Better Know A Speaker: Jim Coudal
August 6, 2007
It almost seems like it would be easier to list the things Jim Coudal hasn’t done; after all, look at what he has done. Creating funny, professional short movies, some of which go unexpectedly viral? Check. Working directly with influential rock bands to create super-high-quality recordings of live performances and providing the cases to ship them? Check. Running often hilarious contests? Check. Organizing a top-notch advertising network? Check. Setting up a product-swap service that grew so much that it’s been covered by national media? Check. And now he’s added “AEA interviewee” to the ever-growing list.
Who or what has had your attention of late?
Lately I have been researching and reading a lot of “behind the scenes” accounts of movies being made. About our patron saint at Coudal Partners, Stanley Kubrick, but also about [Francis Ford] Coppola, John Ford, Blade Runner and Star Wars too.
I guess what I find fascinating is how so much collective work from so many individuals and craftspeople gets boiled down to a single, frozen-in-time piece of art and/or entertainment. Important decisions are often made because of practical, not aesthetic, considerations and I guess this fluid, improvisational team approach to creation appeals to me. The Star Wars part is because I have a six-year old boy.
What’s with the Kubrick obsession?
I certainly admire his work but even more the devotion to craft and his ability to focus on detail without losing the larger picture. Some day I’d actually like to try a stretch where I work on just one thing and be able to make sure that every single bit was just exactly so. But I do realize that I’m not wired that way, I’d probably be bored to death. I love starting new things (even if I don’t always finish them).
What’s the key to finding inspiration?
It’s a cliché to say that it’s all about being open-minded but it’s a cliché because it’s true. Taste is very subjective and unscientific and yet we are expected to exercise it in a pragmatic, orderly fashion in our day-to-day work. Finding inspiration is about discovery. About finding things that excite you certainly, but perhaps more importantly working to find out why it is that they do.
What do you hope attendees will take away from your talk?
There’s a quote from Harvey Penick, the golf teacher, that fits here. He said, in reference to how a player should deal with his suggestions, “When I tell you to take an aspirin, don’t take the whole bottle.”
Restraint is a designer’s most powerful tool. Being inspired is one thing. Executing in your own voice is another. Hopefully we’ll talk through some examples of how to manage the creative process. We’ll also talk about respecting your short attention span and about the real secret of design, “throwing away stuff until you’re done.”
With involvement in projects from Coudal Partners to Jewelboxing to The Show to Swap Meat to all your short movie work and more, you’re something of a Renaissance Man. How do you find the time to do all that stuff?
We’re just making things up as we go along. Good ideas survive, not-so-good ones don’t. Lots of people are doing the sort of crazy independent publishing stuff that we do. But they’re doing it in their spare time and we get to do it all day long. We don’t for a minute forget that we’re lucky.
With all the projects you have going on, when do you find time to design?
I set aside the early morning for creative and design work. I somehow have developed the work schedule of a farmer and get in very early to have a nice long stretch of time without distraction. This also allows me to get out of the studio early enough to have lots of time with my three kids.
