Rest
assured, ANY skill can be useful for filmmaking, depending on the
subject matter and needs of a production are. However, non-obvious
skills that are consistently needed include:
Doomsday prepping
Anything
can and will go wrong on your film set, so plan for it. Spare light
bulbs, equipment breaking, actors and crew vanishing, locations
disappearing, and yes, rain. Hurricanes and tornadoes! You’ve been
warned! Now be ready for all of it.
Getting people to focus
SHADDAP!!!
That’s how you need to say it. “Please be quiet” is too meek, and “SHUT
UP ALREADY!”… well, it’s just rude! People know you’re being friendly
yet stern when you tell em to SHADDAP!!! Say it fast and quick, whenever
unnecessary conversation is interfering with progress on a film set.
Even better is to just say “Quiet on the set!”, “Positions!” or “Is
camera ready?”. Conversations will stop fast and hard.
But
it’s not just that. I got a hard lesson from my cinematographer on a
prior shoot when I was determined to reserve a particular parking spot
in Brooklyn, because I wanted to record a car driving toward a
particular tree. But I, as the director, was needed elsewhere, to make
decisions. The assistant director took over, and was promptly booted
away by an angry mother who wanted to park. I looked at the lost parking
spot and cried deep within, but again, the cinematographer repeated,
“FOCUS” and I got back to work finishing the shoot. The shot we came up
with instead worked out just fine.
Thinking about safety
Putting
a light on a stand at the right brightness and the right angle is not
enough. Someone can trip on that light and knock it over. Or even more
likely, the power cable. You need to put a sandbag or two on the light
stand whenever it’s set up, and try to prevent people from tripping on
the wires too. A light falling over can be dangerous, and it can
seriously hurt your movie. Suddenly, instead of that daylight hitting
the far wall thanks to that powerful yet now broken light, all the
actors might need to crowd near the window, and it would just look
awkward.
Color coordination
I
looked around during one of the larger daily meetings for my software
development team at work. Everyone… maybe 15 people… were wearing some
variant of blue and black. Both those colors have their place in film,
but you need to be a tad braver? While fashion sense is a big part of
this, I’m also talking about set design, props, and the color scheme of
the lights. If you ignore this, you’re missing an opportunity to
leverage an important tool for visual storytelling.
Cognizance of speech patterns
I
talk a certain way, and sometimes phrase things in ways that I find
amusing. I do it out of habit, to make the day just a bit more
enjoyable, and I don’t realize it until people point it out. One of the
most consistent critiques I get for my screenwriting is “People don’t
talk like that”. Some are better at identifying what language you’d
expect to hear from your characters throughout the script. I’ve gotten
better, but it’s not one of my stronger skills. I let as many people as I
can find comment on my script and it quickly lets me fix such issues.
Estimating
By
estimating, I’m not talking about how you can estimate the length of
your edited film to be about one minute per page of your screenplay. I
mean estimating the time it takes to actually shoot the raw footage.
While it’s expected, during your first time directing, that you might
have a 15 hour day or two, professionals will quickly draw the line if
you assume it’s okay for the next shoot. You need to realize that each
shot will take at least 15–20 minutes, and you need to account for more
complicated lighting setup and anything else that could delay progress.
I’d recommend you not plan on shooting more than 5 pages a day. Keep it
at 3 a day max if you’re still learning the process. Filmmaking will be a
lot more fun if you have time to think about things, experiment, and be
creative.
Construction
There are a ton of Youtube videos on DIY projects for filmmaking equipment. Want a snorricam shot?
You
can either buy a rig like that for a few hundred, or build it yourself.
Dollies, silders, diffusion panels, etc, are all within your reach for
cheap if you know your way around a hardware store. Also, you might
handy enough to construct your own movie sets. How jealous I am when I
see films that have custom-built sets, but if you’re handy, have at it!
Changing direction
Okay,
something isn’t going to work out as well as you’d hope. You have the
sorrowful eyes of your cinematographer locked with yours, and those eyes
are telling you that you are not going to be able to film the shots you
wanted. You have to figure out a way to connect the dots. Brainstorm.
Throw eggs at the wall. Think about what you have, and what can work.
