A few weeks back, I posted on Instagram about how I feel, when I see my films projected on a big screen, as if I have conjured magic. All films (and all creative works) are a magical performance. My director friend Ardit Sadiku told me that the word for “cinema” in the Albanian language literally means “dreams on fabric.”
Filmmaking, and film editing in particular, is the art of “sculpting in time,” as the great Russian auteur Andrei Tarkovsky put it. Not all that different than a persuasive magic trick. I recently met a professional magician from the Magic Castle in Los Angeles and watched him perform at my work holiday party. As skeptical as I was, I felt that I could suspend my disbelief, at least for a few moments.
In cinema, we help people suspend their disbelief by hoarding them into an enclosed, dark room, and we force them to put away their phones for a few hours. Essentially, we require them to sit with what is directly in front of them (plus the audio surrounding them). Kind of like in a meditation session. Cinema demands that the audience members come back to their senses. The pure input of sight and sound.
For me, as a writer-director, the magic trick of a motion picture starts with the blank page. The page seems benign, but it can become a formidable adversary. Resistance is always present when it comes time to write. Steven Pressfield has analyzed Resistance very thoroughly.
Ultimately, to face the blank page, you have to simply show up. As Pressfield says, you have to “put your ass where you heart wants to be.” What exactly does that mean? Well, your heart may say, “I want to be a writer,” “I want to be a filmmaker,” or “I want to be [whatever].” But being a writer means writing and being a filmmaker means making films. You have to physically (and mentally) put yourself in the place where you will take action. If you want to be a writer, this means putting your ass in the chair at your desk or in a coffee shop.
That is really all I am doing with this newsletter. I have a block of time carved out each morning. My minimum goal is just a paragraph each morning, and I often write more than that. I am following James Clear’s advice to focus on a daily habit. These newsletters write themselves as long as I show up. Magic! Right? Yes and no. There is something magical about the creative process. However, the Muse only shows up when you show up.
Seeing my finished films on a big screen feels supernatural because I know exactly how many obstacles I had to overcome to will those visions into existence. It is not an easy process. The great horror director John Carpenter was asked by fellow director Robert Rodriguez why he chose to become a film director. Carpenter’s response was essentially that he did not have a choice; he fell in love with cinema and the experience of making movies. As he put it, “you can’t not go where you love.”
While shooting or directing, I notice that people are curious about what I am doing. Moving swiftly through the group of people on set and zooming in and out on different characters or odd details as they catch my eye. This style of improvisation and spontaneous discovery is what makes documentary filmmaking so liberating; it is not all that different than how I like to approach narrative (fictional) filmmaking.
In closing, I would like to briefly mention the recent New Orleans premiere of Film Jitsu, which is my new documentary on the crossover between grappling/jiu jitsu and stunts/action cinema. Last Monday, for 90 minutes, I gathered a large, eclectic group of people—including movie buffs, jiu jitsu practitioners, and family/friends—into a dark room where my story appeared on a big, bright screen.
Magic does not come cheap. However, the return is vast, abiding joy. ❤️
