If you don't know Maria Popova's brilliant blog, Brain Pickings, get to know it. Her blog is filled with what she finds interesting and most of what she finds interesting is the creative mind.
She recently posted a short video by the New York Times best-selling YA author, John Green, on the advice he gives people when they ask him how to be a writer. He says,
"Every single day, I get emails from aspiring writers asking my advice about how to become a writer, and here is the only advice I can give: Don’t make stuff because you want to make money — it will never make you enough money. And don’t make stuff because you want to get famous — because you will never feel famous enough. Make gifts for people — and work hard on making those gifts in the hope that those people will notice and like the gifts.
Maybe they will notice how hard you worked, and maybe they won’t — and if they don’t notice, I know it’s frustrating. But, ultimately, that doesn’t change anything — because your responsibility is not to the people you’re making the gift for, but to the gift itself.
This advice holds true for aspiring filmmakers, too. This was the thought in the back of my mind when I made this short film about a tire repair shop owner in Harlem. Please enjoy the gift.