and that's been a common refrain. We've also, we know we've obviously had a common refrain in our conversations about ego, about surrender, about openness and listening, and I think, as this podcast progresses and you know you sort of see the spine through a lot of these episodes our journey has been, you know, to try to arrive at that and I think, with ideas too, there's an element of surrendering and for me, in my experience, openness and listening, ideas bubbling up coming from something, coming from sometimes a pain point or a point of friction or a problem that you're experiencing, or Coming from Just something interesting that you observed. You know a lot of my YouTube content comes up from a problem, like somebody's having a hard time with this mechanic.

Speaker 2: 10:53

I think most, most pro.

Speaker 1: 10:54

I can help with that. And then on the photography side, like these fourth of July fireworks tents are fascinating to me. I have an idea now of maybe doing a series on it or a project on it, and then where do I go from there? So I you know. So, if we look at the conversation around, this sort of first phase of an idea is like Maybe where it comes from or maybe maybe we're defining it as like that it's that particle, it's that yeah particle of thought or particle of what, like the cliche metaphor with the spark the spark, the light bulb.

Speaker 2: 11:31

Yeah, and I think the spark, you know it's, it is the most cliche metaphor, but the spark that starts the roaring fire, or whatever like. But if you think about it in terms of visual metaphor for, for an abstract concept concept, it's not a bad one. Yeah, it starts. Yeah, it's literally just a spark. Most of them just fade away. Yep, maybe one hits the right you know combination of tender to turn into something.

Speaker 1: 11:57

And in my experience it's been kind of fun because when I think back on my screenwriting times, I would get ideas for, like, a solution to a plot issue or a character issue, or I would get an idea for an entire, you know, maybe a script, and I would sometimes purposely not write it down, I would purposely not like sort of transfer it from Intangible and intangible state to a tangible state by being written down in a document to see if it kept Coming into my mind. I would call it haunting, like if it haunted me, like that was my process of sort of like Vending whether it was a good idea, right yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:39

Now I think, ultimately, it's probably best to try to write your ideas down as much as possible, because you never know if you return to the legal Pad or the moleskin. Is it moleskin or most?

Speaker 2: 12:50

Skin. I've always called it more skin. Sorry if that's not or you're. You know your sponsor us and we'll get the name right.

Speaker 2: 13:03

No, no, I think that's actually funny, though, that you say that you would always do that because I had the same. I had the same idea of like well, this is persistent, and I used to. I always get all my ideas at 11, 30 at night, right, and I'm trying to put the head down on the pillow. I get them in the shower, all of the ideas, and my mindset for the longest time was you gotta write this down, and then I'd be like well, if I remember it in the morning, it's worth remembering, yeah and I have evolved from that.

Speaker 2: 13:33

Just like you said, I where I try to write down as much as. I can. I carry little notebook with me at all times. We don't need you just make little comments, just little one word, two word things, and it's like the Seinfeld episode. We was like what the hell does this mean?

Speaker 1: 13:48

when you wrote it down, when he woke up, like two in the morning, yep, and I've had those before. I have but.

Speaker 2: 13:54

I've also had you know it's we were talking about. Right before we started recording.

Speaker 2: 13:58

We listened to LA Freeway by Guy Clark great song and Link in the show knows me in the shots and I was telling you the story of how he came to that song and I. From my understanding the story goes that he Essentially was after he played a gig and they were driving back to you know, their apartment in LA. He's asleep in the backseat, he wakes up briefly and he he's, you know, irritable if I can just get off of this LA Freeway and you know his his right. Our brain kicks on and goes oh, that's, that's something decent.

Speaker 2: 14:36

Yeah and he writes it down in a napkin and then go, this goes back to sleep. Yep, and four months later you know different mind, different headspace, different situation, you know different set of surrounding influences. Yep, he finds that napkin and goes, hmm, and he writes an entire song and it's a wonderful song.

Speaker 2: 14:58

It's an amazing song and it all sparked from. It's a song that is like this great grand. You know it talks about a lot more than just the literal wanting to get off of a freeway, but in the moment he was just like get me off of this freeway. Yep, I love that. That's a great story because it's kind of like you said, you just got to catch everything.

Speaker 2: 15:21

Yes because when you're sitting there writing, you're in a specific headspace, right, if you're writing, you're in that kid, maybe you've been thinking in that through that character's perspective. You're in that headspace. Maybe you're pulling really heavily from one Film that you watched or screenplay that you read recently and you're going through and you're you know all of all of your inspirations coming from that You're channeling. I always call the state of channel you get the idea and you're like this is no good.

