Transcripts
1. Introduction: I feel like I've been
documenting a lot of my life for most of my life, but it feels like it
really started to happen very intentionally in 2015, so six years ago
now at this point. My name is Nathaniel Drew and I'm a content
creator online. I really love creating short films of my life
and my adventures. I'm also working on a book now. Today I'm going to be talking about intentional
documentation. This is a spin-off
of the class that I already created on
documenting your life. I'm here to answer
a lot of questions and share a few
more examples and insights on intentional
documentation to hopefully make it
as clear as possible. We're going to go in depth on the process because
I saw there were all kinds of questions that I'd like to answer on this topic. It's a little bit abstract and I want it to be as clear as possible so that it feels
like it makes sense. Like you know, how you're navigating your own
documentation of your own life. Intentional
documentation has really offered an incredible tool to make sense from
my own experiences. I can really pull the stories and the memories and the
insights that I get from a particular experience
and have them more accessible and just help me understand what my life is about and what
is important to me. It's a little bit abstract,
is a little bit out there, but it's really
something that has kept me coming back to this
over and over again. I originally shot this live with the Skillshare team
with a live audience, or I fielded live questions. Thank you so much for
joining. Let's dive right in.
2. Getting Started: My name is Obriana, I'm a senior producer on the
content team at Skillshare, and I use she, her,
hers pronouns. We are, of course, very excited to be with you
all today for our live class with multi-hyphenate
online content creator, Nathaniel Drew. So Nathaniel, very excited
to have you here today, will you just tell
us a little bit about who you are and
what it is you do? Yes. Thank you for
that introduction. Hello, everybody, really good
to see some of your faces. Up at the top, I see four faces,
and if I click the arrow, I can see more of your faces, so I'll check in every
once in a while. Sometimes I'll pop
into the chat, but I get a little
bit distracted by it, so right now, I'm not in it. Just so I can stay focused on things that I'm
talking about. In the planning for this, I imagine, it's fairly clear, based off of how we've
presented so far, but this is largely inspired by, well, I see my own face
now, that's crazy. That's distracting.
As I was saying, one of the ways we
were presenting this is to build this off of the
class that I already created. Thank you for switching
off of my face. I really appreciate that. Offer the class of
intentional documentation, and I really want to create a lot of time over the next hour to answer as
many questions as possible. I categorize them
into two categories. It can be, technical questions
which are all welcome, and maybe a little
bit more specific, but I'm happy to answer them. Then there's more broad
questions about like, how do I know if this
is worth documenting? How do I find the confidence
to start capturing moments? What if my life is boring? Things like that I'm really
more than happy to talk about those things because
these are things that I've spent a lot of
time thinking about. These are things that
I encounter still to this day, and especially,
as the world changes, and we've all had to adapt
in so many different ways. I think this can be a really
cool tool to navigate our day-to-day lives
and our experiences, and be a method to
understand our experiences. So once again, thank you
for all of you tuning in, and I see 96, that is insanity. I don't remember how many
people came in last time, but this feels like a lot more. Breaking all the records. We're going to get to
triple digits I feel it. Well, so I wanted to share screen just for
starters really quick. Let me see if I can do this. So this is one of
two analog photos that I wanted to share. This one was shot in Iceland, and I like this photo,
and I can't even fully explain why I don't
think it's necessarily like an extraordinarily
remarkable photo from any composition
standpoint or anything. But this photo has a
lot of personal meaning to me and I don't know, I have my own very biased
perspective of this, but I almost feel like
you can feel it with this photo even before
I explain to you why. But I think even providing
that explanation can offer a whole much
more meaning to this photo that may or may
not extend beyond just me. But the fact that this photo has meaning to me
is already enough. I basically went on a
little road trip with my dad, and this is just a photo that I took
while we were on the road, and you can't quite make
out what's on the dash, but we had our stuff there, and we have so many
hours to talk and the weather would
change so quickly from rain to sunny to clouds. I just capture this moment
with one of my analog cameras. This is unedited, I almost never edit
my analog photos, and that's a big
