This month we’re taking an about face from last month. Last month we talked to Dr. Sean McDonough about whether creativity was divine and how it was part of god’s plan. This month we are going to talk about the movie Old School, with the screenplay writer himself, Court Crandall.

But Court is much more than the writer of Old School. A creative director, director, writer of a children's book, and a dad. This guy, I was delighted to find out, knows a thing or two about creativity.

Show Notes:

• We start at Court's beginning, his childhood. How his dad's creativity (he was also in advertising) influenced Court's creative abilities.
• He uses his children's book "Hugville" as an example of his own flavor of creativity, which he describes as "problem solving."
• We talk about learned helplessness and how it can defeat creativity if we let it.
• I ask Court flat out - what is creativity? And I get an answer I hadn't heard before.
• We discuss the childhood effects of the democratization of production tools - like video cameras, editing software, publishing - and what it's doing (good and bad) for childhood creativity.
• We shift gears to talk about WDCW, Court's advertising agency in LA, and how "encouragement" is an important ingredient.
• Court talks about the "new practicality" in advertising these days, in that it demands much more than clever headlines and art direction.
• We get very deep into the writing of "Old School," the challenges of writing a screenplay, dealing with Hollywood, and even the inspiration for the movie (hint: it was a lame wine and cheese party with a harp that Court went to).
• We talk about Court's new movie, "Free Throw," and how important it was for him, for the people in the movie and, ultimately, for his agency.
• Finally, Court gives us all very tangible advice to improve our own creativity every single day.

Bio:

A partner and Executive Creative Director at WDCW out near LA, Court has both created and shepherded award-winning advertising for a variety of clients including ESPN, Beck’s, Virgin, 2K and the anti-smoking effort for California. He has produced a children’s book called Hugville released by Random House, two actual children (Chase 17 & Zane 14), the Dreamworks movie, Old School, and the independent film, A Lobster Tale. And most recently, through WDCW, he created and directed an independent film called Free Throw that has attracted international PR over the last few months and was recently featured in Bing's "Decisions That Shaped 2011."