In today’s world there are more resources for seeing what other artists’ processes are than ever before. I created a series called An Artist in City, there’s Inside the Actor’s Studio, the Masterclass series, and a million other resources. As a creative artist I have watched many other great creators work and I’ve found that there are 8 specific tasks that I will define in this article that I believe every artist does that no one tells you about.
Time to consume
The most important and easiest step is that you need time to consume art. Ira Glass, an idol of mine who is the host of This American Life once defined people who create need to first and foremost have good taste. I completely agree.
The thing that separates regular people from creatives is they can define a good and a bad work. Each creator defines it differently. But in order to define your taste you need to make time to take in other people’s content. You need time to consume what inspires you? Is it a storytelling radio show? Is it Andrea Arnold’s decision of handheld cinematographic style? Or Charles Burnett’s casualism? Carolina Arévalo’s capability to assemble dots to look like the universe and the act of conception at the same time? Or is it just a sunset?
No matter what it is you need to consume and learn to notice details and differences in what makes something inspire you and what doesn’t. This way you can know why your creations are in your definition “good” or “bad.”
Photo by author
Repetition on technical tasks
My goodness, this is the most boring and tedious part of a creator’s process. It sucks. No one likes it, but it is where many creatives who want to be great lack discipline. It is important to learn the technical tasks of your artwork by repetition to the point where you do not need to think about the action in order to carry it out.
People also describe this process of having a brush be the extension of their arm. Or dancing ballet is like breathing through their limbs. Or fuck, even listen to Billy Collins the great poet just speak and his words are so precise and vocabulary so rich. This is because they practiced and learned the techniques of their craft to a precision.
They say you become a master of something after 10,000 repetitions. I can speak for this as I have pressed my “mark in” tool as an editor way more than that many times. On top of that, I have pressed that same button when deleting silence in between words that many times.
Practicing technical tasks leaves your brainpower to think about other creative decisions rather than technical ones. Once you eliminate the need to think about technique (whatever that may be), you can truly express yourself.
Recognizing the workflows and techniques that make you unique
By repeating technical tasks you will develop ways to process and adapt individual problem solving for creative or non-creative tasks. This is your style. This is what makes you unique. Now, maybe not all of these are good, or efficient, but if you like something that you do, consider the style and flavor it adds to what you’re creating. Is there more variability or precision you can explore by doing this?
You may ask, “Well, Justin, how do I know what is unique in my process?” Great question. You learn this by talking to people who do the same work that you do, talking to those who have worked with people who do the work that you do, or watching final creative projects and compare it to your own, which leads us to another important step for the creative process.
Author directing preliminary cast of Prologue his short film at an early table reading. Photo by Blake Horn. Pictured - Joe Perrino, Claudia de Candia, Justin Joseph Hall, Katina Corrao
Time to review your own work
It is necessary to review your own work. Do you like it? How does it compare to your tastes?
I love Andrea Arnold, David Lynch, Spike Lee, Maya Deren, and as four people I look up to when making films. All of my idols are independent filmmakers, this was an independent film. How did I compare with each of my heroes in their work? How did I differ? This is a time for self-reflection and to use your taste that you have developed. Now it’s time to consume again, but the important thing is to step outside of your work and review your own work with your taste.
This should be done often when you’re almost done with a project and I find it’s good to review and go back to review old work to see how you’ve changed over the years. I’ve been making films for nearly 20 years and I go back to the beginning and watch old movies I made in middle school as well as recent films from a few years ago.
In reviewing, I’m looking for what seems to be the flavor I add to the final product. What is my style? Do I like it? Does it accomplish what I envisioned? What did I do that was unique? What is trite or even a sign of the times? How am I the same as my idols and how do I differ?
In addition to these creative questions, I find reviewing my work helps me understand when I learned a skill. Sometimes creating non-stop for years you forget when you learn about technical skills.
For example, It drives me crazy to hear audio pops in movies, as it’s distracting and sounds amateurish. One time when I was watching a film from when I was a professional and hear them on every cut. I realized I was much older than I thought I was when I learned this technical skill. So by re-learning this and reviewing less experienced filmmakers who I may work with, I knew to give them more slack on some technical processes than I had been. I may have missed some great talent if I didn’t review my work and give myself that reminder
Time to rest
It is a bad idea to work all of the time on projects or in the same discipline. By not letting your mind rest, it’s hard to look at the big picture. I have an especially hard time with this because I do everything independently and it takes forever to finish for example my feature film Frames of Reference that I’m still working on for almost a decade.
Photo of author
However, if you don’t take time off, you don’t have time to relax. Release immediate thoughts and re-enter your thought process freshly. Last year, for example, I finally finished a project, Prologue, a short film but still had two films I wanted to finish immediately that I have been working on for a long time including Frames of Reference. However, my girlfriend really wanted to go on a trip and my best friend could go as well. So I took the time off and managed to think less about my artwork during those times and much less about my projects. By doing this I realized my workflow and thought processes had become minute, looking at small details. This would make me finish my project even slower.