Choose the one that makes you feel confident. There are answers out
there! And also, you might invent penicillin! Recognize what COULD be
possible, and if something worked out better, or differently than you’d
have hoped, it might open up new opportunities. Yes, I like the way she
looked in that take, suggesting that there really isn’t a gun in that
house. Maybe the cat did it!
Maybe not…
Being good with children and animals
Speaking
of which, sometimes you do have a cat in your film, or a baby. People
are not going to like you upsetting either. If you want to include such a
creature in your film, you have to know how to work with them. So being
a cat person, or a very charismatic baby playmate, can be a godsend,
when you just want to get one simple shot, but it’s just not happening.
The cat keeps running away, or the baby keeps crying. Please, for the
love of god, save the production and fix this!
Stage combat training
You
don’t realize it at first, but there are tons of things a filmmaker can
write into a script that is very unsafe. I had an older gentleman play
the father that, unfortunately, has reached the end of his usefulness,
and was expected to perform a ceremonial suicide. Of course, once he
did, I needed him to collapse. We planned to put something soft under
the rug, but it still wasn’t safe for him. We ultimately cut shots
together, with a sound effect, to give a reasonable illusion of a fall,
but if we had an actor with some training on how to do such a fall
believably and safely, we could have gotten that shot resolved much
faster.
Detecting ambient noises
I’ve
recorded a bunch of sound in New York City. While I’ve gotten very
clean recordings usually, it’s easy to mentally tune out background
noise. Apparently, taking into account my recording experience and
post-production sound issues, I’ve become more sensitive to hearing. On
the last production I was a part of, I noticed sounds, without
headphones, that apparently no one else on set were detecting. So
apparently I have that skill. It’s useful. Otherwise you could have
unwanted noise in your final film.
Acting
This
is obvious to actors, but no one else. In order to know how to
effectively direct actors, a director needs to have some experience with
acting. What are they actually trying to do, and what helps them get
there? It can be different from actor to actor, but if you learn to do
it well enough to make an acting teacher happy (that’s my gold
standard), then you’ll know enough to fix performances when they’re not
sounding how you want them.
Graphic Design
For
my last production, I wanted advertising posters on the wall, and
needed a presentation of some sort. I knew something about Prezi, which
makes for lively presentation, and also know my way around Photoshop. We
also had cell phone displays and a company banner that also needed
design. I was able to handle it all myself.
I also maintain my own Sneaky Ghost Films
website, which helps for networking and promotion activities. Graphic
design ability to the rescue! And for my next film, I’m going to need
some sort of menu for a restaurant scene. It may very well end up as
another graphic design task.
But again, the
number of skills that can be of aid to a filmmaker are limitless. It’s
simply up to the filmmaker to leverage their strengths to make the best
film possible.
SIFF believes in film's unique power to share original stories, diverse
perspectives, and rich emotional journeys. Beginning in 1976 with the
annual Seattle International Film Festival, expanding into SIFF
Education, and most recently operating our year-round five-screen SIFF
Cinema, we have provided experiences that bring people together to
discover extraordinary films from around the world. Our distinctly smart
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and investment in girls and women.
Named one of Filmmaker Magazine's "25 New Faces of Independent Film,”
OUT Magazine’s “Out 100,” and Towleroad’s “LGBT Film Character Of The
Year,” Kimberly Reed uses her position as the first
commercially-released transgender filmmaker to tell compelling stories.
Her work has been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, NPR, Details
magazine, and the Moth Radio Hour, leading to fellowships with New York
Foundation for the Arts, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and Yaddo
Artists’ Community.
A deep discussion into cinematography and filmmaking as an art form
is the theme for our first podcast in 2018. We had the pleasure of
meeting Blake Worrell, the director and actor behind the smartphone
camera in the globally awarded mobile film, Dissolution. The film was
awarded for Best Cinematography by the Global Mobile Film Awards last
December and was a dramatic short film which Blake dissects with his own
spoken words in our podcast.
For any filmmaker, not just mobile filmmakers, Blake shares his
thinking and how his emotional attachment to the story turns into a
visual story through film.
We discuss a bit of Blake’s beginnings in post-production and go for a
ride through how he turned his vision as a director into a film as a
cinematographer.
