How to Stay Inspired as a Hustling Creative

The easy access to social media displaying what seems like every creative’s best artwork. While you are trying to find the will to create something that is truly inspiring. Not just garbage content upon content that is solely based on how high those kinds of posts rank on your analytics because if you don’t post consistently you will lose followers. In a world of constant content, 24 Hour News Networks, and having limited attention let alone connection with the ominous of others on the internet.

How does a hustling creative stay true to their inner child creative, to produce the best passionate project possible? Without sinking into pacifism, procrastination, and basically not making that thing that you do a priority. Like anything in life, to be great at something it requires practice but in the same breath patience and time to fill up your creative tank. So when you are upright at your desk ready to take heed. You will have fuel to pull from. It is part of the task of nurturing your inner child creative that liable to get cranky, so stay nourished. Below I have provided my Top 5 ways I like to Stay Inspired as a Hustling Creative. 

1. Surround Yourself with Like-Minded Creatives

      With my current situation, fresh skin in a new city to figure out. To find a tribe that is worth your time and resources to cultivate. Which, in your home state usually happens from school, family, or other activities you may have been involved in. But as an adult, and especially a creative adult that likely may be a recluse, introvert, or awkward being. Don’t be deterred from the concept because having a squad is essential to growth. With the ability to collaborate, vibe out, get help from like-minded individuals that may have what you lack. A team, a community that can conquer better together than one can alone. The best musicians come from a group before they go solo. Even just the energy of those others may be what you need to charge up the inner child creative in you.

   2. Consuming Inspiration Outside the Home
       It is immensely important when seeking inspiration to do it outside the comfort of your home when possible. Sometimes we may be physically or emotionally ill to leave the bed or couch, but if able the benefits of getting into the World are substantial. Some of my favorite ways to consume inspiration outside the home include attending the latest exhibit showing at my local art museum. Going to local free events that I know a lot of people will be attending, people watching is a great way to ignite inspiration. If nothing else, going to a movie or if feeing fancy the local symphony. 

   3. Working on an Unrelated Project ( for no specific reason or expected outcome)
      Sometimes to find inspiration for one project entails getting completely lost in another project that is absolutely unrelated to what you were working on. Get your brain churning without the pressure to produce something great. Just to simply do, it is not a distraction if needed to pull out the creative juices in you. Brainwork that will help you get into a space where you are able to focus and find a solution to your roadblock.  Some of my favorite hobbies/unrelated projects include puzzles, making jewelry, and cooking. 

  4. Get Physical
      This has become one of my favorite ways to gain inspiration. Lately, most of the time when I’m not feeling like my self, or finding it hard to motivate myself to chug onwards toward my goals. It is because I need to release, release all of the thoughts swimming in my head, release frustration from what you see, or how someone made you feel. When I am able to sweat it out, I am able to get out of my head, in survival mode, a change of gears and the ability to let go of the restraints I didn’t realize I was pulling on myself.  Blocking the creative in me. Some of my favorite physical activities include yoga, hiking, biking, and if I am able to find a partner, tennis.

  5. Organize
      When in doubt organize. Your characters, plotline, or even location setting ideas, the best place to find what you are looking for is to find it hidden away in the details of something else. Maybe it won’t matter what your protagonist Top 5 Favorite movies are but maybe in rationalizing each pick for the list, a new path is laid ahead for you to explore. Or you could organize something else, but keep it simple. I don’t want you to be organizing your closet going on 5 days when you could have spent that time creating. 


If this was helpful, please leave a nice comment and let me know what helps inspire you as a hustling creative. Make sure to follow me on all socials to stay up to date on the latest MAP blog posts.

THINGS TO KNOW AS A SOCIAL MEDIA VIDEO EDITOR

As more attention and money gets poured in social media advertising. Agencies and brands alike are vying for the right strategy, the best piece of content that will lead to success in reaching their objective. Video content statistically performs better than any other types of content. The interactive and stylized look is exactly what social media is all about. Lucky for video creators this creates a new lane where our services are needed and at a varying of degrees. From big-budget studio projects with full animation, and moving graphics. To simple splice, dissolve and text. Wherever you may fall on the spectrum it’s good to be aware of all the different aspects that go into creating social media video advertisements. 

1. The Main Players

If a client isn't quite sure what are the best platforms to invest time and money in, let me break it down to you in terms of what and why. Depending on the brand some platforms will work better and make more sense than others, and if it doesn’t make sense don't take the time, energy, or money on it just because you think you have to. For the most part though, the main players of the social media advertising game include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and Pinterest. There may more but for purposes of this blog we will only focus on these main 5. These are the platforms with the most profiles which means the most eyeballs to advertise to. Though these platforms make most of their revenue from major advertisers some of these platforms provide extensive analytic stats for the local business pages to find potential customers, clients, or jobs in their network. The game changer of it all is paid advertisements, through a social media platforms any business page can target the right audience and collect data information for those even the slightest interested in the representation of your brand through an ad.

