Beginning

Procrastination is something that I've been trying to come to terms with over the past few years. As I said in my last post, I believe that starting later rather than earlier can be personally helpful for me, but procrastination is a different issue for me. In all honesty, I don't know what makes me put off starting projects. It's a completely irrational force; the same one that keeps you from getting out of bed in the morning even when you know that you have to. Your brain denies that the procrastination will carry negative consequences and keeps on doing what it's doing until eventually, the gravity of the situation outweighs the laziness.
When I was putting off writing this blog post a few minutes ago, I wasn't doing it because this was a particularly demanding or unpleasant assignment, it was because it was something that had to get done, and for some reason, those things always get placed on the back-burner in my brain. Even if I'd rather be writing this than watching SNL, my subconscious puts watching SNL on the top of the to-do list because it's not mandatory. Right now, I'm procrastinating by looking at a homework assignment that is due on Friday, simply because it isn't as urgent. Like I said, it's completely illogical.
Usually, when I'm procrastinating, I go through the list of websites that I like, and I start working when I'm done (or at least, that's what I tell myself). A lot of times, I'll be scrolling on Facebook thinking, "Yeah, I'm gonna start in a minute," when I get sidetracked again. About fifteen minutes later, the smart part of my brain says, "Who are you kidding? Microsoft Word/ Windows Movie Maker/ Blogger/ etc. isn't even open." And once I do open it, the dumb part of my brain says, "You've earned another break." The same pattern goes on for almost the entire project.
I have not yet found a way to effectively break this cycle. The only way for me to work continuously on a project is if I'm incredibly interested in what is happening, which varies in likelihood depending on what kind of project it is. I also think that procrastination varies from person to person, because some people are more determined than others to get the job done. I wish I were one of those people.

Fear

No matter what I am doing, fear is a significant component. It makes me put projects on pause indefinitely or stop them before they even start. It's unavoidable, and no matter how much I try to convince myself to push on through, the fear that I'm not capable of making something good is too crippling to overcome.
This is why I find it easier to write papers the night before. When I start a paper a few days ahead, then I have all the time in the world to make it perfect. As a perfectionist, I know that nothing that I write will meet my standards. I'll keep working on it and working on it, and eventually, I'll give up. If I finish at 11 pm the night before, I know that I can no longer do anything to make it better, while if I spend days working, I feel like there is always more to do. For some reason, there's more closure. Plus, getting a bad grade hurts a lot less if you weren't that attached to the project. I don't think this works with the arts, though. Making something bad is embarrassing. It's personal. You can't say that you didn't do well because you didn't like the assignment or you didn't try hard. There's no safety net. If you make something bad, it's your fault. Everybody will judge you, not just the teacher. In the arts, I find it so much better to be able to tweak and edit as much as you can, because even if it isn't perfect, you can try to make it close. I don't know if this is logical at all.
Right now, I am supposed to be editing my movie, and I haven't made any progress. When I try to understand why, there are so many reasons, and I think they all relate to each other. First, I'm afraid that we don't have enough usable footage. It could be shaky or blurry or overall weird. I'm worried that we don't have the shots that we need to make the movie make sense. Second, I'm afraid that this means that I didn't direct enough. I was kind of hands-off at times, and I don't want this to mean that the movie suffers. Third, I don't want to ruin it. Right now, I don't know what the finished product will be, but it's good in my mind. Once I see everything and work with it, I'm afraid that I'll make the finished product worse. Fourth, I'm afraid of everybody seeing it and judging me. This is pretty self-explanatory.
It's not that I don't think I'm creative, and it's not that I don't think I can write or direct or act, etc. It's that I don't have enough evidence that tells me that I have any genuine talent. No matter what, the quality of my work is a coincidence in my eyes. It's been three years in STAC and I still don't believe that I really belong here. The biggest fear, and this exists not only in art but in life, is that I'm only riding on my sister's coattails. I don't think there is anything that can make this fear go away,

