It’s all connected.
All. Of. It.
Your art and life and love and creativity. Writing, acting, producing, painting, singing, dancing.
It’s all coming from you. And what you are wanting is reflected in the work. And the work is also showing you more of what you need.
I was filming this weekend and my cinematographer and I were setting up a shot and we only had one chance to film this particular sequence. It was an improvisation so that the actors were not able to plan what they were going to say or how they were going to react. We were attempting to capture that spontaneity and alive-ness in the moment.
Because of the pressure of capturing everything one time ”“ my cinematographer was anxious. Scared. I was nervous too. But what I also realized in that moment is that just what I am wanting more of ”“ excitement, danger, pushing-the-envelope, living more on the edge of something creative and surprising ”“ so too is what I’m wanting my art to be about. So too is what all the participants in the room were tasked with facing. We all felt that heightened aliveness of “What if”¦.”
We’re all facing our fears (if it’s interesting art and worth exploring) to get out of our comfort zone and lean into what real creativity can open up in us. That’s supposed to be scary!
My DP called me aside. She is a graduate of a very famous film school and she said that she needed more structure and an outline of where we were going to go. I told her, “The moment will show us where to go.” Because it does, just like in life. She breathed deeply (after first going pale), looked at me like I was nuts and in we went, excited and nervous to take the plunge.
We got the shot. (I hope.)
Afterwards, the DP (now exhilarated and bouncing off the walls!) said that they were taught at school that if something wasn’t completely mapped out and structured and outlined and prepared ”“ they would get into trouble and it was very frowned-upon.
And yet, she discovered that an overly structured way of working ”“ without allowing herself to explore freedom within it ”“ was keeping her from what she wants to experience more of.
Freedom. Limitlessness. Play. Love. Passion. Danger. Spontaneity. Rawness.
Anyone can say lines perfectly. Anyone can set up a shot perfectly. Anyone can do things the way we’re “supposed” to do them. Perfectly.
But art ”“ and life ”“ isn’t about doing something perfectly. The perfection ”“ if there is any at all ”“ lies in the mystery of trusting that the inherent chaos of a moment has so much more interesting stuff going on than we could ever show, play, demonstrate or plan.
But that takes a willingness to let go of control and seek more of, what you begin to see, is very much what you are longing for in your life.
If you can’t see the correlation, you’re in trouble.
Because it is the very reason we make art anyway. We make art to examine and explore qualities within us that aren’t fully demonstrated or expressed or acted upon. Maybe they can’t be. Maybe if we lived as wildly and with as much passionate abandon as we explore in our art it would get us into a shit-load of trouble.
But isn’t that what we have art for in the first place? To find an outlet for those passions that are stirring and alive within each of us and wanting to be set free? So if you’re making art that’s safe and on-the-nose and “comfortable” why are you even making it to begin with?