"Mastery" by Robert Greene

[Drew Ott]

I posted a thread over a year ago called, "Developing into a Genius," which led to some heated discussion and was eventually deleted.

I was trying to say that filmmaking ability is unrelated to being a genius or having any kind of natural talent. Bergman, Kubrick, Tarkovsky, etc. were not born exceptional; they became exceptional through hard work and much experience.

Nearly everybody who responded disagreed, which was fine. There was good discussion.

Anyway, I'd like to recommend a fantastic book related to that discussion called "Mastery" by Robert Greene.

http://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Robert-Greene/dp/014312417X

The book goes through a few stages. First is finding your "life's task." For the serious people here, I suspect that's already filmmaking.
The next step is all about the apprenticeship phase, a 7-10 year period of intense learning. That's a very long time! I suspect most of us here are still apprentices.

I'm still reading, but the final phases are the creative-active phase, and then on to the last phase of Mastery.

The book applies perfectly to filmmaking every step of the way and would be extremely beneficial to filmmakers of all levels. I hope you check it out.

 

[ugafan]

1. Learn some sh it.
2. Work with someone who knows his sh it.
3. Think about sh it.
4. Create some some sh it.
5. Create some stuff that isn't sh it.
6. Become the sh it.

 

[Drew Ott]

1. Learn some sh it.
2. Work with someone who knows his sh it.
3. Think about sh it.
4. Create some some sh it.
5. Create some stuff that isn't sh it.
6. Become the sh it.

That's a wonderful summary. I'd say most people get too scared to move to #4, or they spend too much time during #1 thinking about how awesome #6 is going to be.

 

[Terry_Lasater]

Drew, I think you're a genius. :thumbsup:

Oh, and ugafan... you're wit has always been sharp.