All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the input scene in Short Circuit:

What can we learn?

Inspiration is
incidental, not intentional. Artists make things because they want to move
people. To inspire them to become better. But the creator can’t jumpstart other
people unless her battery is charged first. There has to be a source current. A
substratum of energy from which to supply power. Johnny has his own version of
this. He’s an experimental military robot that was struck by lightning and is
beginning to gain a more humanlike intelligence. But since he’s barely able to
communicate and uncertain of his directive, he requires constant access to
books, television and other stimuli to satisfy his demand for input. That’s how
he develops his whimsical and curious personality, befriends the characters,
captures the bad guy and deprograms his dangerous warlike applications. All he
needed was, as he called it, major input.
Johnny reminds us, albeit in a mechanical way, that we have to repower our own
source current. We have to inspire ourselves, first and foremost. Because our
job as creators isn’t to inspire people, but to keep doing what we love, that
way people can discover the same about themselves through that work. If we want
to move people, we have to remember that inspiration isn’t the target,
inspiration is the reward our audience receives when we hit the target. When was the last time you made the choice to be
inspired?

Healthy eyes see
whatever is visible. Johnny may be powered by electricity, but his primary
source of energy, meaning and nourishment, is input. That’s why watching him
motor into the world’s biggest bookstore is akin to a heroin addict stumbling
into an opium farm. Johnny is a mental omnivore, eating or at least chewing
on almost anything, taking in whatever is available to build his bottomless
reservoir of diverse ideas. Everything in the bookstore is fair game. What’s
more, his real power isn’t just collecting information, but conceptually
integrating it. His robot brain has an advanced ability to make original
associations, to blend information from various scenarios and experiences, and to
understand complex metaphors and comparisons. That’s the mark of a true
creator. Someone who can dive into his intellectual reservoir on a moment’s
notice, swim to the bottom, and return to the surface with a new and
interesting combination that the world has never seen before. Johnny is a role
model for artists. He is alive, as he likes to proclaim, thanks to his constant
stream of input. We should all be so
fortunate. What’s your framework for
inspiration?

Develop an allergy to dogma. Johnny
maintains a high openness to experience. Cognitive psychologists have found this trait
be common among creative thinkers. It’s a personality that involves active
imagination, aesthetic sensitivity, attentiveness to inner feelings, preference
for variety, and intellectual curiosity. In fact, the psychological personality inventory
measures specific subsets of this openness to experience, including the
tendency to appreciate art, music, and poetry, the inclination to try new
activities and the readiness to reexamine traditional social, religious and
political values. That’s what I love about this robot. He demands they drop
everything and go into the store. Hold his meeting. City traffic be damned. Customers
move to the side. Security guards go to hell. This machine has located a source
of major input, and nobody is going to stop him from getting it. Reminds me a
lot of myself. What are the specific
traits, habits, and tendencies that comprise your creative personality?

What did you learn?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter. 

[email protected]

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the wonderboy scene in The Natural:

What can we learn?

Create an unfair advantage for yourself. Roy’s bat is magical. It’s his foolproof lance. From a
mythological perspective, it possesses the same invincible properties as the legendary
sword excalibur, giving its owner remarkable
performance abilities. But the secret is, he didn’t win this bat in some
contest. Nobody handed it down to him as a family heirloom. He didn’t steal it
from the neighbor’s garage. Roy hand crafted his instrument from the tree near
his boyhood home that was struck by lightning. Meaning, its magic was a product
of its source materials, its innovative creator and its preservation over the
course of time. Wonderboy was specially made with love, care, and devotion, all
characteristics that make a baseball player better than the rest. Hobbs
created a new context for himself. Instead of bulking up on steroids, he built
up a proprietary asset that made his work completely immune from imitation. Instead
of complaining that he was past his prime, he built his own equipment and
created his own leverage. Like the marathoner who trains at higher altitudes to earn an unfair
advantage over the runners who train at sea level, he uniquely position himself
for success with an asset and a context that was his and his alone. How could you
join forces with the unreasonableness of life and create an unfair advantage
for yourself?

Don’t cling to your
gift too tightly. Roy’s has a gift,
but his father reminds him that it’s not enough. That he has to develop
himself. Because if he relies too much on his own gift, he’ll fail. Now that’s good advice. It’s like the
most beautiful girl in high school. Her childhood is filled with praises.
Everything is handed to her. Everyone tells her she’s interesting and special.
But as a result, she never has to work at making something of herself. She
never has to put in the elbow grease to develop character. And by the time her
beauty fades, her remaining foundation lacks any real substance. It’s the stuff
identity crisis is made of. We throw our heart into something, but we let it
become all that we stand for. We find meaningful home for our gift, but we
allow it to become our sole place of identification. Roy realizes that the enemy of progress
is refusing to embrace the new. That if he clings so doggedly to his gift, he’ll
never evolve into the person he was meant to become. That’s what I love about this movie. It’s a genuine meditation
on identity. A reminder that we’re all bigger than our past, we all
outgrow yesterday’s definition of ourselves, and we all have the ability to
live larger than our labels. Let the past die and the future will take care of
itself. What will happen when you become
more than what you’re known for?

Stand out in the rain. Lightning plays major a role in many mythologies, but
also emerges in mass communications as prominent symbol of power, speed,
electricity, and most notably, creativity. What’s interesting is, if you study
the most prolific creators in history, none of them hang their hats on the
almighty thunderbolt. They’re more likely to practice gradualistic
creativity, which rejects
the notion of the elusive eureka moment and instead promotes an existential and
holistic approach to a creative life. Instead of puttering around in the dirt, hoping lightning will strike, they
actually start pulling the plow and cultivating fertile ground so the spark of
conception keeps firing every time we go to work. That’s the unsexy reality of
the creative process. It’s just as clerical as it is cosmic. It’s just as
mechanical as it is magical. It’s more than just making art, it’s also
generating our own demand, building our own leverage, establishing our own
momentum and manufacturing our own opportunities. How could live your life in a way that your art gets done over and
over?
What did you learn?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter. 

[email protected]

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

Tunnel of Love is a feature length concert documentary written, produced, directed and scored by Scott Ginsberg. The film explores the intersection of identity, belonging and creativity. Through live performances, playful and romantic exchanges, unexpected creative moments of conception and behind the scenes storytelling, Ginsberg’s film takes you on a heartfelt journey about what it means to be an artist, a romantic and an opportunist.

Watch the trailer. Meet the creators. Go behind the scenes. See the episode schedule. Download the discussion guide.

www.tunneloflovedoc.com

Tunnel of Love will be presented as a serialized, episodic documentary. The movie’s centerpiece is a live concert, so I’m premiering each song as a stand alone chapter. There are 14 songs in the concert, so the distribution timeline will occur over a period of 14 weeks, from September to December 2014.

Here’s chapter two:

BACKBONE

Hold onto my gift too tight
Hammering one nail all my life
My fingers are fighting back
Keeping my door to crazy cracked

So put your backbone on
Backbone on
Backbone on
For you and me

Meet the tides with radical grace
Watching truth turn up in the strangest place
Got an adjective before my name
Not some word I can cough away

Go, go, all my love
Go, go, all my love
Go, go, all my love

For those who like their beauty strange
Their plots unruly and their duties tame
Rock you like a gentle rain
Get your memories worth today

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter. 

[email protected]

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this new blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the robbery scene in Coming to America:

What can we learn?

The nature of my
ambition took shape. Akeem was hired to mop the floors, not work security.
But when he saw that the entire restaurant was in danger, he took initiative
and hired himself. He used his extensive skills combat training and conflict resolution
to disarm the robber and save the day. Proving, that hiring yourself has
nothing to do with employment and everything to do with resourcefulness, enterprise,
autonomy and agency. It’s about accepting
that you have to make work for yourself, work that nobody ask you to make. It’s
about building enough capital so you can subsidize your own initiatives, both
emotionally and financially. And it’s about busting through the walls ofpermission, meaning, the mental constructs of notenoughness, and acting on your dreams with open
eyes. The hard part is, ambition grosses some people out. When you hire
yourself, others might feel disenfranchised by your desire. Because they have
no incentive to see you change. They would rather you remain frozen in the position
they met you in. It’s the strangest thing. Not everybody wants you to be
successful. In fact, some people are just waiting around, excitedly­­, for you
to fail. And so, it’s your responsibility to keep moving the story forward.Are you giving people ammunition to shoot down your
ambitions?

Ambition can be
expensive. Millerwritesthat the reason people avoid
having a clear ambition is because the second they stand up and point toward a
horizon, they realize how much there is to lose.Good point.Then again, that’s the fine print of
life. The disclosure statement of transformation. You will lose more than you
ever signed up for, but you will gain more than you ever hoped for. Akeem’s
ambition is to find a wife. Someone who arouses his intellect as well as his
loins. Someone who loves him for who he is, not just what he is. And he knows
that means surrendering his pampered life and throne to the king, maybe for a
month, maybe for a lifetime. But he doesn’t care. Finding love is the first
ambition that’s truly his, that belongs to him. It galvanizes him and makes him
feel alive and complete. We should all be so lucky. Not only to have the
opportunity to dream our dream, but to actually live it. To wake up everyday
with the excitement at having discovered something worth doing, something we
can call our own. That’s the stuff a good life is made of. Notthegood life, butagood life. A life where we actually have something to
point to. What is essential to your sense of being on purpose?

Your niche is you. McDowell’s
restaurant didn’t run a classified ad seeking a brilliant, peaceful, energetic,
hard working, lovable man with a regal disposition. They just needed a warm
body to fill the slot in their corporate machine so they could keep up
production. Akeem, however, showed up and created his own niche. Through his
unique combination of capabilities and attitudes, he became the go to guy. He
positioned his talents to create an entirely new product category. Not as a
window washer, but as a resource for the entire organization. Someone you could
use every part of, like a buffalo. Proving, that the best way to beat the
competition is to not have any. That the best way to bring home the bacon is to
raise your own pigs. Akeem reminds me a lot of my mentor, a preacher and
educator who used to say,my niche is me.Because it is our work that creates the market, not the other way around. We
are the ones signing the paychecks, not the ones waiting around to see if we’ll
get one. Yes, it takes confidence and courage and perseverance to open a
boutique, but if we can do it successful, people won’t just buy from us,
they’ll congratulate us for cracking the code and getting into the club.How can you change the rules so you can win at your
own game?

What did you learn?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter. 

[email protected]

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this new blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the kissing scene in Black Swan:

What can we learn?
Beyond the calculated
sterility of perfection. This movie explores the quixotic quest for
perfection. Nina’s obsession with being a perfect dancer, a perfect daughter, and
a perfect swan, leads her down an increasingly dark path in which her sanity is
threatened. I remember watching this movie at the theater. When the credits rolled, I slumped back in my chair
and exhaled a deep sign of relief. And I thought to myself, wow, perfection
must be exhausting. Thank god I don’t have that gene. Although, I have found
myself on that treadmill before. For years, I used to labor over the precision
of every sentence until my books were flawless. Until I realized that nobody
noticed. That the extra effort and stress and time and energy and money
invested in pushing a project to one hundred percent wasn’t worth the cost. And
so, I started aiming for eighty percent. Cutting corners wherever I could. Treating
sufficiency as policy. Reducing
redundancies at every phase of the process. And believing that enough was as
good as a feast. That way, once I hit my mark of eighty percent, I could roll
over that final twenty percent into starting the next project. The point is,
the artist’s obligation is to progress, not perfection. It’s about moving
forward, not moving flawlessly. Are
you letting the curse of perfection trump the commitment to progress?

Perfect is the
enemy of fast. Leroy explains that perfection
is not just about control, but also about letting go. Surprising
yourself so you can surprise the audience. It’s not about obsessing over getting each
move exactly right, it’s about losing yourself. Shedding all sense of
self and allowing yourself to just be. As one of my songwritingheroesfamously said, forming a
bond with fans in the future will come in the form of constantly providing them
with the element of surprise. What’s crazy is, there are tons of artists who’d rather
prefer perfecting what they do, and doing it over and over for years until they
get it right. I’m sorry, but that’s madness. Literally insane behavior. Can you
imagine anything less efficient than that? There is simply not enough time in
life to quest for perfection. As a creator and communicator of ideas, you want
a wake of work following you wherever you go. Momentum and speed and volume.
And unfortunately, that’s impossible to accomplish if you’re paralyzed in the
pursuit of perfect. Reminds me of a
perfectionist friend of mine. She would rather show nothing than show work
that’s less than her best. And I tell her all the time, look, I understand you
want to put your best foot forward, but you’ll never impress anyone by putting no
foot forward.Have you learned to use
imperfection as your advantage?

Keeping all your
doors to crazy cracked. Another one of my songwritingheroesrecently said that if you
think you know what your audience wants, and you’re going to cater to them,
you’re just going to start making worse versions of what you did before. He
makes a good point. Why spend the rest of your creative life merely improving
what you’ve already achieved? It’s the different between making chocolate and
carob. Between creating from whole cloth and going in a time machine to recycle
yourself. And so, the more interesting and daring and rewarding path would be
to playwithboundaries, not just
within them. To embody the opposite
of perfection, aka, playfulness. Making room for possibility, whatever the cost
to yourself. That’s precisely what
audiences want. Interesting people who create art that they could not think of
themselves. Leroy says it best. The only person standing in your way is you.Are you undercutting your unique essence by
listening to other too loudly?

What did you learn?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter. 

[email protected]

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this new blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the beast scene in The Sandlot:

What can we learn?