After you listen to this podcast, you can become a subscriber
to our Patreon page to benefit from the bonus exclusive podcast with
Blake where he shares advice and tips on how best to direct and act in
your own film.
In the spirit of fostering great work, the Filmmaker Fund is
committed to both proven and emerging filmmakers with assistance at
every stage of production and post-production.
Primarily, our role is to remove the obstacles that lie in the way of
great work.
From early stage funding, through production, to a DCP, it is our aim to
alleviate artistic encumbrances.
MOJO: The Mobile Journalism Handbook is the first book devoted
specifically to training citizens, journalism students and media
professionals to produce professional-quality videos with only a mobile
device. As journalism becomes increasingly competitive, students and
emerging professionals need a broader skillset to make themselves more
employable, whether as mainstream or entrepreneurial journalists. This
book by Dr. Ivo Burum and Dr. Stephen Quinn, world experts in mobile
journalism, provides comprehensive coverage of all the skills and
practices needed to be a mobile journalist.
Relational filmmakers do not make films about people.
Relational filmmakers make films with people.
Relational filmmakers do not interview subjects.
Relational filmmakers have conversations with other people.
Relational filmmakers do not make films for arbitrary groups of people.
Relational filmmakers make films for particular audiences.
Relational filmmakers do not know what the final film will look like.
Relational filmmakers make
formal decisions that address the aesthetic, ethical, technical, and
personal problems encountered throughout the making of the film.
Relational filmmakers do not adhere to established modes or conventions.
Relational filmmakers make films that are abstract, factual, and fictional, all at once.
Relational filmmakers do not fuck around with these tools of representation and power.
Relational filmmakers use their tools to experiment with new ways of being and to emancipate new forms of subjectivity.
Relational filmmakers
believe that reality is the consequence of what we do together. Their
films carry and conduct traces of this belief. Relational films are
co-created through careful and playful interrogations of the roles
performed by the people and materials involved with the film’s
production and reception: artists, subjects, passers-by, audiences,
environments, ideas, and things.
STORY: No Crew. No Money. No Problem: Why It’s Worth Your Time To Make Zero Budget Films
Why even bother?
I
don't have the greatest camera. I don't have a real crew or anyone who
is willing to devote hours of their time chasing my dream with me. No
one will see my work anyway. No one even cares. So again, why bother?
Anyone
smell that? Smells like someone stepped into a big, heaping, smelly
pile of self loathing and doubt. Everyone check your shoes. Oh, will you
look at that — it's me.
It's easy for us to think of thousands
of reasons not to be making films. I just listed a plethora of thoughts
that race through my head almost every time I decide to pick up my
camera or put pen to paper. The hard part is deciding to push through,
and to just do it anyway.
When you are a zero budget filmmaker
as I'm sure a ton of us are, you usually have almost no resources for
your film projects. No money, little to no crew, and living in the
middle of BFE, makes it pretty easy to feel like you're creating in a
vacuum for an audience of one.
The truth is, you very well may be.
But I believe that you should be creating as much and as often as
possible, despite this fact.
Story time
I
once heard a story about American Jazz saxophonist Ike Quebec, and how
he supposedly locked himself in his room for weeks, teaching himself how
to play sax, and that he refused to come out until, “he could play
better than anybody.”
When
I decided that filmmaking was the future I wanted to aim for, I
approached it with Ike Quebec’s story in mind. I may not have a crew, or
money, or at that time, even a camera, but I do have time and
passion.
I know. Sounds a little too "Hallmarky." Please stick with me though.
It
was my belief that if I didn’t have the resources to make a film, I
would use all my free time to learn everything that I could about making
movies before I ever even shot a single frame. I would lock myself in
my metaphorical room and be just like Ike!
Over the next few
years, I bought every book there was on filmmaking. This is not an
exaggeration. I could literally write the book on, ‘Buying Books on
Filmmaking.’
Before I go any farther, so you have a little context, let me tell you a bit about myself. Let's get in our way back machine ...
Duh loo loo! Duh loo loo! Duh loo loo!
I
know you can't see me, but I just waved my fingers at the screen doing
my best Wayne's World dissolve impression. If that reference means
nothing to you, just Google it!
