August 29, 2024 • 20 mins
Welcome to the Content Combo Podcast, presented by Casual Films. Tune in every Friday to hear from our team of experts about how to deliver effective video content that drives results, every time, without fail. And now it's over to our hosts.
Welcome to the Content Combo Podcast, Episode 6. I'm your host, Thomas Elliott, and making up the combo this week are editors Ansh Grey, Joey Kan, and filmmaker of filmmakers, Richie Fowler. In this week's episode, we are going to be discussing where to find inspiration for your videos.
Our experts dive deep into their personal sources of inspiration, ranging from everyday interactions and conversations to classic movies, music videos, and even art. Richie shares his unique perspective on drawing ideas from taxi driver conversations, while Ansh talks about the influence of iconic advertisements and sci-fi movies.
The discussion also covers the importance of not solely relying on other video content for ideas, as it can stifle originality. Instead, the team recommends looking to other mediums like photography, paintings, and even fairy tales for fresh perspectives. Thomas emphasizes the value of simplicity in storytelling, comparing it to the elegance of a well-told fairy tale.
For those interested in cinematography, the team suggests studying the works of renowned filmmakers and exploring the visual storytelling techniques used in different art forms. Additionally, they highlight the importance of sound design and how it can significantly impact the emotional resonance of a video.
As the episode wraps up, the hosts offer practical tips for keeping your creative juices flowing, such as maintaining a notebook or using apps to jot down ideas, and being open to new and different styles of storytelling.
Thank you for joining us on this edition of the Content Combo Podcast. Don't forget to tune in every Friday for more insights, and follow us on LinkedIn or via the Casual Films website.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to the Content Combo Podcast, presented by Casual Films.
Tune in every Friday so you can hear from our team of experts about how to deliver
effective video content that drives results, every time, without fail.
And now it's over to our hosts.
Welcome to the Content Combo Podcast, Episode 6. I'm your host,
(00:24):
Thomas Elliott, and making up the combo this week are editors Ansh Gray, Hello. Joey Khan.
Hey. And filmmaker of filmmakers, Richie Fowler.
Hi there. In this week's episode, we are going to be discussing where do you
find inspiration for your videos?
So that could be a wide ranging kind of topic for many of us,
but why don't we just jump in and I'm going to throw that question out to the
combo and say, where do you guys typically find inspiration for the kind of
(00:48):
videos and work that you do?
Can I say like the most cliched of ever responses first, just so we get it out of the way.
You can find inspiration anywhere in the world for anything.
I feel like you should bring out a self-help book. Yeah, yeah.
It's coming out soon. $5.99 on Amazon.
That was so deep. Yeah, seriously, though. But it is true.
(01:12):
Like, I often find odd inspiration in places where I don't expect to find inspiration.
Often, you know, there are things where we might be in a meeting and I just remember some
random thing that I was at or that I saw or and i go oh
that might be really great for this video and i think part
of that in a way without this sounding like a self-help book is the
idea of opening yourself up to things
(01:32):
that you see and hear no matter what they are
could be inspiration for your video you might just see something.
And if you file it away it may become useful you
never know or not right i was gonna say
something actually along the same line is you can find
inspiration from all sorts of things everyday interactions
to you know seeing a cool painting or cool
(01:53):
technique that someone's used and then trying to
either replicate that or say if it's a technique taking it
and then bringing it into your own project or whatever story you
want to tell if it's like an interaction or something like i
find that i have a lot of uh really interesting stories just
from talking with taxi drivers and people yeah so that's
i mean people kind of inspire me i think in a way and resonating
(02:15):
with them i would not be surprised at all that you
find inspiration from taxi driver other conversations that that
seems very very on brand for you richard um
you know i mean i i'll tell you the one place i don't often
find inspiration is just in other videos made about
content that's actually where i try and stick away from ideas because
i i do feel like if all you're doing is looking at other
(02:36):
people's videos and going oh god in that great couldn't i do that you're less
likely to have a great original idea yourself and so visually i get a lot of
ideas from movies and television and short films and music videos photography
bus signs how about you how about you arch.
Yeah same for me it's uh movies and it's mostly
(02:57):
movies and ads that have been released and especially like later
i remember there was an ad that apple released this is called this is epic i
think it was an iphone 7 or 6 launch but the way how the ad was made was just
wow it was like epic it had like emojis in there and it was like quick easy
going but it was like quite an interesting ad there's a lot of dynamic slippers
and that pushed me to like make videos like that as well also like
(03:19):
yeah it comes from movies like sci-fi movies actually even
even there's that website eye candy which has
like a compendium of like different effects and different techniques just scrolling
through it and seeing how to use a story cam you have it there sort of referenced
and in many different projects i think that's pretty cool to see because i think
it shows you how it can be done or how it can be used and i still feel like
(03:42):
fundamentally you know even though stories there
are sort of like themes and topics and sort of structure that are similar throughout.
