PROCESS: THE ENGINE OF CREATIVITY
- Modern Rituals
- May 15
- 4 min read
Seeing Process as a Creative Tool Not a Constraint
It's often the case that those on the business side of a project wish the creatives would just get on with it and have a finished product ready to take to market. And those creatives on the other side can see process as an obstacle to getting to that finish product.
For everyone, process isn't the obstacle. It's the thing that protects the work and the upside.
Across every discipline — writing, directing, acting, producing, design — the same pattern emerges: the best work rarely comes from winging it. It comes from a process designed to reduce friction.
Friction is the hidden cost in creativity. It shows up as hesitation, repeated decisions, unclear direction, or wasted energy. Basically, a random collection of ideas and ways of creating. Left unchecked, it slows momentum and weakens the work. Which then affect the impact on the audience that will see it.
Trusting in process is the first step, and good process will remove that friction. In practice, this looks like:
Writer: a consistent revision sequence that avoids starting from scratch each time
Director: arriving with a clear shot list and pre-developed visual approach
Actor: a repeatable preparation routine that keeps the work grounded and alive
Producer: a workflow that maintains momentum without suffocating the team
Crew: clean, clear call sheets that reduce confusion on the day
In developing our own slate, we’ve found the most useful shift in perspective is to treat process less like the bureaucracy and more like a creative tool. When you know the things you need to ask you make sharper decisions about the material, and coincidentally cut down the time taken to create the story. You become like a laser. Asking things like what is the theme? Audience? Tone? Key scene? Visual support? can get you to the heart of the story far quicker than just winging it. It cuts through the massive amount of noise involved in getting a project off the ground.
The ultimate problem in rejecting process is non-repeatability. You don’t know how you got there, so you can't always repeat it. Over time that leads to fatigue - energy gets spent re-solving the same basic problems instead of improving the work itself.
The most effective way to build process is to start small and scale. One useful shift, applied consistently, can unlock a great deal.
At Modern Rituals, one practice we’ve found valuable across our labs, socials, and development work is returning to three questions:
What did I learn?
What am I hanging onto that I need to let go of?
What am I going to take forward to next week, month and year?
Having read this far, you may be wondering "why does this matter?"
It’s perhaps best captured by an Abraham Lincoln quote and illustrated by the familiar tale of the tortoise and the hare:
A strong process gives you:
Fewer wasted decisions
Better collaboration
More room for instinct
It may seem counterintuitive, but structure is what allows intuition to function. Under pressure — on set, in rehearsal, in the edit — we fall back on what’s already embedded. That is not the moment to invent a new way of working.
Process, at its best, fades into the background. It creates the conditions for focus — on story, meaning, rhythm, and collaboration. And when it’s repeatable, it doesn’t limit creativity; it compounds it, lifting the story and work to a higher level each time.
BOOK OF THE MONTH
THE CREATIVE HABIT
- TWYLA THARP
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”
This often referred to quote, usually attributed to Aristotle, is actually the thought of WiIl Durant. He was was summarising Aristotelian, virtue based ethics.
In that very same vein, The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp offers a clear and practical philosophy: creative success is not accidental, it’s built through discipline. Through habit.
Drawing on her career as a professional dancer and teacher, Tharp challenges the idea that creativity belongs only to the naturally gifted. Instead, she argues that creative work is something you train into existence through daily practice, routine, and self-awareness.
At the heart of the book is a simple but powerful shift: stop waiting for inspiration and start building the conditions for it. For Tharp, preparation is not separate from the work — it is the work. Through repeatable rituals, she signals to the body and mind that it’s time to begin, turning creativity into something dependable rather than unpredictable.
In practice, this can look like:
A fixed warm-up for writing, acting, or directing
Establishing a clear central idea before starting a project
Structuring your editing environment to reduce friction and fatigue
What makes Tharp’s approach particularly relevant is its practicality. Small changes in workflow can conserve energy, reduce hesitation, and lead to better decisions under pressure — which is often where filmmaking either sharpens or falls apart. So, much like what we discussed above in learning of the month, process isn’t bureaucracy; it’s a creative tool that protects the work from chaos, mood, and avoidance.
Her key ideas are straightforward:
Creativity is a habit — it becomes more reliable when you show up consistently
Rituals matter — repeated actions help shift you into a creative state
Preparation matters — collecting and organising ideas is part of the creative act
Constraints help — limits sharpen focus and decision-making
A creative life is built, not waited for — the book offers tools, not just encouragement
Watch an interview with Twyla below:
Comments