LinkedIn Post: Kickflip Before the 900

Source: /opt/gcv-portfolio/captions/DSvN7GzlKlc.en.vtt — Little Five Points Halloween parade livestream, ~1:14:27–1:15:57 (Kick the Ladder debuts intro)

A couple weeks back we ran the Kick the Ladder show in Little Five Points, and the part of the night that gets me every time is the debuts.

A debut is somebody who has never made a film before in their entire life deciding to make their first one and screen it in front of a room. That's the whole point of the thing. Make film available to everybody, not just the people who already know how.

Six people debuted that night. Record for us. Six people who'd never finished a film, standing up next to work they made from scratch, and we looked at what their goal was and whether they hit it. Not whether it was good by somebody else's standard. Whether it hit what they were reaching for.

The line I keep using is this: we all had to start with a kickflip before you could do the 900.

Everybody in that room was at a different level and we celebrate each other's goals, not just each other's polish. A first film at a new level counts the same as a veteran nailing something harder, because the new level is harder for that person than the 900 is for the other.

I think most of us run our work the opposite way. We only let ourselves show things when they're finished and impressive, so we never show the kickflip. We hide the attempt until it's good enough to defend.

The debuts are the best part of the night because they're the part nobody's defending. Just people putting a first thing out in the world and a room that showed up to see it.

If there's something you've never made before, the room exists for that too. You just have to be willing to be the debut.

draft from corpus — based on Brandyn's Kick the Ladder intro, Little Five Points Halloween parade livestream (DSvN7GzlKlc.en.vtt)