I feel like everyone has their unique point of view. So no matter if you're
telling a story about a mom or dad, the way you film it, the way you express
it and portray it, it's actually very different for each person because everyone
comes in with a slightly different cocktail of experiences,
(04:03):
that they can draw from and, you know, tell the story from.
The amount of times people have told me the inspiration for this film was like
Wes Anderson. And you look at the film and go, really?
Like i would that would have been like the last thing that i've
gotten from what you've made say where anderson yeah because
it but it's true because it's like you you interpret that
(04:23):
influence in your own way i'm the worst for it because on
shoots i will often describe shots from other filmmakers
for when i want things you know i want i want a spielberg push
in or i want a sergio leone close-up and
you know and cinematographers have to understand what i'm being by
that but it is a visual language of talking where i'm
like i want this to be a really tight close up i want it to be like clint
eastwood out in the desert staring at eli wallach
(04:46):
that's what i want from this shot or i want perfect symmetrical
kubrickian structure in cinematography
and lines or i want this to be david fincher and
it's all about the rule of thirds and meticulously sticking
to that if you looked at my work nobody would see any of that i i
see it so sort of but even then after the fact once
it's been edited i've probably forgotten about me going oh this
(05:08):
is the spielberg push-in or this is that yeah i mean
i think the other into when you talk about references like i think often people
forget that a lot of big film directors have made
other content outside of film and television and
sometimes that's a really great space to go to you.
Know i've often looked back at the music videos that david fincher has
done or the work that spike jones has
(05:28):
done in other formats or even sophia coppola's brand
films or bits and pieces that she's done for dior the fact
that you know sometimes we could all have this very big
inspiration of oh i went out on friday night and
saw the latest ridley scott film and i i want my my next
piece of content to look like that but that's sometimes not a
realistic expectation when your budget is a couple
(05:49):
hundred thousand hong kong dollars sometimes going and seeing what those people
did in other mediums where they've actually had to they had to work for it you
know um music videos is great because music videos are often sort of piece of
string filmmaking and you you kind of see really inventive techniques and go
oh okay and they're over pretty fast too so you can watch a whole lot of them in a short amount of time,
Speaking of music videos, I remember when I was like a teenager,
(06:11):
there was a, I think my brother got like a DVD collection of like Michel Gondry.
I have that, I have that DVD collection. Yeah. You know what you were trying
to talk about? Yeah, Spike Jonze, all the Radiohead music videos on it. Yeah.
Anton Corbin. Yeah. Yeah. Super cool. I also find I'm often inspired,
particularly from a cinematography standpoint, actually from art rather than
(06:34):
photography or other things.
I think if you really want to learn about visual storytelling,
go to the National Gallery, you know, go and stand in front of a whole bunch
of paintings and look at the way that Vermeer saw the world or the way that
Rembrandt saw the world back in the day.
Because you look at the lighting, particularly from the sort of Rembrandt era,
and you look at the kind of chiaroscuro and you look at it and go,
(06:54):
it hasn't really gotten better since then.
That is sort of your modern source lit cinematography in one place.
There is a YouTube channel that I used to watch a lot called Every Frame a Painting.
I don't know if you guys heard of it. Ah, yeah.
But that also kind of like breaks down a lot of these like films and kind of
like shows like how like meticulously built piece all each setup is and brings
(07:17):
that kind of idea forward towards the modern day. What about for editing?
Where do you find inspiration for stuff? Where do you pick stuff up from?
Sometimes I like watch movies and I turn the visuals off.
Actually and just listen to the sound and it's coming from like
video games or like radio shows even and just like thinking
of how sounds different when uh
(07:39):
you know people are applying different effects to it and how that also affects
the storytelling i think because yeah sound is very underrated or overrated
i forgot i would say it's underrated people always talk about the visuals first
yes but it's underrated for sure when i say people i mean filmmakers and content
Content makers always talk about the visuals first.
I do find often brands talk about the voiceover or the narrative story first.
(08:04):
And then once they hook into the visuals, they talk about the visuals.
But content makers always talk about the visuals first because they're trying
to paint a visual story. You should never underestimate sound.
I mean, sound is, it's more than 50% of the film.
If you watch a film like Star Wars without the sound, it's nothing.
