Talent feeds on persistence
Yesterday I started watching a wonderful documentary produced by Japan's NHK called 10 Years with Hayao Miyazaki. In it we follow Miyazaki-san in a pretty intimate way as he goes through his creative process and I was completely floored by the fact that he spends so much time not really knowing what to do.
We think of him (and of many other famous creators) as just this fountain of interminable ideas with perfect execution, but the truth shown in the documentary is that this is not the whole story. We only every see their final output, but we miss the huge amount of work they put into creating their marvels.
In the documentary we see Miyazaki spending whole days just driving around, or not doing much (as far as production goes), just trying to get some inspiration about what to do next. He then spends days just struggling through the creative process, ditching sketch after sketch into the waste basket.
As someone who doesn't really understand creative processes and is considerably intimidated by the great ones, I found this part of the documentary extremely inspiring and eye-opening. Sure, these people are talented, but it's the sweat and persistence they put in that makes them truly special. The thing they have in common is that they don't give up, as Visa says in his essay when the vision isn’t manifesting (which is where I got the link to Miyazaki's documentary in the first place).
I just finished the first of the four 45 min episodes, where he has already gotten some steam and is steadily producing stuff for one of his movies (Ponyo), with the occasional hiccup here and there. But still, it's clear how much effort it takes him to go forward, even if he is a creative genius.
I'm looking forward to finish watching the whole documentary. If any other interesting things comes up I'll be sure to write about them here!