One way to improve your results in just about anything (including filmmaking) is by using Inversion Thinking.

Humans are far more capable of identifying potential threats than we are opportunities. This is hard wired into us from our hunter-gatherer days, and was useful when basic survival was our primary goal.

In modern times, many incredibly successful people (including Steve Jobs) have tapped into this understanding of psychology. Rather than fantasize about how things might go right, they instead focus on what might go wrong. 

Only then, once they have identified the negatives, do they invert each one of them to determine their positive counterparts.

As filmmakers, we can leverage our own psychology in the same way to make better choices at every step.

For example, if you were to start making a movie today, you might naturally begin by thinking about all of the positive outcomes.

You would probably consider the most ideal version of the movie, and see the process through rose colored glasses. All the while, neglecting to fully take into account everything that could lead to catastrophic failure.

It’s great to be optimistic. Critical even. But we need to remember that we are much better at identifying negatives.

Our instinct is to focus on the positives (because it feels better) but doing so all but guarantees we are setting ourselves up for failure.

Inversion Thinking fills in our blind spots by suggesting we think of all the negatives first, and then flipping them into positives later on.

So rather than thinking What would make this film succeed?, We should be thinking What would make this film fail?

Once we’ve identified those parameters, we can easily invert them and take the very opposite actions.

Take for example this tweet that I shared earlier this week…

A perfect formula for failure as a filmmaker:

– Wait for the perfect time to make your film
– Assume your ideas are always best
– Don’t care about the audience
– Rush through pre-production
– Take rejection personally
– Be anti-collaborative

This is an example of Inversion Thinking. Or at least the first half of the process – identifying the issues.

Once it’s inverted, the list above becomes…

A perfect formula for success as a filmmaker:

– Don’t wait if you can make your film now
– Get feedback on your work and listen to it
– Think about the audience experience first
– Take as much time as needed with pre-production
– Never take any form of rejection personally
– Be highly collaborative with your team

I suggest using Inversion Thinking on anything and everything you can.

Any time you want to determine what would make something succeed – whether a screenplay, a pitch meeting, a post workflow – ask first what would make it fail.

Then flip the script and follow the roadmap.

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