Without Commitment, You Ain't Got Nothing

Following up from this post on Loving The Process earlier this week, just wanted to make a few clarifications after getting some interesting email on it.

A few of you pushed back, which I like. Some of you heard a law: four sessions a week or you’re not serious. Some of you said you’re committed because the film is always on your mind at work. Both are worth unpacking. A filmmaker career doesn’t die from a lack of daydreams. It dies from no time in the arena — camera, people, cut — or from grinding yourself into dust and calling that virtue.

More On Loving The Process

I’m not trying to insinuate that someone has to be working on their filmmaking four times a week in order to get good. I was just suggesting a framework that will ensure you get good (if, of course, you actually put in the practice in a constructive way).

So much of this is momentum. I consider sitting down and writing (working on a screenplay or treatment) as part of the four times a week.

It’s balance and perspective.

You don’t want to over-do it and you don’t want to burn out. At the same time, you want to keep a place for other things in your life.

Single minded focus is great, as long as you don’t wind up getting yourself burnt out and give up on goals and commitments before you’ve seen them through.

Four times a week is a shape. It is not a commandment. If your life is night shifts and a kid and you can do two focused sessions, do two and make them count. If you do seven and you hate everyone by Thursday, that is not commitment. That is a crash in slow motion.

The framework exists because “I’ll do it when I feel inspired” is how projects go to sleep. Inspiration is lovely. It is not a schedule. A schedule is how you get your hustle on the weeks when the muse is off somewhere else. Constructive means pages, shooting, cutting, or a set with other humans — not fiddling with folders and calling it pre-production.

Without Commitment, You Got Nothing

Clearly, four times a week is a massive investment in time. Not only are you spending a minimum of three hours actually working on constructive goals, but then you have packing away, driving to and from places, etc to consider.

For someone who is getting up early to work the next day, this is a critical investment in time, so you have to be careful.

I understand where people are coming from when they say “I’m always working on my ideas, even when I’m at work.” They’re right.

It’s just another outlet for improving your craft, and you can daydream about ideas and jot down notes and more when you’re at work.

But you’ll learn the best skillset out in the field, whether that be on an official set, or just anywhere you find yourself with a camera in your hands,

Build an impressive skillset by putting in your time, and you’ll notice a huge leap in your successes in all aspects of life. Somehow finding the time to put a camera in your hands is the best way to learn these skills. It’s up to you to find the time.

Your skills will go through the roof if you put in the time and effort!

Time On Camera Vs I’m Always Thinking About It

This is the email I keep getting, in different clothes.

“I can’t shoot four times a week, but I’m always thinking about shots on the bus.”

Good. Keep the bus. The bus is not the set.

Thinking is cheap. It has value — you catch ideas, you stay in love with the thing — but it does not replace the hours where the camera can embarrass you. On camera you have to choose a frame, talk to a person, deal with a battery that dies. Thinking does not teach you that. Starting now and staying in contact with the real mess is the point.

Thinking time — notes, daydreams, watching a film with your brain on. Keep it. Not a substitute for practice.

Contact time — camera in hands, timeline open, people in the room, pages actually written. This is what moves the skill.

If your week is all thinking time, you are a fan with a rich inner life. Don’t call it training. If you only get one evening, make it contact time. Jotting notes at work still supports the practice. Then take those notes somewhere they can fail.

Burnout Is Not A Badge

You don’t want to over-do it and you don’t want to burn out.

Burnout looks like: you haven’t enjoyed a frame in months, but you keep grinding. You snap at crew and call it standards. You take every job because stopping feels like dying, and the work gets worse.

That is not commitment. Commitment includes sleep, friends, a week that isn’t content. Single minded focus is great until it eats the reason you started. If the four-times-a-week shape makes you dread the camera, drop a session. You’re allowed to put the camera down for a weekend without a permission slip. Heroes who flame out in six months are not the model. Keep a place for other things in your life. The other things are what you bring back to the work.

…one More Thing

I also want to make the point that so much of directing, or just being on set in some capacity, is non-verbal stuff that you can only gain from intensive practice of filmmaking around other people – bodylanguage/tonality subtleties/gestures/facial expressions and more.

In fact, I should post about these more, because these are the pieces people miss out on. It’s great focusing on directing the camera, but if you want to get good at directing actors, then you better get good at the stuff I mentioned above!

These are the building blocks that allow you to get the most out of your actors…and your film. The bodylanguage/tonality subtleties are the things that so many people miss out on, and they can be the most effective parts of your filmmaking arsenal.

Directing Is A People Skill You Cannot Read Into Existence

If you want to become a director, this is the bit that separates people who own a camera from people who can run a room.

You can learn coverage from a book. You cannot learn, from a book, how your voice lands when an actor is spiralling, or the gesture that means “we’re good, go again” without a paragraph of notes.

That stuff only shows up around other people, with stakes. Even low stakes. A mate, a scene, a real clock. You give a note. You watch their face. You realise you sounded like a teacher. You try again, shorter.

Non-verbal directing is not mystical. It’s where you stand, what your face does after a take, how fast you talk when you’re stressed, whether you look at the monitor or at the person. Only ever the monitor and you’re directing a screen, not a performance.

None of that lives in “I’m always thinking about my film” at the office. It lives in reps with humans. That’s why field time matters, and why whatever weekly shape you can honestly keep has to include other people sometimes, not just you and a timeline.

Commitment is not a mood and it’s not a martyrdom. It’s contact with the work, on a rhythm you can survive, long enough that the non-verbal stuff gets into your bones. Without that, you ain’t got nothing. You’ve got ideas. Ideas are easy.

Thanks for reading!

Ready to learn about some other Film Movements or Film History?

Incendies: Context, Themes, and Style

No Fear, No Die: Symbolism and Interpretation

Frances Ha: The Meaning Behind the Moments

Lola: A Guide to Its Meaning and Impact

A Bay of Blood: Visual Style, Ideas, and Impact

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia: A Modern Appreciation

Demon Seed: A Guide to Watching It Like a Critic

Lone Wolf and Cub: The Final Conflict: A Modern Appreciation

Ex Machina: What Makes It a Classic

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