The origin story of Ryan LaBee
I
was born and raised in a small town in southern Missouri that, unless
you’re from there, you have never heard of. There weren’t many career
prospects in my hometown unless your family had money or you had a
desire to be a farmer. I had neither.
I grew up incredibly poor.
There were points in my life where my family didn’t have electricity,
and my seven brothers (yes, you read that right) and I all slept in
the same room of a one bedroom mobile home. And in the daytime, our
bedroom turned into the living room!
I am not telling you this so
you can start picking out your outfit for my pity party, I’m just
telling you this part so that you understand why I made my next
decision...
After high school, I didn't know how to apply for
college or how to pay for it, so I did what most kids in poor cities do
when they want to get out. I joined the military.
If
you knew me growing up, this would have been the last thing you would
have ever thought you’d see me do. I barely looked fit enough to
volunteer at the Salvation Army, let alone join an actual branch of the
military.
“The military? Ryan? Ryan (cries every time we run in P.E. class) LaBee? He joined the military?!?”
I did. And I’m really glad that I did.
Joining
the military allowed me to get out and see the world, meet tons of
people, and live a life. It has paid for all the college I’ve taken up
to this point and it afforded me a small level of comfort so that I
could pursue my passion - filmmaking.
By the way, this isn’t a
paid endorsement of the military. The military is a good fit for some
people, but not for everyone. I’m actually separating in a little over a
year because I’m ready to pursue other options. The point I’m trying to
make is this, if you want something bad enough, you will find a way to
get it no matter the cost. Even if you do cry every time you have to
run.
Okay, so let’s get back in our way back machine ... Where were we? Oh, our good buddy Ike Quebec, that’s right!
The wrong approach to learning how to make films
So,
I first approached filmmaking like the story I had heard about Mr.
Quebec. Except my interpretation was all wrong. I couldn’t lock myself
in a room and teach myself everything I needed to know about
filmmaking. That wasn't enough.
“The truth is, in order to get good at something, you
have to actually do the thing you want to get good at. You can think
about making a movie all day, every day, but until you pick up a camera
and try to convey a story or a concept through moving images, you’re
never going to truly be one.”
The truth is, in order to get good at something, you have to actually do the thing you want to get good at.
Locking
himself in his room worked for Quebec because he still had his sax to
practice with. It’s pretty hard to be a filmmaker if you’re not actually
practicing being a filmmaker.
You can think about making a movie
all day, every day, but until you pick up a camera and try to convey a
story or a concept through moving images, you’re never going to truly be
one.
That’s the bad and the good news.
Our single greatest resource as filmmakers (or why film school isn't the answer)
If
you ask 100 successful filmmakers what advice they'd give a beginning
filmmaker you're inevitably going to hear some variation of the
following:
Pick up a camera, and make a film. It will probably be terrible, but do it again. And again. And again.
I
know this, not because I am a successful filmmaker, but because every
time I feel down on myself, or that my work is pointless, or feel like a
fraud, I watch a video on YouTube of filmmakers talking about making
films. Or, I read an article on one of the many filmmaking websites I
frequent on a daily basis.
The internet is the great equalizer. It has become the greatest resource to anyone who is a creative person.
I’ve
heard countless interviews of famous directors being asked, “Should I
go to film school?” And it seems one of the prevailing thoughts is that
film school is mostly for film theory and networking. You won’t
necessarily learn how to make a film until you make a film.
These are both things you can do from the comfort of your home.
With
the internet, the way we network has changed. I have been lucky enough
to have had the opportunity to collaborate with some amazingly talented
individuals from right here, stationed in the middle of nowhere
Oklahoma. All because I used the internet not just to learn about the
craft, but also to build up the network of creative people in my life.
“You may not have a dedicated crew, or money, or the
ideal resources, but you may have patient and loving family members who
are willing to be guinea pigs. You probably have a camera of some kind.
And, you have passion; if you didn’t you probably wouldn’t be reading
this.”
Okay... but what about real resources?
I
once watched a video of Robert Rodriguez see, the internet talking
about the making of El Mariachi. In the video he gave this advice:
“Take stock of what you have, and then make a film about it.”
Famously,
he put a tortoise in his first film just because his friend had a
tortoise. No other reason then the fact that they had a tortoise, so
they used the tortoise.
