I went to the beach this past weekend and decided to bring a camera with me. Not my nice camera. Just a little camera that makes everything look grainy and slightly terrible. And honestly, it was exactly what I needed.
Recently, I’ve been feeling a lot of pressure around directing. My first film has wrapped, which is exciting, but now I’m in that weird space where I’m starting to write and map out the next one. Suddenly every idea feels like it needs to be the next film.
I think I needed to remember that I actually just like filming things. So I treated this little beach trip like a workshop. No script. No shot list. No pressure to make anything good. I just filmed a place I love:
The water, people walking around, the sand, little details that I probably wouldn't have thought to film if I were consciously trying to make a “real” film out of it.
There was something really freeing about using a camera that no professional would ever dare to use. I let the camera be bad. I let things be blurry and overexposed and grainy. I didn't care. It made me stop thinking so much.
I think when you're directing, it's easy to get caught up in the idea that everything you make has to be intentional. And obviously, intention is important. But I don't want to lose the part of myself that just wants to point a camera at something because I think it's beautiful.
But sometimes you can just film the beach and sometimes the camera can suck and sometimes you can make something just because you wanted to.
If you're interested, this was the results of my little experiment.
