Staying creative during lockdown
Screen and Film School Brighton’s student blogger Lauren Louise shares her top ways to stay creative during lockdown.
Staying creative can be hard as an aspiring filmmaker, especially with the stresses of a COVID and then a second lockdown. So what’s the best ways of staying creative as a filmmaker?
Take time to reflect
If you’re a writer who is currently not writing, make sure you take time to reflect on things. What is it you like to write? What do you hate writing about? What gets you excited in films? Think about those things and how you think you’d go about it, how you would do it better. Maybe there is a trope in you favourite genre that you hate. When you figure that out you’ll be able to write something that you can’t put down; something that you’re interested in and others will be too!
Go off the grid
Social media and the modem day ability to always be available to others can be quite draining. Especially when we spend most of our days sitting on zoom. Take time to step away from your phone and computer, if only for a couple of hours. This will give your brain time to wonder and generate new ideas uninfluenced by other people and social media algorithms.
Start pre-production
Being in lockdown means we all have a lot of spare time on our hands. This is the perfect opportunity to reach out to other people and see what they are doing. Has anyone written anything recently that you’re really interested in? Maybe that someone has an idea floating about and has no idea how to get it off the ground and perhaps you’re the perfect person to produce it. Having the time to sit down and plan a production shoot allows you to be productive, especially knowing it’s going to lead up to something worthwhile. Preproduction isn’t just paperwork! It can be storyboards, set design, writing, moodboards. This is also good industry practice as most the time productions take years to go into effect.
Go behind the scenes
One thing that inspires me to get creative is when I watch interviews and masterclasses with my favourite filmmakers. There’s nothing like the feeling of knowing your dream is achievable and a viable option. YouTube is a great place to kill time and inspire creativity. One of my favourite things to watch is The Hollywood Reporter’s Roundtable, which is filled with filmmaking gems that really make you want to get up and start creating.
Start filming
The best way to stay creative when being a filmmaker is to start filming. It doesn’t have to be a complicated fictional story. Go shoot some cinematic B-roll in your spare time and build up a bank of footage for you to use. Having lots of footage will also help you fill out your showreel and give it that extra sizzle that makes it stand out from the rest.
Staying creative during lockdown can be difficult, so don’t put pressure on yourself to achieve anything. Just try something new and have fun with it!
Still looking for ways to keep busy at home? Check out the video below!
