"The lessons of filmmaking apply to everything. Sometimes you have a low-budget production, sometimes you have a crew of 100, but in the end, you have to figure out how to get the job done."
Great leadership - effective leadership - requires the ability to listen, and this was something I didn't really understand early on in my career.
I started my first production company when I was 25 years old, and was very quickly working on large productions with crews of 60 to 70 people. And, at first, like so many of us, I didn't know what I was doing. I felt like I needed to know everything, in order to lead these huge teams and be successful. Filmmaking, however, is a collaborative process. Everyone shows up with different skills and different areas of expertise - that's why I hired them. It was a hard, but critical, lesson to really listen to all of these voices - and trust them, and learn from them - and get comfortable, as the leader, to know that I didn't have to know everything. Success comes from great collaboration, which comes from great listening.
There was one year, earlier in my career, when I was shooting for 108 straight days, in 15 different countries. I hired three experienced camera assistants to accompany me for the entire trip. We'd land in a country with 40 cases of equipment, meet up with a local guide who we didn't know - someone who I had connected with over phone or email - and we'd all have to hit the ground running to figure out how, exactly, we were going to all of the work done in just a few days, before moving on to the next location. We'd need local interpreters, crew, and actors, and confirm sites - it was creative chaos.
So, one day, we were on location in Spain, filming in a world-class hotel - and my camera assistants were just not on the ball, not representing our team well. I came on-site, and one of the camera guys was splayed out on a sofa, shoes off, with his feet up on a table in the lobby of this incredibly elegant hotel. Not only was he representing our team poorly, but he was also making the work more difficult. I could see the hotel staff looking at us, wondering "Who are these clowns?" questioning our professionalism and integrity. So, I lost my temper and really laid into them - and for the first time, they pushed back on me, telling me what I should have known, had I been listening.
Because my view of leadership was "all-knowing" at that time, I hadn't heard my team when they requested more information throughout the trip - what exactly was happening on any given day, what was coming up next, etc. And I have to admit, I got a little defensive in that moment. I expected them to just show up each morning and do their job - they were experienced and should know what to do. Fortunately, for all of us, I stopped and really heard them that day. After that, I took 20 minutes each evening to map out the next day's schedule, which ended up saving us a huge amount of time and headache, and allowed them to show up from that point forward, anticipating what I would need, fully prepared and ready to go.
A few years ago, I made a documentary called They Shall Not Perish about the US response to the Armenian genocide, which got picked up by an organization called Facing History. They developed a supplementary curriculum, which is now shown to millions of high school students across the country each year, teaching kids about the devastating reality of genocide. I'm so proud of that piece of work, because it has impact, and a meaningful life well beyond my experience of filmmaking.
Know who is the very best in your field, and find a way to work for them, even if that means figuring out how you might work for free. If you want to learn, throw yourself at the feet of a master. Attach yourself to someone who is at the top of their game, and you will learn and achieve more - faster.
I loved Dave Eggers books "The Circle" and its sequel "The Every." It's about a woman who goes to work at the world’s largest search engine / social media company (The Circle), which then merges with the world's leading e-commerce site, creating the most dystopian monopoly in history (The Every). It is an incredibly brutal piece of satire. It's hysterical, prescient and horrifying - and an absolute must-read.
Watch They Shall Not Perish on Amazon.
Learn more about George's work in film and photography.
Learn more about George's latest venture, Fresh Catskills.
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