Yeah any horror film without the sound it's nothing yeah
(08:24):
i digress a bit but even like watching the
expats i think i watched the first episode overall the
story was so so but i think i
think actually the sound design and everything else like camera work
sound design was actually pretty tight they really kind of
saved that show with with a lot of these things um i
haven't finished watching it but they don't save the show sorry we'll
(08:47):
edit this out sorry nicole commit you you're scary
i'm not going to apologize i feel it's like
you know it was good but it was sort of
like seven hours of misery that sort of didn't really go anywhere
at the end yeah no one no one's likable in it no one's like
it's true it's all the biggest inspirations that
actually i got before i even went to film school i grew
up always playing games and it was
(09:09):
fun because you know like some games are great for like just playing some
games have really good storytelling some games have really really good
visuals you know so when i was in hong kong when i first this game
over here alone here and it was really there so i started playing games
and there was this one game that a friend of mine lended me.
So the game is called the last of us and that game
pushed me into like doing screenwriting yeah so
(09:31):
it was like a big inspirational thing for me and then after that i was like.
Wow these character designs are stunning creepy beyond.
Creep and the sound design of each of those.
Clickers which is all the characters there are amazing you
know like i was like wow this is made in such a proper way and
therefore i want to like go down this path filmmaking in the
future and then boom you know i do think also the more
(09:51):
you open yourself up to inspiration in different forms the
more you can see things like that we see things that are beautiful i
mean because we all went and saw alien romulus recently and i
sort of went back and re-watched some documentaries on the
making of the alien films on apple tv it was really
interesting when you talk about giga and the design of the alien
and dan o'bannon kind of discovering that really
(10:12):
early and thinking wow this is it we don't need to
invent anything this is it right and then him showing
that book to ridley scott and ridley scott looking at it going yes we don't
need to design the alien this is the alien this is
what it's going to look like and showing it to a studio who were like oh but
it's it's so disturbing and ugly and and but
having people go but can't you see the beauty in it as well
(10:33):
like it's like the design of the sort of xenomorph in
a way like the simplicity of that design is just beautiful and
the whole world that they build with the eggs and the face
hugger and everything like it's grotesque but it's also so beautiful and it's designed
seeing where that inspiration came from and and seeing the
kind of you know again you kind of go to a very particular artist
who designs because the design of you know that comes from his necronomicon
(10:56):
artwork and if you've actually gone back and ever had a look at the giga artwork
it's beautiful like it's really scary and you look at the use of light in it
and the use of composition and you go wow that influenced that film.
Massively right you know there's no denying his
fingerprints are over the entire film it's funny my my brother
(11:16):
he was a huge geiger fan for his
art project when he was 18 he built a full room like an
alien room and built a full-sized like sculpture of the
alien so i was lucky to kind of be a bit
entranced by a lot of these kind of like dark slash beautiful images
but yeah no i totally agree the lighting in
it the shading the composition and he plays a lot
(11:36):
with like symmetry tree and things so i think that that's really as
concept art you know you see ai concept art that kind of
looks like that as well but his was all imagination which is
insane yeah i mean i i even sometimes from a story point of view we still sound
weird considering all of the films that we make but i i get influenced by fairy
tales and simple kind of narrative concepts where you look at them and go i
(11:59):
really want this story to be have so much clarity and simplicity that because
Because there's so much going on in the average fairy tale.
Like if you read it, it's a really simple story that a child can understand.
And the themes of good and evil, they're very clear in the story.
But also there's a whole bunch of depth and layers going on there.
And also when you combine a fairy tale in a sort of graphic novel,
visual kind of connection, you're able to kind of make these other connections
(12:22):
with the story. It becomes even deeper.
But I often, when I'm writing things, sit there and go, how can we just strip
away the layers of this and make it simpler and simpler and simpler?
And often I will go back and have a read of a grim fairy tale or something else.
I just sit there and go, how can I make this story as simple as that?
Because that is elegant. That's really simple. It's not complicated.
Anybody can understand it. It has universal human elements that we can all relate
(12:45):
to that are almost primeval.
You know, David Mamet tells this thing in one of his books.
About how in a way dialogue or
scenes in films should be like a good dirty joke they're just
like simple they're easy to tell you kind of get to the punchline
quickly and you move on and i agree with that too you know and
that's that's been an inspiration for me since i read that book in
film school many many many moons ago yeah
(13:08):
don't don't linger on joke for too long whatever you
call what's that saying don't beat a dead horse or something like that
don't don't of flogging their doors yeah something like that something
like that flog beat yeah turning to glue books is
another great place like for me i grew up on an island where
filmmaking was not considered a profession you
could realistically have for a job so for me early on
(13:29):
you know i would go and see movies i would watch videos dvd
didn't exist yet or streaming and uh i would
i would get books from libraries on like filmmaking and i
studied all those sort of very nerdily books about
like the making of the return of the jedi and it
would be sort of like the art department of how they built the practical special
(13:49):
effects or how they did things like that i read the five c's
of cinematography which was sort of like the key book on lighting and
camera work that if you haven't read you haven't lived uh story by robin mckee
all those sorts of books or and even just biographies on directors i used to
find quite inspiring that you would kind of read and particularly if you grew
up in a situation where you didn't know because you know online video didn't
(14:10):
exist yet and you know I mean, in that marketplace, nobody really did TV commercials.