Speaker 1: 15:49

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:49

And it might be no good, but maybe you're just not in the correct space to absorb that idea. I know this has happened to me and I assume it's happened to you just as many times, but I'll often read a. You know, you read a piece of poetry or something, you hear a song and it means nothing to you. It's just like, oh, that's pretty good. And then it hit you in the right moment and it's the world, everything.

Speaker 1: 16:14

The universe Yep.

Speaker 2: 16:15

Whoa, how did I ever miss this? This is the greatest thing I've ever heard in my entire life. How could somebody have encapsulated something so perfect, right, and so, yeah, your headspace. That's kind of why I like this. I like writing down all of my ideas. I experience it with the podcast, because we're just kind of talking and we're not really premeditating on a lot of these conversations.

Speaker 1: 16:37

Right, you know, we premeditate, but we're not necessarily coming in with we need to hit these yeah, these talking points, yeah, it's very free, associative Concrete outline Like hey, let's wrap up that segment on that part of that topic and move into the next one.

Speaker 2: 16:52

Yeah, yeah, and I think you know we'll come back and listen to stuff and I'm whoa. Yeah, I'm really glad I said that on there. Yes, you know, like that, that that's interesting. I'll do this with old writing. Um, I read you that thing the other day that I wrote, um, yeah, in a particular headspace, yep.

Speaker 1: 17:11

And.

Speaker 2: 17:12

I was reading that I'm like, wow, this is a lot more meaningful to me. I just kind of wrote it at the time, removed from it for a year and a half and that's weird. Yeah what is that?

Speaker 2: 17:25

You know, you get removed from it and then you come back to it in a different headspace and it takes on a whole new meaning. So, anyways, I won't continue to go down that rabbit hole, but I think you're right with the eventual thing of just write them all down and just try to get as many of them as possible.

Speaker 1: 17:41

Well, let me ask you this too, because you know, like Factors in the Moon, let's not go down into like writer's block and all that stuff, but like, this is about inspiration, ideas, having like clear vision for something that you want to work on. What's, overall, your relationship to just like I don't know what the right phrase or term is ideation or idea generation, you know, coming up with ideas that you then have a sort of a pool of contenders to act upon, whether you write a poem or write a screenplay, or go out and take photographs Like, do you have a good relationship with coming up with ideas or do you have an antagonistic relationship with that process?

Speaker 2: 18:23

I really enjoy the process. I enjoy the process quite a bit. You have to be working with somebody who's like-minded, I think.

Speaker 1: 18:30

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:30

And you have to. So Fact goes gets into like choosing your collaborators carefully, because you and I can sit here and ideate.

Speaker 1: 18:37

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:38

And it feels effortless. There's people I work with on a daily basis where I can ideate and it's effortless. Anything's open, let's try anything. Wow, that's it. That's the one. And there's an understanding that my idea is not more correct than your idea and your idea is not more correct than let's just keep throwing stuff out and again we'll know when we see it. I don't think you can be a legal pad in a pen and writing the same thing 100 different ways, anything that comes to mind you take. Here's the thing that a lot of people in 2023 I don't really want to accept. I wrote this down.

Speaker 2: 19:19

Usually, the first idea is not the best idea, whatever that means. Usually, the first idea is not the right one. Usually, you've got to take the first idea. You're turning off of the main road. Well, you've got to turn down six work roads and jump a creek and eventually you'll get somewhere worth being. But it just takes time. Ideation just takes time. Writing just takes time and everybody wants stuff quick and snappy these days and you just got to be willing to take time.

Speaker 1: 19:53

And I think, although that is probably more often than not, that first idea or that first version of the idea isn't the sort of the thing that's not the answer or whatever you want to call it, and I really liked in Rick Rubin's book where he talked about sometimes you do go back to the original thing.

Speaker 2: 20:13

You've tried all these different things, but there's no way of knowing.

Speaker 1: 20:17

This isn't the execution necessarily. It's just fleshing out the idea to figure out how to execute it. So maybe you try with Rick Rubin it's music obviously. You try some effects on the guitar, you're trying different things, but then all of a sudden you're like you know what? The idea that we had the first time, that was it. We hit on it and I think again that goes back to openness surrender all of that stuff that you're not like. Well, the first idea is never the right one. If you have that kind of binary thinking in that process, I think you're really doing yourself a disservice.

