The Two Kinds of “Alone” Every Filmmaker Knows

And you know what? I think every filmmaker listening just nodded along.

I know I did.

Because here's the thing, from the outside, the work looks like the festival, the poster, the applause.

From the inside, the work is mostly you alone with the thing.

But here's what I've been thinking a lot about.

There are two kinds of being alone in this job, and they are not the same thing.

Let me start with the first kind because I don't think that we talk about this one enough.

The times I have been the most creative have been the times I've been the most alone.

Wandering in my thoughts with what I'm working on, listening to music that inspires me, sitting in a beautiful setting, nobody around, nothing to do but think about the work.

There is a goodness to loneliness, a necessary side.

You can't write a scene by committee.

You can't find your voice in a room with everyone talking at once.

You can't hear what the story is asking for if you're surrounded by screaming.

The work needs the quiet.

There's a writer named Henry Nowen who's helped me think about this.

He says, "Loneliness and solitude aren't the same thing.

Loneliness is the desert.

Solitude is the garden, and the work is to turn one into the other." So that's the first kind of loneliness, the garden, the kind that makes the film any good.