Independent Project

Right now, I'm working on a horror film with Tristen. I think it's going really well. We're about halfway done with shooting and we're going to be shooting again tomorrow, so hopefully we can be completely done by next week. I have really high expectations for this because I've been working on it for so long, so I'm hoping that the finished product meets these expectations. When I make movies independently, I want it to be obvious that I made it, and I want that to be a good thing. I want the audience to really feel scared. So far, I think it'll work out.
I'm really happy with my cast. Even though they're all underclassmen and Kayla is new to acting, they all take direction really well. Everybody is willing to work and we have fun while we work, but we still manage to be efficient and get everything we need.
Last time we filmed, I was a little off. When people asked me what I wanted I wasn't completely sure because I hadn't worked with the script in a while and my notes were a little vague. However, I think that in the second part of the movie my vision is a lot stronger. A lot of important things happen, which can make or break the film depending on how well it's shot. I'm really hopeful that this film will be the first of many great films from me.

The Mystery of Mystics Reflection

While I really loved how the film came out, I feel like I could've been more involved. I helped with coming up with the plot, a little bit of filming, and I had a role. However, I wish I could've had a bigger say in everything. It felt like the whole group was kind of separated, with Jess and Emily making the decisions and everybody else was just along for the ride. It was less of a group project and more of a Jess and Emily project. I think that maybe if we had spent more time filming and a little less time organizing, we would have realized that there was a major plot hole and we would've been able to fix it. I'm not complaining; I love my group and nobody willingly caused problems, but I don't think we were very efficient.

Career Anxiety

I think I have found out what my problem is when it comes to choosing a career. When I was young, I always loved the fact that I could be anything I wanted to be. Now, that is exactly my problem. There are too many options. It makes me want to consider having children in different countries just so that they have fewer opportunities than I have.
I know that there are some things that I could never do. I can't be a neural surgeon, or an astrophysicist, or anything along those lines. However, there are no careers that I can actually rule out, because I simply haven't found my passion. When I was talking to my sister yesterday, I told her that I'd like to be a director because you can make your own plan. It's not like a boring office job where you come in every day for a set amount of time, but it's not like being an artist, where you can decide whether you do it or not. People expect things of you and give you praise when you do them right.
I had a job over the summer. I lasted a week. One of the things I hated about this job was that there were so many things you had to do but you never knew what they were or how to do them properly. I suppose this might have been because I was new and hadn't learned all of the ropes yet, but I could never get used to that kind of anxiety. If I were the director, I would know what to do and tell people what they had to do because I would be in charge. Even if I had no idea what I was doing, I could learn on the job without terrible consequences.
I may be romanticizing this idea, but it's one of the only careers that I've given serious thought. The only problem is that I have very little experience actually directing.
A lot of the people I've spoken to say that you don't need to know exactly what you're going to do with your life, especially in high school. The problem is, I'm the kind of person that likes to know what to expect. I can't shake the feeling that I'll screw up if I don't have some kind of plan, if I don't have some kind of stability. I'm not opposed to going with the flow; in fact, I enjoy it. But I can't survive without having something concrete to look forward to.

A Painting by Bonnard

I chose this painting because it looked very one-dimensional at first, but I got a very different impression of it after looking at it for several minutes. I remembered Michael Kimmelman saying something like this in Chapter One of The Accidental Masterpiece. 
It looked like Marthe was only present from the waist down, but then I saw that she was actually bending over and that her head was simply much darker than the rest of her body. I think this creates a pretty cool effect. The thing that jumped out at me the most was the dog lying on the ground. It was a dark, solid, rust-colored shape which was a stark contrast to the rest of the predominantly pastel piece. I was also pleasantly surprised when I noticed the bathtub in the bottom left corner. I thought that it was typical for Bonnard to incorporate his beloved bathtub into the piece even though it wasn't technically being used directly.
I love how Bonnard uses all of these colors which would normally overpower the senses but uses them in such a way that makes the painting scattered and cohesive at the same time. The different shapes throughout the piece constantly pull my focus from place to place and keeps me captivated.

A Moment in the Life of Pierre Bonnard