Therefore, without time to release your thoughts, you may be actually wasting time and effort when it is important to do other activities, live life and take in something new that you may even be able to use in your future creative work.
Defending your opinion by defining your vision
If you’re good at what you do, people will understand what you create once you’ve created it. However, before you’ve finessed the details, there will be so many people that doubt your vision along the way. As a creative I found the most difficult thing for me is to define and verbally communicate my vision. I go by feeling and emotion which translates well into stories as that’s what audiences relate to. But defining my vision and style is a pain in the neck as I’d rather just show the work.
However, learning how to express your vision verbally or in written form is something you’ll likely not be able to avoid in most creative pursuits, especially film. Believe me; I’ve tried.
I have been working on my first feature documentary, Frames of Reference, for 9 years. I started out in film with confidence like, give me any footage and enough freedom and I can make anything seem interesting. I still believe that. I am an editor first and foremost and I know the power of film, pacing, and manipulation of many styles.
However when creating the documentary I’ve run into the roadblock of finding money and time to finish the project. I know I have to earn money and so to find funding and help to create such a large endeavor, I have had to learn to express my ideas verbally. It took me over 5 years to give in and start working on my words. Now I can express a complex film that isn’t made yet in two sentences.
Frames of Reference is a documentary about perspective using the foil of education. We captured 7 schools around the world to explore how cognitive diversity makes complex problem solving more efficient by learning from other’s unique life experiences.
Frames of Reference Teaser
I failed at explaining this concept so many times, I just stopped talking about the project and promoting it. I pitched it to my bosses and they rolled their eyes and assumed I wasn’t ready. But I paid attention to how they reacted and kept asking what wasn’t clear to my subjects and myself in my explanations.
Even when I am clear, some people don’t like the style I’m using. They might believe in not using sit down interviews in documentaries. Or they want to have a central character to follow. Not to worry, they are not your target audience. Which brings me to my next point.
Receive feedback on how your work is interpreted and define your target audience
If you create for an audience your work is not complete until you have seen how your target audience reacts. Otherwise, you’re making the art for yourself, which is fine, but not the goal of many artists. If you want to build a following it’s important to listen to feedback from those you’re making the art.
So first off you need to know who your target audience is. For instance, my short film Prologue has women’s rights themes. I know that I want men to see it, but women are the target audience because the film’s messaging relates most to women not being able to express themselves. So in creating movies it’s important to gauge the reaction of the film. Is it rendering the emotions from the audience I want to express in the story? What is distracting in my message?
By paying attention to an audience you can adjust the current work to change what you have created and make minor or major tweaks to make sure your message is getting across. In Prologue one line was delivered in a way I thought was interesting, but women audience members found the woman winey and unrealistic. I listened and I adjusted taking out the line using non-verbal cues the actors already had in the scene. It was an easy cut in the story and it made it better.
One key thing is that audience members’ interpretations are never wrong. They perceive what they perceive. That being said you cannot listen to every note someone gives to you. You have to stay true to defending your vision which you should have already defined. A great way to not overcompensate your vision for one note is to get a wide audience to give you feedback.
Also, it is important that you get a representative sample of your target audience. I was a statistics major and the most important thing in data is to know your sample and where the data comes from. If your audience is focused on women but has no women of color, there may be a blind spot in your feedback and likely your feedback will be skewed. If you don’t include international audience members, then you better make sure your target audience is Americans. I think the most obvious example would be in film if you only have an audience who is a native English speaker, is the audio clear and understandable for someone who learned English as a second language? Because if it’s not then you may lose those people who might enjoy your film. Often fixes to notes can be simple. For people not being able to understand the dialogue a simple solution may be adding subtitles in a section or increasing sibilance (s and t sounds) in your audio mix.
There is no correct answer to who your audience is, but it is important to always think about a target audience (yourself or a larger subset) and learn how they interpret your work so you have the ability to adjust. This should be worked into your schedule.
Getting people to notice your work
Audience for Los Angeles premiere of Sardines out of a Can
Finally, when you have a finished project if you didn’t create the art just for yourself, or even if you did, you’ll want to find an audience. You should be fairly prepared as you have defined your target audience. Marketing and getting people to experience your work is work in itself. It’s important to spend time and money to reach your audience. The more you take to reach out and tell people why your work is important or interesting, the more interested people become. Consistency is key. If you don’t have a huge following after your first project, it will build slowly over time and after years of paying attention to your audience, your audience will grow and pay attention to you.
Please contact justin.joseph.hall@fourwindfilms on any further inquiries on his creative process or to experience some of his work or follow Fourwind Films on instagram to see stories of Fourwind Films going through the processes talked about in this article.