Speaker 2: 20:51

Well, and the other. I just want to put a caveat, because you just inspired something like you got an idea. You've got an idea. You've got to be willing, because sometimes you'll get to an idea and you'll flesh something out and you'll get close and maybe you've, like some collaborators have also come on board and agreed, and then you figure out this isn't going to work. We need to go back to the original. We had it right originally.

Speaker 2: 21:13

And the reason I say this is because we had a project recently like a bigger project and a larger team was involved, and so me and one of the collaborators I was working with we went through all of the months of developing concepts and ideas and we got to one and most everybody kind of got on board with it. And then we start continuing to develop it and work through this design. And then we figured out this isn't it. And we had to go back. And you can either do this from a place of embarrassment, like oh, I got it wrong. I think that's the wrong way to approach it. You have to go back and just be like look, we continue to work through this and we thought that we had something here. And if you're being honest, if you're being true to the idea, if you're actually going for the best idea and there's no ego involved, then you should be OK with being and this is what happened is this, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 22:15

It doesn't work.

Speaker 2: 22:17

We got it right the first time, and now some people might look at that as so you wasted all that time. Well, no, because now we know we got it right the first time and that's great. And is it going to inform the next time? Maybe, but that'll be its own scenario. But on this specific case, we had to talk to everybody and everybody kind of came on board and we went back to the original and it turned out great. But you can't have that. Oh man, we wasted all this time. And some people unfortunately a lot of people, I think they Calculate, the time goes into the calculation right, or the effort goes into the calculation.

Speaker 1: 23:01

We kind of got it right the first time, because we spent a hundred hours in the second version.

Speaker 2: 23:06

Well, you can spend a hundred hours on something. It's the Bruce Springsteen right. You know he did the demo tapes for Nebraska in a bedroom on a tape recorder link in the show notes. I'm sure it's a great album. Did the? Did the demo tapes in a bedroom. They go to record it in the studio and he's got the backing band and sing. Like everybody's got His stereo track and everybody there's like 18 tracks.

Speaker 1: 23:29

It's freshly produced great my vocals wall of sound absolutely and we got it right the first time.

Speaker 2: 23:35

Yep, we're just gonna keep the demo. Yep, people like, oh, this is weird.

Speaker 1: 23:39

But then you know 45 years later, but this and and that idea might also get hold your thought, but that idea might also get shot on, because that's not what normally happens. Yeah, we can kill ideas because, like, that's not, that's not what we've done before. Yeah, you know there's this status quo that gets you locked in and again, yeah, we got to watch out that we're not every idea about surrender and openness not like well, we haven't done that before. Like well, that that's okay like this is.

Speaker 2: 24:07

I think every idea is its own organism, yeah, or every collection of ideas, every project is its own organism, right? You know, when we're, when we're coming up with, when we're working on a production together, mm-hmm, we're not approaching that with the same approach that we had to Building this podcast, right, Because that's a different thing. It's. You know, some of the thinking structures might be similar, mm-hmm, but it's a different organism. We're not. You know, we're not like well, we did this and now we it's. It's just okay, start from the ground and build your way up. It's like zero based budgeting, but for Creative work and even the idea with this podcast.

Speaker 1: 24:46

You know there's obviously precedent and just a lot of podcasts out there, even in the format sort of like ours, where we're tackling like a specific issue or working through something in an episode. We're not sitting there going. I'm not going. Well, alex, we can't really have this more of a free flow episode because if you look at these other podcasts like they have like a hard stop at 15 minutes for the first topic, whether they're through with it or not. And then they move on like that's how we have to do it.

Speaker 1: 25:13

Yeah and we're like no, we're gonna do it a little differently and it may not be like the best idea in the first two, three, four, five episodes. Yeah but we're gonna surrender to that process, be open and we're gonna figure out what the show's form is, but without going. You know, hey, alex, what if we did an episode like this? Well, well, hold, we've set this precedent with all of our episodes that we do them like this.

Speaker 2: 25:37

Yeah, like.

Speaker 1: 25:38

I that's kind of interesting, but I'm scared because it feels different. It doesn't feel like the status quo for what we've created here. What's our audience? And you start having all these other forces at play. What's expected of us? We just talked about this pre-show, that that sort of murders.

