Do I Have The Personality To Be A Successful Filmmaker/Writer?

Much of what I read about filmmaking and writing focuses on how to sell your work. While I see the necessity of this, I don’t think I am good at it, and I certainly don’t enjoy it. I’ve always thought of selling your work in negative terms, which I think of as “self-promotion”. In the end, I go back to the belief that if my work is good enough, then it will sell itself.

The Art of Asking

Recently I watched a TED talk by Amanda Palmer: “The Art of Asking” that got me to re think how I promote my own work.

In some ways, her talk didn’t have anything new to me, but it did open my eyes a little to a different view of what was involved. Whereas I thought in terms of self-promoters, I’d describe her as a connector. Her approach is more like the way you make friends than selling yourself. She describes it as trusting people. I think her approach works very well with her type of personality.

Her approach doesn’t seem as crass or self-serving as what I’d heard before. It does seem to be a nicer approach to making your way as an artist. For myself though, I still can’t see that I can take this approach. I just don’t feel comfortable when I ask people to support me.

I can’t really change my personality in any major, or even minor, way. I supposed I could train myself to behave otherwise, but it would seem artificial and come off as phoney. That would be worse than if I’d not tried at all.

Let the Art Sell Itself

As I noted above, in the past I’ve tried to rely on the inherent interest of my work to gain an audience. That only works with special ideas, and not all of my ideas are special. It isn’t always possible to recognize if your own idea is special or not.

The success I had with some of my ideas made me a little spoiled. Both the Hundred Dollar Film Festival and “Line of Taxis” were projects that quickly found supporters. I didn’t really need to push them; they took on a life of their own. That is something I can’t always count on.

There is also a good argument that if your work can’t sell itself, then it just isn’t worth your while to make it. I have abandoned many ideas that didn’t catch other people’s interest. Some ideas are harder to give up than others are. Maybe those ideas would catch on if I developed them further.

Involve Others

Another approach I could use is to involve people in my projects that do have the desirable personality traits that I just don’t have. Most commercial films are like this. They usually leave the promotion to the actors and not the writer or director. The exceptions are notable for their rarity.

I haven’t really tried this approach and I’m not sure how well it would work. The closest I came was when Keith Humphrey attended the screening of “Line of Taxis” at a festival. That wasn’t really a case where I tried to promote the film though.

Other Approaches

I am sure I haven’t exhausted all the ways that I could promote my work. However, I am not sure what other approaches might work for me. 

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

The Difficulties of Autobiography in Fiction

Some parts of my new story "Sweat" are autobiographical. I find those are the hardest parts to write. I’ve tried to understand why.

Most, if not all, writers draw from their personal experiences in their work. I often find it difficult to do. I based one scene in “Sweat” on an actual conversation I had. This has become a difficult challenge for me, and I have thought about why these autobiographical elements of my stories are so hard for me.

I have identified three barriers when I have trouble when I try to incorporate events from my life into my fiction work.

1.      Many events were important in both life and the lives of others. I don’t want to trivialize these events in my fiction. This is especially a concern with other people’s involvement.

2.      Many events I want to use were unpleasant for me. When I want to incorporate them, it revives the feelings I had at the time. It is painful to revisit these old wounds and bad memories. Although these feelings can provide fodder for the story, they can also put me off writing.

3.      Many events involved conflict with other people. Although I have managed to exclude them from my current life, these people are still around. I fear that if I use those events as the basis for my fiction, they will reopen the old conflict.

I have developed a couple of strategies to deal with these barriers.

1.      I try to create a distance between my experience and myself. The main technique I’ve used is to transpose the events to a different situation. This allows me to change the specifics of the event and the nature of the people involved.

2.      I try to draw on emotions from the event and envision other situations that can bring out similar emotions.

I used both of these strategies in my film “Line of Taxis”. They did help, but there were several periods on that film where I ran into the same barriers. I’ve used both approaches in my story “Sweat”.

I suppose that in the end, it is just a matter of “getting over it”. None the less, I would like to find other techniques to help me overcome these barriers. I would gratefully accept any advice.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

How to Listen - Part 2

I first began to be more aware of listening as a skill when I learned about a technique known as Active Listening. I have found this technique useful, but it does have its dangers.

Over the years, many people have developed techniques to help them listen better. One technique I learned at work is Active Listening. For me it was a revelation, since I’d never thought of listening as a skill before. Active Listening is intended for situations where another person comes to you with a problem. It may not be appropriate in other situations

The Technique of Active Listening

Active listening involves three stages.

·         The first step is to hear what the other person says. In this stage, you need to pay attention to what the person says. In addition, it is important to be aware of the way it is said and non-verbal clues that add to the meaning of what is said. While the objective is to understand what they have said, it is not necessary at this stage to fully accomplish that.

·         The second is to interpret and understand what they said. In this stage you take what you learned from what they said and in your own mind determine what is the message they want you to hear. That message may not be direct or clear. It may not be what the speaker consciously means to say. Again, it is not necessary at this stage to completely understand what the person says.

·         The third, and most important, step is to respond to what the person said. The purpose of your response is two fold. First, you want to confirm that you understand what the other person said. You do this by repeating what they said in your own words and asking them is that is what they meant. This reinforces your understanding and helps you remember what they said. The second purpose is to demonstrate to the other person that you heard what they said and that you understand it. This will make them more comfortable and thus more open in what they say.

Dangers of Active Listening

Active listening is a skill and you must practice it to do it well. Done improperly, it can hamper rather than aid communication.

