Trust in yourself

At some point you need to trust that you've learned enough, internalized enough, and that creativity will come if you sit down and do the work.

Trust that you won't make something crappy, or something that goes against the grain of your creative impulses. And you have to be ok with being vulnerable and letting the world see your art.

Trust that you'll know where to mold it to keep it fresh and exciting, and true to your heart.

Not taking a day off

One of my favorite books lately has been Seth Godin's Linchpin.

Consumers are not loyal to cheap commodities. They crave the unique, the remarkable, and the human.

This quote is a constant source of inspiration for my screenwriting. That's exactly what we crave in films. Tarantino, Wes Anderson, Scorsese, PTA. Is there any doubt when you're watching one of their movies that it's authored by them?

Linchpin: click here

Picasso and money

I was also thinking about revenue streams and Picasso. He got most of his money from selling paintings, I wonder if there's a market for that in the future. Selling private films. Commission work. As filmmaking gets cheaper, I wonder if there are different ways to make money, other than theatrical or digital distribution.

He didn't reinvent the wheel with how you make money from painting, but I wonder if there are lessons to take home from that. It's a proto-idea, in it's infancy, or rather not even born yet, but still I wonder....

Picasso

I watched a BBC documentary on Picasso on Friday night. It got me thinking again about whether or not film is due for a revolution in structure and form.

Picasso started off as a classical painter, academic realism they call it. Then his work added a symbolist influence. Blue period. Rose period. And finally modern art transformed... cubism, crystal period, neoclassical, surrealism, and beyond.

Painting and novels were the primary art forms of the day (my guess), and it's obvious painting went through a revolution in the early 1900's, and from what Chuck said in his article, fiction is going through a similar crisis. And they could be much further along than film.

I know it's a common chorus, people have been proclaiming the death of the 3-act structure hero story since Aristotle. But maybe we could use some exploration like Picasso did with the bull, seeing what elements of traditional film structure you can remove while still maintaining the essence.

The problem is, I get bored with so many movies I see. I wonder if it's because I'm older and have seen enough to get all the tricks, or if it's because audiences are more savvy now. I'd like to believe it's because audiences are more savvy now (which Chuck stated in his article), because I'd love to see more exciting, experimental movies.

Picasso BBC doc: click here
Chuck Palahniuk article: click here

Big release

I've been wrestling with some of these ideas. Why does every movie need to be released and do massively well opening weekend? Some books do that, sure. The big sellers. And other books take years and word-of-mouth to be a hit. For those books, generally they haven't wasted money on a huge release, because they know what kind of book they have. But every movie, regardless, feels like it needs to be treated the same. 

Why can't you have good, quality, smaller movies, and allow them to build over time? Eventually making their money back. 

I'm hoping that as the digital market expands, you'll see room for different types of releases. 

It's the same problem Soderbergh noted with Liberace. I think his numbers were, the $5M budget movie needed to make $120M just to break even. Which is absurd. With $30-40M going to marketing, and $30-40M going to theater owners as part of their distribution split. 

Obviously what I'm talking about would be non-theatrical releases. With growth hacker / lean startup marketing techniques. 

Shipping daily

It feels good, shipping product daily. It's advice I'm taking from Seth Godin, every day fighting the resistance to hide and work on an idea until it's perfect. Getting in the habit of putting thoughts and ideas out there, even though they may not be 100%.

His ideas on the lizard brain from Linchpin are sticking with me, long after reading the book. I'll find myself trying to remember his specific ideas when I'm fighting fear throughout the day. I enjoyed Steven Pressfield's book on resistance, but having Seth tie resistance to biology is bringing the ideas home in a deeper, longer lasting way.

Seth Godin: click here
Linchpin: click here
The War of Art: click here

Not fearless, but courageous

As a filmmaker, you should focus on what you're most excited to shoot. Not what looks cool or what other people would like. But what you're most excited about seeing on screen.

And a corollary to that is you need to appear to be fearless about putting that your excitement on screen. Your opinion. Your thoughts. Your likes. Your interests. Your passion.

But it's not truly being fearless. It's being courageous. Nobody is fearless. You have to recognize the fear and move past it. Take action in the face of fear. Doing it anyway.