I remember the first time I got a note I didn’t understand. I was working on a game show where the format was typically the following: Competition, Deliberation, Elimination, Booze-Fueled Fight About What a Back-Stabber You Are. (Not you specifically, but maybe you. I don’t know, we’ve never gone head-to-head for $50,000 and an XBOX, so I don’t know what your price is.)
Then a new executive came in and suggested the following format for an episode: Competition, A Bunch of Story Beats About the Weather That Day, Deliberation, Elimina—
Wait, The Weather?
Yep. The weather.
“Let’s make the weather a C Story.” (If you’re not familiar with the term C Story, it would be your third most important story of an episode. A, B, then…you guessed it.)
I can hear the words like they were spoken yesterday.
The reason this particular note stuck with me is because it was the first time I remember being confused by something I was being asked to do for work (In life, I’m still confused that I was asked to sing Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All” as part of a choir for my 6th grade graduation). Inside, I was thinking, “Are we really going to talk about the weather or do you want these 20-somethings to do a keg stand and make out?”
The note brought me one of the first challenges of my young career. How do you address a note when you don’t agree with it?
How to address a note when you don’t agree with it.
It can be hard to get feedback that when you first hear it, it breaks your creative spirit. Indirectly (or directly) it is a criticism of your work, your instincts, or a suggestion that you missed something crucial to the story. But it’s also just a creative conversation, one of thousands you’ll have in your career, and you have to develop a proper way to handle feedback and a mindset that focuses on the solution, not the problem.
I find that one of the most effective ways to do this is think about the note and what the person giving it is really trying to say.
By giving a note, the person is saying:
1. I have an idea.
2. Something isn’t working with this episode.
3. I’m literally paid to give notes, you weren’t going to get off that easy. (The third one is implied, not stated. But I’ve also heard it stated.)
So what does “Let’s make the weather a C Story” actually mean?
Roughly translated: The cast partakes in a challenge where there’s brutal wind passing through that makes it way tougher to compete in said challenge, so much so that it could affect the outcome of the game and who goes home.
Well shoot, that’s a good note.
And if that’s a layer I didn’t include, then maybe I missed something. And if I have two interview bites of the cast discussing the weather, maybe that ups the stakes a bit, gets a dramatic cue in the cut, strengthens the Act 2 out, and gives us one more cast member to tease that they might get eliminated.
Well shoot, that’s definitely a good note.
Breathe, then Solve
Your creative career will be filled with an endless trail of notes. It’s part of producing, collaborating, and working on client-based projects. It’s fine to not like a note, but the quicker you shift to understanding the WHY behind a note, the quicker you can work towards solutions, and depending on what your professional aspirations are, learn a lot about all the business considerations that go into making a show.