Speaker 1: 25:53

Good ideas or murders experimentation, because sometimes experimentation, even if you're sharing that work, is part of ideation, it's part of arriving at a better state of whatever it is that you're making a podcast, a YouTube channel, your photography, whatever and and I think you know we can't get too precious about that, and not if you had a thought on that no, I had another sort of go, yet no go, for I mean, I think we you can't get too precious about an idea like my.

Speaker 2: 26:24

My thinking goes to Goes to the. So Matt just purchased Sleeping by the Mississippi, which I'm sure most people show. If you're yeah, if you're watching the show at all because of photography, you've heard of that book and you know that the there is an interview somewhere. It might be on his channel, but it might be like an older interview. Alex so the photographer, alex so sleeping by the.

Speaker 2: 26:49

Mississippi, and Forgive me if I'm just misattributing the quote, yeah, which I may be, because it's been a little bit, but there's like he had to kind of move beyond that, going into a situation Expecting that he knew what to photograph, and just kind of had to start surrendering to like the scene. Yep, that just kept coming into my head. Like you know, you got to just kind of surrender to what what's presented yes because, yeah, when you, when you walk in with an expectation, expectation.

Speaker 2: 27:25

You're either gonna try to mold the idea into something that it's not yep to serve that yep, or you're gonna be disappointed because it doesn't meet the expectation. So, it's like you're gonna lose either way, so they're just like throw it out the one.

Speaker 1: 27:36

Okay, well, and you can you know, like with my, my idea about Photographing these fireworks tents and doing portraits of the people who are running them, like I can develop a very concrete Version of that in my mind, like this is what I think it's gonna be, and then that turns into this is what I want it to be.

Speaker 2: 27:53

You might go what it?

Speaker 1: 27:54

has to be. Then I go to actually do it and I'm getting, if I'm getting frustrated that it's not Matching what I had in my mind, serving this it's not that it's not good or it's not it you're.

Speaker 1: 28:05

You're just. You're just brain locked on this thing. That isn't the truth of what's before you. So, again, you have to go back to surrender, openness and listening, because what you formulated in your mind based on this idea that was very inspiring, you became emotionally attached to. Maybe you thought, if you executed this project a certain way, it would lead to certain results, whether it was on the commercial side or the you know, like your work being revered or getting into a gallery or whatever. So you really have to be careful with all that. Yeah, the the sort of next prompt. So I'm gonna wrap up that by saying my relationship to ideas is very good. Yeah, I Like writing down ideas, coming up with ideas. You know, I feel like, like you referenced earlier, that they were Earlier. You thought that they were finite. I'm like, keep them coming.

Speaker 2: 28:55

Yeah, no.

Speaker 1: 28:58

Notes, documents on my phone, you know. So all that is good. I'll be curious to hear about for you how this goes. But for me, my antagonist in the, in the journey from I guess idea to Finished, it to finalize, for me it's execution.

Speaker 2: 29:14

Well, so, before we get into Execution, I just I have a question. What is your relationship with creative collaborations and ideas in terms of what is, how's your experience been?

Speaker 1: 29:28

Okay.

Speaker 2: 29:29

In terms of you know you're Collaborating with somebody.

Speaker 1: 29:33

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:35

Obviously I want to hear about like the negative experience, like the positive experience is the positive experience everything just flows. Any ideas is Viewed as you know a possibility. Yeah, I think everything's open. Have you had negative experiences?

Speaker 1: 29:49

I have, yeah, I've had experiences. You know the first ones that I think of, and I, you know, certainly won't say the individuals with whom I was working, but you know we're talking about you will?

Speaker 1: 29:59

I don't actually know anybody working on some screenplays with directors that my manager had connected us with and we had, you know, a spec screenplay and we wanted to bring in a director so we could start to package things up. And that director has notes, or they want to do a page run, rewrite or whatever, and you can just tell that Ultimately they are serving their own self-interest and they are going to use you as a Writer who's working for free. They don't have any skin in the game, they don't have to pay you. You know there's no sort of there's sort no sort of downside for them to to have you do their bidding and you know you end up being sort of a tool that they have to try to help them achieve what they want for themselves in their career. And a lot of times that to me in those experiences, felt like it was very much based on, you know, coming from a place of ego on the flip side, whether it was in filmmaking Sometimes YouTube videos I've made with you guys or stuff that we've talked about Making this podcast where you have collaborations with people, where everyone is Surrendered to making the thing the best it can be and the ego is not Not present in that, in that collaboration and everybody is is is taking their experience, their taste, their I for the truth, their eye for what feels right, and they are focusing that on the collaboration.