plus, and I'm happy to talk about it more
a little bit later, but that's actually a positive in terms of ease and simplicity. Because I feel
like so often they just come out and
they look amazing, and sometimes they don't
come out great at all. Whatever, I totally miss
the focus or something, but sometimes it
comes out like this. I just wanted to share that because I feel like there
can never be enough examples of analog photography in
our very digital world. Let me stop sharing
this super fast, and then I'll share
the other one. This is the other photo
that I wanted to share. This is a photo of somebody
that is very important to me in my life, and I'm not going to
go into the details. I don't think it really matters. But I wanted to show
this photo because I took this photo and then
I sent it to that person, and then they sent it to close people and
their close circle. This person told me that the people on their
circle told them that it felt like a photo that they captured who they
were as a person, which is like the biggest
possible compliment you could give me. Now, I think the really
interesting thing about this photo is that if
I took it with my iPhone, I would've deleted it
because his eyes are closed. It looks like a messed-up photo from a digital standpoint, I would have probably
taken several a bunch, and then pick the one
where he's smiling, and it's sending
exactly what I want, and really, I had one shot
with this analog photo. I really treat them
preciously, they're not free. when this was developed, a few weeks or few months later, I saw it and it really
took me aback and I appreciate it and
then I sent it over, curious about the reaction, and then they told me
what they told me. But I wanted to
show this also as an example because
I think what we can get really caught up on is I've talked about
perfectionism before, and getting a specific
final result of some kind. But the magic of documenting first approach is that you're not worried about
any final results. You're just capturing moments. You're just essentially
following your curiosities. This is an important
person for me, and so I wanted to take
a photo of this person. The result didn't matter, what mattered was that
I took the photo. Then came the surprise
a few weeks or few months later when
the film was developed. just wanted to start
with a little, share those two photos. You may or may not
find them beautiful. That I don t think
that's really the point, because beauty is
very subjective, and this might just
be a boring photo, or a photo that
really doesn't have very much meaning to you, and
that's fine, That's fair. You probably don't
know this person. But I think this is a
deeply personal experience, the process of
documenting your life. This feels like an
important piece in the puzzle of me figuring
out what's important to me, who are the people that
are important to me? How I want to spend my
time and I'm informed by the way that this image or the previous image
makes me feel.
3. Deciding What to Share: I guess from there, that was sort of the
intro that I had in mind. We can now dive into
some of the topics that we planned to talk about. Unless there are any questions, maybe in the chat directly
on that to riff off of. No big questions yet. Amanda says, I love that. Just follow your curiosities
and document first. Definitely helps you live in a moment and capture
real moments. I agree with that
and I love the way that it takes the pressure off a feeling like
I need to deliver or create a technically
good photograph. It's like no, just be curious
and be in the moment. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's really
important to differentiate, to get away from or around the word good
or great, or perfect. I don't think the goal should
be to do something that's good. I don't even
know what that means. It just feels like a
really difficult label to shoulder all the time. I think it's a lot
more interesting to look at things from like wow, I'm just curious about this. Let's see if there's something
I can discover from this or this is interesting to me, I'm going to document, I'm going to capture it
and then maybe later on I'll figure out why I
found it so interesting. Because life itself
is not always good. Rarely is that how the word
you would use to describe it. You get so much more variation. Yeah, absolutely. Cool. I think one of the other
topics that I wanted to talk about that we prepared ahead of time is one
question I got a lot I think in response to the
class and also just in general is what do I do
if my life is boring? I'm stuck inside all day or what have you or I just don't
do really exciting things. There's so many ways I think
to answer this question. Ultimately, I think one of
the things that I often offer is that obviously, the unique combination of your experiences
and your memories and your conversations
and where you're from, it can't be replicated. As I've said before, just
by virtue of existing, you have something
to offer the world, but I think there's an interesting element
