Overthinking It

Me and my buddies were talking the other day about our futures as filmmakers and students, and the struggle of being creative sometimes. We all found that it was difficult to meet new people and be creative this past semester for some reason, and to made us pessimistic about our future endeavors in college.

And, for me, it sort of made me question my place as a filmmaker or as an artist. We talked about all of the opportunities at UT Austin, and how we maybe didn't quite take advantage of all of them our first year of college.

And it occurred to me that creativity is hard when filmmaking is your only thing. I’m not saying that it’s bad to be married to filmmaking or any art form, but as a creative, it’s okay to not dedicate all of your time to just that field.

Creativity derives from experience, and it’s hard to be creative when you make all of your experiences just sitting in your room or in your living room trying to come up with ideas. It’s borderline impossible to create ideas when you have nothing to base it off.

Ultimately, our power as creators comes from our ability to find inspiration in experiences we encounter and the power we find within those experiences, and how they tie back to our favorite things.

Obviously, that all goes to a certain degree, because Christopher Nolan didn’t spend his life traveling space or stealing people’s dreams, and Martin Scorsese didn’t spend his life infiltrating the mafia. However, it’s more so about their own experiences with their humanity and identity that led them to the deeper messages of all of their films, all tied to things that they have a deeper interest in, like science or gang violence.

And, for me, especially at a very transformative and decisive period of my life, it’s important to experience things, big and small, to cherish and to be inspired by, so that I can find my power as a creative and put all of the emotion and feeling of my life onto the big screen in due time.