Speaker 1: 31:31

And when ideas come up, it's Well, cody had two good ideas in a row and now it's my turn. It's not, yeah, you know. Well, I think you know you guys don't really have a good idea of what this thing needs to be. So I'm gonna kind of take over so that you don't steer it in the wrong direction. I'm gonna really push my agenda by shooting down all of your ideas and not being open to actually listening to them, because I've already sort of dismissed you as a Collaborator. But I'm gonna keep up appearances, absolutely whatever, just because I like working with this person on the team.

Speaker 1: 32:04

You know none of that stuff where everybody is just again open and surrendered. They listen to the idea. They, you know, they put it up against the other ideas that are in play. Their own idea that's in play and maybe they, they can't go. Well, no, let's go with this route. They go. That's not quite it, but that got me thinking like what about this? Or what if we did this? You know, and you're all just working together to a no, that the best idea.

Speaker 2: 32:30

I think you just I mean what you hit on right. There is what if we did this? What if we do this?

Speaker 1: 32:35

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:36

That's when it's at its best. Yeah, I like I say something you build off of that, I build off of that that's cool.

Speaker 1: 32:42

What if? Yeah, what it?

Speaker 2: 32:44

okay, and then you're inspiring, yeah, other and versus and you can get in there and you have to also be like With the other person and with yourself. You have to be like no, no, no, actually that was bad. I can see like that was, that wasn't good, we don't need to do that. That's, that's not going that direction, right, right, and I think, you know, I think that they Again it kind of goes back to drop that you go.

Speaker 2: 33:07

Yeah get out of the ego. That's honestly, that's the response. That's the irony of it too, because a lot of your managers and directors and things like that have huge egos, yeah, but when you're in that position, your job is kind of just To Be open.

Speaker 2: 33:24

Yeah that's kind of the job. Just like you guide the conversation and the ideas are gonna come, you can give your ideas. Maybe you can provide that context that we talked about earlier. But it's not. Some people are out here and they're like managing groups of people and they think they're managing because they have to always be right. That's not the job description.

Speaker 1: 33:49

I think too, sometimes there's levels of collaborators or sort of collaborators that are not really participating in the true spirit of collaboration. You do have people that are just, they're locked into their ego, what's best for them, what they want, et cetera. Sometimes you have people that don't have ego but there's some agenda, like something has sort of taken them over, whether it's like too much focus on the commercial result that it's going to get, even though it's a good idea, like, oh, that's not commercially viable, and even though my ego isn't driving that decision, it's this external force that you're answering to, like, oh, that might not test well, or whatever it is.

Speaker 2: 34:28

I think that's getting.

Speaker 1: 34:30

Or if we use that camera, like the printing costs are really high, yeah, it looks the best, but you know, and so you have to sort of be like is there an agenda that's at play in?

Speaker 1: 34:41

here, that's influencing your openness and surrender and an ability to surrender to the best idea, because we can have that conversation after we acknowledge it's the best idea, like what's this idea going to cost us and can we afford it? And I don't mean money, I mean it could be anything Time, money, tools, you know, like acquiring the tools needed to execute that idea, whatever it is, and so you have to watch out for those folks too.

Speaker 1: 35:08

Because, you know that. You know, and again, not to go down the commerce and art rabbit hole, but sometimes that's a factor. You're working with a producer, a studio, you're working with an editor on assignment for a magazine, you know, whatever it is, where there's these other forces at play that sometimes you ultimately have to answer to. But in the ideation process maybe we can set that aside.

Speaker 2: 35:30

That's it. Yeah, arrive at the idea that's the distinction and then come up with a solution, because it is expectations in another form. Right, but that's the distinction Is yes, these are all you know, these are all masters that you have to answer to at some point but when you're in that base phase of just capturing ideas, you have to be open, and I think a lot of people miss this.

Speaker 2: 35:56

I think a lot of people are more inclined to just let's set the parameters, then we'll ideate, then we'll do the thing. No, they're asked. You have to be unchained, you know you can't box yourself in at the start. Anything's possible, because getting into that, you know, ideas are just problem solving.

