There is a great parallel to this in filmmaking. Some of the greatest films took unexpected turns during production, often forced to change in major ways due to accidents, scheduling conflicts, budget, or last-minute ad-libs which become central themes of their characters. In a number of films, those unplanned additions turned out to be key to the success of the film.
One specific example of this is The Other Side of the Wind, by Orson Welles, in which Welles noted the existence of this magic phenomenon and deliberately sought to make a film centrally driven by happenstance and unscripted ad-libs. In other words: trying to catch lightning in a bottle.
The original Star Wars is the classic example of that phenomenon.
It often happens in music too, when artists with different sensibilities somehow “clash” and the material they produce together (which they’ll inevitably think of as “full of compromises” etc etc) is superior to anything they would produce individually, before or after.
Another example is Jaws: the mechanical shark didn't work very well, so Spielberg had to rely on the human characters and dialogue, a fin above the water, shark-eye-view shots, and John Williams' classic score. Based on what little we saw of the actual prop, the result elevated the film above what might have easily been a laughable B-movie.
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There is a great parallel to this in filmmaking. Some of the greatest films took unexpected turns during production, often forced to change in major ways due to accidents, scheduling conflicts, budget, or last-minute ad-libs which become central themes of their characters. In a number of films, those unplanned additions turned out to be key to the success of the film.
One specific example of this is The Other Side of the Wind, by Orson Welles, in which Welles noted the existence of this magic phenomenon and deliberately sought to make a film centrally driven by happenstance and unscripted ad-libs. In other words: trying to catch lightning in a bottle.
The original Star Wars is the classic example of that phenomenon.
It often happens in music too, when artists with different sensibilities somehow “clash” and the material they produce together (which they’ll inevitably think of as “full of compromises” etc etc) is superior to anything they would produce individually, before or after.
Another example is Jaws: the mechanical shark didn't work very well, so Spielberg had to rely on the human characters and dialogue, a fin above the water, shark-eye-view shots, and John Williams' classic score. Based on what little we saw of the actual prop, the result elevated the film above what might have easily been a laughable B-movie.
Man, that movie is great, and yeah, it's entirely because it's about the people more than the shark.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_Strategies