Blaine Hogan is the creative director at Willow Creek Community Church. He’s also a creative catalyst, encouraging people in every industry to be more creative. His latest venture to help people embrace their creativity is the Make Better online course. If you’re ready to start making better things, whether it’s for your church or for yourself, you can register now. We’ve also got a free spot in Blaine’s online course for one lucky winner. Register to win below. But first check out some of Blaine’s thoughts on creativity from his book Untitled: Thoughts on the Creative Process.
These two things drive everything I make. Ever.
- Content must come before the medium.
- Don’t set out to prove a point. Set out to tell a great story.
That might seem like kid stuff to you, but they are so simple we often miss them.
Content Before Medium
I know amazing artists who have all kinds of sexy tools at their disposal and who are also extremely skilled at what they do.
Their downfall?
They have nothing to say.
And so they let their mediums and tools drive everything they do.
They say, “let’s make a giant (fill in the blank),” and then they’re stuck trying to load that (fill in the blank) with content.
Any technology (medium, tool, etc.) should always be in service of a greater purpose. A tool is just a tool until it’s been given meaning.
And the way you give it that meaning is by first having something to say and then using the tool to say it.
Too often (and I’m talking almost exclusively to my Christian friends here) we take things like fancy lights, smoke machines, and the like, and use them simply because we can.
We get it. You have cool stuff. But a special effect done for its own sake is still just a special effect.
Not only do we look like fools in the name of relevancy, we’ve also not made good art. I’m not sure which is worse.
When I’m working on a project, my direction is always this:
The medium must always be in service to the content.
Always. Always. Always.
The medium’s job is to serve the story.
Not the other way around.
No Cool Toys?
Now a word to the start-ups who are lacking in the smoke machine department. You have a different issue entirely. You have no tools or toys to play with at all. Bless you.
Forget about trying to acquire a cache of tools and instead focus on having something meaningful to say.
Unlike some of us, you don’t have to work to restrain yourself. Your budgets and other limitations are doing that for you.
I bless you again.
You must understand you hold a great gift that will soon go away.
Right now you have the luxury of concentrating on the story you’re going to tell so that when you’re ready, you’ll know exactly how to tell it.
Be Better Storytellers
Donald Miller, author of the bestselling book, Blue Like Jazz, had a movie made based loosely on his life.
In a video that will appear on the DVD for the film, he addressed some questions people had about whether or not the movie, which has Christian themes, was actually “Christian.”
After explaining his confusion with the question he spoke of his writing model—the Bible.
By that, he meant a writing model that tells the truth about life in real and sometimes shocking ways.
One of his hopes for the film was that it might inspire Christians in the creative community to be better truth-tellers (or storytellers) instead of salesmen—something we’ve not historically done well in the last 100 years or so.
Whether you’re a Christian or not, I think his advice is important to hear.
It’s easy to sell something to someone. It’s far harder to tell good stories.
Like Don, my own work as an artist is not to make a convincing point, but to tell a compelling story.
Think of the companies, causes, and organizations you believe in.
We don’t believe in these things simply because of their products or because of what they sell.
We believe in them because the stories they tell give meaning to our lives.
Great stories don’t tell us what to think, instead they do the much harder thing which is getting us to believe in something.
In the end, you still must decide what kind of story you will tell.
What’s Your Story?
Will you tell them the one where you win?
Or the one where you lose it all?
Will you tell them of your beauty and your glory and your fancy clothes?
Or will you tell them of the mud and dirt that stains the outside of your sleeve?
Will you tell of your hopes and your dreams and the goodness you have seen?
Or will you tell them of the darkness you’ve created with your own hands?
If you don’t tell them both…
If you don’t tell them the whole and true story.
They will never believe you.
You are not a salesman, you are a storyteller.
More
- This is an excerpt from Untitled: Thoughts on the Creative Process by Blaine Hogan. Read our review, check out our video interview with Blaine or buy a copy of Untitled.
- Enter to win a free membership to the Make Better online course:
