Taika Waititi talks Creativity

shall we begin yes we shall and hello and hello i've never imparted this knowledge to anyone until this moment here [Music] incredible hi there i'm taika waisiti and welcome to this whatever this is adobe thing i'm going to be talking about creativity and just how i do the things that i do whatever they are shall we begin we shall so why does anyone create so why do we cr so why do we create why does anyone create why do i create why do i create i don't know how to do anything else really i've always been uh creative i've always done it um this feels like an aaa meeting the way i'm saying this hi my name is tyko yz and uh i'm a creative well i started late my my first short film was my first proper short film uh got nominated for an academy award and then really even if i had not wanted to do any more films it was just the thing i kind of had to do i got encouraged to do it and everyone said you may as well just keep doing that because it seems like you're good at it and i sort of fell into this like relationship with film i thought do i really want it i just wanted to give it a go and and sort of started exploring like what this thing could be i didn't go to film school and didn't study all i did was watch movies and i would take movies that i thought were good the ones that i thought were yeah i really enjoyed and i didn't even dissect them or like analyze them i just watched them again and again i thought okay i think i get what's happening here because they're just telling a really good story um and so i slowly formed a relationship with film and and there's my food so there's this sourdough i mean i grew up humble don't get too comfortable that's my advice usually the creative inspiration comes from not sitting in seats that are too comfortable you have to keep moving a lot [Music] i get inspiration from people eavesdropping that's a good one stealing pieces of other people's lives putting them into my films uh hunt for the wilder people there's a scene in that and it's a funeral scene and that priest that the whole sermon that he gives uh was taken from a funeral that i went to sometimes it will be the you know the three mistakes i wearing like one purple sock and uh one sort of maroony crimson sock and it's not just because you want to be interesting literally could not find matching socks this morning [Music] throughout my life i was looking for something that what what what am i gonna do take a white tt storyteller nah i've changed my mind i'm not calling myself a storyteller i'm gonna go back to artist here's the thing 90 of all ideas are and 90 of all art is terrible 90 percent of all movies are pretty bad and i think if you kind of take that ratio into account it allows you to relax a lot more you know you don't have to worry about making something good all the time um when i'm writing i know that a lot of it is should never see the light of day the problem with a lot of artists or filmmakers is that they don't listen to the voices in their heads the really cool thing about about making film is there's uh there's still an honest transaction between the artist and the audience in the gallery world it's pretty much constructed of someone comes in off the street and is told why a piece of art is good and that sucks i like film because an audience is paying quite a lot of money these days for the right to judge your work and you can't say oh well they didn't get it there's a filmmaker you can't you don't have the right okay let's talk about process you ready p-r-o-c-e-s-s process mix all the letters around what do you get cesspool and that is hollywood action and then i say cut it's as easy as that and then they just give you an oscar my box set is the best box set in the world like what would be a cool end what would be a cool scene this would be kind of fun and if i collect enough of those little things then i think maybe is there some sort of shape to this i don't think anyone and i'd be worried if someone actually did do this i don't think anyone actually says i'm going to make a movie where the theme is about if you're thinking like that then there's something wrong with you no one thinks with theme first theme is something that comes later once you've finished the film and then some nerdy film student goes i think the thing is about loyalty and then you go yeah totally i was totally thinking about loyalty when i made this um so the process is also faking it faking it till you make it and i do that a lot um i feel like you've got to be nervous i don't ever go into a film uh unless i feel like it could be the end of the career otherwise what's the point and i'm not talking about being reckless and like being you know like oh lord fonterra blue phil means it means so many risks and it's trying to shock everyone i don't try and do that i just want to feel like if i'm nervous enough then i'm going to scramble and try to make something good if everything's too easy and everything feels very very comfortable the whole way through what's the point but also you should be pretty nervous because films shouldn't come easy it's like life you really want a life where you're just happy all the time how boring i mean i do want to be happy all the time but it's more interesting when you have the down times and those yeah you go into those dark places then the happy times and the in the moments of joy and and the light is brighter so that's why i think part of my process is trying to create a bit of chaos making it a little bit more chaotic a little bit messy break things i don't enjoy watching a film being put together just every tiny little piece some people editors they're called some people have a brain for that quick little edits in between cameras just like that and that's the editing process my usual process of editing is i'll go in i'll watch an assembly i watch the cut um i'll think well that's it i had a good run with this filmmaking thing probably time to find a new job then i freak out that uh i don't want to be seen to fail um especially when you're dealing with a lot of other people's money when you're making these films so you really should kind of just also just try to fix the film so then begins the months and months long process of uh of trying to find what the real film is within this thing that you've made the filming that's the fun part being on set you know filming stuff having a laugh all that stuff's great and that for me is sort of like just just collecting ingredients for a meal and then you get back into the kitchen and you realize yeah i should have really made a real decision of what the meal was going to be before i went out and got the ingredients and then you're just trying to figure out well what can we make with these ingredients and about six months later you deliver the dish and they sometimes will go hey i thought this was going to be a um ratatouille and you know well it's actually a chocolate cake pasta [Music] here's my big influence i'm influenced by certain people who are artists and just the way that they moved throughout life and throughout the world and throughout the creative path and just when you thought you had them pegged they went nah go this way david bowie picasso madonna my my mom because i think if you start doing the same thing again and again and again then it turns into a job then you're just in traffic waiting to go to work boo so i just cannot see myself just waking up and feeling like where did that time go i know where all my time went how everything happened in my life when it started i didn't start making films until i was what 30. perfect very happy with that get your life skills enjoy absorbing what the world has to give you what life has to throw at you and that then can be your fuel and what you tap into later on when you've decided what you want to do if you want to become a filmmaker if you want to paint stupid pictures and uh that's how i feel like that's that's the kind of there's the advice i usually give to people just chill out with writing my advice that no one ever takes is take as long as you can to write i will write and then i'll take i'll put the script away and i won't look at it for maybe six months maybe a year sometimes i would take two years away from the script 100 of all the people i wrote the first draft in may be 2004 and uh we shot that in 2015. you do the math that's just the process and yeah and then that time i made three other features so yeah this you're kind of like drifting around all your different projects but um yeah that's the key is really yeah had this is take your time give yourself the time someone said to me what's your work like what you know what can i expect i'd say it's like um are they comedies yeah are they dramas sort of they're like sort of mildly depressing comedies or kind of funny sad dramas and that's why i've i like my films as a real mix of like you know the comedy sometimes is there just to disarm the audience in order to deliver a story with more resonance than just something that's uh you know a kind of a silly broad comedy that's more reflective of life is the this idea that it's just it is a comedy and a drama constantly battling and you know in most people's day-to-day lives are a mix of feeling happy feeling inadequate feeling depressed feeling happy again the human being is in a constant constant state of flux and change and it's just an emotional ebbs and flows and um and that's probably what makes this fascinating i'm just interested in people that's my main thing really i like watching people like talking to people and figuring them out and and then sometimes telling stories about them this is probably what makes me want to keep telling human stories and that sounds gross and like a thing from the back of a video cover but whatever the end

Channel: Tree Frog Studios

Views: 142,790

Keywords:

Id: sPB2ofTanh4

Length: 13min 11sec (791 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 25 2020