Speaker 2: 36:15

Yeah, you know you have the idea you can problem solve. There's been some, really some of the most. I'm thinking of filmmaking, obviously because it's so cost-centric. You know you have the producer to answer to, you have the set design, the location, you have all of that. You know cost of actors. But a lot of the best, you know, innovations in any form, have come from this great idea that was unrestricted. Then you add in the restrictions and then you figure out okay, how can we keep this idea and make it work with these restrictions? And then suddenly you have an innovation that could never have been conceived prior to that. And if you would have gone in and said, no, can't do that too much restriction, then you're never gonna get that innovation, absolutely, you're just gonna get more of the same. So that was I mean I'm super glad you hit on that Cause I thought about that earlier. And then we just kind of didn't.

Speaker 2: 37:09

But starting without expectation. But also don't box yourself in. Let's get into some like tangible specifics. Idea capture how do you do it? You're a notes guy. You're a phone, iphone notes, do you? Maybe we avoid naming like specific software too much. I mean, we've mentioned, like Mila, note, but you know capture how do you capture? Like I said, I love legal pads and I have little notebooks and a space pen that I carry with me at all times and you know it's in my pocket. Sometimes I'll go a week without using it. I have one in my nightstand. I've got, you know, paper all over the place. I'm a paper guy.

Speaker 1: 37:50

I go back and forth. It's sort of like what's the thing I can grab right now? Or maybe there's a little bit of like what is this idea associated with? So if an idea is associated with my YouTube channel, I tend to go digital with that Interesting, I know, Because I think with the YouTube stuff there's it's weird because, like, I get really inspired with creating my content around. You know, an educational video, a tutorial, right, and it's not a lot of artistic creativity, that sort of aspect to it, Even though, you know, sometimes I'm goofy or I, you know, kind of mess around with the form a little bit, but it's, you know, fairly straightforward technical information.

Speaker 2: 38:38

That's fascinating, though the capture the medium of expression influences the capture medium. Yeah for me.

Speaker 1: 38:45

And I think, because this goes to execution and I know we touched on that a bit ago and are going in this path, but for me I think with the YouTube channel it's a greater reality that it will turn into a video, because it's essentially my full-time job yeah, I don't. And it has commercial results that are connected, which is a whole other conversation where so much of my decision-making on the artistic, creative side has been influenced by the commercial viability of something that we'll save that for another conversation. But then, when it comes to the things that are more, this has no connection to like making money or earning ad revenue or getting a sponsor and it's just like my sort of the creative self-expression that I'm interested in the fireworks project, screenplay ideas that are you know now that I'm not like pursuing screenwriting commercially like to like earn a living.

Speaker 1: 39:49

I get ideas for stuff, little funny bits like I still take notes on little stand-up comedy bits that I think would be funny because in a past life or earlier in my life I was really went hard on stand-up comedy and improv comedy and all that, so that stuff I tend to write on scratch paper mole skins, legal pads, whatever I can get, and I do have digital like a notes document for like movie title ideas that might then like spawn a movie idea and then you know movie ideas. So it'll be interesting.

Speaker 1: 40:28

just to wrap up with, photography, it'll be interesting with photography, like how do I figure out how to document the ideas there? Because, like with the fireworks tent idea and I talked to you just about, like going out to the racetrack in this small town in Iowa- the dirt track racing and just doing documentation of that it's funny about photography Just. I don't need to write it.

Speaker 2: 40:52

I don't need to write it down. Is the capture of the idea right? Well like to document the idea of taking photos of a fireworks, tent you just well yeah, Because for me it's the notation is the photography.

Speaker 1: 41:07

Well, and the idea is, this is a thing I'm curious about. This is the place where I would go to do it and I'm not. I don't like, I'm not gonna sit there like get photos of fireworks. Yeah, right, you know, like people in the stands.

Speaker 2: 41:22

The thing is that you could photograph people.

Speaker 1: 41:24

That's the beauty of photography to me, at least the photography I like to do I get an idea about a setting and a lifestyle, a whatever world, and I go I'm just gonna go to that world and take photographs of the stuff that I see.

Speaker 2: 41:40

I will say though we talked about because you just mentioned the racetrack project, yeah, and for I guess full context before Matt was talking about how he wanted to go and photograph an Iowa race track on.

Speaker 1: 41:54

Friday night Friday night, yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:57

And there's a Bruce Springsteen song.

Speaker 1: 41:59

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:59

Racing in the streets yeah, so good. And the, basically the thought that I was having right, the idea I was having Full circle when you're. You know I don't necessarily, like you said, write down, I mean this shot and this shot, yes, right, but I will have mood boards or bullets and boards of material where you know I'm not writing down, shoot, racetrack, but I am grabbing that song because it inspired that and I'm putting that on a board and I'm saying and this is not like photography project mood board.

