“On the subject of making something… I’d like to. But really it’s finding the time… and inspiration.”

From a recent email discussion with a talented student. My return thoughts aren’t rocket science but hopefully have some value so I include them here.

So here’s the deal: inspiration isn’t something you get outside of getting on with life.

I did a fine art degree and spent serious amounts of time feeling uninspired and guilty about things that weren’t coming into my brain. Weirdly it was when I was getting on with life that the inspirations flowed.

By focussing on inspiration (or the lack of it) you inevitably reduce whatever existed into something even less inspiring. A sort of downward spiral.

There is this thing that Nicolas Ray (director of Some like it Hot and a ton of other stuff) said about getting an actor to relax and perform: you never ‘tell’ them to relax. You give them some other activity or focus and this does the trick. By not thinking ‘I must relax’ but some other thing, they were able to draw inspiration without realising it.

There is this photographer who used to get his subjects to jump in the air for photographs. It is slightly insane and funny when you see his images - royalty dressed in royal clothing standing in royal rooms launching themselves a few centimetres above the ground… the point is distraction through some kind of discipline or activity. The photos are actually much better than if they had been thinking ‘I must pose for this photo’. This is where the idea of discipline and play come in - a combo I am keen on.

Forget inspiration. Don’t wait for it.

Just get on with some activity that fits in with what you can manage. Make some phone-filmed moments that are simple sequences with a ten shot limit. No story other than working with some basic idea. It could be a theme like: entering a building. Or simply reediting the same sequence five times using different music.

Why not use post it notes and ditch the technology altogether?

Another thing is to simply do what Michel Gondry does: have a sketchbook mentality and just make moments and collect them. A collage or diary or sketchbook of moments from a day or week. Colours that signify your experience. Close ups of items. Objects placed in a sequence or out of context to create new associations. Observe what is around you and document it. Do it for yourself. Don’t try and dress it up as some gangster movie, just take a reflective look at the world around you and reflect it in some way. Make stuff short term. Don’t get worried if it crashes and burns - that is the idea. You have to make stuff to explore making stuff.

Play is important.

Just having a go and exploring possibilities by messing about. The problem with many apps or gadgets or media today is that they are not play-focussed. They restrict you to a rails-like approach that allows no deviation from the precise route. When the Red and Blue films came out: guys who made movies out of Halo sequences, dubbing voices and adding their own music, they had a good thing going. No rails. Jump them. You need to be able to break free and distort/explore. Why not perform a song in exact reverse order?

If you can think of an alternative way of doing it, then just do it. See what emerges.

David Lynch has loads of stuff like that in his films. Brian Eno’s ‘Oblique Strategies’ (Google these things) are famous among musician-artist types for how they provide seemingly random ways of assisting the distraction I am hinting at.

Probably above all this is the need to create a space where you have a few moments to yourself. This is often where the greatest discipline comes in. Switching off, or vacating that room to just do something is the urgent thing. I know of someone who would go and sit in a crowded train station and simply write in a notebook, anonymously.

I have done this in various ways myself. For the Jesus comic I initially went to a public hotel foyer and sat in a chair for what became a ridiculous amount of time as I simply poured out ideas onto paper. Being in that space - going to that space - it was the discipline that enabled some fruitful idea making.

We have lots of ideas about making art or films that are extremely unrealistic. Waiting for inspiration is one of those.

Inspiration will come if your daily practice is about discipline and play.

It may not come immediately or it may come like a tsunami, but in the mean time you will have made a load of interesting stuff. Get on with it and happy Christmas. ;)