So you kind of look at things and go, how possible is doing that?
Even if you consider the story of Spielberg, a guy who grew up in Arizona.
Parents got divorced, started making short films on Super 8,
kind of grew that and grew that and grew that, realized that there were things,
made films, walked his way to Universal.
You could kind of, those stories were inspiring at a different level to kind
(14:31):
of become a storyteller and to kind of make films.
So inspiration is everywhere if you choose to say it. As cheesy as it sounds.
As cheesy as it sounds. It's actually true. We should make tea towels or something.
Tea towels inspiration is everywhere casual actually talking
about inspiration i shared with you guys this other podcast by roger
deakins i've actually found it very inspiring as
a filmmaker it's nice to listen to say
(14:55):
ethan hawke or you know some some famous dp or
someone like that how they could go through their process and how
they find inspiration and how that kind of
it affects makes them produce the work they want to produce well
i think in a way that's sort of of replaced the the director's
commentary right which used to be a sort of thing when you were growing up
that used to be on and sit there and listen to some really
(15:15):
good audio commentaries and some really terrible audio commentaries
which i think also taught you very early on there are people who are really
great at explaining their process and how they work and then there are people who
are not i think podcasts are a great way of
doing that and even when you listen to those stories sometimes because at
the end like in the way that we work people only see the
end result they see the the film with the project like oh it's amazing
(15:35):
they have no concept whatsoever about
what you went through how many iterations how it
almost ended up being something completely different how you you know your sets
were destroyed or i mean i always almost like once a year i watch that hearts
of darkness documentary about the making of apocalypse now because i find that
really inspiring like it is it is a horrific documentary for a filmmaker in
(15:59):
a lot of ways is because you sit there and go,
wow, the guy mortgaged his house five or six times, the set blew down,
he fired three and acted two weeks into filming, Martin Sheen had a heart attack.
And I sit there and go, I've had tough days on shoots. I've never had Heart
of Darkness kind of like, wow, that's inspiring to me.
I also find that Terry Gilliam, those two documentaries, Lost in La Mancha and
(16:19):
He Who Dreams of Giants quite inspiring because Lost in La Mancha is a documentary
about a film that never gets made at the time.
And that's really interesting for anybody who's ever gone through a creative
process to kind of sit there and watch a creative process on a massive scale
collapsing and not happening.
And then He Heed, Dream to Giants was interesting because it was sort of going
(16:39):
back and looking at a creative process that is revisited years later and now
means something completely different to the filmmaker and is not sort of what he envisaged before.
It is now this sort of reimagined version of how he can make something on a
budget in a timeframe and get it made.
And that, as a storyteller, is quite inspiring because you kind of sit there
and go, well, you know, often we create stories that don't go anywhere.
(17:01):
Pitch work is essentially, if the pitch isn't picked up, that is creating work
that goes, you know, and often in a pitch, you might have three or four concepts.
One of them gets picked, but the other concepts might be great. They don't go anywhere.
So kind of seeing the idea of concepts you can reuse that can become valuable,
that you can recycle later is inspiring.
I mean, I've certainly recycled ideas and concepts that people have not picked
(17:21):
up and reutilized them or reworked them or...
Done something else cool great to have a good memory
of that well it's the one thing i have
i guess to kind of wrap things up on this episode any final
tips on inspiration or places people
should go to to find great winning ideas for their videos just keep an open
mind don't lock yourself in your room all day long try to see something new
(17:46):
every day if possible i think go out if you're a filmmaker go out and just get
inspiration from where you're shooting and if If you're in-house,
then you have to start watching films.
How about you, Richard? Any final words? I guess something similar, like keep an open mind.
You know, you'll never know what interaction or where you will be.
(18:09):
And suddenly, sometimes inspiration just hits you. So maybe keep a notebook
close by so you can write it down.
Very good advice. A notebook or even just using the voice recorder app on your phone is quite useful.
I mean, I think, again, it's if you want to get into visual storytelling or
storytelling in any way, shape or form is collecting ways of keeping that inspiration.
(18:30):
Pinterest boards is a good way of doing that, where you can pin a whole bunch
of visual things and collate them in a way that's meaningful to you.
I often recall or write down bits of conversation that I might hear that I go,
oh, I don't know where I will ever use that, but I'll write it down in case
it becomes useful later.
