My dear friend and fellow writer and blogger, Aquinnah Bree, has put together a blog post about knowing when a project is done; asking other creators how they judge when they’ve reached that elusive DONE stage, and let their project fly free into the wide world.
Go check out her post HERE, and follow her thoughtful, personable posts while you’re at it; all about writing, life, books...all the important things!
(pictures in this post are from the past 2 years of shows I created for the Youth Ballet I worked with at the time. Hover over the pitures for brief descriptions.)
So, while trying to respond to her question with my own answer, mine just kept getting loooooonger, and longer, and...yeah. So I decided to turn my answer into my own blog post for this month, so she could use what she needed and I didn’t have to do a boatload of trying to edit my wide expanse of an answer down to a couple paragraphs. ‘Cause apparently my brain is too lazy for concise things right now, and would rather reach the...umm...”done” point for the whole subject rolling around in my head.
Then I’ll send you over to get a wider range of answers from Aquinnah’s post here. :)
So without further rambling,
When do I consider a creative project DONE?
Well, unfortunately for anybody hoping there’d be a straight answer, it really just depends...
Exhibit A: Never really done
Movies are never finished, they just escape.
—Unknown
While this is true for many creative disciplines with tight deadlines, it’s strongly exhibited in filmmaking.
Whatever you plan, in whatever department (I’m usually in Art Department or Wardrobe myself), you get down to the wire and then try to double your speed, cranking out details people will likely never see until the moment “Camera speed...sound speed...Action!” gets called. Then you have to let go of any other plans and touches you hoped to add. Time’s up. It escaped. Anything you add now would mess up the continuity of the rest of the shots in that sequence. And besides, you’ve got to rush to get the next sequence set up, umm, three hours ago.
The same is true for really every department...even in Post, things like Editing and VFX eventually just have to stop tweaking footage, because either the release date is upon them, or the next project is coming in, or both. The movie has broken out of the cage. There it goes.
Art Department seems to be always racing camera, lights, and sound for a few precious seconds more before “Camera speed” gets called. Even on smaller projects, like: BUMP
Adjusting things and adding detail and realism, even in a minimalistic, totalitarian futuristic world until the last possible second... You’re trying to accomplish a level of “lived-in-ness” that makes a shot look both true to life and aesthetically pleasing, so it feels complete to the audience; changing amounts of food visible in storage jars, dishes in the sink that may not even get into the shot, and those FLOWERS in the kitchen window....! There were definitely times on this one when the last second only permitted moving things on the counter and then flipping the little bouquet around to make it “new” for what has to look like a new period of time.
And then there’s Wardrobe. Where sometimes you’re adding only-now-thought-of accessories to an actor who just wasn’t looking right previously, before literally sewing a supporting actress into her costume as she’s about to step onto set, as happened repeatedly in this just-for-fun project: Tree Bound
So you’re watching those actors walk on set, doing a mental double-check. ...Well, guess it’s done; she’s in the costume, nobody can see the crazy last-minute stitching I had to do in back from this camera angle. And considering we didn’t get a costume fitting for her...it’s pretty decent, and then the other guy is more put together with that cloak on. So...on we go to getting the Prince and the Hunter in their layers. On the double!
Frankly, costuming is ALWAYS that way; you’re done when you run out of time or you’re just satisfied with where the costume is at and ready to move ON! (Unless maybe you only make fun projects for yourself? What a magical thought!) This is super prevalent when costuming a large group for stage, whether in theater or dance. Everyone has to have a costume, but a lot of things simply can’t be seen from the audience’s perspective, and silhouette, color, texture, and movement are what matter most in the end, so focus shifts to those things first.
The sheer quantity of pieces needed, the range of motion the performers require, and the inevitable time crunch mixed with unforeseeable amounts of alterations and fixes, means “done” for a stage costume happens in...umm...stages. Heh heh.
- Stage 1 - Wearable, but needs _______ before show
- Stage 2 - Done, unless time for ________
- Stage 3 - Done enough, not going to fall off, and I’m not touching it again!
- (and the mainly mythical) Stage 4 - Ideal completion, with all the details and fitting you wanted to do, even if those inside seams never got finished...
I find these to be especially true when working with Fantasy, Sci-fi, and Historical-Fantasy costuming. If something isn’t quite historical or whatever, no worries; you MEANT for them to look that way, of course. If it's solid Historical, you have a lot less wiggle-room...
And as long as you stay true to the overall look and vision, and be sure “hurried” doesn’t mean “sloppy”, you’ve likely won the audience over and created something memorable that serves to flavor the overall story aesthetic.
Exhibit B: Done when the story has been well-handled, and your “shark tank” feedback is returning largely positive
This primarily comes out in writing novels and scripts and creating dance or theater shows in my life.
With writing novels, short stories, scenes, and screenplays, you could seriously keep polishing your words and plot etc. etc. etc. until the cows come home (...what does that even mean?!), but at some point, you have to let it go before you kill it with good intentions. You have to train your “eye” to see when you’ve completed the picture, gotten it in optimum focus, framed it well, properly saturated the colors, and so on. And before you realize you’ve gone way past Done and added pieces from ten other puzzles to all the edges because you thought you needed to do more.
One of my wise mentors, talented audio drama writer John Fornof, puts it this way:
“You can only shine an apple so long before
it turns into applesauce.”
At some point, the story has reached its peak, and any more messing with it starts to make the narrative feel false, sterile, or manufactured, instead of vivid, potent, and ALIVE.
With a dance or theater production, all of the above applies to writing the show, but “Done” comes out a little different. You need to be able to see when the story is complete, just like a novel or script, but there just comes a point where it’s clear that you’ve done what you can; it needs to go on to the dancers or actors, with all the other components added for stage, to see how well your recipe has worked.
After the show has gone through its first run, you may have found ways to tighten a spot here or there, or prune bits that seemed necessary before, but proved to be filler or fluff in reality, etc. But it’s just tightening loose screws and oiling gears at that point, if you’ve done your job to start with.
Any which way — you need a “shark tank”
Of course, all of these rely heavily on how well you use your trusted “shark tank”. (...heh heh, how crazy does that sound; trustworthy sharks...ha!) Creative people always need at least a few trusted people who will be honest with weak points in your work, who know what they’re talking about (don’t just ask random friends with opinions; be sure they’re familiar with story, with dance or whatever you’re working on, and have earned the right to speak to these things), and who are FOR you and want you to succeed, so they’re thinking in terms of creative solutions right away instead of only criticism.
Without these people speaking into your project and helping when you need to brainstorm, your work will always come out half-baked. And probably tasting funny.
Plus, especially with anything that goes on a stage, multiple minds and styles are really essential to getting a finished project that doesn’t come out shallow and trite — and doesn’t have an abundance of unnecessary bits stuck all over the place that only made sense in your head.
.....So, is that it? Have we arrived at a Finish, despite bouncing all over the place to get here?! I guess we have for now. And it has to go fly free at some point...
