In filmmaking circles, there’s this unattractive and annoyingly persistent tendency for people to talk a big game, make grand plans out loud, flaunt their knowledge, vision and taste as boldly as they can — but never really follow through with anything. There are so many people who  absorb hundreds of movies, read thousands of gear reviews, argue passionately (often with themselves, I should note) about which camera is currently winning the arms race, and fritter away quite a lot of once-disposable income on equipment that they never use to actually make things.

I’ve met so many pixel peepers and budding filmmakers who spend years just sitting around with a handful of half baked ideas, waiting for success to come looking for them. And, it’s always because they claim they still need something, some secret ingredient for the secret sauce, without which the entirety of their vision is dead in the water.

They’re making excuses because they’re nervous.  They’re worried that all the effort they’re going to have to put in – all the time and tedium it takes to make something unique and worth watching  - will result in nothing but a sham with nothing pleasing to show for it.

To be fair, making videos is hard work, and it’s nerve-racking to work in a field where creativity is your whole identity. I don’t know any career filmmakers who don’t absolutely despise it at least every once in a while.

But so, so many people allow that fear to paralyze them before they even make it out the door. 

They like to blame it on any number of things:

• I don’t have the right equipment.
• I don’t have the best equipment.
• I want my first project to be great, not amateur. 
• I can do it, i just haven’t yet.
• The time/circumstances aren’t perfect.
• I am too sick/busy/sleep-deprived/depressed/anxious/hungover to do it right now.
• I don’t have in a friends who can help me make it happen .

To be fair, it’s a busy world; there’s obligations and distractions and car payments, and the bandwidth just isn’t always available. There are plenty of  perfectly defensible and rational ways to justify it to yourself.

But I’m here to tell you, unequivocally, that these are shitty excuses and they are actively making you worse as a person.
Waiting to have enough confidence is a self-imposed barrier preventing you from getting the experience you need to actually be confident. Giving myself pull quotes is the closest thing to narcissism I think I've ever felt.

To be clear, I have been completely guilty of all of these things, and they are proclivities I’ve made a huge effort to bury.

Another disclaimer: i think that both technical knowledge and gear are EXTREMELY important. But experience is another side of the coin that is equally important and without experience making films, you are not a filmmaker. In fact, someone who has no technical knowledge and no gear who somehow makes a film…IS a filmmaker, while the opposite is not.

What is a filmmaker?

The kid that goes out with his crummy T3I and spends months making a feature length, no budget, bad quality horror flick that people spend plenty of time critiquing is IMMEDIATELY more accomplished than some “expert” pixel peeper who spends time ripping into this kid’s film and the rest of his time reading up on camera shit, thinking he needs an FS5 to actually make a video. The first kid is a filmmaker, while the second is nobody. You have NO excuses in a world where the average cell phone takes good video and a camera capable of professional quality video costs all of about $600 (or less).

NO ONE cares what you are capable of or what you have the ability to do. You do not exist as an artist or a professional or a hobbyist except for the work that you create and release. That is what defines a videographer or filmmaker. Someone who MAKES things, and doesn’t just talk about them. The work that you put in and the things you produce will speak VOLUMES more about your abilities than what you are “capable of”.

Would you like to know the odds of your first film or video being both a genius work AND becoming popular, like a highly acclaimed Cannes film or Vimeo Staff Pick? There are no odds. It will NOT happen. Why don’t you take the five years you would have spent preparing for this magnum opus you’re planning (which is never even going to be created), and spend those ACTUALLY SHOOTING? I can guarantee you that shooting on a regular basis will make you a FAR better filmmaker. People act like society is going to judge them entirely on their first release. NO ONE cares about your first video, they care about your BEST one. And even if they did, you can simply NOT put it on the internet once you make something better.

Speed and productivity are the keys to mastery and success. When you are extremely experienced, that “perfection” that you are so heavily defending will come to you instantly and easily. You will shit better things than most people who spend a year perfecting their rare work, and even your lame and rushed shots will be better than most people’s best shot. There are so many people out there, especially introverts who are self-proclaimed “perfectionists” who need to be in just the right mindset and REALLY take their time to do good work. Especially in this industry, deadlines are everything, and if you cannot produce something great by the time it needs to be finished…then nobody cares and your “perfect” work will not exist.

Trying to produce perfect work is fine, but when it takes you three times as long to make something that is only 5% better, then your time is clearly better spent creating more things.

It takes nothing to be a critic. There is no one lower in any given field of study or craft than a critic is. Critics are some of the most damaging, pathetic, shameful people out there. They exist solely to introduce negativity and tear people down. They critique people rather than accomplishing because they are too fearful, lazy, and ignorant to go out and achieve the things that the people they critique are achieving. There is a VERY small amount of criticism that is actually constructive, and people seem to have a hard on about being able to take criticism (from strangers on the internet, who SAY they are experts?) and incorporating that to be a better filmmaker. In my mind, all of the most accomplished and creative people are those that can COMPLETELY block out criticism and negativity and have complete faith in their work. Self awareness is extremely important and IMO is all the criticism you will ever need. There is a certain amount of blind confidence that is REQUIRED to be great at a craft and be very successful in a world with so much noise and competition. It takes NOTHING to post some snarky, clever, negative comment on social media….it takes EVERYTHING to go out and create and put yourself out there for the world to see.

There is a massive difference between (1): the person out there who is putting in the work, doing all they can and hustling to make projects happen and get videos made and (2): the person making excuses, saying that he doesn’t have the sharpest lens to get the shot he wants (or some other equally bullshit excuse). The first person is a professional and will be successful and able to make video work a fulfilling career. The second is nobody and will putz around for a few years before moving on to some crummy career, blaming everyone but himself for his failure.