How to be creative.

Or rather How to be more creative.
Creativity. This is a tough one to define. For as much as film and advertising people speak of the downright necessity of creativity, it’s a nebulous term at best. It is a term that is easy to quantify with a string of clever words “outside the box”, “innovative thinking”, “thought leadership”. We need it. It’s the lifeblood of our industry, after all CONTENT IS KING and new ideas drive show biz. So be creative. Now.
What the hell does that mean?
How do you create a repeatable, tactile, useful amount of creativity? You don’t. You can’t. No one can. It’s like trying to create love or integrity. It’s simply not palpable. Not possible. So that’s a bummer, right? What you can do, however, is create environments conducive to creativity. In both the external and internal sense.
The fastest and best way to NOT nurture a creative space is to over-intellectualize and analyze what it is to be creative. I recognize the hypocrisy here, I really do, but hear me out. In order to put yourself in a state that is conducive to creation, you can let your grown-up mind simply play. For it to really work, you have to be in a state of mental reckless abandon. Of being unafraid of what may come out of your silly mind. Removing that self-censoring voice that we as adults are required to have in day to day life.
Again, this is not helping- how do you achieve this wondrous childlike state of unaltered imagination and joy? The internal will follow the external. Get yourself in a comfortable place, with people you like. I know, that sounds over simplified. But it’s true. Trusting the others around you to not judge, to add to your ideas, to nurture you thought. That’s the crux of it. Feeling emotionally safe.
Surround yourself with people that energize you.
If you spend as large portion of the time laughing during a “creative session”, you’re on the right track. If you trust these people to hear your innermost thoughts and words and emotions, even better. If these people expand and heighten these and add to them with their own innermost thoughts and words and emotions, you’ve hit yourself a creative goldmine. I lucked out with my excellent partners at Crown Chimp Productions.
It’s not easy, finding these type of people. But the act of being aware of how others make you feel and the emotive state they put you in is a great indicator of how well you will play together. Because ultimately what you are doing is assembling the best playmates you can to make fun things. They may be adult, business, serious things. But you gotta play hard to get there.
Also start every meeting by writing very large on a whiteboard CONTENT IS KING. In all caps letters and then under it even bigger write DEADLINES ARE COMING. Then when people come in make them hold a hand mirror and sigh at themselves for like ten minutes. Then start.

To see Drew and Crown Chimp’s content, head on over to crownchimp.com