That’s what we should all be doing. You
may not have a dedicated crew, or money, or the ideal resources, but you
may have patient and loving family members who are willing to be guinea
pigs. You probably have a camera of some kind. And, you have passion;
if you didn’t you probably wouldn’t be reading this.
Make films with what you already have, instead of daydreaming about what you someday hope to have.
You
have the time to try to get as good as you possibly can at the things
that you can control. I am not religious by any means and I am
definitely not Catholic, but I have always loved the genius of the
serenity prayer. It goes like this:
“...grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
I
believe this can apply to all of us. We may not be able to change where
we live. We may not be able to raise a million dollars for our first
feature. We may not be able to afford all the fancy gear, but we can
still become better filmmakers. What can change right now? What can you
do right this minute to become better?
“We may not be able to change where we live. We may not
be able to raise a million dollars for our first feature. We may not be
able to afford all the fancy gear, but we can still become better
filmmakers. What can change right now? What can you do right this minute
to become better?”
You don’t need money to
practice writing a good story, or practice camera techniques, or to
watch movies and to dissect how they work or don’t work, or to (every
once in awhile) get anyone that is willing to give you a few hours of
their time and to make a short film.
Maybe the only person
you have in your life willing to work with you is your four year old
daughter. Make a film with her. That’s what I do, and my daughter loves
it. It’s become a bond between the two of us that I am so thankful for.
Some of my proudest work are videos, I shot on the fly, with just my
family.
Stop thinking about it and just go make a film
In early 2013 I set out with a few of my close friends to make my first official short film. I bought some cheap garage lighting I had seen on an episode of the now defunct ‘Indy Mogul,’ and a Canon T3i camera kit. And in a day we improvised a ridiculous short we made for a Hormel Bacon contest. And you know what? We won...
Just kidding...
Of course we didn't win! That's not how life works. The short we made was terrible! There were continuity problems. The audio was atrocious and I did NOT know what I was doing with a camera! There's literally a scene where I dubbed my own voice over one of the characters my friend was playing because I couldn’t get him to come over to my house to dub some of his lines.
So what? It didn’t matter that the short was terrible because it was a blast to make. I still laugh every time I watch it.
As bad as my first short was, it still holds a special place in my heart because I had started. I was no longer just thinking about making films, I was actually making them, for better or worse.
Finally, I could call myself a filmmaker. Not because I was good at it, but because the act of doing is what gives you the right to the title.
I know this opinion is not everyone's, and that it’s going to be divisive, but this is my personal take on it:
“But you keep doing it because you know that if you keep at it long enough... you’re going to get better. And you’re going to feel less and less like a fraud. And eventually you’re going to have work that you’re proud of.”
If you have a camera and you’re making personal films big, small, good, or bad, and you put them out into the world for ridicule and judgment, then you can call yourself a filmmaker.
At first people will probably roll their eyes when you call yourself a filmmaker. And you’re probably going to feel like a fraud because, if you’re being honest with yourself, most of your work isn’t going to be very good at first.
I personally still feel this way all the time.
But you keep doing it because you know that if you keep at it long enough... you’re going to get better. And you’re going to feel less and less like a fraud. And eventually you’re going to have work that you’re proud of. Some of it you will still hate, but some of it will be good and you will ACTUALLY be really proud of it.
Amazing things will happen, but only if you're brave enough to get started
Before you know it, your name is going to get out there. You’re going to become known as the guy or girl who makes movies, and someone is going to ask you to make something for them. I know that’s what happened to me.
A little over a year and a half ago, someone I had never met - a local athlete - messaged me on Facebook and said, “Hey. I heard you make videos. Will you come with me to a meeting with my sponsors and talk abo making a video for me?”
I said, “Absolutely.” I went, and it was a bigger project than he let on, or I had expected.
All the bigwigs of the local community had come together to try to send this kid to training camp for the Olympics, and they wanted to make a video to raise money and awareness.
While I was at the meeting, I quickly realized I was in over my head, but I met two guys there that were far more experienced in video production. Even though I was clearly the odd man out, they let me stick around and turns out, neither of them particularly liked to edit, something that I personally love to do
So, I stayed on the project, learned a ton onset, and I edited the entire video. We raised over 11K thanks to our video and we sent the kid to training camp.