All of those are great processes to get into to keep
your inspiration flowing and also be inspired by others and
(18:51):
challenge your inspiration too i think a lot of people can get
very set at i like this kind of design or i
like this kind of editing or i like this kind of cinematography
but also being open to seeing stuff that's
different and going i've never done that
maybe that's something i could do it's quite cool too my
most favorite app right now is the is the notes app on the
(19:12):
iphone is this like you quickly open it up whatever idea
you have just write it on down on that even if you might not use it
because you won't have any intention to use it but you might get some inspiration
as we just scroll through your notes as well and even
even revisiting them as well the idea might have meant
as thomas mentioned earlier with the documentary the idea might
it may have meant something different when you first came up
(19:32):
with it and then now when you look back on it and reflect on here
like actually i can see how this fits in through this story more or or through
that story or in this project thank you very much everybody thanks for joining
us on this edition of the content combo podcast as always i'm your host thomas
elliott and thanks again to the combo arch gray joey khan and and filmmaker
Richie Fowler for the contributions to our show.
(19:53):
Please do tune in every Friday for more of the Content Combo,
and don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn or via the Casual Films website.
Music.
Welcome to the Content Combo Podcast, presented by Casual Films.
Tune in every Friday so you can hear from our team of experts about how to deliver
effective video content that drives results, every time, without fail.
And now it's over to our hosts.
Welcome to the Content Combo Podcast, Episode 6. I'm your host,
(00:24):
Thomas Elliott, and making up the combo this week are editors Ansh Gray, Hello. Joey Khan.
Hey. And filmmaker of filmmakers, Richie Fowler.
Hi there. In this week's episode, we are going to be discussing where do you
find inspiration for your videos?
So that could be a wide ranging kind of topic for many of us,
but why don't we just jump in and I'm going to throw that question out to the
combo and say, where do you guys typically find inspiration for the kind of
(00:48):
videos and work that you do?
Can I say like the most cliched of ever responses first, just so we get it out of the way.
You can find inspiration anywhere in the world for anything.
I feel like you should bring out a self-help book. Yeah, yeah.
It's coming out soon. $5.99 on Amazon.
That was so deep. Yeah, seriously, though. But it is true.
(01:12):
Like, I often find odd inspiration in places where I don't expect to find inspiration.
Often, you know, there are things where we might be in a meeting and I just remember some
random thing that I was at or that I saw or and i go oh
that might be really great for this video and i think part
of that in a way without this sounding like a self-help book is the
idea of opening yourself up to things
(01:32):
that you see and hear no matter what they are
could be inspiration for your video you might just see something.
And if you file it away it may become useful you
never know or not right i was gonna say
something actually along the same line is you can find
inspiration from all sorts of things everyday interactions
to you know seeing a cool painting or cool
(01:53):
technique that someone's used and then trying to
either replicate that or say if it's a technique taking it
and then bringing it into your own project or whatever story you
want to tell if it's like an interaction or something like i
find that i have a lot of uh really interesting stories just
from talking with taxi drivers and people yeah so that's
i mean people kind of inspire me i think in a way and resonating
(02:15):
with them i would not be surprised at all that you
find inspiration from taxi driver other conversations that that
seems very very on brand for you richard um
you know i mean i i'll tell you the one place i don't often
find inspiration is just in other videos made about
content that's actually where i try and stick away from ideas because
i i do feel like if all you're doing is looking at other
(02:36):
people's videos and going oh god in that great couldn't i do that you're less
likely to have a great original idea yourself and so visually i get a lot of
ideas from movies and television and short films and music videos photography
bus signs how about you how about you arch.
Yeah same for me it's uh movies and it's mostly
(02:57):
movies and ads that have been released and especially like later
i remember there was an ad that apple released this is called this is epic i
think it was an iphone 7 or 6 launch but the way how the ad was made was just
wow it was like epic it had like emojis in there and it was like quick easy
going but it was like quite an interesting ad there's a lot of dynamic slippers
and that pushed me to like make videos like that as well also like
(03:19):
yeah it comes from movies like sci-fi movies actually even
even there's that website eye candy which has
like a compendium of like different effects and different techniques just scrolling
through it and seeing how to use a story cam you have it there sort of referenced
and in many different projects i think that's pretty cool to see because i think
it shows you how it can be done or how it can be used and i still feel like
(03:42):
fundamentally you know even though stories there
are sort of like themes and topics and sort of structure that are similar throughout.
I feel like everyone has their unique point of view. So no matter if you're
telling a story about a mom or dad, the way you film it, the way you express
it and portray it, it's actually very different for each person because everyone
comes in with a slightly different cocktail of experiences,
(04:03):
that they can draw from and, you know, tell the story from.
The amount of times people have told me the inspiration for this film was like
Wes Anderson. And you look at the film and go, really?
