Share your experience as filmmakers

Hi World Filmmakers!
I'm in my final year, doing a research on creativity and writer's block, and i would love to hear your personal experiences! Let's share some stuff for the greater good :D

Did you ever get really stuck with an idea, what happened?
What do you do when you get stuck?
What helps you when you are feeling down or insecure about your creativity?
What's the worst procrastination you've had and why did it happen?
Where do you get your inspiration from?

Let's learn from each other :)
PS: let's get the most obvious answers out of the way: kill your darlings & take some time off. I'm looking for personal answers, it's a very broad question and to get to some raw truth, we might have to dig deep into our subconscious to find it.
Peace!
 
Did you ever get really stuck with an idea, what happened?

It might be good for you to be more specific here. Like, are you saying "Idea" as in "story idea" during the scripting phase, or "Idea" as in "directing approach?" Because there would obviously be a separate answer for each.

Scripting-wise, I had an incredibly tough time just dealing with character motivations and relationships, because it was an original story. So I wanted to have an emotional core and a conflict between a father and a daughter (he's an intergalactic taxi pilot, and she's his 2nd in command), but I wasn't sure whether to make it a mental conflict within the daughter over whether she should tell her father what she's been doing (keeping their vessel up to spec), or keep it a secret to keep things good between them (the father believes the ship is always in working order, and they're running low on funds), or if I should make the conflict more open to where the father knows what the daughter wants to do (she wants to drive the ship), but actively stifles her ability to partake in it because he feels she's inexperienced and not ready.

But on the directing side, I also had an enormous problem with regards to directing style. Since this story was be being developed for my final project at my film college, I had to create something that could be filmed in 6 days, and something that didn't require an exorbitant amount of sets or set pieces. Initially I wanted to have a full 360 degree set for the interior of this "Space Taxi" as it were, but I quickly realized that the man power, the materials, the money, and the time it would take to build such a thing as I had in my head was just too impossible with my resources.

What do you do when you get stuck?

I began thinking about visual style, and how that might change or alter the overall needs of the production to the degree that my needs for sets, camera positions and camera angles would be vastly reduced: that way, not only would the sets be allowed to be incredibly simple by comparison to a full 360 set, but I wouldn't need to move the camera as much, allowing me to knock out multiple shots in one long stream.

Therefore, I managed to stumble upon the next best thing, and I conceived of instead shooting the whole film like it was a flat, 2-dimentional theatrical play: much like really old silent films (George Melies/Charlie Chaplin), where every set is a giant box with a missing fourth wall (like a sit-com stage).

Not only did this approach vastly reduce the size of sets needed, but it reduced how many sets there were, their complexity, and their mobility (since I would be shooting most of them from the same angle). It also vastly sped up the shooting process because now since everything was a flat set, I wouldn't really need to change the camera placement much and simply change lenses to punch in or pull out of the framing. And this further added to my other interest, which was to see this film look and feel like a 2D cartoon.

I have pictures of what we did in my Image Gallery. But basically, I feel that in some cases, as long as your story and your characters still come through, then your visual and directing style can shift and change to improve your practical use of budget. That way, you ultimately don't really have to sacrifice your vision: which gladly I did not have to.

What helps you when you are feeling down or insecure about your creativity?

I thankfully don't suffer from that ailment very much. But then again, I think a lot of people actually suffer from an overabundance of ideas rather than a lack of them. They just simply don't know which idea to go with and they become conflicted over which one is the better choice. Though a lack of ideas is still a tough issue for me during certain instances.

If I ever feel unsure, what I typically do is sit down and meditate on it, and I visualize in my head what I would like to have happen, and I rearrange the people, objects, and elements within this virtual display of events to see what alternatives I might have to solve a particular problem.

What's the worst procrastination you've had and why did it happen?

I usually have a lot of procrastination when it comes to creating new ideas. I can be a Wiz with existing ideas that need improvement or adjustment, but creating ideas from scratch is always a mental struggle. Once a good framework is completed and out in the world, then I have a basis upon which to make reasonable and wise alterations.

So there's never been one single event of procrastination, but when it happens it usually comes out of an inability to think of fresh ideas when I need to, and so I allow myself to drift off, play video-games, listen to soundtrack-playlists, and just ruminate on other things until (hopefully) a good idea pops in, and I can return to work. Either that, or I hopefully have something else productive that I can work on in the mean time.

Where do you get your inspiration from?

Everything. But primarily both music and animation.

Everything that I love or appreciate to the N'th degree comes from Animated films, animated TV series, video-games, and the soundtracks belonging to titles from all three. I am especially a big fan of Japanese Anime, which has served to give me some of my best ideas for use in other projects.

There is so much bounce, so much energy, so much style, and so much imaginative ideas that can be found within the world of animation. And so I feel that it is a treasure trove of ideas that can be sifted through in order to find answers to problems or creative hurdles I may need to jump over with regards to my live-action projects.

But music is perhaps even more immediately beneficial to me, because music brings about any number of creative visions within my imagination, and the style of music and type of song will always dictate what sort of images and events that I will see. Sometimes my mind has even constructed whole music videos for particular songs, which I usually don't want to change whenever I hear those songs again for fear of losing all the great imagery that I might one day put into an actual music video for that song.

My favorite genres of music to listen to are Smooth Jazz (primarily late 70s, mid-80s, and modern works). I also really love video game soundtracks, like Skyrim, Dark Cloud 2, Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando, and anything from Humongous Entertainment (Putt Putt Goes to the Moon, Pajama Sam, Spy Fox). And then there's also J-Pop, with artists like Hikaru Utada, Megumi Hayashibara, and Meiko Nakahara.
 
Q. Did you ever get really stuck with an idea, what happened?
A. I left the project for now and moved on.

What do you do when you get stuck?
A. Move on to projects I wont get stuck with until I can return.

What helps you when you are feeling down or insecure about your creativity?
A. drink, drugs lots of sex and watch an inspiring movie and say I can be better than that guy.

What's the worst procrastination you've had and why did it happen?
A. cant remember ;)

Where do you get your inspiration from?
A. No idea, I just got a feeling im gonna be world renowned, I feel people who work with me feel like that too.
 
Editor here.

Did you ever get really stuck with an idea, what happened?
I just keep trying


What do you do when you get stuck?
When i get stuck editing a scene i find that eventually ( after you spend a long ass time on it) you will figure it out the best way to edit it but it will take a long long time.

What helps you when you are feeling down or insecure about your creativity?
Watching good storytelling movies.

What's the worst procrastination you've had and why did it happen?
I have once pushed back a deadline for a project for month because i lost hope in myself and this industry. But you gotta keep moving forward.

Where do you get your inspiration from?
Articles and Video interviews on other editor/filmmakers
Example: http://nofilmschool.com/2015/07/int...itor-mission-impossible-rogue-nation-part-one
 
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