Have you heard the phrase about guitarists learning to play their instruments? They play until their fingers bleed.
I love this saying and it is now used across the board when it comes to illustrating how much passion is needed to master a craft. I was listening to “Slash” – the Guns and Roses guitarist – the other day on the radio and someone rang in and said something along the lines of:
- “How long did it take before you mastered the guitar?”
Now you know this guy has been asked this more times than he’s had bottles of vodka – and he’s had a lot of booze (by his own admission). His answer was simple, he said he hasn’t mastered the guitar..yet . Slash knows that he still has stuff to learn and that’s a great attitude. Sure he has spent a lot of time butt naked, face down in his own vomit which he could have used for practice but he’s pretty good despite that.
This applies to learning and making films – you have to be consumed with the desire to know everything about the subject – that’s real passion. You have to be out there making films even if they are only one or two minutes long and you have to want to be out there doing that when you can’t. When you feel like this you build up a momentum that is unstoppable as well as learning your craft.
Back in the old, early, wild days of Hollywood when the little independent studios were starting up there were hundreds of movies made every month and a lot of famous directors such as John Ford, learnt their skills here by churning out B-movie after B-movie.
Modern technology has provided us with similar opportunities today. There is cheap equipment and a place to show the finished product – the Internet. How passionate are you to succeed as a film maker?