Movie Addict

Lately, its seems I've been overly addicted to watching movies. Whether it be at the theater or rental store I'm averaging about six movies a week. But when I look at how I learn what I learn concerning filmmaking, I see the number one way for myself would be watching movies. Observing different cinematography, stories, plots, conflicts, characters, sound designs, editing, special effects, visual effects and everything else visual on screen that I can watch and learn from. Figuring out the pattern and how they work to complete the purpose they are there for. The other main is watching all the behind the scenes documentaries I can. As I start to ramp up and work on my next projects I've been trying to increase my knowledge and skills to a whole new level, which makes sense why I've been lately wanting to watch movie after movie. I make it a goal for every project to raise the standards, quality, and production up a thousand times higher than my previous work. And as I've been doing so I've turned to AFI's top 100 movies of the twentieth century. While looking over the list I glanced over a sentence that made my night. Before I share how it made my night I want to explain something else first. Think of a really good film director. Go it? Ok, for those of who can't think of one because you never pay attention to who directs what I'll give a list of my favorite direcors: Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg, Tony Scott, Ridley Scott, Gore Verbinski, Alfred Hitchcock, M. Night Shamylan, and Christopher Nolan. Now all of these directors have one thing in common...They're all old, except for Hitchcock who is dead. And as a filmmaker it makes me depressed. Is it really going to take until I'm 40 til I'm actually really good at this? Well this is what I read:

"Voted the number one movie was CITIZEN KANE, Orson Welles' 1941 classic, which he directed, produced, wrote and starred in at the age of 25."

Reading this tonight has not only given me much inspiration to learn as much as I can and work as hard as I can to improve myself as a filmmaker but has given me the hope that I can actually be somewhat equivalent to a Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Tony Scott, Alfred Hitchcock or George Lucas (wait that's the one person I don't want to be anything like, sorry, scratch Lucas) and be a "good" filmmaker at a young age. If Orson Welles can do it, so can Nathan Mielke. And to feed my movie watching/learning addiction this week, I will be watching CASABLANCA, VERTIGO, MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, UNFORGIVEN, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, ROAD TO PERDITION, and INSOMNIA.