Sometimes the unexpected moments in life can be truly precious. The wrong turn that takes you to your new favourite place. That mouldy experiment seemingly failed but leads to penicillin. Japanese Kintsugi pottery – gluing broken pieces together to create beautiful new artwork. And in filmmaking, it’s the bloopers that everyone just loves. I mean, who doesn’t love those outtakes at the end of a film right?
Quite often when interviewing clients for their video production, there are little mistakes and hiccups that usually get left on the cutting room floor (p.s. there is no cutting room – the files just get deleted). However, putting these together for a client is an unexpected bonus for them, and guaranteed to be much loved. Sometimes even more than the film we end up creating. It takes more time and effort whilst editing, but what thing of any value doesn’t?
Bloopers are a great reminder that life is not about perfection. In fact, perfection, or the pursuit of perfection, blinds us to the beauty of all the unexpected “penicillin” moments. What is perfection anyway? It’s a stupid ideal that has to be the biggest thief of activity ever. How many awesome projects never even get started because of the burden of getting it perfect?
So in honour of getting lost, penicillin and Kintsugi pottery, I’m sharing a little outtakes video I did recently for a client. The material actually comes from the video I posted last week. It’s a great way to really feel the joy and characters of those in the video. I think this is why we love bloopers so much – it lets us see the true person having fun and letting go.
Not only did my client love it, but it’s also a great way to show their customers a different side of their staff and business – the human side. Plus it helps with future videos knowing that we shouldn’t take anything too seriously. Take the pressure off and see where it leads.
So here’s to bloopers and the wonderful outtakes of life that make it all the more interesting and enjoyable.