What founders can learn from an A-list film director
Zen and the art of movie-making
This was a case of me not reading the podcast description and simply following my curiosity.
I dove into the (lengthy!) conversation between Rich Roll and acclaimed director Tom Shadyac (think: “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,” “Bruce Almighty,” and “The Nutty Professor”), I kept listening… at least up to the 90-minute mark, after which they lost me when the topic shifted to AI.
Not that I’m not interested in AI. But rather the tone and tenor of the conversation changed and they lost me. But for those first 90 minutes… they had my attention.
The backstory.
Tom Shadyac has an interesting family history. His father helped co-found St. Jude’s Hospital with comedian Danny Thomas. There’s a street leading to the hospital named after his father and his brother now heads the fundraising arm of the nonprofit.
After almost following in his father’s (and brother’s) lawyer footsteps, taking 4 years of pre-law classes, which he did not love, before signing up for a course in his 5th year called Writing and Directing, which he did.
He got his first job in LA writing jokes for Bob Hope (if you don’t know who he is, look him up… this was a big deal). Then he went to UCLA film school. After 11 years in Hollywood, he got his big break doing a movie of the week for Fox Television which led to the “Ace Ventura” opportunity the success of which led to the floodgates being opened (of course, everyone called him an overnight success…. but 11 years).
Then he was living large — a 13,000-square-foot house in Pasadena, flying private, all of it. But his deepening spirituality made him realize that “having it all” did not add up to much.
So he sold the big house and moved to a double-wide in the Malibu “trailer park.” And after a serious mountain biking accident, to Memphis where he founded and still operates the nonprofit Memphis Rox.
All the while, he’s been giving away the fortune he amassed making movies.
The interview is heavy on spirituality rooted in a life of service, consciousness, and human interconnectedness. But not in a preachy way. More of “oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” or “wow, I’ve experienced that.”
He believes that “the heart is the source of intelligence.” As a slowly reforming “head-centric” person, I appreciated him calling that out.
I found their discussion fascinating with so many takeaways. Here are a few I hope you can apply in your business.
As a filmmaker.
Tom Shadyac is inspiring in his approach to Memphis Rox and his commitment to the Memphis community (“There are no bad kids.”). And I could write an entire post on that.
But I wanted to focus here on four key ideas that jumped out at me from his time making movies.
1. The original idea is never what ends up on the screen.
He was straight up about this. The idea he pitched to studios (his vision for the movie) and got funding for was never what ended up on the big screen.
There were a lot of reasons for this, including a natural evolution of the idea and the involvement of more people (more on that in a sec).
But as the idea evolved, in most cases it got better.
Which got me thinking. How often do you get stuck on our original idea, clinging to it because it’s yours, and it’s the right idea?
Rather than being receptive to new information that comes into your awareness as time passes and to feedback from others?
What if you looked at a new idea for your business as the starting point? The place to put whatever it is out in the world and begin the test?
Go into the process knowing that the final result may bear little resemblance to the original concept. And that’s OKAY.
2. Collaboration makes an idea richer, better.
One of the reasons Tom Shadyac shared for the morphing of his ideas was the eventual addition of more parties in the act of making the film — other writers, actors, etc. And his experience taught him that these
Rich Roll summarized it this way:
“Right, and if you’re too much in the way, you get in the way of the miracle that might happen with the improv or whatever somebody else’s idea is.”
Are you in a mastermind or similar community where you talk through and receive feedback on your ideas? How does that feel to you? Are you okay with it? Or does it sting?
Whether you have defined collaborators on a project or not, think about the input you receive as heartfelt, thoughtful ways to make your idea sing.
3. Improvisation works but only after intense preparation.
They were discussing “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” and Rich Roll wanted to know how much of it was improvisation (vs what was in the script).
Here’s what Tom Shadyac shared:
“We wrote a really tight script, and this is what most people don’t know about improv. The best improvisations on movie sets are coming from really tight scripts, scripts that have been thought about 25 different ways, every angle, every line, every possibility of a relationship outcome. Then you go to set with a full library, and then something else happens.
But without the full library, you’d be creating that library on the set, right?… But by doing that extra mile of comedic dive, thinking, exploration, you are able to come to the set, and with that now inside of you already process, genius can often happen.”
I thought about the companion concept of breaking the rules (aka abandoning the script). To break the rules, you need to have mastered them. Or as Picasso said:
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
To effectively break the rules in business, you need to know what they are — whether it’s in your business development efforts, marketing, offering design, the roles within your organization, etc.
Learn what the best are doing and why. Master them. And then do them YOUR way.
4. There is “right timing.”
Some of his film projects took a decade or more to fruition. For one reason or another, he couldn’t get them made.
But when they eventually did, it was magic. The right team and the right production partners fell into place.
Sometimes they were who was originally intended, and other times they weren’t. But they were the right folks.
You’ve got to trust the timing in your business and life. Don’t get discouraged.
Just because something doesn’t move forward or happen right away, doesn’t mean it won’t. Now is not never. And later may be better.
A few more quick takeaways.
The good life is about the quality of your relationships.
We are all connected and need to help each other.
“Whenever we get in the way of whatever’s being created for us, with us, through us, it gets smaller.”
“I wanted my happiness to come from something inside of myself. Nothing outside was going to make me happy.”
Happy 4th of July everyone! 🎇
Katherine