Hi, I’m Steven Leavitt - the host of The Language of Creativity podcast.
No not that Steven Levitt (from Freakonomics).
The Language of Creativity is a podcast I started in 2018 while procrastinating with my friend and client Adam Sears of Lobate Scarp before a particularly gnarly Pro Tools editing session one day. I had wanted to start a podcast and had been bouncing around ideas in my own head for months about how to make a show that covered music, multimedia, art, philosophy, business, spirituality, and everything in between without losing touch with “reality” (whatever that is). So before we went to work, I asked Adam “So, do you want to record a podcast real fast?” and we went into my studio and hit record. What happened next was incredible…
Adam and I sat down in front of the mics as he asked me what my new show was going to be about, and less than 60 seconds in he said, “Why don’t you call it The Language of… The Language of Creativity podcast?”
CREATIVITY! That was the common thread that wove everything together! And he had almost…channeled it, right on the spot. Language and creativity fit on a meta-level in so many dimensions…. and yeah sometimes it feels like creatives speak a different language.
Since then I’ve continued to interview guests in many different places in their careers, from a director for large Hollywood movies to a theatrical dancer, a motion graphics designer who first worked at the Eames Office, and even a barista at my local coffee shop who was studying clarinet with the principal chair for the LA Philharmonic (and has now gone on to play as a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra).
So here, in very particular order are my 10 all-time must-listen-to episodes of the podcast (so far)!
Naming The Podcast – Adam Sears (of Lobate Scarp) Episode 1
This is really a great place to start, it’s a self-contained episode that’s entertaining, informative, thought-provoking, and short… since many in-depth episodes run two hours, this one is 45 minutes! As I said earlier Adam names the podcast in the first 60 seconds and we go into what I’d like the show to be about. A particularly great highlight is 11:25 when Adam talks about getting called for a part on an MTV Movie Awards spoof the next day while on vacation in Arizona.
Friends Like Family – Spiro Razatos (Action Director, Fast and Furious franchise) Episode 29
Exciting stories from the inside of a “glamorous” industry. What’s most notable in this episode is the incredible luck the guest has had throughout his life, and the power of building a team you know you can rely on.The Present – Scott Thrift (Clockmaker) Episode 15
Asked to sell his product in the MOMA museum store after going to sleep one night deciding it was a goal, Scott was a Media Agency wiz kid and filmmaker who had documented behind the scene at the TED stage when he became taken with the idea “How do we get more time?” His answer? An annual clock with one hand, no lines (only colors) that take a full 365 days to go around, a practical art piece designed to give users an experience of “A longer now.” After 3 successful Kickstarter campaigns, Scott has since developed 2 more time-pieces (one for the 24 hour day and one for the phase of the moon).Perfect Pitch – Chris Elchico (Concert Saxophonist/Clarinetist) Episode 7
One of our most downloaded episodes. Chris was a barista at my local coffee shop, who also moonlighted as a classical clarinet student of Burt Hara (principal chair of clarinet for the LA Philharmonic) while touring the world as the soprano saxophone player for the saxophone quartet The Barkada Quartet. Chris shares the harrowing process of auditioning for symphonies around the US behind a curtain and his hopes to one day join the roster of a major metropolitan orchestra. SPOILER ALERT, he does! After the recording of this episode, Chris was hired as the second clarinet in the Boston Symphony.Developing Empathetic Society – “Indie” Jen Fischer Episode 2
Another coffee-shop friend, Jennifer is an independent filmmaker and producer whose film company has produced short films highlighting issues from immigration to mass incarceration. In this episode, we discuss Jen’s academic career spent seeking to understand things like why genocide happens. We hear about Jen’s recent trip to Rwanda in preparation for writing her first book: a novel dealing with the topic of genocide in the wake of a deadly outbreak. We also talk about the difficulties of being a parent running your own company in the entertainment business, being a community leader, and how playing and teaching the piano provides an important form of staying grounded.Becoming The Photographer with Nat Magnuson Episode 5
An interview with my best friend about his misadventures after graduating from photography school and inadvertently finding his way into photographing stunts on movie sets. “The moment that you become the photographer is not always the moment that you take the picture, the moment you become the photographer is either the moment before you take the picture where you become curious…and going for the photo, or it’s the moment where you look at the print or you look at the slide and you’re like ‘Ooh, everything came together. Wow, that’s a really good photo.’ But in my case, I was still discovering what photography was, so I would say the moment I became a photographer was not when I said ‘Wow, what a picture,’ it was when everybody else said ‘Man, that’s a great photo!’ and you’re like ‘Heh, I took a good photo.’”The Colors of Life – Wendy Vanguard (Conceptual Artist) Episode 9
How does one bounce back from a lost decade of life? In one of our most popular interviews, I sit down to talk with my first ever boss, who is a designer and conceptual artist who designed IDs for some of the most influential television companies of the 80s and 90s. Having started at Art Center in Pasadena and worked at the Eames office on the film Powers of Ten, Wendy went on to start her own production company, hand-painting concepts that would be turned into animation, speaking to physicists about the behaviors of newly discovered quark particles so she could illustrate them. Wendy was at the top of her career when her involvement in what seemed to be an altruistic group ultimately turned out to be a cult (a group I ultimately left too) which threatened to destroy her career and more tragically her family as well. Now thriving again and reunited with her family, we see each other for the first time in over ten years and talk about life, art, resilience and being empathic.Blaze Your Own Trail with Kt McBratney Episode 27
Designing The Future – Stephen Bau (Social Architect) Ep. 18, Pt.2
The Acorn and the Oak – Michael Boyle (Therapist/Life Coach) Ep. 19
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