to all of this that revolves around
this idea of belief. There has to be something
within you that believes, even though nobody else
is paying attention, nobody else cares when a first
curiosity might germinate. There's got to be
something within you that believes, wow, this is worth capturing, this is worth paying
attention to. Again, feel free to
ask any questions in the conversation because I sometimes can get quite
abstract with this. I want to make this as
concrete as possible. I'm happy to answer any
questions that pop up but one of the things
that I think helps contribute to
belief, if you will, to take a photo or to
write a blog post, or to make a film, or make a painting, draw what have you is space. It's this other
very abstract idea but oftentimes, I feel like to be able to share something with the world,
especially the Internet, which can be so overwhelming, it can be so many
people and it can feel so vulnerable
and raw because it's just so out there
and so permanent. I need space to do things
that are very, very private. Nobody's going to see, nobody's going to
know that I did this, I just need to do it for me. For example this photo. The photos that are shared are a great example because
ultimately everything starts as I'm just documenting
and I have no intention of sharing this with
anybody because I'm not worried
about it being good, I'm just not even
thinking about that. I'm just like, wow,
that is a beautiful x, y, and z, a beautiful mountain. I'm going to take
a photo of it and we'll figure it out later. Having that space, having
that kind of permission leads to all kinds of really wonderful surprises
that come later on. But it's a step that
you can't skip. What I've found too is that
when you start to create standards which have their own role
and their own purpose but when you create
some of these things, it can squeeze the space out. Then there's no more space to be experimental and you're just doing what you know works
and you can't fail. There's this fear of failure. One of the examples
that are often cite is the other channel that
I created on YouTube, which I think a lot of people
were very confused about, is like this is pretty similar to what you're already doing, but it doesn't matter. It
doesn't have to make sense. It just has to trick
my own brain in allowing me to do this idea
that I'm curious about, but I don't know how's going
to work, but whatever. I just need a low-stakes
environment to be able to do it. Well, I have a question
surfacing some from the chat. How do you know which experience if something you've documented is
meant to be shared? If you go in with this mindset, I'm just creating
this for myself. Yeah. Is it selective sharing or is there a certain motivation behind the pieces you do share? Yeah, those are great questions. All sharing when it comes to
the Internet is selective. If I shared every
photo that I took, I can't even imagine what
that would look like but basically, it's just not possible with
attention constraints. Also, I think
storytelling is very much about what you don't
say oftentimes. Now, I think to be
more specific on how I pick the moments that work for me using the two
examples that I shared, it really goes down to again, a feeling that I have these photos give me
a certain feeling. I look at the photo while
we're driving and I'm there and I want to share that
feeling with other people. It doesn't matter the
details or specifics, the exact composition,
what have you. It's just when I look at
the photo it makes me feel a certain way and I want to share that feeling
with other people. The other part, again is what I've
already mentioned before, but I'm happy to field as many questions
as possible because it is an abstract concept and I want to make this
clear and understandable. But it's this belief, it's
like this is worth sharing. There's going to be people
out there they're going to be like, okay, whatever, like I don't care or this isn't good
or what have you. Everybody really has
the right to have whatever opinion they have on whatever it is that I create. In a sense, when I
post something online, in a certain way, it's
no longer mine anymore. But there is that belief that this is worth sharing because
it means enough to me. I think it's helpful to divorce multiple different ideas that we have squished
together about this, for example, that it
will ever not be scary. I think it will always be scary. It will always be scary to share things that are
meaningful to you. The second you care about
something, it gets scary, but you don't have to put it out in the
world if you feel like it doesn't feel right. I think what matters is capturing based off
of curiosities. Then later on you can make
the decision on whether you want to share it
or not if that desire, that belief that this is worth sharing is bigger than the fear.
4. Building Reflective Routines: I wonder if you could
speak to a little bit, and this is a very broad thing. But never is not scary, if it's always scary, why is it worth it? Yeah. What's the flip side?
