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Comment by atoav | Hacker News Reader

> if someone needs to have this kind of availability, it means that something in the company is not working and needs to be fixed.

The crazy thing is, they think they can just throw manhours at bad planning and somehow make it work.

You can literally plan well, have a good life and still come out ahead of these chaotic organizations that make everybody run in circles out of pure panic.

I have seen this so often in film projects: people believe by exploiting themselves, their crew and their cast they somehow "extract" more value and magically make it work. And that one one the point, relexad, but well-planned project will always achieve better results. Because oh wonder: crews and casts that are not overworked and that use their maximum potential where it matters instead of spreading it out over the whole project will always produce better results.

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I read a book by a consultant who said he could immediately gauge how well a factory was operating by looking at how relaxed the average workers were. The most efficient factories almost looked like nothing was happening, because they had a smooth and efficient process and knew how to calmly handle emergencies.

if you can share the title/author of the book please do, I've seen this pattern in work as well

I can't be sure, but I think it was "Slack" by Demarco.

And what is true for the factory is also true for a film set.

The thing many dont realize is: If you have a good plan and follow it, you will very often have more freedom to try out new things than when your planning is chaotic or non-existent — because then literally every step is made out of fear, out of panic, to avoid pain or because other decisions froced you into something.

I say this because startups would argue about creativity and all that, but having worked aomw time both in art school and on film sets I can guarantee that the qell prepared always have more freedom than those who just try to figure things out as they go.

Thinking it is somehow more honorable to plan badly, throw peoples lifetime at the thing and getting a somewhat okayish result is really problematic in my eyes. Romantizing things that could have been solved by realistic (or even pessimistic) planning is not cool, it just shows me that you have no experience.

Your discounting of the budget factor among many others is brave. Many hardworking directors with high expectations have very different priorities, some which are simply big distractions from producing a quality production. This “be relaxed and chill to make a good film” idea is delusional, but its not necessarily wrong as much as it is just nonsense. And the ability to merely plan and execute plans, regardless how good they are, depends tremendously and straightforwardly on budget.

> This “be relaxed and chill to make a good film” idea is delusional

I studied film. I directed films and I was on more films sets than I wish I would have been. While this is certainly uncommon (especially in low budget productions), it is definitly not delusional. Quite the opposite, as I already argued.

There certainly is a place where working extremely hard pays off, John Carmack is an example of this, though he was a founder at the time.

So i wholly agree that the old adage "work smarter, not harder" applies here.

The fool is most likely yourself if you are available 24/7 and work long hours more often than not.

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