The two guys I met at the meeting are now pretty good friends of mine and they are starting their own video production company. If everything goes as planned, I will be their full-time video editor.
This connection would have never been made if I hadn’t started making films, started putting myself out there to be judged, and hadn’t been naive enough to start calling myself a filmmaker.
That just goes to show that you have to get started. Resources, crew, money be damned... if you want to make films you have to just start making them.
Still figuring it out
Now, don’t let my momentary confidence fool youI don’t have all the answers by any means. More times than not, I still feel like a fraud.
I don’t really make anywhere close to a living at this yet. I am nowhere near as skilled as I want to be. I still mostly don’t have resources to make "real films," whatever that means. And occasionally, I still get talked down to, or have someone roll their eyes at me whenever they hear what I do in my free time.
But, I don’t make films just because I want to make money. Yeah that would be nice eventually, but that's not the only reason I do it. And I don’t wait around to have resources or permission to make them either, because if I did, I would never make anything.
“I make films because I want to connect with people by telling stories. I want to convey ideas and I want to leave a tangible piece of myself behind for whenever I’m no longer on this earth; 24 frames a second, all screaming, “Ryan was here.””
I make films because I want to connect with people by telling stories. I want to convey ideas and I want to leave a tangible piece of myself behind for whenever I’m no longer on this earth; 24 frames a second, all screaming, "Ryan was here."
It’s a bit dark and emo, I know, but it’s the truth. The completely embarrassing, and vulnerable truth.
Your reasons for filmmaking may be different from mine, and that’s great. I don't pretend to be an expert in this stuff at all. This is just how i feel about it in this particular time and place in my life.
For me, filmmaking is far too hard, personal, and uncertain to only be in it for the money.
Still in my (metaphorical) room
Like I said before, my original approach to be like Ike Quebec was all wrong. I tried to learn to be a filmmaker by reading how to be a filmmaker and that doesn’t work; you have to start acting like one. That means making films even when you don’t have the ideal means or conditions to do so.
I am still in my metaphorical room practicing; the room being all the constraints I currently have no control over. However, there are things I can control, and I'm going to try to focus on those.
And who knows, maybe someday someone will see through the window and get a glimpse of what I’m doing in here and they will ask me to come out and play.
But if that doesn't happen, that's okay. I love every aspect of filmmaking, and even if I have to make films in a vacuum for an audience of one, I'm going to keep doing it.
“(...) Vivimos
exclusivamente en el presente pues siempre y eternamente es el dÃa de hoy -y el
dÃa de mañana será un hoy, la eternidad es el estado de las cosas en este
momento.”
- Clarice Lispector
“You must live in the
present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.
Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land.
There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”
- Henry David Thoreau
Y
ou
have no tomorrow. You have no yesterday. All you have is now.
Right
here--right now—as you read these words, your life is all about this moment in time.
No
other moment matters.
For
better or for worse. For richer or for poorer. Till death takes you away from
this life and sweeps you into the next, your moment of clarity is right here and right now.
What
are you going to do with this moment?
What
are you going to do now?
As
human beings, we’re all creative
beings. We yearn to have our inner voice heard through a multitude of artistic
expressions.
We
want to write novels.
We
want to paint acrylic landscapes.
We
want to be documentary filmmakers.
We
want to be poets.
We
want to be dancers.
We
want to make the best chicken parmesan in the world.
What’s
stopping you in this moment?
What’s
stopping you now?
Our
heritage of being artists and creative creatures is long, rich, and inviting.
We’re asked to embrace this immense history of human creativity (and beyond) by
giving credence to our birthright as creative souls in the universe. It’s our
God(dess)-given right.
What’s
stopping you in this moment?
What’s stopping you now?
Fear.
I
truly believe that fear is the root emotion of all negative emotions that we
experience and encounter in our lives as human beings.
Fear
is the precursor of hatred.
Fear
is the starting point of oppression.
Fear
is the beginning of apathy.
And
fear is what keeps us from doing our own creative work.
We
want to write those steamy, passionate romance novels—but what would our
parents say if we did?
