Seth Rogan is changing how we look at the creative process

I was listening to a radio interview with Seth Rogan on NPR’s Fresh Air program where he talked about working with Judd Apatow and the creative process they started on the television series “Freaks and Geeks” and continued on the movie “Funny People.” He talked about how Apatow would tell them what the goal and tone of the scene was and the actors would just improvise–or “play”–with each other. They would use the script as a guide, but they weren’t restricted by it.

Top-Down Creativity

While improvising isn’t new, I’m noticing that it’s becoming an integral part of the creative process. It used to be that a writer would sit down and pound out a script. The script would go through production and as they shoot, the actors would say their lines. That’s all changing.

Collaboration Rules

With more and more user-generated content, the creative process–whether you’re making movies, television commercials and, especially social media–has become much more collaborative than ever. Directors, not satisfied with over-rehearsed lines are looking for a much more realistic, impulsive tone to the final product.

Sonic Reality

The Sonic Drive-in campaign, for example, with the regular-looking people sitting in a car, shot surveillance-camera style is a great example of half-improv-half-rehearsed style. Reality TV is almost entirely actor-generated where they are given a plot and a goal in the scene and they are supposed to get there by dialoging among each other. In the end, Reality TV is still crap, but that doesn’t negate the difficulty of free-form dialoging.

Art on the Fly

In our business, I’m seeing much more collaboration among the entire creative team–including actors–on projects where actors were excluded. During a recent radio campaign, we produced spots exactly to the scripts. Once we had what we had promised, it was time to have fun allowing the actors to improvise. Since we had the right cast, you get a much more impulsive, better finished product. The writer’s role isn’t diminished; it’s just shared because more people get to know the characters and are able to contribute to how the messages are delivered.

Wired for Weird

In our project, we ended up using the takes that were more improvised. When you empower people to be a more integral part of the process–even if it means changing your words–they are more engaged. You get perspectives you didn’t think of and cool things happen. Actors are creative and weird by nature and if you give them the right environment, it’s amazing the things that can emerge. Whether you’re doing humor or something more serious, giving key people free reign to participate in the process pays off every time. It’s all in the casting.

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