Alan Kay suggests that good inventors are like Michelangelo, both imagining the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel—and also spending years on their back painting it! Part visionary, part obsessive craftsperson.
I wonder about auteurs in film—hundreds of staff doing detail work!
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Maybe one principle is that it’s possible to (partially) delegate to someone else who is themselves Michelangelo-like in that way.
Like: maybe Wes Anderson’s set dressers are just as visionary and obsessive as he is, so he can let them do some of the “painting”?
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Likewise in games: maybe an auteur-like direct can “outsource” only to a level designer who will themselves bring auteur-like sensibilities—and not to a “technician”? suggests experiences along these lines in his comments about The Witness’s team.
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I wonder if the important element is not so much whether he painted it single-handedly as much as that he was up there, on his back, “with candle wax dripping into his eye” for four years alongside maybe-assistants. That’s not delegation!
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Replying to @andy_matuschak
As far as I know, Michelangelo, Leonardo and Rafael all had apprentices that also spent time on their backs actually painting - Sistine Chapel painted by more than one brush.
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Early Disney (pre movies + theme parks) was very much like this. Walt personally signed off on every single sketch, after sometimes, multiple rounds of review. He was fastidious (and by all accounts, so was the core team). Delegation in name only, really.
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Yes! It’s interesting that this only persisted for Snow White and Fantasia. Disney’s “nine old men” are an interesting entry here: after Snow White, they’d typically be in charge of a single character’s animation throughout the entire movie. Again a constrained delegation.
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Need to read more about them — lmk if there’s anything you’d suggest. :D Gabler covers them nicely in his bio and the Imagineering Story on Disney+ also features them, but to your original question — always wonder what’s in the water of amazing teams of craftspeople.
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I’m afraid those two are my best sources! I’ll share if I find more. :)