Bob Finlayson is the Futurist. Tanner Latham is the Executive Producer. They’re both storytellers, and with these conversations about Creativity and Culture, they share their ideas and what’s inspiring them. Read Episode 1: On Brainstorming & Collaboration, Episode 2: On Working Fast & Real-Time Collaboration & Episode 3: On Podcasting and the Future of Storytelling.
TANNER:
Hey Bob. Given this is our first column since the Academy Awards, we should call back to them since they are a major celebration of creativity and culture, warts and all.
My opinion is the Oscars don’t accurately reflect where our culture is at the moment, especially considering there were zero women nominated this year in the Best Director category (Natalie Portman called appropriate attention to the snubbing). Sadly, there have only been five women directors nominated in the history of the awards. That said, I’ll go along with Scott Galloway’s hot take that the Academy was boldly attempting to rebrand by selecting Parasite for four of its six noms, including Best Director and Best Picture.
What was your take?
BOB:
I’d honestly been thinking a lot about Parasite even before it was nominated, and I was both elated and astonished that it won. It affected me because of what it does for me as a storyteller. Sure, it’s everything the critics say. A unique story with thrilling plots twists and turns and powerful social commentary. But for me, it is also a trip through a culture I know little about. In other words, it’s a change in environment. And I find that’s what sparks new ideas and new thought paths for me.
TANNER:
Yes! I like where you’re going with this. It’s an angle I haven’t seen mentioned in all of Parasite’s criticism and reaction. It’s transportational. It takes you somewhere you haven’t been before and makes you uncomfortable. But it also opens your eyes. Shifting to us as creatives, this makes me try to think of the last time I displaced myself from my environment, my routines. I’m a person who pretty much demands a routine because I trust those consistent tracks so much. When a curve ball comes flying in, I default back to the tracks. But they also easily transform into ruts, which as we know, can be the death of creativity and new ideas. Do you put yourself in those uncomfortable situations often?
BOB:
Very often. As the son of an electrical engineer father and an artist mother, I feel like I’m constantly in that battle between the well-defined routines the scientist side of me loves and the envelope-pushing the artist side of me craves. But I find that internal conflict a powerful source of creativity.
TANNER:
That’s so encouraging. I admit to a similar tug of war--but it’s often more paralyzing than inspiring. My dad was a dentist, and my mom was a nursing professor and dean. They always led with a clinical and analytical approach. Interestingly, my dad wanted to be a writer, and there were a couple of poets, musicians and artists on my mom’s side. I feel like I’m 50/50… As I’m saying this out loud, I realize the organizational side probably wins out more often. In other words--and I know this sounds so debilitating to the creative process--I’ll schedule “Daydreaming” from 1 to 1:30, but when I get that Google alert, daydreaming is over. This is so revealing! Please save me from myself, Bob! (Ha…) In all seriousness, my wife (a commercial director and photographer) has been wrestling with this as well and was recently inspired by the dancer / creative guru Twyla Tharp’s Keep It Moving, which builds on her wildly popular The Creative Habit. Slid them both into my queue.
BOB:
The Creative Habit is on my book list too! Guess I better put Keep It Moving on there now as well. As to scheduling Daydreaming Sessions, I so admire that discipline. Still, I think we are all drawn to routine. In one of my favorite books, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, author and neuroscientist David Eagleman explains that many tasks we do routinely -- driving home from work, walking up stairs, and so forth, are “burned down into the circuitry of our brains” so that we no longer have to think about them. How many times have you driven home from the office and when you arrive at your front door, you have no idea how you got there. This, according to Eagleman, is because the brain no longer needs our conscious mind to get involved in such tasks; freeing us to think about other things.
So it appears routine can be both antithetical to creativity and a boon to it! In one way we are no longer thinking about what we are doing -- going through the motions -- but then our minds can also be freed up to daydream.
TANNER:
Right, right! That reminds me of a podcast I heard recently about the science of Improv. Stick with me because I think I can tie a couple of things together right here. It’s no secret that improv exercises can be one of the most uncomfortable things we can participate in. Improv sparks creativity, which is why so many companies incorporate it into their team building strategies. Improv frees our creativity because it reduces our inhibitions...and that’s backed up by science. In Fast Company’s “Creative Conversations” podcast, Dr. Charles Limb, the chief of otolaryngology, neurotology, and skull base surgery at UCSF (and also a jazz saxophonist) talks about experiments he’s conducted to monitor brain activity. Typically, your brain is inhibited when you perform a memorized task. Like a persistent project manager, it is constantly checking in with you to make sure you’re getting it right. However, when Dr. Limb’s subjects improvised, he saw the conscious, self-monitoring parts of their brains turn off.
And talking improv makes me circle back to your point about Parasite and movement. The act of physically moving and mentally moving can help inspire creativity. Physically altering your routine is a lot easier. I know I can do that. It’s easy to choose a different route to the store, for example. Where I fall into the trap is the mental part. I look at every aspect of my mental life, and it’s locked in. Even the music I listen to. I pull up Spotify and find myself listening to the same few playlists over and over. I listen to the same podcasts, watch the same programs. It’s a feedback loop that’s not expanding my mind.
BOB:
I so get that. It’s comfortable. I think we all do it. What you are saying perfectly illustrates one of the paradoxes of our digital age. Simply put: We live in a time when we have access to every kind of creative input. Music, movies, books, videos from every corner of the earth. Yet it is also a time when we can easily drive ourselves into familiar lanes. Drinking in only ideas that reinforce our thinking, rather than challenge it. As storytellers, we have to struggle against this. Push ourselves. For example, I have to admit that I hate graffiti. It seems like wanton destruction of public property. The engineer side of me rails against it. But when an artist friend invited me to the Beyond the Streets graffiti and street art museum in LA, I saw this art form in a completely new light. It challenged my thinking about graffiti and the people who create it.
TANNER:
That’s the best thing we can really do. Continue to challenge the comfort levels we set for ourselves. Once again, great conversation here, Bob. Until next time.