What do you get out of it when you do share
an image like that? I'm answering it myself,
but I'll let you. No. Yeah. No, totally. I mean, I think one of the things that really propels me forward
in doing this, in capturing these moments in the first place and
then sharing them which are two different mechanisms, two different systems, is that it is like a
accompanist for me. This is very personally
meaningful to me and that I like that
there are stakes. I like that it's
exciting in a way, because I'm afraid in a way. It's important to me to not feel too comfortable, I think because if it
is too comfortable, I feel like not a whole
lot is being said. But what I'm trying to say
here is that uncomfortable, scary, it doesn't have to
look a particular way. It doesn't have to be
like a really edgy photo or what have you. It could just be a personal
thing that you captured. But I think the fear is actually a good sign and I
think paying attention to that and following that
can help you develop your voice further in whatever outlet that
you're pursuing. In that way, and again, I don't want to entirely
make this something that has to be commercialized or that you
have to make money from, because I think there's
beauty in having a hobby of, I'm just going to
take photos and I'm not going to try and
make money from this. But going through the process of capturing things and then sharing them and
following those fears, can be a method to whether you want to or not
make it a career. Can be a method to hone in on your voice and figure out
what you actually care about. I feel strongly that if you
ask any artist out there, they've done this
intentionally or no. It was something
that they stumbled upon in some way or another. Again, it doesn't have to look like any
particular thing. It might not be photos at all. I guess I'll take a
quick little tangent here on journaling, so that we cover a couple of the other formats that
I covered in the class. But I'm not bullet
journaling anymore at all, and that isn't to say that
it's not a good thing to do. I did it for a long time
and it really helped me stay organized and get
clarity on certain things. But it's not a
journaling format, if you will, that
I enjoy anymore. That joy isn't sparked anymore and I no longer
do it and I think there's no harm in
changing methods and letting certain things go. I think what's important is that in the space of
bullet journaling, I fill that void with other methods that
feel meaningful to me, to still document
my life and capture where I'm at in a spiritual or an emotional
sense or what have you. But I didn't feel like
it was something that needed to continue and I
guess I mentioned that, because nobody can give
you the exact answer. If you go on YouTube, you can easily find hundreds, probably thousands of
tutorials and communities of millions of people doing
it and that can be great and it can be
a starting place to lead you to somewhere else. But it doesn't necessarily
have to be that way. So I wanted to touch on
that. I don't know if there are questions also on journaling and what not, but yeah. Yeah. One question here. Do you schedule a specific
time in the day to brain dump and maintain a
regular journaling routine? Or is it as things happen that you want to
remember you write them down? Yeah. When in the days when you
are journaling, maybe? I'll just like I'm going to grab something [inaudible] back here. What I've come to
discover about myself, is that I'm an incredibly, I think the reason why
I spent so much time thinking about
organizing my life and systems is that
I'm a really like, I want to use the
word floaty person. I'm really out there in my mind. I feel like if I don't impose
structure or I felt for a long time that if I didn't
impose a lot of structure, that I wouldn't be able
to get anything done. I think a lot of
that structure in more recent times
has loosened up. I impose a lot less structure. Not zero, I definitely
still need a certain basis of a decent sleep
schedule, for example. But I don't have a morning
routine anymore. I don't. A lot of things have gone
out the window and I'm fine. It turns out I'm fine. I have this. I think I showed
something like this on my last Skill Share live. But I think what I do, I think the way I want to
answer that question is, I just make sure there are tools and resources
very available wherever for whenever I need that kind of
support for clarity. But there isn't a time of day, there isn't an exact method. I just have my notepads for example and I love having
the ability when I'm feeling like confused
or overwhelmed to draw and write things out
and it goes through periods. There are certain
phases where this has a lot more important for
me and then other phases where I feel like I
just need to step back. I was just scribbling about, here is the perils of
the spiritual journey. This is a thing that I
was just doodling about where I feel like when you embark on the
spiritual journey, there's a period
I drew this here. This is not a completed idea, but I'm happy to share
this with you guys. I drew this up top
here where this is the starting point and this is where you think you're going or something within
you is leading you. But then there's this period
here and that's a period of intense
vulnerability inherent in the process of exploration during the spiritual journey where you're
particularly vulnerable. I haven't really pulled
my conclusions just yet. But that was something that was just bouncing around
and making a lot of noise in my
head and one day I just sat down and drew
this out and wrote it out, and it was just sitting
right next to me. I think that's how this works. It's if you think about it, we all know that you can't time when an idea will hit you, or when inspiration will hit. I'm not saying that
you shouldn't show up, it's important that you show up. But I think what I've
realized is that, I may have ideas
on a daily basis, but they're not going to hit
at 08:00 A.M. every day. So it doesn't make
a lot of sense for me to journal at
08:00 A.M. every day. Again, that's just my own
personal process though. I wouldn't even base this
off of the type of person. But this just might be the
point you are in life, where you just
feel like you need more structure or
less structure. So again, I felt like I got
a little tangent there, but I hope that answered. I think your methods in capturing your life
and documenting and organizing your
thoughts should be a reflection of where
you are at in life. The more compassion
that you're willing to offer yourself.
