On Tuesday, Letters of Note featured a letter from Douglas Adams to Disney executive David Vogel concerning Adams’ attempt to get his book Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy onto celluloid. While it isn’t related to animation, the letter does bring up some important points regarding communication between parties involved in a project.
Writes Adams:
….I don’t know if I’m right in thinking this, but I only have silence to go on, which is always a poor source of information. It seems to me that we can either slip into the traditional stereotypes — you’re the studio executive who has a million real-world problems to worry about, and I’m the writer who only cares about seeing his vision realised and hang the cost and consequences — or we can recognise that we both share the same goal, which is to make the most successful movie we possibly can.
How are your communication skills? Mine can always use a tune-up and it’s likely that yours do too. Collaborating on a project with a large number of people can result in problems and delays that might well be caused by poor communication.
Just something to ponder as you go about your work today 🙂