Yesterday while watching Scrubs, I realized how different the creative oeuvre is from the 'managerial' one.
I love Scrubs. I am sure a lot of you out there do too. We can all go on about the things we love about it - the characters, JD, the madness, the Janitor, the verbose insults, Perry Cox, matter-of-factness with which problems are shown/dealt with, etc etc.
What I love most about Scrubs and not just as an audience member, but as an interested party in the creative process, what I find dazzling is the tedious limit to which Bill Lawrence will go to, to get a teeny-tiny point across.
Cut to an episode in the early seasons where JD has been entrusted with recording the birth of Jordon's friend's baby. JD forgets to rewind or something and the recording does not happen. Dr Perry Cox, to save himself from 'My ex-wife will hold this over my head for so long, I may never see the sun again' kind of situation, tries to pass-off a recording of another baby in its place. But both these babies have one critical difference - the one on camera has hair, while the real one, as was presented to the mother, didn't. JD jumps in to say that he had shaved the baby. As all eyes rivet onto him, Dr Cox makes what I think one of his funniest statements ever - 'Yes, we shave babies to remove traces of any prenatal lice'.
Jordon looks at him like a suspicious mother who knows her precocious child is lying to her. And then there is this delicious little scene - Jordon standing at the check-out counter, holding a book with a jacket which says - 'I shaved the baby to remove prenatal lice, by Dr Perry Cox' - she says to the guy at the counter - 'I am not buying it'. Then cut to reality in the Scrubosphere.
That's it. This little scene would have necessitated the making of a jacket and creating an additional scene set-up - not that very much admittedly. But think of what the scene is trying to say - that Jordon doesn't believe Dr Cox. Could that have been said verbally? Yes. Would it have made Scrubs the quirky, funny show that it is? No.
And this is just one of the very-very-many such scenes that the show is littered, nay, embellished with.
Now have a 'manager' direct the same show. He would identify key storylines, build scenes around them, cut out the superfluous, not realizing or considering that it is the little flounces and deviations that make a name - a signature.
Point is, creativity is not to achieve a purpose, a return-on-effort or return-on-investment. It is because it can be.
I love Scrubs. I am sure a lot of you out there do too. We can all go on about the things we love about it - the characters, JD, the madness, the Janitor, the verbose insults, Perry Cox, matter-of-factness with which problems are shown/dealt with, etc etc.
What I love most about Scrubs and not just as an audience member, but as an interested party in the creative process, what I find dazzling is the tedious limit to which Bill Lawrence will go to, to get a teeny-tiny point across.
Cut to an episode in the early seasons where JD has been entrusted with recording the birth of Jordon's friend's baby. JD forgets to rewind or something and the recording does not happen. Dr Perry Cox, to save himself from 'My ex-wife will hold this over my head for so long, I may never see the sun again' kind of situation, tries to pass-off a recording of another baby in its place. But both these babies have one critical difference - the one on camera has hair, while the real one, as was presented to the mother, didn't. JD jumps in to say that he had shaved the baby. As all eyes rivet onto him, Dr Cox makes what I think one of his funniest statements ever - 'Yes, we shave babies to remove traces of any prenatal lice'.
Jordon looks at him like a suspicious mother who knows her precocious child is lying to her. And then there is this delicious little scene - Jordon standing at the check-out counter, holding a book with a jacket which says - 'I shaved the baby to remove prenatal lice, by Dr Perry Cox' - she says to the guy at the counter - 'I am not buying it'. Then cut to reality in the Scrubosphere.
That's it. This little scene would have necessitated the making of a jacket and creating an additional scene set-up - not that very much admittedly. But think of what the scene is trying to say - that Jordon doesn't believe Dr Cox. Could that have been said verbally? Yes. Would it have made Scrubs the quirky, funny show that it is? No.
And this is just one of the very-very-many such scenes that the show is littered, nay, embellished with.
Now have a 'manager' direct the same show. He would identify key storylines, build scenes around them, cut out the superfluous, not realizing or considering that it is the little flounces and deviations that make a name - a signature.
Point is, creativity is not to achieve a purpose, a return-on-effort or return-on-investment. It is because it can be.