This is a hard thing. I mean, I really struggled
with this myself too, letting go of old ideas
I had about myself. The more compassionate
you're able to bring to wherever you're at in life, I think the better you're
going to be able to fine tune your methods to documenting whatever it is that
you're experiencing. That's really scary. It's
been so scary this year. Letting go of these
ideas I had about myself of being productive or organized or structured
and it's funny. I mean, it was scary to let
go of some of these ideas. But doing that has allowed
me to have a lot more space, and feel just so much more
open to new ideas and just be, I guess, view things with a different angle
that there's sometimes it's just exactly what you need to just approach things
a little bit differently. So yeah. I hope that all made sense.
5. Dealing With Distraction: I saw a really great question, I'd love to answer, Vitaly. Which is, don't you feel
like documentation can take a lot of time and
distract you from real life? I can give a really philosophical
answer to this. Which I'm like
battling with right now and then I'll give
a more concrete answer. The first is that,
what is real life? At the end of the day, we're always talking about this, and I'm not trying
to make a joke, a parody of myself here, but we talked about
distractions a lot. I talk about distraction a lot, but ultimately anything
can be a distraction. In that case, what
is real life like? What are we trying to escape and what are we
trying to go towards? I think those are
better questions. We're not escape. What
am I trying to move away from and what am I
trying to move towards? What I have found
personally, and this again, is just a personal decision
I've made for myself. Is that documentation is a
really good use of my time. Like that's a big
piece of what I want my real life to be about. Because people have, can have a very negative
idea of nostalgia. I get it, I don't want
to be stuck in the past, I don't want to be locked into what was or what
could have been. That's not what this is about. I think it's, I'm interested in capturing and
telling stories from my experiences and it has invisible effect of adding richness to how I see
the world afterwards. It' like, I don't know if everybody here has been to a foreign country,
I would imagine. Maybe an even better example is like going to another city. Let's say you've never
been to a foreign country. Once you've been to the city, you can't not know what it
was like to be in that city. Like you can't go back to only knowing what it was like
to be in your home town. For me so that I don't lose a lot of these insights or experiences or feelings that I have
in the, all these places. Because life is
short and it's long, at the same time, so
many things can happen. I feel like documenting
these moments, if I don't do that, I lose a lot of it. Now I'm finding, I look back on something that happened
four years ago, a city, let's say
that I went to, I can relive some of those
moments where I showed them publicly or not in a way that if I was present in capturing those
moments is meaningful to me. For me, that's real life, or a big part of real life in this vehicle that
is the human body. But I think it's an interesting
question to ask yourself because I do talk a lot about distractions
and I don't want it, I don't want to
live a distracted life or I don't want to spend all my time in not presently. I want to live as presently
as possible in other words, and figuring that out
isn't always clear, so I'm not pretending to
have the exact answer. All I'm saying is
that at some level, some element of it is a personal decision that you
make on what matters to you.
6. Q&A: I've just had gone
through a day or for me in New York, I have
a whole day ahead, what should I be
looking out for? What should be my
sensor that, oh, this is something that
maybe bears documentation? Is it things that bring up an emotional response or
how do you feel that out? One thing that I feel I'm sounding a little bit
like a broken record on, but I think it's really
important is that, oftentimes, it just requires a little nudge, a little like, you just
need a little prompt. You need a little
angle of some kind. Like I'm going to capture
a moment from today, what is that angle? It's not just everything
that I'm doing. You're not capturing
24 hours of your day. It's how do I feel today? Or what am I thinking
about today? Or what did I run into today? What was the surprise
that took me aback? What was the perspective shift? It can be anything, but
literally any prompt, there is no wrong prompt. Any prompt can help
spark that process and get the ball rolling,
and the whole point is that leads to places
that you don't even know. I see intuition in
the chat box, yeah, but intuition,
again, intuition can feel like a scary thing. Like I feel you can
overthink that one even. What is my inner voice
telling you right now? Sometimes, it's not clear. You just have to
start somewhere. I hope that provides a
little bit of clarity. Yeah. Again, something that I
talk about in the class, but I'm also just
always feel talking about is lowering the friction. How can you make this easier
and simpler to get going? Does it take you a minute to pull out your camera and shoot? Can you turn that
into five seconds? I have a camera right here,
I can capture the moment. That took me, not
even three seconds. If it is this
really complicated, difficult thing that
you're struggling with and you're also
trying to develop the practice of
building the habit of resorting to a camera or a
sketch book or what have you, the weight of that
friction can be too much so simplifying, simple. I like that. Maybe it's even, if one day you hope to use your DSLR or your film camera
to capture these moments, start with your iPhone so
you can get the rhythm. Yeah, absolutely. We have a bunch of
questions about workflow. We'll start with the really
scary one, file organization, but really, there's a question, have you ever lost documented media and how
did you deal with it? This person just
lost three years of photos last year when they
thought it was backed up, which is, we've all been there and God, is that heartbreaking. That's awful. For whoever said that, I feel horribly for you. I'm very sorry.
But you know what? Did sucks. That really sucks. If there's any way I can
turn that into a positive, it is that maybe that loss can show you how
important that was for you and now you have
the entire rest of your life to continue
capturing moments, but this time back them up. Have you ever had a similar? How have you dealt with that situation if
you've been in it? Yeah, I have. I definitely have lost. I've been very careful to back up as much of
my stuff as I can, but for the record, I used to work on a lot
of film sets and there have been situations
where we lose everything we shot the entire
morning and it's just, oh my God. [LAUGHTER] In those cases, I was happy to be wherever I
was a production assistant, I don't have any responsibility
to bear, so I'm okay, but it's just awful. It's really awful. I lost when I was just
starting to make videos. It had to be the second video ever that I wanted to make, I filmed an experience
that I had. Then I took the SD card and
put it in the SD card reader. The SD card reader was super faulty or
something, and completely destroyed [LAUGHTER]
the card and scratched all the metal reading points so I lost everything on that. Obviously, at the very
beginning of my career, I'm just, okay, it's all over. I have nothing left to give. Obviously, that
was not the case, but I get how awful
that can feel. I don't have a perfect
answer to offer you. I mentioned Google Photos
for backing up all photos. There's, of course, data
privacy issues that I'm not going to be gloss over. I'm doing it, but I also share my life on the
Internet and I don't know what the full
repercussions of that are. Don't use me as an example
in every situation but yeah, this is an
opportunity to start now. To start, you can make
a video or anything, you can make on anything. It could be a drawing, it could be a photo, whatever, about how this you're
starting fresh now with a clean slate. It's cool, actually.
