Make Short Movies: Quantity vs. Quality
One of my favorite books is The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.
I have read it over a dozen times and it continues to benefit me in the moments when I feel unsure of myself as an artist.
I won’t go into the details of today, which were exhilarating. I experienced the whole range of emotion from joyful exuberance to utter heartbreak in relation to creating…
It was something I had never tried to create before, and so had to remind myself that I am a beginner.
Julia Cameron’s book talks of creation being a co-creation with God (source, higher self, universe, etc… whatever you call that big IT that is both outside of you and within you) and one of the things she states repeatedly is to keep telling yourself, “I will take care of the quantity, God will take care of the quality.”
This is important for artists to remember.
Here are two specific situations in which focusing on quantity is of the highest importance for artists:
Let’s say are a beginner at what you are doing. Why is this an important affirmation? Because often fledgling artists have expectations that their fledgling creation is going to be just like the creations of their heros and experts in their desired field. But the truth is that if they looked at the fledgling work of their heros and experts, it would be comparable to their own initial creations.
The point is that everyone is a beginner at some point. And when art doesn’t come out the way you see it in your head, it sometimes doesn’t feel good. But that’s what art is. If it were exact, it would be science (not that those two fields don’t often cross.)
Additionally, for someone like me, who can sometimes be pretty self impressed (fast learner, website with 100+ pages about filmmaking on it, doing this over 10 years…), to have to start at the beginning again with something that is related but different than the vast experience that I already have can be a bit frustrating. I just assume I will be awesome on the very first day, and I forget that that’s not always how it works.
Thank goodness Julia Cameraon reminds me.
“Gee wiz, I’m human and fallible.”
I forgive myself.
And the upside is that my related experience does speed up the learning curve a bit.
The second situation is the case where an artist is holding him or herself from doing what s/he wants to do artistically because s/he doesn’t have access to the quality of equipment, personnel, materials, etc that are necessary to make the artist’s vision a reality.
Often, these materials would be nice, but aren’t really necessary.
For example, say you want the $10,000 camera, but you’ve only got the $300 camera. Are you going to wait until you have the $10,000 camera before ever shooting anything?
I have, and trust me, it’s not fun. Creators need to create, and if they hold that back, it can be very uncomfortable.
Additionally, as you build your experience on the $300 camera, you might see in retrospect that perhaps it was better that you practiced on the $300 and got your chops working with a simpler camera, less doo-dats, less complication, and less expense.
And something weird sometimes happens when you keep creating (taking care of the quantity) despite the resources you may have. I have found that the universe tends to open up and bring you what you need at the right time, therefore, taking care of the quality.
My overriding philosophy is that if the tools I desire are not in my world right now, I should use what I’ve got until they come to me, and that they will come faster if I create a greater need for them by continuing to create with what is currently around me.
So the next time you are in the beginning, middle or end of creating something and you’re not feeling super-great about it, know that the important thing is that you are doing it. You are taking care of the quantity. That is your job as an artist.
You are showing up and doing it and that’s what’s most important.
(By the way… Here’s the link to the book. It’s awesome. I had Julia Cameron sign my copy and she was in awe of how tattered it was from me carrying around for what would amount to several years if you added it up.)
