I once heard a famous quote from some dude on some podcast a couple years ago that went something along the lines of “We write so we know what we think.” This resonated with me and I’ve always wanted to document my journey as a filmmaker just to get my thoughts out. It’ll help provide me an understanding of the direction I’m heading in as a filmmaker and as a person. Yes, it sounds kinda corny. Maybe it is. Or maybe it isn’t. Whatever, I’ll try it. I’ve made tons of excuses for not starting this earlier, so it feels good to actually get the ball rolling. The idea here is to treat this like a stream of consciousness journal. I don’t really care if anyone reads this, but I’m making it public in case anyone wants to.
BUT I’ll try to let people know about it because I have a feeling that at least some of the thoughts I end up having will be relatable. I’ll write about my thoughts on current projects, past projects, my general progression as a filmmaker, and thoughts on my general approach to visual storytelling. I’ll also do lighting breakdowns on things I’ve shot and use those to figure out what I like, don’t like, did wrong, did right, and what I would do differently. I won’t really claim that anything I do is particularly correct, or even good; I’m just trying to recount my thoughts & get them out.
This will also help keep my friends up-to-date on what’s going on in my life & in my head so I don’t have to have 2 hour long phone conversations w/ each one (😜). I anticipate future interactions going like this
My friend: "Hey Mike, what's going on?
Me: "Nothing, just read my blog"
*I'm like 50% kidding
"Who are you & What do you want from me?"
I’m going to do a separate post that provides some background on myself, but here’s a quick summary: I’m a 24 year old freelance Director of Photography in Austin, TX trying to get better at the craft of visual storytelling. My current tangible goal is to be hired (or reached out to for passion projects) by awesome production companies & awesome directors & producers to shoot awesome stuff. Commercials, occasional narratives, music videos, docs, etc.
I think this format will help me look back and see what progress I’m making and what my thought process was in certain moments in time. I plan on being fairly honest & open on here. Like 80% honest. The other 20% will be me just kinda saying phony shit to sound cool. Like we all do at times. I still need to present myself as somewhat hire-able. Sorry.
Another thing I want to note is that this is something that I would really like to keep up with and up-to-date. But if I get super busy I realize that this may just fall by the wayside. And that’s ok.
So as you’ll see, I’m trying to make this format something that feels like its coming directly out of my own head and like the way that I talk. So there may be occasional bad jokes.
What do you get when you cross an elephant and a rhino?
Elephino! (hell if I know)
Hope these posts all comes across as genuine and a worthwhile read to anyone who wants to take some of their precious time to check this out for some reason.
MK