An Astrophysicist Finds An Error In The Titanic Movie, Tiger Woods Needs Golf Tees, And Why A Rock Band Despises Brown M&Ms: Why Pros Sweat The Small Stuff - And So Should You

The 3-Word Quote: '“Details Determine Destiny”

1.

Movie director James Cameron is obsessive.

He prefers to describe himself as a 'perfectionist.'

The filmmaker takes great pride in planning, plotting, and preparing every detail of his blockbuster movies.

And his method of working works. He has directed three of the four highest-grossing films in history: Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water, and Titanic.

He can spend years preparing to film one of his movies.

He expects perfection from himself, and he demands it from those working with him.

In fact, while shooting his movie Aliens, he despised the film crew he was working with at Pinewood Studios in England.

Cameron felt the crew needed to be more dedicated and committed to making a great film.

And on the last day of filming Aliens, he gathered that crew around for a final speech.

Some in the crew anticipated his talk would be thankful in nature and congratulatory in content.

His speech was neither of those things. Cameron told the team:

"This has been a long and difficult shoot, fraught with many problems. But one thing that kept me going through it all was the certain knowledge that one day I would drive out of the gate of Pinewood and never come back and that you sorry bastards would still be here."

Obviously, Cameron didn't respect the crew's effort.

But years later, when an astrophysicist watched Cameron's Titanic, he noticed a significant mistake, an error in the film.

So, the astrophysicist sent Cameron a note pointing out the error.

James Cameron did not take the criticism well.

2.

Golfer Tiger Woods may be just as obsessive as James Cameron.

He, too, is a perfectionist.

Most consider him the best golfer of all time, and he spends hundreds of hours improving his game. Much of his time is spent on the driving range and putting green.

He also spends a significant amount of time evaluating his equipment.

There's not much equipment used in golf - a handful of clubs, a ball, and a tee - simple equipment for a challenging game.

One of the most basic pieces of equipment is the tee - a piece of wood that the ball rests on before being hit at the start of each hole.

Tees are standard. One golfer's tee doesn't vary significantly from another.

However, Tiger Woods ran out of his tees during one major tournament.

This was a problem. It was an issue because Tiger's tees actually were different from the basic tee.

And there was no time to get more of Tiger's tees to him before the start of the tournament.

He was precise about his tees and expected them to be to his specifications.

And one of his sponsors at the time, TaylorMade, was panicked.

TaylorMade knew telling Tiger that he would not have the equipment he needed was not an option.

3.

The story is the stuff of rock and roll legend.

It involves rock star egos, a time of arena rock shows, and…some candy.

Specifically, M&Ms.

You may have heard the story before.

The band Van Halen was one of the biggest acts in the 1980s and 90s.

They jetted around the world, sold massive amounts of music, and put on enormous rock shows.

And they lived the rock star lifestyle.

As the band's following grew larger, their egos grew larger, too.

The band began to ask for more and more in the contracts they signed before concerts.

Most concert contracts stipulate numerous technical details to ensure the concert proceeds smoothly and without incident or injury.

The group's shows were extensive and complicated. Van Halen's contract was 53 pages long.

And right in the middle of the contract was a line where the band requested candy.

In today's concert contracts, artists often request many things - alcohol being the leading request.

But Van Halen wanted M&Ms.

David Lee Roth, the band's lead singer at the time, addressed his candy request in his autobiography.

He said, 'And article number 126 in the middle of nowhere was 'There will be no brown M&Ms in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation.'

In other words, Van Halen wanted a bowl of M&Ms in the dressing room - and there better not be any brown ones.

But this odd request wasn't just rock stars flexing their power with ridiculous requests.

This 'no brown M&M' rule had a real purpose.

The Takeaway:

So what does an astrophysicist who pointed out a flaw in Titanic, Tiger Woods' tees, and Van Halen's bowl of M&Ms all have to do with each other?

They are all examples of how those who excel in their fields often pay extreme attention - to the small details.

Pros sweat the small stuff.

Titanic's director, James Cameron, is a perfectionist. He meticulously recreated the rooms on the Titanic, researching and replicating everything, including ensuring that the China pattern on the dishes in the film matched the actual dishes on the ship.

He thought of everything.

Details matter to him.

However, when Neil deGrasse Tyson saw the movie, he spotted an error in one of the film's most crucial scenes.

Think back to the 1997 film toward the end.

Kate Winslet's character just survived the sinking and is floating in the Atlantic on a piece of wreckage.

Rose, the character's name, is freezing and near death, looking up at the sky.

But the sky she saw and the one we saw in the movie theaters was historically inaccurate.

And Tyson, author of several bestselling books on astronomy, knew the sky was incorrect.

He was likely the only one who knew about the error in the sky.

How did he know?

Well, he's an astrophysicist.

He also knows that the sky is 'a very predictable thing.'

