Rainer Fassbinder made over 40 films, more television series, and over a dozen plays. Then he died at 37. That is an incredible amount of work. He was able to do this in no small part thanks to the team of collaborators around him.
Collaboration is an amazing process. But it takes courage.
When you find the right collaborator then your creative process gains fertility. There are new ideas coming in. New energy. Other people are better at some part of the process. And a truly wonderful collaboration shares a combined understanding of the work.
Fassbinder worked with other editors, producers, and actors who all understood the shared goal of the work. This allowed him to start writing the next film while his collaborator finished editing the previous one.
Martin Scorsese shares a wonderful collaboration with his editor, Thelma Schoonmaker. She has edited every one of his films since Raging Bull, and a handful of earlier ones. That classic look and feel of a Scorsese film is in part due to their long collaboration and that shared understanding of the work.
The Coen brothers have such a shared vision of the work that multiple actors have referred to them as a two-headed beast. Asking one brother about their view on a particular detail in a scene then asking the other will bring the same answer.
Connecting with a partner who can share the same vision and whose talents compliment yours is powerful.
I approach each ghostwriting project as a collaboration. My role is to bring an in depth knowledge of story structure and writing principles to develop and refine the author’s vision and story into a powerful book. Finding where the author and I cross over and define the shared vision of the work is a powerful moment. That’s what makes each project exciting.