A Quote by James Cameron

Don't get seduced by your own stuff; work hard to keep a blank slate state of mind each time you watch your film. — © James Cameron
Don't get seduced by your own stuff; work hard to keep a blank slate state of mind each time you watch your film.
Don't get seduced by your own stuff. Don't get high on your own supply. The hardest thing as a filmmaker is when you're watching a film that you've worked on for several years. You know every frame so intimately that holding lots of the objectivity of a new viewer who has just seen it for the first time is the hardest thing. Every aesthetic decision you make - and you make thousands of them every day, have to - in theory, must be done from you being a blank slate. You almost have to run a program, like a mind wipe, every time you watch the movie.
I don't really get stuck in a time warp where, if my film is a success, I have to keep partying till the next one releases, or if my film is a flop, I keep wallowing in sorrow until the next comes my way. My hard work in each film is always there.
Part of what makes your performances more convincing is that your own image isn't getting in the way. And the more you can keep it like that, the better for your work and your state of mind.
Without memories to cloud it, the mind perceives with absolute clarity. Each observation stands out in stark relief. In the beginning, when there's not yet a smudge, the slate still blank, there is only the present moment: each vital detail, shocked color, the fall of light. Like film stills. The mind relentlessly open to the world, deeply impressed, even hurt by it: not yet gauzed by memory.
It's not fun to watch your team go out, and guys that you've worked so hard with, and the countless hours you've put in on your own time to go and showcase all your hard work, and then have it taken from you and then see your boys playing without you.
One must go for a film with an open mind; a film best impacts you when your mind is a blank page to the film.
Never allow any unnecessary or vain thought to occupy your mind. This is more easily said than done. You cannot make your mind a blank all at once. So in the beginning try to prevent evil or idle thoughts by occupying your mind with the analysis of your own faults, or the contemplation of the Perfect Ones.
Life is about your soul, not about your body and not about your mind. Most people work hard to keep the body happy. Then they seek to stimulate their mind. Then... if there is time... they look after their soul. Yet the most beneficial priority has it just the other way around... When was the last time you paid attention to your soul?
What Clint Eastwood meant was when you are directing and starring in a film, there's a temptation to spend more time on the other actors' performances, and then when you get to your own work, you kind of go, "Oh, yeah, well, let's cut that." And he said, "Take your time and make sure you do your work right." It's especially good advice if you're going from one career to another.
Erase from your mind that your preparation must be perfect. Hard work + dedication = a shot at your dreams. Keep believing.
I've never been about trying to promote a brand of Squarepusher. I've never been keen on that idea that these are the character traits that I've got to stick with and amplify and keep pushing forward and pushing on the public. I'm really happy to throw it all away and start each record with a blank slate but I concede you've got a point, there are things I can't get rid of, no matter how hard I try.
There's a reason why you attach the luck factor to your hard work. You work hard in every film, but there's always that one film that comes at the right time and does the best for you.
The writing process is the time where nothing's been set in stone. It's a blank slate, or a blank page.
Keep your head down, work hard, and don't ever believe your own hype, because... you just keep working.
It's hard to see a film one time and really "get it," and write fully and intelligently about it. That's a review. That's not film criticism. And there's so many expectations involved, too. You're going in to see the latest Martin Scorsese or Stanley Kubrick film, you really have high hopes, and you can't help but find that it's not exactly what you had in your head going in. Until you can watch it again, you can't accept the work for what it intends to be. It takes at least a second viewing.
My mind is changing all the time. I can't live in a space that has a fixed aesthetic. I just need a blank slate when I come home.
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