- A recent shoot for “Dinosaurs of H St”
“Anxiety is the hand maven of creativity” – TS Eliot
Sometimes I feel like I have amnesia about how indie shoots have gone in the past. Through rose-colored glasses, I believe that every shoot was a successful endeavor and had gone exactly to plan, when that was not the case at all. This glorified hindsight leads me to crave perfection on my current shoots, causing me anxiety before and after. I wonder frantically: Does this content add to the story? Will it appear random? Does it connect to the characters? Was it shot creatively and was the approach thoughtful enough? Is this the best use of my time? Perhaps T.S. Eliot was really onto something when he said,” anxiety is the hand maven of creativity.”
So my approach of late is to stop taking so much stock in every shoot. To achieve this, I’ve begun to self recite the following:
- I’m going to keep my ears and eyes open today.
- If I capture something exciting on camera, thank goodness I was present to do so.
- If nothing good gets recorded, there’s always another day.
- There’s something called a shooting ratio for a reason: the bad stuff gets scrapped.
- The scary thing about documentary is that each shoot is so unpredictable, but that’s also one of the most exciting parts of the art form too.
- We as artists are imperfect beings and that imperfection is an essential part of our art.