One fault I had was to slip into a formulaic response. It is an easy mistake to make. In my experience, a formulaic response can turn people off. It can make the other person suspect that you are not paying attention. They may shut down and withdraw.

Another mistake is to express your response as advice or your opinion. It may be that the person wants your advice or opinion. The danger is that if you fail to listen you will give the wrong advice because you don’t understand the question well enough. Premature advice may also discourage the speaker from talking.

Don’t be too quick to decide what the problem is. It is not unusual for people avoid asking directly about their problem. They may want to get advice without admitting they have a problem. They may not be clear in their own minds what their problem is.

Another danger of premature advice is that many times people want a sympathetic ear rather than advice.

If you have an opinion about what the person says, there is a danger that your response can become judgemental. When you listen, your objective is to understand what the other person has to say. To do so, you must avoid any judgement of what they say. This is not the same as agreeing to what they say. You can express your disagreement later.

Since you often restate what the speaker said, there is a danger that they can take what you said as agreement or support. When they find out later that you don’t agree they may feel betrayed.

Active Listening in Stories

I built my story The Crying Woman around a conversation where one of the characters uses active listening. One of the reasons I wrote the story was to take advantage of my experience with the technique. I don’t consider it a complete success. I haven’t needed to use it much lately and my skills got rusty.

To add some conflict, I had the listener make some mistakes, which he then had to correct. In part that was because he has something he wants to talk about too. He tries to practice the adage of listen first, and then talk. That proves to be difficult for him to do.

Active listening would not be appropriate for every story. One character must have a problem and feel that the other character will help. The other character must be willing to listen and if need be, help.

The technique could be useful in exposition. The danger of exposition is a dialogue is to bore people with a long character monologue, or a “As you know Bob …” speech.

In one of the stories I have in the works, I have a character named Bob, and I couldn’t resist the temptation to have another character start a conversation with “As you know Bob …”.

With a technique like active listening, the monologue can be broken out into a dialogue where an active listener draws out the exposition from a reluctant speaker. The revelation can become a small story in itself.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

"Some Days . . ." posted on YouTube

The Hundred Dollar Film Festival screened my film "Some Days ..."  March 7, 2013.

I wasn't able to attend, but I have had no death threats since then, so I guess it went over OK.

I have now posted the video on YouTube for all to see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEH4ZY4dmOo

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

How to Listen - Part 1

Listening is just as important as talking in a conversation. I believe listening is much more difficult than many of us think. In this post, I want to explore the challenges of listening. My goal is to better understand how people listen, so I can incorporate that into my own writing.

Why Listen?

I’ve worked on several projects where the bulk of the story is a conversation. The best example is my short story “The Crying Woman”. In that story, a woman talks with a man about her problems. While the focus is, of course, on the woman, the role the man plays is also important. We need to understand why he listens.

When others come to ask us for help, we want to help them and listening is where that starts. Every one knows how to listen, but not everyone is a good listener. Few of us give much thought to how we listen, but we can become better listeners.

Barriers to Listening

Many things can make listening difficult.

Our ability to hear clearly.

Other noises and problems with our hearing can severely limit our ability to understand what people say to us. If the place where you talk is noisy, it is easy to miss the nuances of what the other person says. If the location is noisy, a move to somewhere quiet will help.

Many people, myself included, have some hearing loss. I don’t believe that is as important as most may think, but as a listener, you need to be aware of your limitations and act to minimise the handicap.

Our own inattention.

If we have other thoughts in our mind or don’t care about the other person and their problems, we can’t really listen to them. We all have our own problems and interests. These can divert our attention away from what other say to us. It will take significant mental effort to put away your own thoughts. It is much harder if you don’t care about the other person.

Emotional reaction.

What the other person has to say may strike a chord within us. It could be that we have strong feelings about what they have to say. These emotions can blind us to what they say. We may be tempted to “egg them on” when we need to calm them down. We may need to distance ourselves from the problem. In a way, we need to “not care”.

The problem solver reaction.

Often the mistake a listener makes is to tell the talker how to solve their problem. I know I’ve had this problem. This can fail for a couple of reasons. First, the talker may want emotional support rather a “solution” to their problem. Most people already know the solution to their problem when they ask for advice. If you start to tell them what to do, you do not give them what they want.

Second, when you give a solution too quickly, you tend to trivialize their problem. In both cases you shut down communication. It is not unusual for people avoid asking directly about their problem. They may want to get advice without admitting they have a problem. They may not be clear in their own minds what their problem is.

Judgemental reaction.

We can disapprove of what a person says. If they have a problem that they created themselves, we will tend to blame them. While it may be a true assessment of their culpability, it can quickly close off communication. You must avoid any judgement of what they say. This is not the same as agreeing to what they say. You can express your disagreement later.

How do these barriers play out in a story?

The tendency I’ve had is to write conversations where both people are articulate and perfectly understand what the other says. In my experience, this is not the case. When I listen to someone, I usually find that I wonder how to respond. Have I understood what they’ve said? Do I understand what they want? What can I say that will help them?

Conflict is the basis of any story. The barriers to listening can form the basis of internal and interpersonal conflict. In a story, communication between people is essential and the struggle to understand each other is an important source of conflict.

In a conversation, the talker struggles to express what they need to say. The same is true of the listener. When you tell the story, you need to show the listener’s struggle to understand. The listener may have to conquer some or all of the barriers to listening. This will make for a more dramatic conversation.

In subsequent posts on this topic, I will explore some techniques people use to improve heir listening.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog