What Filmmaking Teaches Us About Innovation Discipline

Samuel L. Jackson recently made an observation about modern filmmaking that applies directly to how many organizations approach innovation today.

He noted that while digital filmmaking has removed many traditional constraints, it has also introduced a new problem. When film was expensive, preparation was mandatory. Every shot required planning, rehearsal, and intent. Waste was not an option.

Today, with near-unlimited digital storage, filmmakers can record endlessly. The constraint did not disappear, it shifted. Instead of cost, the burden moved to people. Crews work longer hours reviewing unnecessary footage, decision quality declines, and outcomes suffer.

Jackson summarized the result simply: when teams are overworked and unfocused, the work becomes subpar.

The Innovation Program Parallel

The same dynamic plays out inside many corporate innovation programs.

“Capture every idea” has become a common philosophy. Digital submission platforms are inexpensive, storage is effectively unlimited, and participation feels inclusive. On the surface, more ideas appear to signal more innovation.

But every idea still requires human effort. Someone must evaluate it, score it, route it, compare it to past submissions, and determine whether it aligns with strategic priorities. When volume overwhelms evaluation capacity, quality declines.

Reviewers skim. Scoring becomes inconsistent. Strong ideas are lost in the noise. The constraint was never idea generation, it was thoughtful evaluation. Removing friction without replacing the discipline it enforced leads to diminishing returns.

Why Volume Is the Wrong Metric

The assumption that more ideas automatically lead to better innovation optimizes for the wrong outcome. Idea volume is easy to measure, but it is rarely the bottleneck.

Evaluation capacity is.

High-performing innovation programs recognize that their most valuable resource is not the number of submissions, but the ability to consistently identify, prioritize, and act on the ideas that matter.

Reintroducing Productive Constraint

In traditional filmmaking, cost created a natural forcing function. Directors visualized outcomes before committing resources. Decisions were made upstream, not deferred.

Modern innovation programs need an equivalent mechanism, not through artificial limits, but through infrastructure that makes prioritization and clarity unavoidable.

Effective programs introduce structure in several key ways:

• Duplicate detection and clustering prevent teams from repeatedly evaluating variations of the same idea. Similar concepts can be reviewed together, reducing redundant effort and improving comparative judgment.

• Structured scoring workflows ensure ideas are evaluated against consistent criteria such as feasibility, strategic alignment, impact, and required investment. This brings rigor to decision-making before significant resources are committed.

• Categorization and institutional memory allow contributors and reviewers to see what has already been proposed, tested, or retired. This reduces organizational amnesia and prevents teams from relearning the same lessons.

• ROI and effort estimation make tradeoffs explicit. When expected value and required investment are visible, prioritization becomes practical rather than political.

The objective is not to limit participation or creativity. It is to ensure that evaluation effort is focused where it delivers the greatest return.

Why Startups Often Get This Right

Early-stage companies operate under natural constraints. Limited capital and small teams force prioritization. Teams must decide what matters before they build, not after.

As organizations scale, those constraints disappear. Without intentional systems to replace them, focus erodes, backlogs grow, and decision quality declines.

Sustained innovation does not come from removing constraints. It comes from designing the right ones.

The Question Innovation Leaders Should Be Asking

This is not a debate about digital versus analog, or open versus gated idea submission. It is a question of discipline.

Innovation leaders should ask not how to generate more ideas, but how to protect their organization’s ability to recognize and act on the best ones.

If evaluation teams are overwhelmed, fatigued, and rushing decisions just to clear queues, the organization is not innovating effectively.

It is simply collecting ideas without the capacity to turn them into outcomes.