Collide Magazine

Did you hear the one about the guy who filmed his own version of the Rambo novel First Blood? It’s true. Zachary Oberzan plays all the parts in his film, Flooding with Love for the Kid, which he made in his 220 sq. ft. apartment in New York City. His budget for the project — $96. Here’s a clip:

It’s entertaining … in its own way.

The buzz the video is getting reminded me of the “Embrace Constraints” concept from 37signals’ Getting Real. The idea is simple: accept the limits of your time, money, personnel, and expertise for a given project, then make the best of it. Get creative and do what you can do. Oberzan didn’t have a studio, a crew, a budget, or a great camera, but he embraced those constraints and did what he could do. The guys at 37signals didn’t have a lot of time or manpower when they were building Basecamp, so they set their sights on a simple, lean tool instead of a massive, feature-intensive solution.

The Getting Real authors point out that it’s easy to get the “‘not enough’ blues” — but don’t fall into that trap. “Constraints are often advantages in disguise,” they say, because they force you to discover creative solutions and identify your strengths and core competencies.

You don’t have the time, money, staff, or expertise to create Avatar, but that’s OK. Embrace that constraint. Avatar has already been made anyway. What you can do, though, is make something creative, fun, poignant, personal, uplifting, heartbreaking, and quirky. You can do your own thing, working with what’s available to you. Greatness isn’t reserved for people with big bucks or big guns — it’s reserved for people with big ideas and the commitment to make them happen.

Good luck.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 11th, 2010 at 1:20 pm and is filed under General, Visual. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.