I don't know. I'm trying to turn this
into a positive situation. I can understand how awful
that must have felt. I like the idea
of a clean slate. That is something at least. Hopefully, whether files
have disappeared or not. At a certain point when you're
doing something like this, you end up with so many, be it via photos or note books, or videos, how do you
organize those things if you do so that
you can go back and find what you're
looking for later? Totally fair point. One point I just want to add
on that though, is that scarcity, in a sense. It's just something to
think about as you go about capturing your life in
whatever way that you do. Scarcity does contribute in many ways to the
value of something. Let's say, you take 10
photos on July 20th, 2021 or I guess, that
was three days ago. Let's say, you took 10
photos versus 10,000 photos. Those 10 photos, it
doesn't work linearly. Those 10 photos could
have more meaning for you than all 10,000 of the
other ones combined. That's something to
think about and I think, as you hone in on what you care about or what you
enjoy documenting, the process of organizing can actually
counter-intuitively become easier because you're not
just blindly capturing. I mean I have systems
that work for me, but I wouldn't say, I'm
the ultimate in that. I don't know. I guess, it depends on what it
is that I'm organizing. If it comes to like with video, it's separated by month and
year and within the month, I name the activity or
the place that I was in and I place things there. I separate by camera and with photography, I organize
everything in Lightroom. I feel maybe I included
this in my class, but there's a great tutorial
by Joe Alum, who's awesome. I'm going to see if I
can link it in the chat. He walks through his entire import
process and everything. I think, if you
look up Lightroom Editing Tutorial, Joe Alum, you'll find it and that's
fantastic for photo. But in terms of
journaling and whatnot, I mentioned some of the basics
of just date everything, please and have a space
where everything can end up. Maybe you have a bucket of journals or a box or something where
everything can end up. Because when it
comes to journaling, I'm not as worried about
having everything organized. I feel once I captured on paper, I'm less afraid of
losing that idea. What matters is that
I got it out and that I visualized it
somehow and I might stumble upon it again unless I'm going through my
journals later on or it might just resurface
in some other form, further iteration in the future. I'm not super worried about that but I think one thing that's also important
to mention is that when it comes
to documenting, make sure this doesn't
encroach in your workspace. Make sure wherever it is
that these things end up. If it's messy or if you're
very, very organized. Make sure that it's not just all over your
desktop, for example, or that it's not completely clogging
up your Google drive, or wherever it is that
you do your work. Separating those two
helps tremendously because I think then you
can really get lost. I hope that answers
that question. I can go more into specifics if there's
more specific questions. My personal method on this hopefully, this provides a
little bit more clarity. I feel like a time or a place
is organized in my head once I've created
something about it. Let's say the trip to Iceland, I still have a pending, I haven't done a story
about that just yet. For me personally, I feel like once I have told
the story about that place, I have effectively captured and organize my thoughts and memories and feelings
of that place. I no longer worried
about what exactly the video files end up
if that makes sense. I hope that provides a
little bit of clarity because I don't like going crazy organizing every last file forever because I would spend
all my time doing that. That makes a lot of
sense. Excuse my siren in the background. [LAUGHTER] No worries at all. Could you talk a
little bit about your process when
you are shooting film of going from
negative to files, to using them in a
video or posting. It's actually remarkably
simple and if I can just once again
reiterate how much easier this actually
ends up being that I once thought, I would like to. That was a really messy
sentence right there. The process for me is
I go to a film shop. I have my film cameras, I'll
grab them really quick. Love all the visuals. Those bookshelves are
earning their heap. I have three film cameras. One of these costs
more than like $150. I don't think I
think this was like probably $200 with the lens. This is the Canon AE1. I've shared this before. It's also in the class. This is the Nikon L35 AF
autofocus and everything. It helps with exposure, it makes it really,
really simple. This one is the Olympics XA. The process for me is, I have one of these cameras. This one cost me $80 or
something like that. I go to the film shop,
I get a film role. I loaded up, there's
tutorials on the Internet. I take the photos. You have 36 and a typical role for these. Then once it's done, remove
the film from my camera, take it to the film shop, and they develop it for me. They send me the files
digitally via WeTransfer, and they can also print them out for me
for an extra cost, but that whole process allows me to just
have this in a film. I don't need to worry
about dark room. I would love to explore
that in the future, but just from a
practicality standpoint, let's say you're traveling
or what have you. It makes it really easy. There are film shops all over the world still, thankfully. I feel like I answered
the question. Fernandez as a disposable camera is great too. That's so true. Yes. Absolutely.
