Innovation and the Crane Shot
August 2007
Suppose you're working on a struggling new television show stuck on a second tier network with a
miniscule budget, and the script opens with a sweeping crane shot in the middle of a crowded
shopping mall. In an environment like this, you have to improvise daily to compete with the
big boys over at NBC or CBS. It's in these circumstances that innovation bridges the gap.
Check out the following 15 second clip of such genius in action:
What you are seeing is the opening shot from a second season episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
In Hollywood parlance, this is an establishing shot, a few seconds of introductory footage designed
to tell the viewer where the action will take place. In this case, the indoor shopping mall is too cramped
for the traditional wide-angle view, so the director pans across the scene, bringing us up through the air
to meet the main characters. This is usually accomplished with a massive crane on which the camera is mounted
and then smoothly hoisted through the air. Hence the name, "crane shot".
Go back and watch the clip again and consider the logistical challenge of a crane shot inside a shopping mall.
This is a tight, confined space, filled with people. Renting a crane, maneuvering it into position,
mounting the camera and rehearsing the shot is a huge expense for a few seconds of film with no action and just
some throwaway dialogue. But really, Director Joss Whedon and crew didn't do any of that. Watch the shot
again and see if you can divine their secret.
A Crane Shot for Peanuts
Did you catch it? No crane was used to film that clip. Instead, some other smoothly tracking mechanism was employed
to lift the camera up through the space to the second floor. This machine wasn't brought on site, it was
already there. That's right, Wheedon used the escalator. Watch it again and be amazed.
Use What You Have
In his book "The Myths of Innovation",
author Scott Berkun points out that innovation is often just using what
you already know creatively. The Buffy crew pulls off an expensive
shot with a steady cam and an escalator so effectively most viewers
will never notice. Taking advantage of the ordinary environment in
an unexpected way often leads to unprecedented gains.
Uniquely adapting common knowledge is the cornerstone of innovation. For
example, everybody knows that magnets stick together and that electromagnets heat
up. But Apple Computer recently drew upon this first face to design a new kind
of power connector for laptops---one that snaps in automatically, stays connected,
but breaks away with no damage when you trip on the cord. Likewise, Viking now
offers a range that uses electromagnetic induction to heat up metal pots. Since
there is no metal in your hands or the glass-cooking surface, the heating area
remains cool to the touch. Plus it can boil water about the time than it takes to
watch that Buffy clip.
Innovation at the Office
The Viking range, the Apple power cord and the crane shot on Buffy are
all wild examples of strokes of unbridled genius. Unless you are involved in
product design or film production, how can you similarly innovate?
First, do more with less. Identify information that has been needlessly duplicated on
multiple Excel spreadsheets, long terms that can be abbreviated, complex forms
that can be simplified. Next, list what you already have that's not being fully
used. Figure out how to turn off the ringer on your office phone so you can
work in uninterrupted stretches. Learn a software application that you've been avoiding.
Create templates for emails you commonly send.
The greater innovations, however, tend to arise from elegant, creative applications of
commonplace ideas. Everybody knows that customers don't like to read thick instruction
manuals. What about taking each section in the user guide as inspiration for product
redesign, so as not to need that section? Everybody knows that people are much more likely
to open their wallets if they think they know what they are getting. Are you really
making the trial process as complete, accurate and painless as possible? And what about
that proprietary system? Do your competitors really benefit more than your customers if
you switch to open standards? These are obvious ideas inverted to form provocative claims.
Questioning what "everybody knows" will certainly raise eyebrows but could also change everything.
Nobody innovates by staying the same.
Back to Buffy
There is no one prescription for innovation in all situations. It would be easy to leap
forward if there were. But most innovation arises from the ordinary, not the extraordinary.
Do what you know in an unusual way and you'll wind up with a beautiful crane shot for the
fraction of the cost, and most viewers will never be the wiser.
###
Thanks to my brother Jim Slaughter of Slaughter Films
for the video clip.
