Shell

The production guy, the creative guy. No, one person. [735]
Which was a good model. One person is definitely a good one. [736]
Sure, committees are dreadful. Individuals are good. [737]
Is very small. [738]
If you're a multinational petroleum manufacturer, inevitably your risk on everything is smaller rather than larger. [739]
Don't take that away from them. In regard to this job they pushed with us and helped us to do something good for them. [740]
Because they knew that the job was full of difficulty in terms of the logistics and the practicalities of the job. They recognized that conquering those difficulties would be part of making the film memorable and lastingly special. We collaborated intensely with each other to overcome those obstacles that would all be fair. [753],[742],[741]
Normally duality in a brief is a difficult thing, but we found a way, which is probably one of the tougher parts of the brief, to fuse the two things together so it didn't feel like, "Let me tell you this, and no one by the way hears this as well," which I think pays off well in the film. [754],[755]
Yeah. It was at this desk, written by me and two infinitely more talented junior guys. We sat around here. It was about 1:30 at night when we wrote Circuit. Again, it's normal for us. When it comes, you don't know, just as long as it comes. [756]
Getting a little bit older, 29, each. Again, one of the fabulous things about that is when you're involved with that, I'm not the senior guy and they're the junior guys. I'm not the old guy and they're the young guys. It's just we're three guys around the table, trying to sort out a problem with a good solution. That's one of the nicest things, because nothing else matters other than that. I'm sure that's nice for them too. Ultimately we're not suits. We are creative people in casual clothes trying to think of something and not really caring about too much else. [758],[743],[759],[757],[760]
They're from similar working background and probably working class, called blue collar, gifted, super hard working, fast learners, everything I like in a young creative team. The team I work with were the best young creative team I've ever hired and worked with. They're just exceptional and they were doing everything that I already admire, what I'm looking for in teams. They were the embodiment of those things. It was a pleasure to work with them. They're great, but really talented. [764],[763],[765],[744],[762],[761]
Determined and we like working with each other. There's pressure there, but there's no point getting around a table and, "Woo, there's pressure." [Crosstalk 00:27:58] is going to kill you. The discipline is to put a shield in between you and that and go, "Okay, guys, what were we going to do here?" Like you might imagine, that when you get rid of all the guff and the system and the formality and the bureaucracy, it's a breath of fresh air when it's actually just us and we got the path in front of us and the brief on the side. We're ready to get at it. That's a relief that you got to that stage, and a desire just to write something that you can all get jazzed about. [770],[768],[766],[769],[767],[745],[771],[746]
Well, the key thing is respect. It really is. It can be a difficult thing, to broker that. There's a lot of different dynamics at play. Quite often your client won't be the ultimate decision maker, but will have to represent your joined view to someone above them because they're too important to come to meetings. Sometimes there's better chemistry than other times. The key thing is to try and understand each other. [772],[747]
Yeah, it was pretty good. It was pretty good. I think that when you have something that everyone can see why they might get excited about it, and see the potential, and see the possibility, it always tends to make life a bit easier. On this occasion we were lucky that people could see that, and research agreed which was good. [749],[748]
Yeah. I mean, there's pressure. There's always pressure when messing around five million dollars with someone else's money and understandingly they wanted us to get it right. There's pressure, but there's experience. There's understanding. There's respect. There's knowledge. You use those tools well and it doesn't have to be conflictual or combative. There is pressure on for all of you to get together and do the best job in every respect. That definitely exists, and that definitely helps the job but it's not something that's scary or limiting or frightening to deal with. It's just inevitably there because, back to my original point about commerce and art meeting. You're naive if you think there isn't going to be a lot of pressure around the commerce side, clients. [750]
If I was one, I'd want the same. I'd want some ROI, some return on investment. Our job's to get it to them. Again, nothing unusual, nothing extraordinary about this particular job. It's just it was, it's there. It was there. It got dealt with. [773]
Things are going well. There's no need to senior management involve themselves. This was a go. Everything I wanted was in place. I got support from my boss and our partners on the business. No complaints. They were all great. On this occasion it was great. [751]
I like working with them a lot. You're working with really high end people. You sharpen up before you do business with them, and they're only there to help us top, top, top, get the thing up to the best they can possibly be. That's a thrill, doing that. It's exciting, watching the end part of the development take place, all good, all good. It's really nice to work with top people. Definitely you get a buzz out of it, definitely improves the performance. [776],[752],[775],[774]
Reference Tags
[735] Decisive leadership,[736] Decisive leadership,[737] Decisive leadership,[738] Risk compensation,[739] Risk compensation,[740] Win-win conflict about ideas,[753] Collaborative-Creative Disposition,[742] Pro-innovation bias,[741] Win-win conflict about ideas,[754] Believes one has a hopeful path,[755] Believes one has high agency,[756] Collaborative-Creative Disposition,[758] Collaborative-Creative Disposition,[743] Communicating ideas across domains,[759] Promote autonomy & sense of ownership,[757] Self-relevance effect,[760] Trust,[764] Believes one has a hopeful path,[763] Believes one has high agency,[765] Collaborative-Creative Disposition,[744] Communicating ideas across domains,[762] Optimism,[761] Win-win conflict about relationships,[770] Believes one has a hopeful path,[768] Believes one has high agency,[766] Decisive leadership,[769] Organizational encouragement,[767] Organizing effectively,[745] Organizing effectively,[771] Promote autonomy & sense of ownership,[746] Trust,[772] Trust,[747] Trust,[749] Communicating ideas across domains,[748] Trust,[750] Trust,[773] Empathetic disposition,[751] Organizational encouragement,[776] Believes one has a hopeful path,[752] Communicating ideas across domains,[775] Organizational encouragement,[774] Organizing effectively