     2. Different Forms of Advertisements
Within one platform there could be many different forms of advertisement for the many different ways profiles can socialize. For example, with Facebook on ones timeline you will find advertisement between friends post. Watching stories you will find ad's between your friend's stories an celebrity and blogger pages have become riddled with sponsored ads. It has been an evolution since the college email days that will soon infiltrate you direct messages and anything else they may have access to. Variety in how they advertise is also something that Facebook has pioneered among data analytics, and cross platform integration. Including video, photo, slideshow, or carousel sets. Facebook more than any of the other platforms' ability to manage and organize ads in the most analytically in-depth understanding of ads, makes its like any other type advertisement. Social media, specifically Facebook advertisement is the most cost-effective form for the data and insight accessible in return in finding customers and selling products since the peak of the newspaper. 
                                                                                 
   3. Testing/Variety
Creating a well-curated advertising strategy on social media has to be done by testing many variables to reap the best results. Fortunately, ads are still very cheap for these platforms, and through A/B testing and thorough analytical understanding of each ad’s performance you can easily come up with an advertising budget that can in return make a profit. So if you are not sure if a photo or a video ad will perform the better than the other you can always test it against each other.

  4. Staying on Trend
It is also important to stay current with the latest trends, including trending hashtags, memes, and the latest news to stay relevant with your audience. As well as staying up to date with the newest way to convey content. With any sort of advertisement, it is imperative to explore new and creative ways to effectively showcase your brand. Instagram, in particular is a great for this, creators have been creative in the way they display photos with multiple photos in one post so it looks like a magazine spread. As well as using the whole grid as a puzzle, using a post as a pieces to the whole. With additional apps to help you easily achieve these looks. Whatever pops out, a little different or if you are lucky goes viral is for the brand's benefit.

  5. Captioning and Sizing
The last, but most important and overlooked aspect of social media advertisement, especially for videos and photos is the specs. That includes the sizing, pixels, codecs, adding of captions,  and including royalty-free music. The result in not following the specific specs for the particular platform you are posting for is having an un-optimized, possibly blurry, or text being cut off your photo, graphic, or video. What is really great is there are so many social tools that help you achieve the best looks on socials. For photos my go-to is www.sprout.com/landscape and for graphicsI have an account with Canva. For video, though I have yet to find something that can automatically size videos for you. However, I do use tube2gram.com to shorten youtube videos to the one minute amount of time available on Instagram. Captioning has become a great way for a video to be engaging without audio making it more accessible for potential customers.


I hope to this is helpful for any social media video editors out there. Either just starting out or knee deep in the game to consider certain aspects of video editing for social media. Comment any tips you may have to add to the list.

Check out the blog write up by Common Citizen, Cannabis brand from Michigan done about owner/operator Milan Arielle Boyer of Milan Arielle Productions. Read the post to learn about how she got started in video production and how she uses cannabis in her creative process. Find the link to the full blog post here---------------------------> https://www.commoncitizen.com/cannabis-resets-me-how-videographer-milan-boyer-finds-her-motivation/

In any profession, especially one that requires a certain level of creative aptitude, in which really can’t be taught but must be innate. There is a constant struggle one must go through under the surface. The competition is fierce out there since there is no clear cut path to success, especially in regards to being a filmmaker. To provide video services for a client in the form of work to sustain a living can create a mental environment of heads constantly butting. Because of the polar opposite nature of creativity and the obligation to abide by a particular marketing strategy to sell.

Another battle we must endure when looking, propositioning, or even bidding for your next paid client project is the worry of the competition, if your portfolio is diverse or polished enough, equipment list, other project conflicts, and the list goes on. However when stepping up to bat to do and commit to this kind of work, how does a Female Filmmaker get over self doubt in the process of it all to keep carrying on?

There are things we all collectively know to be true for most cases but not all. In the video production industry we know it is true that is a male dominated field making most of the highest revenue capable in the field. Also, it is true that Women compared to Men have higher levels of anxiety and anxious habits on a daily basis. So combine the two and you have a lot of nail biting female filmmakers out there and that goes for any female in a male dominated career field including STEM, the military, and beyond. I have definitely felt these feelings and as much as I try to brush them off, sometimes this self doubt and the fear of the unknown can be crippling.