Like i would that would have been like the last thing that i've
gotten from what you've made say where anderson yeah because
it but it's true because it's like you you interpret that
(04:23):
influence in your own way i'm the worst for it because on
shoots i will often describe shots from other filmmakers
for when i want things you know i want i want a spielberg push
in or i want a sergio leone close-up and
you know and cinematographers have to understand what i'm being by
that but it is a visual language of talking where i'm
like i want this to be a really tight close up i want it to be like clint
eastwood out in the desert staring at eli wallach
(04:46):
that's what i want from this shot or i want perfect symmetrical
kubrickian structure in cinematography
and lines or i want this to be david fincher and
it's all about the rule of thirds and meticulously sticking
to that if you looked at my work nobody would see any of that i i
see it so sort of but even then after the fact once
it's been edited i've probably forgotten about me going oh this
(05:08):
is the spielberg push-in or this is that yeah i mean
i think the other into when you talk about references like i think often people
forget that a lot of big film directors have made
other content outside of film and television and
sometimes that's a really great space to go to you.
Know i've often looked back at the music videos that david fincher has
done or the work that spike jones has
(05:28):
done in other formats or even sophia coppola's brand
films or bits and pieces that she's done for dior the fact
that you know sometimes we could all have this very big
inspiration of oh i went out on friday night and
saw the latest ridley scott film and i i want my my next
piece of content to look like that but that's sometimes not a
realistic expectation when your budget is a couple
(05:49):
hundred thousand hong kong dollars sometimes going and seeing what those people
did in other mediums where they've actually had to they had to work for it you
know um music videos is great because music videos are often sort of piece of
string filmmaking and you you kind of see really inventive techniques and go
oh okay and they're over pretty fast too so you can watch a whole lot of them in a short amount of time,
Speaking of music videos, I remember when I was like a teenager,
(06:11):
there was a, I think my brother got like a DVD collection of like Michel Gondry.
I have that, I have that DVD collection. Yeah. You know what you were trying
to talk about? Yeah, Spike Jonze, all the Radiohead music videos on it. Yeah.
Anton Corbin. Yeah. Yeah. Super cool. I also find I'm often inspired,
particularly from a cinematography standpoint, actually from art rather than
(06:34):
photography or other things.
I think if you really want to learn about visual storytelling,
go to the National Gallery, you know, go and stand in front of a whole bunch
of paintings and look at the way that Vermeer saw the world or the way that
Rembrandt saw the world back in the day.
Because you look at the lighting, particularly from the sort of Rembrandt era,
and you look at the kind of chiaroscuro and you look at it and go,
(06:54):
it hasn't really gotten better since then.
That is sort of your modern source lit cinematography in one place.
There is a YouTube channel that I used to watch a lot called Every Frame a Painting.
I don't know if you guys heard of it. Ah, yeah.
But that also kind of like breaks down a lot of these like films and kind of
like shows like how like meticulously built piece all each setup is and brings
(07:17):
that kind of idea forward towards the modern day. What about for editing?
Where do you find inspiration for stuff? Where do you pick stuff up from?
Sometimes I like watch movies and I turn the visuals off.
Actually and just listen to the sound and it's coming from like
video games or like radio shows even and just like thinking
of how sounds different when uh
(07:39):
you know people are applying different effects to it and how that also affects
the storytelling i think because yeah sound is very underrated or overrated
i forgot i would say it's underrated people always talk about the visuals first
yes but it's underrated for sure when i say people i mean filmmakers and content
Content makers always talk about the visuals first.
I do find often brands talk about the voiceover or the narrative story first.
(08:04):
And then once they hook into the visuals, they talk about the visuals.
But content makers always talk about the visuals first because they're trying
to paint a visual story. You should never underestimate sound.
I mean, sound is, it's more than 50% of the film.
If you watch a film like Star Wars without the sound, it's nothing.
Yeah any horror film without the sound it's nothing yeah
(08:24):
i digress a bit but even like watching the
expats i think i watched the first episode overall the
story was so so but i think i
think actually the sound design and everything else like camera work
sound design was actually pretty tight they really kind of
saved that show with with a lot of these things um i
haven't finished watching it but they don't save the show sorry we'll
(08:47):
edit this out sorry nicole commit you you're scary
i'm not going to apologize i feel it's like
you know it was good but it was sort of
like seven hours of misery that sort of didn't really go anywhere
at the end yeah no one no one's likable in it no one's like
it's true it's all the biggest inspirations that
actually i got before i even went to film school i grew
up always playing games and it was
(09:09):
fun because you know like some games are great for like just playing some
games have really good storytelling some games have really really good
visuals you know so when i was in hong kong when i first this game
over here alone here and it was really there so i started playing games
and there was this one game that a friend of mine lended me.
So the game is called the last of us and that game
pushed me into like doing screenwriting yeah so
(09:31):
it was like a big inspirational thing for me and then after that i was like.
Wow these character designs are stunning creepy beyond.
Creep and the sound design of each of those.
