Sometimes the universe gives you a sign.
Sometimes it’s screaming in your face.
Lately I’ve had a feeling that I need to steer back on track with my directing career and focus on what really matters to me.
Today we’ll talk about the importance of doing whatever your thing is:
- The things we do to avoid doing our thing
- Why you’re not doing the thing
- How to stop doing everything that feels like doing the thing and actually do the thing.
We’ll say "thing" a lot this week.
For us directors, the thing is directing. Telling stories with picture and sound.
Let’s roll.
This has stuck with me for years
When I was updating my website and planning to launch this newsletter 18 months ago, I sent a work-in-progress version to my friend Matt. I had a hard time deciding whether to feature my projects or my brand-new newsletter on the front page. Matt’s words have stuck with me ever since: “Remember why you’re doing this. What’s really your thing?”
It crystallized the story my website needed to tell. The story of Morten, the director.
Everything else—my day job, social media, this newsletter, they’re all in support of my directing.
But it’s easy to lose sight of that in the maelstrom of everything you should and could do with your time.
You need to stop pretending you are making progress
This short blog post from Strangest Loop hit me hard.
The way our working culture has developed over the last decade and a half is trending toward an increasing value placed on being busy.
We feel like we’re doing something when we’re checking emails, adding things to our calendars, and ticking boxes on our to-do list.
But this busyness is a lie.
It’s a distraction from the thing that will actually move the needle.
Doing the thing.
And listen, I get it. I’m as guilty of this as anyone.
It feels good to be busy. It feels good to feel like you’re making progress, even when you’re not.
For us directors, it’s easy to fall into this trap.
Most of us have chosen this path because it’s our dream, our passion. But getting a film made is hard! It’s way easier to talk about the films we want to direct. Or criticize other films and talk about how we would have done better.
My personal kryptonite is learning. I have an insatiable gusto for learning. I can justify learning new filmmaking tools, strategies, or tips as an investment in my directing career.
But learning is useless if it is not put into action.
The harsh truth is that to become a great director, you need to practice. A lot of us aren’t willing to do the practice that’s available to us.
It might not look like the directing you had in your mind.
Maybe it’s just you, your phone, and a friend.
Maybe the little film you make will suck.
You won’t know unless you practice.
Figure out what’s really holding you back
There are a million and a half excuses why you’re not making your film. But what’s the real reason you’re not making progress as a director?
For me, the fear of making something bad has been overwhelming for large parts of my career.
This manifests in many ways, but usually as something like:
I can’t make this movie because [insert excuse] (money, gear, script, actors, blah blah blah).
Figuring out the root cause of why you are not directing is key to overcoming all these limiting beliefs.
I’ve had to accept that to improve and get better, I have to take chances and potentially make something that is bad.
I hate the idea of making a bad film. Like it hurts my soul.
But the alternative is to never get better at directing.
And that’s pain on a whole other level.
So consider what you’re giving up by not making that film, by not practicing your craft.
You can either be a terrible filmmaker who learns to get better, or stay terrible forever.
Your choice.
How to actually practice directing
Practicing directing can be challenging.
Especially if you want to do it with a full-scale cast and crew.
To get out of that mindset, break the process into pieces and focus on practicing a subset of the directing skill.
Maybe it’s finding a script and breaking down a scene as if you were directing it.
Maybe it’s pulling out your phone and shooting some stills or little videos to practice framing and composition.
Maybe it’s getting together with some actors to practice directing a scene.
Try to get out of the all-or-nothing mindset and focus on the things that are available to you.
"The 2-step process for exceptional results:
- Spend a little time each day thinking about the highest leverage activity available to you.
- Spend a little time each day working on it."
- James Clear, author
I love the simplicity of James’ framework.
It’s like the concept in “The One Thing” by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan: find the one thing that makes everything else you need to do easier.
With directing, that can be hard sometimes because every little step we take feels small or insignificant. But once you add them together, you might be left with a script, or a completed shot list, or a rough cut.
Finding the time to do things that matter and make you a better director in the long run is the key to leveling up your directing skills.
Even though the results don’t show up right away, trust the process; trust that the practice is making you better.
In a recent essay, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reflected on Productivity. What struck me was that he didn’t mention apps or complex systems. His number one productivity tip is “work on the right things.”
There’s a bit of a meta-lesson in here for us directors. See, direction matters a lot.
If you work on the wrong things, it doesn’t matter how much you hustle.
So spend time on step 1, figuring out what you should be working on.
Once you have clarity, be relentless about focusing on that thing until it’s done.
I know I fall in and out of love with my ideas, scripts, and films. But I know once I pick, I need to stick with it and see it through.
That’s what you do in step 2: you chip away at the block of granite to reveal what’s inside.
If you can do these two things, you’ll be amazed at how far you can take your directing skills in a year.
That does it for this week. Here are the key takeaways I want you to bring with you into your directing career from today:
- You need to practice the core skill you want to get better at.
- A lot of things are disguised as the real thing, but only doing the thing is doing the thing.
- Picking what you working on and relentlessly focusing on it is the super simple recipe for directing success.
As always, thanks for reading.
