Film Courage: Eli how did you know you were a filmmaker and not a film watcher?
Elias Daughdrill, Long Beach City College Film Professor and Writer/Director: That’s
a really good question.
So that was the kind of thing I was going through at San Francisco State University
that maybe I don’t know enough about this technology?
Maybe I should go on and get a PhD?
Like that was something I was seriously considering.
But for whatever reason I don’t know how you know other than you keep having the drive
to make something.
I think that is probably the test.
One of the things I tell the students, they kind of don’t know that they are getting
themselves into for the first time even if they make just a short film.
So when it’s all over they’re stressed out and they feel like their movie is not
as good as it could have been or it’s not what they wanted to make because it’s a
movie.
And I tell them that the test is though you went through all of that stress, it was incredibly
hectic, you ultimately feel like the film could be better which is what everybody thinks
after they make a movie, so you’re not a 100% happy with the finished product.
But the test is if you wake up in a couple of days, a couple of weeks, a couple of months
AND you want to make something again then you want to be a filmmaker.
So the drive to Oh...I’m interested in this.
I’m interested in using the camera to try to get at ideas or tell stories or project
some perspective of the world if that doesn’t go away and it hasn’t gone away yet, that’s
how I knew.
But there was a question in those moments like I was describing where oh my gosh, they
all know more than I do.
And there is something about just filmmaking because it’s just so heavily titled toward
men or guys and they are so full of (can be...not all guys) can be full of bravado and trying
to prove themselves.
Film sets are so full of guys trying to prove how much they know, what they’ve done, so
that can be really intimidating like “Oh?
I don’t know as much as these guys.
They’re talking about a lens that I don’t know anything about or they are talking about
a camera or they are talking about something with a dolly shot that I don’t know anything
about.”
So that can make you go “Okay, I’ll just be the guy who...maybe I’ll write reviews
or whatever.
Or I’ll do a dissertation on Mike Lee films because I love Mike Lee or whatever.”
But then...”Oh?
This is an idea.
I should write that down and you start writing something.”
The great thing about if you are a...like me, I consider myself a writer/director.
I write my own stuff and I make it, nobody can stop me...there’s nothing stopping me
from writing a script.
That doesn’t cost any money, it’s just my time and if I’m enjoying it and I feel
like it is interesting and I can turn it into something and I can just do that and then
I can make a decision whether or not I want to try and make it.
I don’t know, that still holds a lot of pleasure for me.
If it stops, if it’s not pleasureful anymore, then I’ll stop doing it because filmmaking
is too hard.
It’s way too hard to do something you are not getting anything out of it.
It doesn’t feel fun or if you don’t feel like you are doing anything interesting.