I’m in Denver this week with the American Society for Health Care Engineers (ASHE).  To be honest, I’m tired this week.  I’ve been to Denver many times to ski or play in the mountains in some way, but this time I was trading in my ski poles and fishing rods for a projector, an audience response system, and around 1000 PowerPoint slides that outline Health Care Construction.   I reluctantly got on the plane in Indianapolis and pouted my way back to seat 7A.  My role in Denver would be to support 4 speakers as they train construction teams to do construction within hospitals and other health care facilities.
As a self-proclaimed artist, I sometimes find myself searching desperately for an inspiration and energy to be passionate about what I’m doing (especially when most of my duties revolve around PowerPoint and audience response system problems).  As I sat in the opening session and listened to an interview that the Monarch team shot two years ago, I was reminded that sometimes our impact on the world around us can be just as profound using 1 camera and a microphone as it can be with a grip truck, a team of 16 techs, and all the video gear we can find.  Sometimes our best contribution to making things better around us is to sit in the back and push buttons.

Yearly, approximately 100,000 people die in hospitals in the US from infections acquired during their stay.  In some cases, that means they came in with a broken arm and never left.   Part of the blame for these infections is the dust, debris, and germs that are brought in with construction teams doing work on the hospitals.

As I sat in the back somewhat annoyed that I wasn’t somewhere in the African Congo shooting the next award-winning short film, my eye caught a big scary construction worker wipe a tear from his eye.  I was immediately hit with my own arrogance.  What a privilege I have this week to be a small part of helping hospitals and construction teams save lives.

I think it’s part of “growing up” as an artist.  Sometimes it’s the small things that contribute most to the good things that go on around us.  As long as I’ve been doing this, I still need to grow up…I look forward to a time when I can be as passionate about being behind the scenes when I can’t see the big picture as when I’m in charge of something that is obviously having direct impact on people.  Thanks ASHE for giving me the opportunity to grow up a bit this week.

That said…if you have an idea for a piece in the Congo I’m in!

John Mitchell - Executive Director

One of the great things about working in a creative environment is the creative energy you can soak up and share with others that you’re around.  One of the things that we try to do occasionally is spend some time working on fun side-projects – Short films, documentaries, etc.  A huge frustration with this process, for all of us, is what to shoot.  Because the opportunity to shoot our own projects is more rare than we’d like, we aim to create something that is academy award worthy every time we do get the opportunity.

So, here we are in the concept stage of said project.  We all have ideas that have been brewing in our brains for some time and each of us gets a chance to pitch to the others our next big idea.  They’re all fine.  Not Great, but not terrible.  A few of them show some promise.  Ok, now what?  Whose ideas do we choose?  Which of us gets to be the lucky one to see our project come to fruition this time? The answer: No one.  It’s sad, but this is generally how it goes.  We’re so afraid of picking the wrong project or spending too much time with the wrong idea that we don’t spend any time on any of them.  Fortunately, this isn’t the story of every project, but a great many of them end up on a “some day” list.  Some day we’ll get around to developing those.  Some day we’ll get around to shooting them.

I came across a quote from John Mayer whose music you may hear occasionally if you spend any time on the road with us.  He said the following:

 TJ Lewis has nearly always had a problem with Capitalization.  He hopes it has gotten better since this problem was first discovered in first grade.  His handwriting is still exactly the same as it was in First Grade, so his capitalization problems are probably still a problem as well.  One of TJ’s favorite onomatopoeias is “splat” but he also likes the word “belch”.  Some day he would like to say that he has visited all 7 continents, whether he actually has or not.

This question is one of the most telling, personal questions you can ask a person about their work.  It causes you to think deeply about what you’ve committed many, many hours to.  For some, it’s a simple answer, for others they must dig deeper to figure it out.  I think I can speak for us all at Monarch when I say that for us this answer is simple.

We do what we do because of the emotion you can solicit from a person when they see their abstract, amorphous vision played out in front of them.  Sometimes we get a request from a client and in the initial meeting everything is lined out perfectly and neatly and there is no question on the direction and goals of the piece.  However, this is not always the case.  In fact, oftentimes this is not the case.  Fortunately, for us, and our clients, this is one of our favorite situations.  When all we have to work with is vague direction and abstract thoughts, we are allowed to think of new and different ways to tell your story and connect to your audience.  We can step outside of the norm and present ideas that may be different and exciting or emotional in ways that people in our target audience may not normally see.

One of my favorite things to do is sit around the guys in the studio brainstorming ideas for a new project.  For those that know me well it’s no surprise to find out that most of my ideas are usually those found on the floor at the end of the day.  Many rarely make the final concept chart, but without those ideas getting out and into someone else’s brain clouds, it’s hard to say what our final product may have been.  More to the point, I think it’s exactly those ideas, those off-the-wall, non-sensical ideas that help propel others ideas to stretch and grow and become more profound or engaging.  I accept my role in a brainstorm with pride, and love the opportunity to exercise and push myself to think creatively.  So, if you need a piece and don’t know where to start, come talk to us.  And, if you like, you can stick around for the brainstorm, but be warned, you may walk out a little dumber than when you came in.

Also, Feel free to tell us why you do what you do in the comments!

TJ Lewis is not, and has never been a fan of equestrian sports.  That’s not to say he doesn’t like horses, he just doesn’t think they should have to do things like jump over water and poles, or run around barrels. He does, however, like fictional stories about horses, like “Black Beauty” and “Seabiscuit”.  He’s never been fond of cursive and he loves James Bond films that have the word “day” in them.

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