Between new technological gadgets, increasing job demands, and
balancing work and family, Americans today are more stressed out
than ever before. Our anxious culture is hardly a
creativity-friendly environment.
But most times our best ideas emerge when we free ourselves from
interruptions and just relax, according to actor John Cleese and
screenwriter Ed Solomon.
Cleese and Solomon engaged in a colloquial yet intellectual
discussion about creativity and the creative process of
screenwriting with UCLA students, faculty, alumni and donors on
Monday night in UCLA’s James Bridges Theater. Cleese is best
known from the English comedy troop “Monty Python,” as
well as an on-screen role and screenwriting credit for the movie
“A Fish Called Wanda.” Solomon is Cleese’s
son-in-law, not to mention a UCLA alumnus.
In addition, Solomon holds this year’s Zakin/Hunter
Endowed Chair in screenwriting at UCLA. The position, which rotates
every year, was established in 1999 when venture capitalist
Jonathan N. Zakin donated more than $500,000 to the School of
Theater, Film and Television to create such a position.
Each year, the new chairman is asked to host an evening of
creative freedom to kick off his or her newly acquired
position.
“One of the terms that we had for this position was that
every year the chair-holder would do an evening, could be whatever
““ sing, dance, bring friends,” said Robert Rosen, dean
of the School of Theater, Film and Television, in his introductory
speech. “It says, “˜Let’s take the wealth that the
screenwriter brings out of that classroom, and share it with a
broader community of writers and people in the
school.'”
Solomon, the writer behind such hits as “Men In
Black,” “Levity” (which he also directed), and
“Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” which he
co-wrote with Chris Matheson, decided to have an informal and
engaging discussion about creativity in the screenwriting
process.
The two screenwriters spent much of the evening discussing the
concepts of Guy Claxton’s book “Hare Brain, Tortoise
Mind: How Intelligence is Increased When You Think Less.”
“The “˜hare brain’ is the fast, driven, very
verbal (part of the mind), almost edgy in a slightly anxious way,
whereas the “˜tortoise mind’ is much more relaxed;
it’s a little bit dreamy. It can actually cope with
confusion,” Cleese said. “It’s a much slower,
more meditative frame of mind.”
According to Cleese, while both parts act together to aid the
creative process, the problem is that the “hare brain”
is active while people are trying to come up with the creative
stuff, allowing critical impulses to stifle the creative ones.
“If I try to mix (the two parts) up, the creative stuff
always suffers,” Cleese said.
While it can be a challenge to balance the two sides of the
mind, beginning screenwriters can’t access the relaxed part
of their mind and instead find themselves in “hare
brain” mode too often.
“It seems to me that so much of what we do, especially
when we’re starting as writers, is we’re working with
the “˜hare brain,'” Solomon said. “I have
found that it saves more time spending time in the non-critical
(frame of mind while) writing.”