What's mere friction and what creative process?

Preparing to perform an activity—say, setting up for recording or taking your sketching tools out—adds friction to the creative process, as do post-processing and publishing whatever you make, like editing footage, digitizing drawings, and sharing your creations on social media.

In film-making, shooting is often perceived as the most important part of the process. However, what happens before and after recording is equally important. Planning ensures you’ll shoot the essential takes and post-processing filters out unnecessary takes and shapes the final movie. There's creativity in recording but also in planning and editing.

What's key, not only in film-making but in any creative activity, is to identify which parts simply add friction and which ones are fundamental parts of your creative process.