Clickers which is all the characters there are amazing you
know like i was like wow this is made in such a proper way and
therefore i want to like go down this path filmmaking in the
future and then boom you know i do think also the more
(09:51):
you open yourself up to inspiration in different forms the
more you can see things like that we see things that are beautiful i
mean because we all went and saw alien romulus recently and i
sort of went back and re-watched some documentaries on the
making of the alien films on apple tv it was really
interesting when you talk about giga and the design of the alien
and dan o'bannon kind of discovering that really
(10:12):
early and thinking wow this is it we don't need to
invent anything this is it right and then him showing
that book to ridley scott and ridley scott looking at it going yes we don't
need to design the alien this is the alien this is
what it's going to look like and showing it to a studio who were like oh but
it's it's so disturbing and ugly and and but
having people go but can't you see the beauty in it as well
(10:33):
like it's like the design of the sort of xenomorph in
a way like the simplicity of that design is just beautiful and
the whole world that they build with the eggs and the face
hugger and everything like it's grotesque but it's also so beautiful and it's designed
seeing where that inspiration came from and and seeing the
kind of you know again you kind of go to a very particular artist
who designs because the design of you know that comes from his necronomicon
(10:56):
artwork and if you've actually gone back and ever had a look at the giga artwork
it's beautiful like it's really scary and you look at the use of light in it
and the use of composition and you go wow that influenced that film.
Massively right you know there's no denying his
fingerprints are over the entire film it's funny my my brother
(11:16):
he was a huge geiger fan for his
art project when he was 18 he built a full room like an
alien room and built a full-sized like sculpture of the
alien so i was lucky to kind of be a bit
entranced by a lot of these kind of like dark slash beautiful images
but yeah no i totally agree the lighting in
it the shading the composition and he plays a lot
(11:36):
with like symmetry tree and things so i think that that's really as
concept art you know you see ai concept art that kind of
looks like that as well but his was all imagination which is
insane yeah i mean i i even sometimes from a story point of view we still sound
weird considering all of the films that we make but i i get influenced by fairy
tales and simple kind of narrative concepts where you look at them and go i
(11:59):
really want this story to be have so much clarity and simplicity that because
Because there's so much going on in the average fairy tale.
Like if you read it, it's a really simple story that a child can understand.
And the themes of good and evil, they're very clear in the story.
But also there's a whole bunch of depth and layers going on there.
And also when you combine a fairy tale in a sort of graphic novel,
visual kind of connection, you're able to kind of make these other connections
(12:22):
with the story. It becomes even deeper.
But I often, when I'm writing things, sit there and go, how can we just strip
away the layers of this and make it simpler and simpler and simpler?
And often I will go back and have a read of a grim fairy tale or something else.
I just sit there and go, how can I make this story as simple as that?
Because that is elegant. That's really simple. It's not complicated.
Anybody can understand it. It has universal human elements that we can all relate
(12:45):
to that are almost primeval.
You know, David Mamet tells this thing in one of his books.
About how in a way dialogue or
scenes in films should be like a good dirty joke they're just
like simple they're easy to tell you kind of get to the punchline
quickly and you move on and i agree with that too you know and
that's that's been an inspiration for me since i read that book in
film school many many many moons ago yeah
(13:08):
don't don't linger on joke for too long whatever you
call what's that saying don't beat a dead horse or something like that
don't don't of flogging their doors yeah something like that something
like that flog beat yeah turning to glue books is
another great place like for me i grew up on an island where
filmmaking was not considered a profession you
could realistically have for a job so for me early on
(13:29):
you know i would go and see movies i would watch videos dvd
didn't exist yet or streaming and uh i would
i would get books from libraries on like filmmaking and i
studied all those sort of very nerdily books about
like the making of the return of the jedi and it
would be sort of like the art department of how they built the practical special
(13:49):
effects or how they did things like that i read the five c's
of cinematography which was sort of like the key book on lighting and
camera work that if you haven't read you haven't lived uh story by robin mckee
all those sorts of books or and even just biographies on directors i used to
find quite inspiring that you would kind of read and particularly if you grew
up in a situation where you didn't know because you know online video didn't
(14:10):
exist yet and you know I mean, in that marketplace, nobody really did TV commercials.
So you kind of look at things and go, how possible is doing that?
Even if you consider the story of Spielberg, a guy who grew up in Arizona.
Parents got divorced, started making short films on Super 8,
kind of grew that and grew that and grew that, realized that there were things,
made films, walked his way to Universal.
You could kind of, those stories were inspiring at a different level to kind
(14:31):
of become a storyteller and to kind of make films.
So inspiration is everywhere if you choose to say it. As cheesy as it sounds.
As cheesy as it sounds. It's actually true. We should make tea towels or something.