Speaker 1: 42:38

It's just, you know, in general capture.

Speaker 2: 42:40

sometimes, like I'll do monthly playlists in my phone. I used to put them out and sometimes I still do, and some you know whatever. But I have this playlist and you know, sometimes the best way to notate an idea is to take the song and just add it to a playlist and then you can come back to that. Or you see a movie I'll do this a lot where I'll take a picture of this, like I'll pause it, take a picture of this screen or I'll write a note like at 42, 16, this movie, and then I'll just write a little two word blurb.

Speaker 1: 43:13

I'll do the sign felt thing.

Speaker 2: 43:15

And most of the time I don't even revisit it, but sometimes I do and then it turns into something. So I think capturing things on a bulletin board can be an effective way, even if you're not necessarily writing out like shoot the people at the tent and things like that. But sometimes I do, like you said, the stand up bits or whatever. Sometimes I'll see a situation and it's just humorous or there's something else there and I'll just notate the thought or whatever. I mean, what are the structure of your notations look like? Or is it just like? I don't know, make an observation on the chair? You know what would that? How would that look like? I know this is a little granular, but I think I just will write.

Speaker 1: 44:02

it's almost like a free association, that idea happens and I just kind of write out, jot down words, Maybe in phrases, sometimes in sentence structure, not really just like you know. Like you know, just like a listing of words. Oh, we're at 45 minutes.

Speaker 2: 44:20

All right, Could you do like a 10 minute like?

Speaker 1: 44:24

I gotta leave in seven minutes. Oh shoot, Okay, we got five minutes left.

Speaker 2: 44:30

So, like you know, free association sentences. I just since you gotta leave in seven minutes, we've gotta wrap up quickly. I want you to talk about capture versus execution.

Speaker 1: 44:42

Well, here's what an idea I have. I wonder if we save execution as another episode, as a different episode. That's a good idea. So I think this is a good idea. Yeah, I think, because I got just just flashed into my head a minute ago and I'm like we could probably kill an hour just on, especially if these episodes were quite possibly back to back that we, you know. This is the episode on ideas. The next episode is on. Okay, we have ideas.

Speaker 2: 45:07

Now we're executing the idea and what's our relationship to execution? Yeah, I like that. Yeah, it kind of does. Yeah, getting into the relationship of execution, it is a rocky one.

Speaker 1: 45:17

It's a rocky one for me too, brother, but it's weird and just like a kind of like a teaser, I guess, of what maybe the next episode could be. But for me it's like in some areas execution is no problem, execute all day long. Inconsistency and this echoes back to does this have a commercial result? Versus the ones that don't are like, okay, well, that's not commercially viable, so it's just going to sit there until I have enough money where I can stop doing the stuff that has commercial results and then just focus on the artistic side, which to me is bullshit.

Speaker 2: 45:51

You said just sit there, so let's wrap with this then.

Speaker 1: 45:56

You just sit there.

Speaker 2: 45:58

I'll. How are you, are you filing your ideas, you know? Are you storing them? Uh, are they? Are they just sitting in it? I used to write stuff from my phone and it would just get lost and like two years later, you go back.

Speaker 2: 46:10

I think it's. I find it easier to interface with a notebook because usually what'll happen is I'll get sick of the notebook just sitting there and so I'll go and I'll distill what, what I still think is good, you know, a month later, into a smaller, more compact thing, and then I'll move on. At the end of the year I typically sit down and if anything is worth keeping I'll write it down on a separate thing, Like that's how that's my writing process. You know I'll write um, you know I'll just do scenes and scenes and scenes, and then I'll go back a couple of weeks later and anything that I think is still good I'll move it over and it, you know, cuts it down, Uh, and that'll continue to develop. The rest gets burned Right, Unless there's some kind of like oh, this was interesting, it just wasn't quite right. You can like note that down, but what's your filing system for ideas? How do you?

Speaker 1: 46:59

right now, everything is, um, you know, I would say it's probably scattered across legal pads. I keep legal pads in my truck, legal pads in my studio. Uh, I have obviously digital documents of different things and I think again and we can unpack this in another conversation All of that stuff, most of those other again, other than the, the sort of YouTube centered stuff that is in like, uh, you know, the specifics piece of software and it's like the title is there and ideas about what I'm going to do are there. These are all scattered because I don't think I ever really believed that I could execute on them, because there's not a viable commercial result.

