Adrian Jones tells scenic designers to build long-term relationships with directors and theaters early in their careers. Designers underestimate how long their careers last and how much time relationships need to mature. When you work with the same people repeatedly, you develop a shared creative vocabulary that lets you move fast, even on tight schedules.
Chapters
In terms of somebody coming out on their own, it's a little different. I think that the thing that I would tell somebody, and I tell my assistants this, is, you know, form those relationships with creative partners. Form those relationships with directors, playwrights, theaters, and build those relationships because when you're, when you're coming out of graduate school, you forget how long this career is. You don't realize how long this career is, and you don't realize how long those relationships can gestate and where people go in their lives. You know, you don't have creative, you don't have long-term creative relationships with people unless you start them early and you really develop them. And you're not gonna have these intense creative relationships unless you have, you know, you've cultivated people throughout your life. And it's not just about finding work, it's about having a dialogue. It's about having shared experiences. Shared worlds and understanding what you're talking about and being able to come together at different times at different points in your careers and all of a sudden hit the ground running. I mean, that's one of the biggest things is, you know, often when you get work, you don't have any time to do anything. So you don't have time to get to know each other. I mean, forget Skype. I mean, you know, it's just, there's no time. So you have to, so you basically have to, you know, you have to have a vocabulary that you could go to right away. And when you have creative relationships that have been going on for a long time, that's what, that's what happens.