Up your creative ante. When I first stared my career, publishing hadn’t been fully democratized yet. The process was still somewhat difficult, expensive and extensive. The powers that be actually had power. Meaning, without some knowledge, resources and wherewithal, anybody couldn’t just become an author overnight. It took significant time and money and labor to put art into the world. But then the revolution came. And now that creators are wired directly into the ecosystem, now that the need for the middlemen of the world has vanished, and now that there are nonexistent barriers to entry in all forms of the publishing world, it’s anybody’s game. And that’s precisely the problem. When anyone can do anything, they will. When scarcity goes the way of the dodo, value plummets. Which means, being an author of something doesn’t carry as much weight as it used to. Because anybody can do it. And so, if we want to rise to the fore, we have to raise the stakes. We have to raise our voice, be on our toes, working smarter and faster than the pack, always showing them why we’re out in front. We have to raise our artistic level to where we’re never lost in the dust. Benny is an amazing ball player, but if he truly wants to author a mythology around his work, he needs to do something bigger than just stealing bases and hitting homeruns. Are you the hero people remember or the legend that will never dies?

Throw your heart over the fence. Benny’s hero visits him in a dream and offers a simple solution to his pickle. Just hop over the fence and get it. Easier said than done, of course. The last kid who attempted to defeat the beast was eaten. Of course, that’s the whole point. When the voice behind the curtain doesn’t scare us, when the reputation of the beast doesn’t intimidate us, and when the folklore around the enemy doesn’t dissuade us, throwing our hearts over the fence isn’t as hard as it looks. Benny doesn’t realize it, but, the fence is there for a reason. It’s there to test his commitment. To show him how badly he wants something. To give him a surface to push off and move toward his dream. And even if he rips his shirt, scratches his chest and bruises his ass on the way down, his commitment will become the reservoir of momentum that will move his story forward. The point is, we all have a fence in our lives. We all have a beast to face. And we all have a group of devoted followers just aching for us to defeat them both so we can play for-e-ver. But not everyone wants to leave behind a legacy of taking action. Not everybody is prepared to throw their heart over the threshold. Are you willing to hop over the fence that’s only there to stop people who don’t want it badly enough?

A friendship is an exchange of care. Babe was right. Everybody gets one chance to do something great. But not everyone takes that chance, either because they’re too scared, or because they don’t recognize it when it spits on their shoes. Benny is lucky enough to see the signs. Too know that someone’s telling him something. And that’s why he ultimately decides to make the move, grab the ball, outrun the dog, befriend the owner and cement his legacy. This movie fired inspiration into my heart when I was a kid. In fact, over twenty years later, my friends and I still reference The Sandlot to this day. This movie stands the test of time and never loses its touch. Why? Because it reminds us of a time in our lives when a friend was a friend was a friend. Because when we were twelve, a friend was the person we grew up with, played football with, ate chicken wings with, chased girls with, got wasted with, shared heartbreak with and had inside jokes with. And despite geography, despite life situation, despite success or failure, despite whatever type of future we may have together, we can’t help but always be friends with those people. We are inextricably bound by the chains of our shared past. We will always have the one thing nobody can take away from us. Our history. Who can you call from jail at two in the morning?

What did you learn?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter. 

[email protected]

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

One random
night in college, I decided to put on a nametag. Just for fun. Just to see what
would happen. And out of that seemingly innocuous little detail, I built a
brand, a business and an entire career.

That was
fifteen years ago. And the spooky part is, I’m now conditioned to notice those
innocuous details everywhere. To me, everything is a nametag. Everywhere I
look, I see a sticker in a trashcan that could change everything.

Because you
never know. Inspiration comes unannounced.

When my wife and I moved
across the country, we specifically chose a neighborhood within walking distance of a major
park. Trees were just too important to us. If we were going to live in a major
metropolitan city, proximity to nature was a necessity.

One
afternoon, after getting settled in our new apartment, we went for a walk in
that park. And at the entrance to the great lawn, we approached something
miraculous. An architectural marvel.

I’ll never
forget the first time I strolled through the tunnel under the historic
Meadowport Arch. The aesthetics were inspiring, the architecture was stunning
and most importantly, the acoustics were shattering.

See, I have
this obsession with naturally ambient spaces. As a musician, I feel a
responsibility to never let good acoustics go to waste.

And so, I
remember saying to my wife as we walked through the tunnel, I am coming back here with my guitar.

So I did. And
within five seconds of strumming and singing, something magical happened.
Something that changed me forever.

I remember
thinking to myself, as I was performing, this
is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. As I watched people walk
by, smiling and listening and singing and dancing along to the music, I knew
that I had stumbled upon a priceless opportunity.

I had found
another nametag.

But this
time, I wasn’t about to wait fifteen years to turn it into something.

So I started
coming back to the tunnel every weekend. Playing full concerts under the arch
for whoever walked through. I became a fixture in the local community. And
because that experience of sharing my music in this new way was so
transformative, I decided to make a documentary about it.

We have a responsibility to notice
creative opportunities. Because once we apply force and propel them into
interesting directions, there’s no telling what might be waiting on the other
side.

It doesn’t have to be a
nametag, it just has to stick.

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter. 

[email protected]

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!