Lessons on creativity from Everything, Everywhere, All at Once
Not long ago, I wrote an article talking about the creative process used by The Beatles in the Get Back documentary. There’s a lot that can be learned by looking at how truly interesting work gets created, and I was reminded of this after watching the fantastic new movie Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. If you haven’t seen it yet, don’t worry — we won’t be getting into any spoilers here (but be careful with links throughout!). Suffice it to say it’s truly unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Here’s how Dan Kwan, half of the directing duo that call themselves the Daniels, describes it:
“It’s about a middle-aged woman who’s trying to survive in the chaos of modern life, and trying to connect to family through the noise of it all. And then she accidentally gets sucked into a sci-fi multiverse action film that does not let go until the very end. It’s a film that starts to eat itself in a really playful way that hopefully reflects the times we’re living in right now.” — Director Dan Kwan
Here, creativity is on full display. This movie was refreshingly original, and I immediately wanted to know more about their process. As I immersed myself in every Q&A session and interview I could find, I was struck by the ways that their process overlapped with what The Beatles did. These are the techniques used by the best of the best, and I believe they can be useful not only to musicians and filmmakers, but when doing creative work of all kinds. Here’s what I found.
“Creativity thrives in a warm environment”
Not only is the movie absurd and playful, so was the vibe on set. Every day before filming, there was a big group warmup activity. Each week, they would hand out silly inside-joke awards, like mugs, medals, and even a toy rat. There were movie nights and handstand contests. Despite the film touching on some very real, serious, important topics, the overall vibe when creating the film was decidedly non-serious.
“That was kind of the vibe on set. Like, Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis were chasing me, trying to tickle me [with a prop] constantly. […] It was a very giving, playful, summer camp that we created…” — Director Dan Kwan
This playful environment allowed people to do their best work, because people are more willing to explore when they’re not afraid of negative repercussions. Friendliness makes people feel less defensive and more open to possibility.
“They create an amazing environment … where it’s, when things go wrong, it’s never a yell, it’s never ‘What the f***.’ It’s literally, we all jump in together and like we’re playing in our backyard and be like, all right, cool. This sucks. How do we make it better?” — Re-recording Mixer Brent Kiser
In other words, a playful environment is one that tries to stay flexible. Having an openness to methods & outcomes means members of the team can experiment to find clever ways to get things done, or can find a viable alternative outcome that can be done at a substantially lower cost or effort.
Irreverence & the freedom to “do it wrong”
To take that point a step further, having a friendly environment not only puts people in a better headspace to try new ideas, it welcomes a degree of silliness & irreverence when it comes to the work, itself. Creative experimentation works best in an environment where nothing is too sacred to be played with, as doing something “the wrong way” can allow new ideas to present themselves. I think Paul Rogers puts it best:
“So sometimes I’ll take a dramatic scene and I’ll recut it, I’ll change everything and cut it as a comedy scene or an action scene or a horror scene, just to surprise the directors and show it to them as a joke or put a funny sound effect just for the next screening to make them laugh. That’s when we realize ‘Oh, we can do anything, This is a playpen for us.’
It unlocked the realization that there might be comedy in this drama scene or maybe drama in this comedy scene. I think those silly exercises sometimes can be really valuable.” — Editor Paul Rogers
Accept input from anywhere
A recurring theme here is flexibility. Having a flexible workspace also means being flexible about who is “allowed” to solve different problems. Many times, the best solutions will come from people who weren’t tasked with solving it.
“The Daniels are really good with hearing their actors’ thoughts or feedback. It’s very much a collaborative process.” — Actor Stephanie Hsu
This openness to people making contributions outside their normal role was pervasive. In a scene where one of the characters has a microphone, it was one of the musicians on the project who came up with the voice effect — not the sound designers. The sound designers loved the proposed solution and didn’t get bent out of shape that it didn’t originate with their team. Ultimately, this is the result of having an allegiance to the end product, not a territorial allegiance to a piece of it.
“[The musicians genuinely cared] about the movie, not just the music.” — Director Daniel Scheinert
Everyone has different skills, and so the more diverse the group of people you get input from, the more skills and expertise can be brought to the table. For designers, getting diverse input means talking to non-designers. It means talking to non-coworkers, talking to people who don’t look or sound like you, and talking to typical (and atypical) users. You don’t have to implement every suggestion you get — in fact, you shouldn’t — but you should hear these points of view, try your best to understand them, and try not to be too proud to hear a great idea from someone outside your team.
“[During an action sequence], you had found that sound and you were like ‘This is one of my favorites — it needs to stay!’”. Like, at first, we were kinda butthurt, we’re like “Alright, cool, we’ll put it in…”. Then we hear it and we’re like, “Yeah, he’s right — it’s really good!’” — Re-recording Mixer Brent Kiser
Iterate, iterate, iterate
Hearing diverse opinions is a form of feedback, and feedback is vital to finding a great result. This is because “the road to good runs through bad” — work that is truly great almost never starts off that way. This film is no exception — the original script ran 4 hours long, starred Jackie Chan, and was bookended with a group singing Barbie Girl together at karaoke. Seriously. The Daniels are proud to tell you that their earlier drafts needed a lot of work, and that it was the revision process that helped them find the film. The first version wasn’t perfect because it didn’t need to be — feedback from each revision helped them see where it should go next. They ultimately refined it over 8–9 drafts to get it to where they wanted it.