Below I have organized some tips for any other female filmmakers that have felt the same way. Self doubt in your passion among the competition to gain work, fear after fear, it all wrapped up in your self identity, where do you find solace to not give up? Keep reading to find your place and be more at ease.

Meditation

I feel like meditation is the solution to many of life and human struggles and for good reason. The simple teaching of calmness is the closest cure to our society dysfunction and loss of the human attention span. It also helps with a overactive, over thinking mind and hushes it in the meanwhile. Either a guided meditation from an app or just taking deep breaths until your mind has no thoughts will help quiet any self doubt in your skills and ability as a female filmmaker.

Create Short Videos

When you feel like no one will give you an opportunity make your own! Produce your own work, whether it is a branded video for some random object in your house, making a feature film or even putting together a vlog. Just make it share it and stay consistent with it. Doing something you love with very little creative restrictions is not only a mood booster but also a confidence booster. To go out and prove as well as show why you deserve to be considered for any project.

Stay Off Social Media

Besides your own content that you want to share, it is best to try and ease the scrolling as much as possible. I’ve been there scrolling and scrolling telling yourself you have five more seconds of scrolling left yet 5 minutes later you are still scrolling in the abyss of Instagram and you can’t look away. This does no good for productivity, finding inner creativity, and reaps feelings of inadequacy in the nature of comparing yourself to others based upon their curated highlight reel.

Write

As much as I try to work out as often as I want, it really never happens. I like the idea of having a time in the day or the week to dedicate to releasing. Most commonly done through physical activity, a sport or just a fitness class you get to release for all the piled up adult problems we all go through. At the end of buzzing with endorphins that  make you feel so good about yourself. For the convenience and just plain laziness of some, writing can also accomplish the same feeling, even if you are not a writer. It is good to let all the subconscious thoughts that flutter through your mind daily be almost wiped away when you actively write them out. From there let your inner kid out and be playful, say what is on your mind, write in cursive, profess your love and through the process you may come up with your best idea yet.

Positive Affirmations

Other things that you can write are positive affirmations about yourself.  Giving gratitude towards yourself and what you already have to be so thankful and proud of. The best way to get the full effect of positive affirmations is to say it aloud to yourself in the mirror. Every morning smiling, saying a goal getting mantra as well as positive affirmations to and about yourself. Then sense the self doubt fade away.

I hope this helps any female filmmakers or other female professionals that has felt doubt in their abilities, or sometimes feel as of they aren’t good enough to do the work. You are, and don’t let anyone tell you different. Patience is your friend in all of this, get to know it well, in the meantime look out for the next MAP blog and check out all of our previous posts!

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For the book worms out there, library enthusiasts and academic colleagues or whomever that loves to read and that feeling of turning a crisp page of a good book. I have to say that I am not much of a reader, although I do have a decent amount of books and like the idea of keeping around books I have learned from, cherish, and I think it would be really cool to have a library in my house one day. Below you will find a list of my favorite five books as female filmmaker. Most of the books that I do have so far in my collection are mostly on the topic of film and writing from school that I have kept as well others book discovered in furthering education. Fun fact: My book collection also consists of, spiritual awakening, empowering self help books, poetry, cookbooks and the only fiction I have is by Zadie Smith. Hope you enjoy and if you are interested in reading book or two find a link to where you buy the book a the end of the blog post and tell me some of you fave books in your collection!

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

A book given to me at the right time in life. A time where I could not locate my identity, after hiding behind the guise of others thoughts and attention, keeping up with favorable trends, and  finding solace in substance. Not quite rock bottom, but my version of it, I needed to build myself back up and claim my identity I so vehemently developed in my youth. Like a caterpillar to a butterfly the same type of transition was happening to me from youth to adulthood and this book helped me achieve it wisely. As a creative there is no clear path to success, some just think it can only happen from being lucky or the most talented, but there is so much more to discover in your creativity. Whether it is towards a career or a rewarding hobby, The Artist’s Way gives you the ancient ways to a better more connected person through your creative craft, but in the book is mostly geared to writers/ filmmakers. Written by a Woman (the Ex-Wife to James Cameron) and coming from that perspective really adds to the nurturing tone to it. There are so many golden quotes in this book, I have a whole page of my favorite that I keep near my desk. This book is a must have for any creative cultivating a life through their work.

3 Black Chicks Review Flicks by The Diva, Bams, and Cass

A fate find floating in a $1.00 cart at a library or book sale, I’m not quite sure, but I picked what seemed to be the perfect fitting book for me. A 2002 published book that I wish I would of found sooner. Exploring the fact that there are no nationally recognized movie critics, especially ones that give a valid perspective through the lense of the African American experience. The tagline being A Film and Video Guide with Flava. This everything to me, even just looking at the title satisfies me, a true comfort to not only connect my culture with my passion as well as seeing like minded individuals that look like you and praising theses strong yet marginalized voices amplify them up themselves. The book consists of reviews of popular movies by the 3 black chicks and a whole chapter where they review just black films.

Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez

A film school must, where in fact I picked up this book as it was a required book for one of my classes. And honestly the only book that I read all the way through in most of my academic career. As well as the only resource from my higher education in the film/video media field that I could relate to and take away major career keys to consider. Though Rodriguez is not a female filmmaker, his perspective is still a disadvantage to note. The book is comprised of excerpts from Rodriguez’s journal as he logged his journey planning, producing, and getting a distribution deal for his first feature film he did all himself on a very low budget. Super inspiring, a little old school but steeped in passion for the craft which really hit home for me and reassured that I am in the right industry.

How to Read A Film by James Monaco

Okay so this one is no page turner and reads mostly like a textbook. Another required reading for a class, but this on I never really read. So you're wondering, why are you recommending this book then? I feel like there is a lot more in a book then the words the sum of the content between covers. It can be a physical representation of a path you want to walk, as the first “film book” I received after arriving to my institution. This book marked the start of the rest of my life to me,I carried it like a badge of honor, a indication that I have all the tools I need to be successful in this path. Flipping through the book you will find pages filled with in depth analysis to American film classics. No need to start from the first chapter, whatever page you land on in the book you can learn another aspect of film and the theology behind it.

The Anatomy of Story by John Truby

A book I literally stumbled upon at a thrift store that has taught me more than most of my college education had on storytelling. Actionable techniques and concepts that can be easily implemented and understood, with loads of examples to compare with. This one is still currently in my bag, as I like to keep it dear to me as a reminder of my love for storytelling and to look back at each step and type structures there are of story. Truby gives a thorough breakdown to the 22 steps of storytelling, specifically for motion picture in detail not letting one thing of story slip away. For any aspiring writer for the screen this book is a definite must!

Find these books online below:

The Artists Ways- amzn.to/2tiH8l7

3 Black Chicks Review Flicks- ​​amzn.to/2DY607S

Rebel Without a Crew- amzn.to/2MSMVqq

How to Read Film- amzn.to/2HXVi5h

The Anatomy of Story- amzn.to/2GuMO2V

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This past summer, amidst the backdrop of an impending family tragedy. Where family and friends got together to reflect, look through pictures and even old videos. We took the time to do just that. With nightly backyard talks surrounded by tiki torches and liquid ease in our cup holders.
 
Among the family and friends that visited and reminisced over the pictures we sorted and memorable stories told, a surprising artifact swept up to the surface; My parents wedding video.
 
It was in the 80’s and was originally on VHS tape that got converted to a disc. As a wedding videographer but most importantly as the child of the couple in the wedding video, this was a big deal. Having heard countless stories of this day and imagining how the origin of my story rooted on this day, I couldn’t wait. The footage, was everything that I imagined and more, footage of me as a baby, of all the family members now older and some gone. Most jarring of all; seeing my parents at the age that I am now, in love and on the cusp of starting the next chapter of their lives.
 
Though nothing fancy or particularly traditional, in all actuality they didn’t even have a wedding. Rather they eloped at the local courthouse and the next day they had a reception celebration in my grandmother’s backyard. As well, the video itself mind you was true 80’s style, super old school but without the embarassing guest messages. No editing, no type of cinematic filmmaking, 10-minute montage of romantic scenes or idyllic getting ready shots.  Hell my mom didn’t even wear a white dress.
 
Besides all that, when I sat down to watch the video, I was completely mesmerized and taken on a ride 29 years in the past and boy was it priceless and precious. Seeing your family and culture documented in its natural habitat is a magical thing. It brings a sense of identity and it is very comforting. Especially if it is something that doesn’t happen often anymore.
 
I am so thankful for that video, to reference my lineage, to one day show to my kids and point out their great grandparents, uncles, and aunts in motion. It is a true treasure. A reason why I say that everyone deserves to have their love story told, it encompasses so much of what life means to you and the people you love.  Because that is what life is, getting together with your favorite friends and family and celebrating. Having those moments captured with intention and beautifully is incredibly valuable and shouldn’t break the bank.
 
That is why at Milan Arielle Productions we work with every couple and every budget to bring the story of your life to video, in any capacity, style, and beyond. We strive to make it happen as the most important future keepsake to have.
 
I hear all the time that couples wished that they had gotten a video of their wedding but never heard I wish I didn’t have a wedding video. Photos are nice to look at, but videos let you live a major chapter of you story again.