How to make a cup of tea (not actually about making tea)

Many, many years ago (sigh) I did a course in Film and Video production run by the local government here in Ireland. It was only ever run once, but it was actually a great course, and I probably owe my entire career to that course. I learned so much from that and much of the experience still serves me today. But there was one class that I always remembered more than any other, and it’s an interesting story, and I wanted to share it, because I think there’s a valuable lesson in it for everyone.

One of our first practical projects on the course was to break into groups and create a short video on a specific topic. We decided the class into teams of 6 and each of the teams had a few hours to create a short film. But there was a catch. We couldn’t do any editing. We were shooting on tape at the time (Hi 8 to be precise - look it up for those too young to remember the format) and so basically we had to shoot a scene, pause the tape, shoot the next scene, pause the tape and so on. This was a deliberate limitation to make us think harder about the shoot. Each scene had to be shot to the exact length, and so had to be properly planned. And we couldn’t really get anything wrong, although technically we could rewind and record over a bad take, but this was frowned upon.

The topic of the video was to be: “How to make a cup of tea”. Sounds innocuous enough, and not something that would be that interesting. But that was kind of the point. The challenge was to make it interesting. So one of the members of my team came up with the rather ingenious idea that it should be done in the style of a secret agent making the tea. One of the group decided to play the actor, and we had them sneak into the building, skulk around cupboards for the utensils and then Jim Carey, style made the tea. It was very entertaining. The whole thing was done to the soundtrack to the 60s tv show “Danger Man” called “Secret Agent Man”.

As an aside, I’m actually not sure how we did the music (this was over 20 years ago) - I think the camera allowed overdubbing.

So what’s the point of this story? Well, this thought us two invaluable lessons.

First, the importance of planning.

While the way we shot this would never be used on a professional production, it was a great way to enforce a strict regiment of careful planning. We had to think about each shot before we shot it and go into each scene with a plan. This also meant rehearsing each shot to make sure everyone knew what they were doing. It thought us about the importance of teamwork and collaboration. If rehearsing a shot, someone came up with a better idea, we would do that. Whatever to make the project better.

It’s important not to take the aspect of shooting with limitations too literally. I see this all the time on the internet. If you limit yourself, you’ll get better shots, etc. Some people take that to mean always limiting yourself. But this was a training exercise, and as I said, you’d never shoot a real production this way. But by limiting yourself as an exercise, it forces you to think outside the box, and to appreciate the tools you have and use them to their fullest. That way when on a larger production, or even if you’re just out shooting photography or video yourself, you’ll appreciate each tool you’re using for what it is, and use those tools to their fullest. At least that’s the idea. If you’re always “limiting yourself” then it’s not really limiting - it’s just par for the course.

Of the two lessons, this is the one, I’m most guilty of not following enough. If I’m out shooting, I tend to wing it, which is really bad practice, and it’s writing this story down that has reminded me to plan more.

The second lesson is how to take an ordinary situation, and look at it from a different point of view.

From an Irish person’s perspective, nothing could be as ordinary as making a cup of tea. And the challenge then was how to make this interesting. There were lots of ways we could have gone about it, and the other groups all did different things. Some just tried to shoot in interesting or unusual angles. The person we chose to lead our group as director came up with the rather crazy idea of turning it totally on its head and make it something different.

And this is a really important skill to learn. It’s not easy either - but it’s the key to creativity and originality.

Another good example of this is some of Peter McKinnon’s (older) videos where he has an elaborate coffee making sequence. Peter has taken something ordinary and made it extraordinary. In this case the originality is through the way of shooting it, but also making a compelling story from something seemingly simple.

I read a really good piece of advice once about photography which has a similar theme. The key to compelling photography is not to take a shot the way normal people would see it. By shifting your perspective, whether that’s through a different angle or a different kind of lens, then you show the viewer something familiar but in a way they don’t normally see it. An example of this was flowers. People normally see flowers from the perspective oaf a person looking down on them. So to take better flower photography, you have to change your perspective. Shoot from down low looking up, or get super close and shoot from a different angle.

This is something I have tried to do, although it’s easy to get into a bad habit and revert to the easy way of doing things. This is something I’m also pretty guilty of, but I’m trying to get back to thinking outside the box more. A lot of the time it requires patience and thought and often planning, but the rewards are better images.

If you want to try this exercise for yourself, just take any ordinary object or task and try and think about it from a different angle. It can be anything, and the results don’t have to be brilliant, just think of it as an exercise to get the mind going in a different direction.

Cover Image by Ksenia Raykova via iStock Photo