Tea towels inspiration is everywhere casual actually talking
about inspiration i shared with you guys this other podcast by roger
deakins i've actually found it very inspiring as
a filmmaker it's nice to listen to say
(14:55):
ethan hawke or you know some some famous dp or
someone like that how they could go through their process and how
they find inspiration and how that kind of
it affects makes them produce the work they want to produce well
i think in a way that's sort of of replaced the the director's
commentary right which used to be a sort of thing when you were growing up
that used to be on and sit there and listen to some really
(15:15):
good audio commentaries and some really terrible audio commentaries
which i think also taught you very early on there are people who are really
great at explaining their process and how they work and then there are people who
are not i think podcasts are a great way of
doing that and even when you listen to those stories sometimes because at
the end like in the way that we work people only see the
end result they see the the film with the project like oh it's amazing
(15:35):
they have no concept whatsoever about
what you went through how many iterations how it
almost ended up being something completely different how you you know your sets
were destroyed or i mean i always almost like once a year i watch that hearts
of darkness documentary about the making of apocalypse now because i find that
really inspiring like it is it is a horrific documentary for a filmmaker in
(15:59):
a lot of ways is because you sit there and go,
wow, the guy mortgaged his house five or six times, the set blew down,
he fired three and acted two weeks into filming, Martin Sheen had a heart attack.
And I sit there and go, I've had tough days on shoots. I've never had Heart
of Darkness kind of like, wow, that's inspiring to me.
I also find that Terry Gilliam, those two documentaries, Lost in La Mancha and
(16:19):
He Who Dreams of Giants quite inspiring because Lost in La Mancha is a documentary
about a film that never gets made at the time.
And that's really interesting for anybody who's ever gone through a creative
process to kind of sit there and watch a creative process on a massive scale
collapsing and not happening.
And then He Heed, Dream to Giants was interesting because it was sort of going
(16:39):
back and looking at a creative process that is revisited years later and now
means something completely different to the filmmaker and is not sort of what he envisaged before.
It is now this sort of reimagined version of how he can make something on a
budget in a timeframe and get it made.
And that, as a storyteller, is quite inspiring because you kind of sit there
and go, well, you know, often we create stories that don't go anywhere.
(17:01):
Pitch work is essentially, if the pitch isn't picked up, that is creating work
that goes, you know, and often in a pitch, you might have three or four concepts.
One of them gets picked, but the other concepts might be great. They don't go anywhere.
So kind of seeing the idea of concepts you can reuse that can become valuable,
that you can recycle later is inspiring.
I mean, I've certainly recycled ideas and concepts that people have not picked
(17:21):
up and reutilized them or reworked them or...
Done something else cool great to have a good memory
of that well it's the one thing i have
i guess to kind of wrap things up on this episode any final
tips on inspiration or places people
should go to to find great winning ideas for their videos just keep an open
mind don't lock yourself in your room all day long try to see something new
(17:46):
every day if possible i think go out if you're a filmmaker go out and just get
inspiration from where you're shooting and if If you're in-house,
then you have to start watching films.
How about you, Richard? Any final words? I guess something similar, like keep an open mind.
You know, you'll never know what interaction or where you will be.
(18:09):
And suddenly, sometimes inspiration just hits you. So maybe keep a notebook
close by so you can write it down.
Very good advice. A notebook or even just using the voice recorder app on your phone is quite useful.
I mean, I think, again, it's if you want to get into visual storytelling or
storytelling in any way, shape or form is collecting ways of keeping that inspiration.
(18:30):
Pinterest boards is a good way of doing that, where you can pin a whole bunch
of visual things and collate them in a way that's meaningful to you.
I often recall or write down bits of conversation that I might hear that I go,
oh, I don't know where I will ever use that, but I'll write it down in case
it becomes useful later.
All of those are great processes to get into to keep
your inspiration flowing and also be inspired by others and
(18:51):
challenge your inspiration too i think a lot of people can get
very set at i like this kind of design or i
like this kind of editing or i like this kind of cinematography
but also being open to seeing stuff that's
different and going i've never done that
maybe that's something i could do it's quite cool too my
most favorite app right now is the is the notes app on the
(19:12):
iphone is this like you quickly open it up whatever idea
you have just write it on down on that even if you might not use it
because you won't have any intention to use it but you might get some inspiration
as we just scroll through your notes as well and even
even revisiting them as well the idea might have meant
as thomas mentioned earlier with the documentary the idea might
it may have meant something different when you first came up
(19:32):
with it and then now when you look back on it and reflect on here
like actually i can see how this fits in through this story more or or through
that story or in this project thank you very much everybody thanks for joining
us on this edition of the content combo podcast as always i'm your host thomas
elliott and thanks again to the combo arch gray joey khan and and filmmaker
Richie Fowler for the contributions to our show.
(19:53):
Please do tune in every Friday for more of the Content Combo,
and don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn or via the Casual Films website.
Music.
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