You can't go wrong. There's no wrong answer. It could be a Polaroid, it could be anything. Whatever it is that
you choose that feels important to
you and valuable. Great. Go for it. Use that to capture
your experiences. Love it. Have time for just
a couple more questions. There are so many good ones, so we'll just have to make this will bring you back
for another live. There's so much to dig into but a question here. Could you tell us about
maybe the low points in your creative journey and what mindset shifts helped
you move forward. This person is saying, I constantly find myself on a creative motivation
roller coaster, overthinking ideas and
giving up on them. I can absolutely
talk on that. I just want to answer
really fast though. A film shop that
sends out digital where says TJ Maxx to my email. I give them my email, they will WeTransfer
me the files. Then I basically download a zip file and
then I open it up. Again, it's quite simple but if you're saying
it feels like nowhere does that in my city, I don't know what
city you're in. If you're in a small town,
there might not be one, but any medium to large sized city for
sure has a film shop. I got my last film rolls
developed in Reykjavik, which is a town of 100,000
people. It's very small. To answer that great question. I don't know if it's helpful, but I would like to share that I still go through
that roller coaster. I don't think that ever ends. I still find myself over
complicating things or going in a direction
that doesn't make sense, losing my way, if you will, and then finding my way again
and then losing my way. It's a never ending process. I think the pursuit for simplicity is a good one
to re-center your focus. If you find yourself
feeling overwhelmed or stressed out or confused, or what have you. Triangles simpler, seriously. I think it's really helpful to, sometimes when you're
really in your head, just take action in any way. You possibly can. If
it's possible for you to go outside with your camera and just
snap a few photos, even if it has nothing
to do with the project that you're working on, Or what have you. That can be enough to spark something within you
that can lead to the solution that can ultimately result in
a successful project. That's the answer
that I would give but again, I really
want to repeat that it's a never-ending thing. Especially if you're
always looking to evolve and grow as an
artist or as a person. Whenever you find something
that you're comfortable with, like you're not going to
be able to stick with it. You're going to have to
be on to the next thing. There's always going to be
this negotiation between what works and what you
know, what feels right. Then the unknown
and testing things out and figuring it out
if it makes sense or not. Wonderful. Just time for
two final questions. The last, any final
thoughts for students like what can we do
today or this week? Any final thoughts for going forth to document
with intention? That's a great question. I
like that. I don't know. I was just thinking
about this today. We we were always living in such a crazy time actually and we
didn't realize it, or maybe you realize
that, I don't know, but I didn't really realize it. I'm just realizing
it more and more. There was a time,
not that long ago where you could just go somewhere without any checks, any tests, anything
and just be there. It's weird. It's hard
for me to imagine that. I mentioned that because
I'm just like, wow. I wonder where we go from here. If the world is going to
continue like it is right now. If it's going to
go back to four, if it's going to
be this new thing. There's just so much opportunity to capture what's going on. We've never seen this before. This is a golden opportunity. All of the emotion,
all the politics, all the perspectives, all the things people are
saying on the Internet, all the things people
are saying in real life. There's so much room
there to tell stories, to capture moments, it all goes. There's no wrong answer. I don't know. I think just
remembering wherever you can. I need these reminders from my friends and from
other people in my life. Just to be curious, just go back to that baseline wherever possible we
can feel stressful, it can feel scary,
can feel exciting, feel good, you feel bad, but just be curious
about all of it. That is something I'm trying to continue to do it
because I'm realizing like, I can't plan out my future. I don't know how things
are going to evolve. If I'm going to be able
to stay here or go there or what have you. All of that. Everything is actually an
opportunity for documentation, and for capturing
something and making something of your experiences. I guess I would just
leave it at that. I also, I don't know if I'll be ending this right now or
because I was going to say, thank you to everybody for
tuning in and listening to me babble for this last hour, I guess, it means a lot. I hope it felt like I answered your questions
about being too abstract. I want this to feel concrete. It says concrete as
literally picking something up and hitting the trigger. Those are my thoughts. I'll
just leave it on that. [LAUGHTER]
7. Final Thoughts: The final note here, I would just say that
the point here is not to get caught up on
what is good and not good, being perfectionistic. I think that is a recipe for disaster and getting
stuck in your own head. I think what matters the most is paying attention
to your curiosities, following those
impulses, hey man, I'm interested in that. What is that? Or where can that
take me? And letting that lead you and pushing off the judgment for
later and letting that be something that comes later on. Just enjoy the process and explore, what you cares about.
Nathaniel Drew, Online Content Creator
