O Danny Blog Entries  

Act Like a Designer

I usually don't like books, movies, or TV shows about Hollywood: they seem too self-serving. The one exception to this is the reality show Project Greenlight, where industry neophytes get to make a movie. One thing that's great about it is that it shows like nothing else I've ever seen the effect of business decision on the creative process. Only have three million dollars? Ok, well, the monsters are going to look terrible and we need to rewrite half the movie. CEO doesn't like the movie? It only opens in three theaters. The effect of these types of business decisions upon what gets made is something that is seldom shown.

This season of Project Greenlight was particularly interesting because of the director they chose: John Gulager. Gulager was a very untraditional choice: introverted, older, and uncommunicative. And yet very talented. What was so interesting was watching him grow into the role of director, having to actually tell people his vision of the movie they were making. The producers and crew assumed he had a vision, but had no idea what that was, and so there was chaos until he learned how to talk to people like a director.

In a collaborative field like filmmaking or interaction design, all the vision and all the talent in the world doesn't matter if you can't communicate it to the team you are working with. And not just communicate it, communicate it like a designer, with a design attitude. You need the right ethos (the authority of a designer) to meet the expectations of the audience (that you know what you are doing). You are crafting an argument, after all: an argument of what the product should be.

Like many of the intangibles of our field, I'm not sure this can be taught, only learned.

Originally posted at Thursday, May 19, 2005 | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)

 
Previous Entry
IM the Walrus
Yahoo's announcement today that it's "jazzing up" its instant messenger amounts to adding in VOIP service to it and linking it to blogs. Yawn. ...

Recent Entries
New Book: Designing Gestural Interfaces

An Interaction Designer's Thanksgiving

Missing Britpop

Presentation: Gaming the Web: Using the Structure of Games to Design Better Web Apps

Connecting07: Rethinking Product Design: Why We Can't Wait

Connecting07: Medical Device Design: 10 Things You Need to Know

Connecting07: Brand, Design, and the Brain

An Open Letter to the Producers of the new Bionic Woman

Review: The Reflective Practitioner (Part IV)

Presentations on Slideshare

Archives
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
May 2003
April 2003
March 2003
February 2003
January 2003
December 2002
November 2002
October 2002
September 2002
August 2002
 
 
  O Danny Boy is About Me, Dan Saffer, and has my Portfolio, Resumé, Blog, and some Extras. It also has the blog I kept of my graduate studies and ways to Contact Me.  
 
 
 
  Blog RSS Feeds
Blog Excerpts
Full Entries
Design Entries Only
Atom Feed
 
 
 
 
  Search