Tyson said the sky was "cloudless and moonless" on the date of the Titanic's sinking."

Dr. Tyson said Rose should have seen part of the Big Dipper and other constellations.

This information is based on coordinates where the Titanic sank on April 15, 1912.

And because Tyson is obsessed with detail, he let James Cameron know that the director had the sky wrong in the movie.

Tyson said he wouldn't usually concern himself with a director's errors.

Still, the film was marketed and promoted as being historically accurate. So Tyson figured Cameron would want to know.

Cameron didn't.

And the director didn't reply to Tyson's letter, which pointed out the error.

But the mistake bothered Tyson, and he brought it up face-to-face with Cameron when the two happened to be at a function together.

Tyson said, "Jim, my issue here is not that the sky was wrong; it was that you got everything else right."

Cameron wasn't happy and felt challenged.

The director sarcastically responded, "Last I checked, Titanic grossed 1.3 billion. Imagine how much more money the film would have grossed if I would have gotten the sky correct."

Cameron dismissed Tyson's criticism that night, but the filmmaker knew he had made a mistake.

It bothered him.

Most movie watchers wouldn't have noticed, and most directors wouldn't have cared.

But years later, Cameron contacted Tyson and requested the exact sky and star pattern on the night of the Titanic's sinking.

Tyson sent Cameron a detailed map of what Rose would have seen while floating in the Atlantic that night.

And when Titanic was rereleased years after its original release, Cameron, the perfectionist, changed only one thing from the original movie.

He fixed the sky.

***

Like Cameron, Tiger Woods obsesses over small items.

He scrutinizes every detail.

So when Tiger didn't have any of his tees to play a tournament, there was a problem.

Woods doesn't just use regular golf tees - his are measured exactly and produced precisely to his specifications.

No one at TaylorMade wanted to deliver the news that they did not have any golf tees for him, and none could be shipped in time for the start of the tournament.

So, the TaylorMade employees improvised.

They gathered in the large equipment truck and made a small assembly line.

These were not the traditional makers of the tees; these men were not trained craftsmen.

But they were going to attempt to handcraft tees for Tiger on the fly.

They took a batch of regular tees and went to work.

One staff member gathered equipment and prepped the space.

Another measured and marked them precisely.

One cut them, and another sharpened them perfectly.

After all the work was completed and checked, they produced 100 tees made to Tiger's exact requirements.

While working, one TaylorMade employee described the truck, saying, "Jeez, this smells like a furniture shop in here."

Seems strange that Tiger couldn't just use a regular tee like everyone else.

But he doesn't play golf like everyone else.

And when one employee asked about this, he was told, 'You've got two choices. You can go out and tell him, or you can get in this production line."

The staff member jumped in the line.

***

Correcting the sky in Titanic and fixing Tiger Woods’ tees are what those who care insanely about the outcome of something do.

They care about getting things right.

Attention to detail is necessary for most things.

But what about the M&M story?

This well-known story is a simple request from a rock star.

Perhaps the band thought it was funny - let's see if the venue will pick out all the brown M&Ms from a bowl.

And someone did - it was someone's job to ensure there were no brown M&Ms in the backstage area.

It was in Van Halen's contract.

And it was also an essential part of their contract.

Roth said the brown M&M request was a test for venues that signed the contract.

Roth said if he walked backstage and saw any brown M&Ms in the candy bowl, he knew the venue employees hadn't carefully read the contract.

And if the contract hadn't been carefully read, Roth said, "Guaranteed you'd run into a problem" during the concert.

Brown M&Ms were a simple test to see who paid attention to details.

They figured that if venues missed small details in the contract, they'd likely overlook larger issues that could impact the quality of the show.

The band cared little about candy.

They cared deeply about their music and the concert's production.

They sweated the small stuff.

And they made sure others did, too.

***

No matter the project—writing, creating music, or producing a film— details matter.

A 1997 book called "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff" sold over 15 million copies and serves as a concise guide to living a balanced, less stressed life.

But the title isn't great advice for creatives.

We all make mistakes (see my newsletter’s headline last week - whoops), but creators often obsess over details because they are essential.

However, there is also a fine line between continuing to tweak, fiddle, and adjust when little to no improvement can be gained.

It is quite possible to drown in the details by paying too much attention to the small things.

Creatives must also feel when a project is finished - they have to know when to stop giving CPR to a corpse.

But details do matter, and they always will.

There's a quote that says, "In a jungle, it's not the tiger that will kill you, it's the mosquitoes."

In other words - don't ignore the small but essential things; they're often more important than things that seem larger.

Because details determine the destiny of your project.

***

3 things before you go:

1. watch: a group of them is called a ‘happy’ ; this place seems like a must visit

2. listen: great pairing - Petty and Vedder

3. listen: another great pairing - Springsteen and Mellencamp

Thanks for making it to the end.

-Jeff