“This movie is so close to being an absolute mess and an absolute disaster at all times that it took a lot of honing in on the script.” — Director Dan Kwan
They sought feedback constantly by regularly showing their unfinished work to small audiences — the filmmaker’s equivalent to usability testing. This allowed them to get feedback early and often, and helped them to spot and fix issues much earlier than they would have been able to otherwise.
“A huge part of the editing process was doing test screenings. We’d show it to 3–4 people — not a big group — and just kind of ask, ‘Did it lose you? Do you have questions? Where did it lose you? What are your questions?’”
“And we’d do this every two weeks, basically. Once we finished the first rough cut, we would do a test screening every two weeks just to make sure we’re not going too far off in the wrong direction. Which is a very scary and vulnerable thing to do […] [When making a movie,] you lose yourself in it, which means you end up losing perspective, and you’d constantly have to be seeking [outside perspectives].” — Directors Daniel Scheinert & Dan Kwan
Parallel ideation
This need for outside perspectives exists everywhere in a creative process, as groupthink can be deadly to creativity. One of the best techniques to avoid falling into this trap is what I call parallel ideation — having multiple minds take a stab at the same problem independently, without crosstalk, so that different solutions can be found, compared, and merged.
On this film, this was done through a process called swarm editing. Effectively, whenever there was a particularly tricky section to edit, the sequence could be sent out to several people on the team to work on independently, and then the different versions could be reviewed together as a group, allowing them to see what they liked and didn’t like about different approaches.
A lot of creative work is the process of following a thought or concept for long enough to see where it will go — exploring the possibilities, then using what works. Parallel ideation techniques like swarm editing are valuable for creating a larger pool of possibilities to pull from. It allows you to get more out of the talented people on your team.
Hire top talent
Lastly, don’t overlook the importance of building a great team. Everyone is capable of creative work, but exceptionally talented people can play an outsized role in getting a good outcome. These people can help to create a positive feedback loop, attracting other talented people to come work with them. Jamie Lee Curtis joined the film specifically because she wanted to work with Michelle Yeoh. Ke Huy Quan joined Yeoh on the film — ending a 20-year hiatus from acting — shortly after seeing her in another film. These talented people helped to create a more compelling result, which attracted other talents like André 3000, David Byrne, and Randy Newman to join the project. Bringing on highly talented people creates a snowball effect — they attract other highly talented people, which creates great results, which attracts even more talent to the project, and so on.
Putting highly talented people on teams also allows the teams to be smaller and more tightly knit. The VFX team is a prime example — despite the film’s visual pyrotechnics, all 500+ VFX shots were done by nine people, including the two directors, with the majority of the shots being handled by a core group of just five people. All 49-tracks of the prismatic and sprawling soundtrack were handled by the band Son Lux — just three people, plus the occasional collaborator.
“When movies get big, a lot of times it’s harder and harder to ever talk to a VFX artist. Like there’s three people separating you, or like, to talk to the actual sound designer who’s pulling the sound effects is embarrassingly rare on big-budget things. And that’s important to us, to be like ‘We want to work with friends and build a process where we can actually be in the room.’ That’s the most valuable thing, over any gear.” — Director Daniel Scheinert
It might seem obvious that talented people do good work, but it’s not enough to simply hire the best you can find. Creativity — and creative people — thrive in environments where creativity is allowed to flourish, so make a real effort to create and preserve a space like this. Without a good environment, their work will suffer (and they’ll be looking for the exit).
“It’s very intentional the way that everyone is cultivating a workspace that is full of joy.” — Actor Stephanie Hsu
In summary
A creative process is the filter creative work runs through. It often takes care and attention to ensure conditions are right for things to truly blossom. These conditions are important, because it is hard to suggest something “wrong” if there’s a fear of judgement, it can be scary to show work that isn’t finished, and it can be difficult to use another person’s suggestion instead of your own. But what quickly becomes evident is just how great things can turn out when these fears no longer pose a threat.
There are a thousand lessons you can learn about process when you investigate creative masters like the Daniels, but here are a few takeaways:
- A playful environment lets people get into a headspace where they can do their most creative work. Adopt a mindset of openness, friendliness, and flexibility.
- Irreverence and playful sarcasm are often the product of this kind of environment, and help to both reenforce this playfulness and serve as a sort of playspace where new ideas can be discovered. Irreverence can lead to creative discoveries, so don’t fear it — welcome it. A pair of googly eyes on the company logo does wonders.
- Setting ego aside allows you to hear input from many sources, which in turn can help you to discover solutions that work better than your own. Encourage folks to remain focused on what’s best for the project, overall, and not to become territorial about things under their watch.
- It’s easy to lose yourself in the swirl of a compelling project, so feedback from outsiders is key to understanding how others see it. Seek out a wide diversity of opinions both inside and outside the team for a clearer picture.
- Avoid groupthink with parallel ideation. For big, challenging projects, let a group of people work on things individually or in small groups, but have them avoid all cross-discussion of their work until afterward to give each of them the ability to explore ideas independently.
- Invest in your team. Hire talent others will be inspired by, and put effort into cultivating an environment where creativity can thrive. It doesn’t always come easily.
Hans van de Bruggen is a product designer and author of Learnability Isn’t Enough, coming 2022 from Apress.
