Get Fast
Get Fast. It was the refrain filmmakers heard consistently when working with Anthony Bourdian. You see, the normal tendency in film is that everything else operates according to the director and flim crew. You do what you need to get the shot.
Actors may do 20, 30, or more retakes. Just to get the perfect shot.
When creating the type of experience that any of Bourdain’s shows created though, there was no retake.
The show transcended food into the personal and the political. So when a dissident was expressing the pains of his oppression, there was no retake. When the chef was expressing the way his recipe traveled through time and his ancestry to make it onto the plate. There was no retake. When you were simply experiencing a moment. There could be no retake.
So the cinemetographers had one option. They had to get fast.
They’d hear that from Bourdain anytime they complained.
Didn’t get the shot? Get fast.
Bourdain and his companion are moving too much? Get fast.
Too many things happening in different places? Get fast.
This idea, it matters in every conversation you’re having inside your company. Are you asking people get fast or to slow down?
At the very least, when you’re thinking about yourself, you better not be asking pe
ople to slow down to work with you. You need to get fast.
And as your company grows, and you look at how other organizations are interacting. Notice where one is being asked to get fast or to go slow. The tendency is to go slow.
Engineering ships too much for QA? QA asks Engineering to slow down.
Marketing bringing in more leads than sales can handle? Sales asks marketing to slow down.
Is the product shipping faster than you can market it? Marketing asks product to slow down.
Don’t do that. Any of it.
Instead.
Get fast.