Is Discontentment the Real Driving Force Behind Creativity? | No Film School

Everyone knows the classic tortured artist trope. Feeling alienated, misunderstood, and weathering the torment of trying to function in a world that isn't all too conducive to creative lifestyles are just a few of the obstacles some artists have to overcome (whether those obstacles are actually real or not), so there's no wonder why so many of them (us) are such pessimists.

But that may not be such a bad thing. In this video from Simon Cade of DSLRguide, he suggests that maybe that feeling of discontentment we get when we're failing to capture our artistic vision is actually the spark that ignites our creativity.

Even if you're not a full-on pessimistic artist (I'm not really one), I think we can all relate to that feeling of discontent. Maybe you feel it when you read the first draft of your screenplay and wonder if you were even present when it was written. Maybe you feel it when the direction you're giving your actors is doing more to confuse them than inspire them. Maybe you feel it when you see your own camera-toting window reflection in a shot.

Now, there is a pretty good reason to be frustrated by these kinds of things, but Cade brings up a great point about perfectionism that I think we should all hear. Perfectionism, while occasionally helpful at bringing forth the best of what we have to offer, more often than not keeps us trapped inside our own dissatisfaction.

While we labor ourselves with trying to purge all imperfections from our work, we often fail to realize that the ideas we're throwing away could've become something great had we given them a chance to grow. Instead of working, we obsess. Instead of growing and learning new skills, we get stuck trying to be perfect at something small and insignificant.

So, maybe take some time today to ask yourself if you're an unhappy/pessimistic/obsessive artist and if you and your work could benefit from easing a bit of the pressure your perfectionism is putting on your creativity.

Source: DSLRguide

inspiration creativity

What's the Hype With 'Interstellar' Revisiting Cinemas After a Decade in 70mm IMAX?

What's the Hype With 'Interstellar' Revisiting Cinemas After a Decade in 70mm IMAX?

Celebrate the love and hope at the center of Nolan's space epic in the format it was meant to be seen.

If we know anything about Christopher Nolan, he likes to go big. Nolan started with smaller-scale stories (as many of us do) with early noir adjacent works like Following, Memento, and Insomnia, then started going and staying big with his illusionist drama The Prestige. Since then, the scale has been various degrees of massive, with the biggest scope in his time-and-space sprawling epic, Interstellar.

While Interstellarmight not be everyone's favorite Nolan outing, there's no denying it's an impressive feat of filmmaking and his most emotional—if watching Matthew McConaughey's Cooper desperately try to reach his family through quantum space-time doesn't make you cry at least a little bit, what's going on, dude?

With Interstellar'sIMAX release, it's a great time to shed some tears in a public setting in one of the most prestigious film formats around. As we mentioned in our film gauge piece, Nolan loves shooting on film and utilizes 65mm intentionally to provoke a tone of massive scale. In that regard, Interstellar was made for 70mm IMAX. That goes without saying, dawg. That being said, other factors make Interstellar a perfect movie to revisit in theaters while you can.

Let's break down the release further below.

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