My Creative Inspiration: Jeffrey
In our ever-evolving world of creative, it’s always vital to stay inspired. We work on all kind of projects here at PEG - sports, corporate, high-energy, low-energy, you name it. So, from project to project, how do we find that inspiration? For me, I take inspiration from things we’ve never done before. While sometimes we certainly work on videos that appear as part of a series, they’re rarely over a 5-10 video set. And most times videos in the series debut within a six-month span. This is a huge opportunity, because it means we’re rarely locked into matching a certain style of video. So, when we’re approaching a project, usually my first thought is “How can we make this unique? Something we’ve never done before?” Sometimes, I luck out. A project is described to me, and the whole look and feel pops into my head immediately. And that’s great, and easy, but unfortunately is hardly an every-time occurrence. Other times, I get a half-formed idea that I can bounce off our team and after some brainstorming, poof, we’ve got something to work off of. And then there are times I do all that, and I’m still looking an empty slate. When that happens, I’ll start watching things that are similar and see if I can pull some pieces of inspiration and ideas. A little bit from here, a little bit from there.
Inspiration is like a recipe
I used to think that was cheating, like if I couldn’t come up with a brand new style from start to finish than that wasn’t authentic. However, now I look at it like cooking. In order to make a great dish - you need the ingredients, you need proper equipment, and you need a solid idea of what the final dish will be. We’re lucky enough now-a-days at PEG to have a team that’s capable of always producing high-end content (the ingredients), and the right gear (proper equipment) to back it up. But all that doesn’t create the “start-to-finish” plan. When working off inspiration pieces, it is like any good recipe you’ve used. If you think about it, most times a good recipe consists of tried-and-true combinations, put together in a unique or timeless way, to create a stunning final product. Using various inspiration pieces is all about thinking about what the final product needs to accomplish, and making a recipe with the right ingredients, techniques and processes that will leave the client, and the viewing audience, coming back for more.
