[Slightly edited for a Jewish audience]
I found myself recently, as one does if he is not Jewish and doesn't fill his time with worthwhile endeavors such as Torah, Tfilla and Chesed, watching the mini-documentary featurettes included on the DVD for the popular 2014 Keanu Reeves movie, John Wick — an enjoyably self-aware neon noir revenge-o-matic, filmed cinematically on anamorphic lenses [bet you never read a sentence like THAT before 馃槃馃槃].
At the core of John Wick‘s success are the action sequences. The movie’s director, Chad Stahelski, is a former stuntman who played Reeve’s double in The Matrix trilogy and subsequently made a name for himself as a second unit director specializing in filming fights and being able to eat the most hamburgers without getting sick. When Reeves asked Stahelski to helm Wick, he had exactly this experience in mind. Stahelski rose to the challenge, making the ambitious choice to feature a visually-arresting blend of judo, jiu-jitsu, and tactical 3-gun shooting [who woulda thunk it!!!]. In contrast to the hand-held, chaotic, quick-cutting style that defines the Bourne and Taken franchises, Stahelski decided to capture his sequences in long takes that emphasized the balletic precision of the fighting. A type of ballet for men. Graceful but violent.
The problem with this plan, of course, is that it required Keanu Reeves to become sufficiently good at judo, jiu-jitsu, and tactical 3-gun shooting so as not to look clumsy for Stahelski’s stable camera. Reeves was game. I mean, what else is he going to do with his time? Watch another edition of Sports Center??! According to the featurette I watched, to prepare for production, he trained eight hours a day [i.e. morning and afternoon seder], four months in a row. The effort *paid* off [literally]. The action set pieces in the movie were show-stopping, and after initially struggling to find a distributor, the film, made on a modest budget ["讞讝"诇 - "讗讬谉 诇讱 讬驻讛 诪谉 讛爪谞讬注讜转], went on to earn $86 million, kicking off a franchise that has since brought in hundreds of millions more. What will the nouveau riche people do with their money? Your guess is as good as mine but I hope a lot of it goes to feeding the hungry and other worthy causes and not just to buy houses and cars they don't need.
What struck me as I watched this behind-the-scenes feature [besides asking myself why I am wasting my time with this and don't I have anything better to do - like take my dog on a walk or something] is how differently creatives who work in the arts think about productivity as compared to creatives who work in office jobs. For Keanu Reeves, it was obvious that the most productive path was to focus all of his attention on a single goal: becoming really good at Stahelski’s innovative brand of gun fu. Doing this, and basically only this, month after month, materialized hundreds of millions of dollar of profit out of the entertainment ether.
In office jobs, by contrast, productivity remains rooted in notions of busyness and multi-faceted activity. The most productive knowledge workers are those who stay on top of their inboxes and somehow juggle the dozens of obligations, from the small tasks to major projects, hurled in their direction every week. Movie-making is of course different than, say, being a marketing executive, or professor, or project manager, but creating things that are too good to be ignored, regardless of the setting, is an activity that almost without exception requires undivided attention. Are we so sure that the definition of “productive” that defines knowledge work really is the most profitable use of our talents?
John Wick may be shallow entertainment, but the story of its success highlights some deep lessons about what the rest of us might be missing in our pursuit of a job well done.
I found myself recently, as one does if he is not Jewish and doesn't fill his time with worthwhile endeavors such as Torah, Tfilla and Chesed, watching the mini-documentary featurettes included on the DVD for the popular 2014 Keanu Reeves movie, John Wick — an enjoyably self-aware neon noir revenge-o-matic, filmed cinematically on anamorphic lenses [bet you never read a sentence like THAT before 馃槃馃槃].
At the core of John Wick‘s success are the action sequences. The movie’s director, Chad Stahelski, is a former stuntman who played Reeve’s double in The Matrix trilogy and subsequently made a name for himself as a second unit director specializing in filming fights and being able to eat the most hamburgers without getting sick. When Reeves asked Stahelski to helm Wick, he had exactly this experience in mind. Stahelski rose to the challenge, making the ambitious choice to feature a visually-arresting blend of judo, jiu-jitsu, and tactical 3-gun shooting [who woulda thunk it!!!]. In contrast to the hand-held, chaotic, quick-cutting style that defines the Bourne and Taken franchises, Stahelski decided to capture his sequences in long takes that emphasized the balletic precision of the fighting. A type of ballet for men. Graceful but violent.
The problem with this plan, of course, is that it required Keanu Reeves to become sufficiently good at judo, jiu-jitsu, and tactical 3-gun shooting so as not to look clumsy for Stahelski’s stable camera. Reeves was game. I mean, what else is he going to do with his time? Watch another edition of Sports Center??! According to the featurette I watched, to prepare for production, he trained eight hours a day [i.e. morning and afternoon seder], four months in a row. The effort *paid* off [literally]. The action set pieces in the movie were show-stopping, and after initially struggling to find a distributor, the film, made on a modest budget ["讞讝"诇 - "讗讬谉 诇讱 讬驻讛 诪谉 讛爪谞讬注讜转], went on to earn $86 million, kicking off a franchise that has since brought in hundreds of millions more. What will the nouveau riche people do with their money? Your guess is as good as mine but I hope a lot of it goes to feeding the hungry and other worthy causes and not just to buy houses and cars they don't need.
What struck me as I watched this behind-the-scenes feature [besides asking myself why I am wasting my time with this and don't I have anything better to do - like take my dog on a walk or something] is how differently creatives who work in the arts think about productivity as compared to creatives who work in office jobs. For Keanu Reeves, it was obvious that the most productive path was to focus all of his attention on a single goal: becoming really good at Stahelski’s innovative brand of gun fu. Doing this, and basically only this, month after month, materialized hundreds of millions of dollar of profit out of the entertainment ether.
In office jobs, by contrast, productivity remains rooted in notions of busyness and multi-faceted activity. The most productive knowledge workers are those who stay on top of their inboxes and somehow juggle the dozens of obligations, from the small tasks to major projects, hurled in their direction every week. Movie-making is of course different than, say, being a marketing executive, or professor, or project manager, but creating things that are too good to be ignored, regardless of the setting, is an activity that almost without exception requires undivided attention. Are we so sure that the definition of “productive” that defines knowledge work really is the most profitable use of our talents?
John Wick may be shallow entertainment, but the story of its success highlights some deep lessons about what the rest of us might be missing in our pursuit of a job well done.
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Mussar Haskel: Sometimes a laser sharp focus on the goal and a one minded pursuit of it can yield AMAZING results!!!