Speaker 2: 47:40

It's like I think your relationship has probably changed recently. Yes, and I'm in a state of upheaval and flux.

Speaker 1: 47:48

Right now, where I'm starting to, I'm starting to say fuck that, that's bullshit. Everything's open. And how can I and this is, I think, what you're getting at knowing that all these disparate elements and ideas and things are scattered all over the place, how do you start saying, well, no, I am going to start executing on these. And how do you collect all that material and start looking through what are the things that bubble up? And I will be very analytical about my approach, because this is, this is again part of the problem with cultural forces and this and that commercial viability, all that bullshit. I'll start going what's the? What's the best idea? That's the I don't want to say easiest to execute, but maybe as like, like a smaller form, um, uh, so I can start like stacking those, those, those wins, uh, the string of pearls, if you will, um, to start moving up to some of the stuff.

Speaker 1: 48:47

That's a much bigger undertaking. Like Ted Snow, If I do a fireworks tent project, that's somewhere kind of on the, that first quarter to the middle area of, like the complexity scale versus, um, you know, let's say, executing ideas. I'm inspired by my anxiety and frustration with, uh, the home and disorganization, and I'm going to execute on taking all these photos across a year, um, and then that'll sort of be an idea that sits and it doesn't realize its final form, whether it's going to be a zine, a book, a gallery, whatever. But, like you know, that didn't take a lot of time and effort and take me away from the things that earned me a living to partially execute that idea, so I think Just finding that it's like working on muscle, right?

Speaker 2: 49:32

You can't. You don't start out bench pressing 250 pounds. You start out bench pressing the bar and work your way up.

Speaker 1: 49:39

Well, in the in the killer thing is just just as we wrap up is me vetting all of my ideas through. Commercial viability has actually kept me, I think, from getting to a place where Maybe executing some of these ideas from a place of self-expression and just really wanting to make this thing, and then sharing the work but without some commercial results as part of it, could have been something that got a commercial result and helped me get to the point where I fantasize about where I can kind of set aside all the stuff that I think about, uh, in regards to commercial viability and really just make work. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 50:22

I mean my, my intuition is that that's going to turn out to be true, that you know the the most commercial success is going to come from this, wherever you end up with this idea of dropping your commercial, commercialized framework, yep.

Speaker 2: 50:41

I think that's suddenly where you're going to start to see, cause I mean, then your definition of success changes a little bit too, like yes, you have the one to one money, but like just waking up, fired up to create stuff is its own Yep, amazing reward and X, and and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and and, executing something that I'm not sitting there thinking about, some commercial result.

Speaker 1: 51:04

Yeah, it's just executing for the sake of and everything that you've shared with me, from this documentary on the century of self to my experience in Los Angeles. Um, my experience in Los Angeles, uh, all of this stuff is kind of referencing that storm I was talking about. I think is is moving towards a kind of a dismantling of what I was conditioned to think about, uh, my creative impulses. Yeah, it was to always pass it through this commercial viability filter and make judgment calls about what to pursue and what not to pursue based on its commercial viability Right. Can this earn me a living? Can this make me a good provider? Can this, um, get me the freedom that I think I can have once I reach some certain number in a bank account? Is there?

Speaker 2: 51:58

like a delivery or something.

Speaker 1: 51:59

Yeah, that must be something. Um so, yeah, uh, that's um, uh, just, you know, from ideas to me, dismantling all the bullshit that has affected me in my life and and and made me take, uh, a creative core and constantly put it through, this commercial viability bullshit, yeah, Uh, I think, at 44 years old, these forces between what you've shared with me, our conversations, these other experiences, has started to break me out of that default mode of thinking that was such a default that I wasn't even aware that that's what I was doing.

Speaker 2: 52:40

Yeah, you're like caught in it and you didn't even. Yeah, you don't see the uh, yeah yeah what is water? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 52:47

Yeah, it's a kind of like uh, to put it in commercial terms like I got pulled out of the matrix.

Speaker 2: 52:53

Well, we're getting pulled out of the matrix by my doorbell right now, and it's 431.

Speaker 1: 52:56

I have to pick up my daughter and preschool, speaking of well good, I've said speaking of commercial reliability.

Speaker 2: 53:01

I have to pay for preschool. See you guys later.