We
want to paint those acrylic landscapes of the Mojave Desert—but what would our
significant others do if we took time away from them?
We
want to direct a documentary film about the injustices of not being able to
wear white after Labor Day—but what would the editors of Vogue think?
And
what about that chicken parmesan that Grandma used to make (wouldn’t it hurt
her feelings if we tried to top her?)
Fear
keeps us from using the present moment now.
It makes us long for of how things used to be yesterday, and lures us into
thinking that there will always be a tomorrow.
There’s
only now.
Fear
sucks. Big time. Because it erases what we need to do now and replaces it with what we should have done in the past (which is impossible to recapture
because we can’t live in the past) and/or what we should be doing in the future (which is impossible to capture,
because we haven’t arrived there yet—the future is a present moment waiting to
happen).
Stop
doing that to yourself. You shouldn’t should
yourself. It’s a very bad habit, and only leads to heartache and excessive
binging on substances that aren’t good for you.
All
we have is now.
To
help you start fighting against the ravages of fear—and to help you (re)start
your creative process—I have two writing exercises that I’d like you to try
(even if you don’t consider yourself a writer, please do them anyway; the benefits you’ll receive are guaranteed
to boost your creativity and artistic well-being—or your money back).
The
first exercise was introduced by Brenda Ueland in her book, If You Want to
Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit, which was first published in 1938 (Julia Cameron borrowed this same
exercise from Ueland for her own book, The Artist’s Way).
It involves keeping a daily diary.
This exercise is best done first thing in the
morning, even before you have that nice, steaming cup of java (or whatever beverage
you usually indulge in).
All you need is a notebook, a pen or pencil, and
the willingness to commit to doing this exercise every day. Without
fail.
The premise is simple—give yourself complete
freedom to write down whatever random thoughts enter your mind, and write them
down as fast as you can. Don’t censor yourself and don’t worry about grammar,
sentence structure, or spelling (no one is going to read your diary except for
you; your former high school English teacher is barred from perusing your
entries).
Write at least three pages a day. Or more. (The
more, the better.)
After you’re done writing each day, don’t read what
you wrote. Stash your diary away in a safe place until the next morning. Every six
months, you can then go back and read what you’ve previously written
(but continue writing daily).
I know that this seems like a lot of work—but
you’ll eventually find some creative magic in your daily diary.
Trust me on
this.
The
second exercise that I’d like you to undertake is to write your obituary.
No,
wait a second—write two obituaries
for yourself. (Yeah, I know—this sounds incredibly macabre, but do it anyway.)
In
the first one, write about what you’d be remembered for if you were to die right now—if you were to take your last
breath this very second. Realistically look back on your life and ask yourself:
What have I accomplished? What did I hope to accomplish? What did I want to
become? What did I really want to do? Have I done it already? If not, why not? What
disappointments did I have? What obstacles blocked me from doing the creative
work that I’ve always wanted to do? (Were you
an obstacle to yourself? Did you let
others stymie your creative intentions?)
Put
it all into words. Don’t hold back.
In
the second obituary, write about living to the ripe old age of 120—without fear stopping you in your life.
You’ve accomplished everything that you set out to do. You were afraid of nothing—and that’s reflected in your
creative work and the rest of your life. You had everything that you needed at
your disposal to be creative (time, money, freedom, etc.). What did you
accomplish? What did you become? What did you do? What obstacles did you
overcome?
(Did
you tell Grandma to stuff her chicken parmesan recipe because yours is world
famous? Did you proudly wear white after Labor Day and make a documentary film
about it? Did your steamy, passionate novel make Fifty Shades of Grey read like a Dr. Seuss children’s book? Did you
run for a political office? Did you start a rock band? Did you open your own graphic
arts studio? Did you do all those things, and more?)
Now
compare the two obituaries.
Your
first one may only be a shallow representation of who you really are, a shadow
image of what you truly want to
become in this life. It might be full of missed opportunities, failed
realizations, and a straight-out denial of your own creative potential.
There’s
still time to change it.
Begin
making your life a proud representation of your second obituary.
![The Art of Now: Creativity in the Present Moment by [Ljunggren, Tim]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41PcLy7IVqL._SY346_.jpg)