Hey,
Cheeky second one this week. Couldn't sit on this one.
I was in the DMs with my mate Ísak the other week. He runs a creative coaching business, @seventeen.twelve, and he said something I haven't been able to shake:
"Behind the greatest creators are always great curators that have the trust of the industry. They work hand in hand and are of equal importance."
Some people make the thing. Some people know what the thing should be. Both matter, and you don't have to rank them.
I told him I'm way more the second one. He said, "It's a deep honour to be called to be a curator," and that a lot of creatives look down on that side of the work because they don't get how vital it is.
I've thought about it every day since.
Thelma Schoonmaker has edited every Scorsese film since Raging Bull and won three Oscars doing it. She never shot a frame. Her job is deciding what the film actually is. Steve Jobs walked back into Apple in 1997 and cut a dozen products down to four. "Focusing is about saying no." Neither of them did it alone. They just decided what stayed.
That's most of what I do. On Australia's Kindest Person, Akta was the production company and I directed the films. The stories were already out there. My job was finding the moments that land and protecting what makes them real. On Proven, it's deciding what earns its place in the film.
On my Instagram page, I'm not inventing the past. You lived it. I just pick the moment, the shot, the feeling, and put it in front of you at the right time. When it works, it's because something felt familiar.
Lately I've been playing with something new, the slightly unhinged, hyper surreal stuff like what Americans think of Australians. It looks different, but it's the same job. I'm not making up the opinion. Everyone's heard the jokes about kangaroos in the backyard and spiders the size of your hand. I'm just collecting what we all already think and building it into something you can watch. Nostalgia is shared memory. This is shared opinion. Either way it's curating, then actually executing it.
None of this makes curators better than creators. I need the makers. I work with them every day. But if you're the one always saying "not yet" or "that one" or "cut it", don't let anyone tell you it's the lesser job. It only works when people trust your taste, and that trust is the whole thing.
So I'm owning it. I'm a curator.
Which one are you? Hit reply, I read them all.
Sammy