Check out the inspiring interview with M. Night Shyamalan on How I Built This. It’s a great podcast if you’re not familiar. Usually they focus on entrepreneurs and tech founders, but they’re doing a little series from the Sundance Film Festival focusing on storytellers.
I feel like M. Night Shyamalan gets written off too easily. Because of his mega-success with The Sixth Sense, he’s been branded as some kind of one-trick pony. He’s The Plot Twist Guy. Yes, that was a cool and signature moment that left a cultural dent, but as this interview reminds us, creative people are more than just a signature moment.
In this wide-ranging interview, Shyamalan breaks down his creative process. He talks about how he carves two hours out every morning to focus on writing. But he goes easy on himself. He allows himself to stare at the wall. He creates a safe space for himself and doesn’t apply un-needed pressure. His only rule is he can’t be productive in non-writing ways. Either his pencil moves, or he works out thoughts in his head. For two hours. Every morning. It’s a solid practice.
He also talks about his early beginning in film making. He grew up with a Super 8 camera and would essentially make his own versions of his favorite movies. Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET, Star Wars, etc. He says that looking back on those experiments, he realizes he missed the most satisfying part of filmmaking, the creativity. He realized that his imitations kept him busy, but they weren’t fulfilling. It wasn’t until he started trying to tell his own stories that something sparked inside of him. Since then, he’s never looked back.
When asked about Hollywood’s lack of diverse voices in storytelling, Shyamalan said he didn’t wait for a seat at the table, but he brought his own seat and tried to make the table longer. I thought that was a pretty unique and inspiring take. He says that staying true to your unique background is your power. That you have to commit to telling the story that only you could tell. Rather than trying to tell a story that Quentin Tarantino or David Fincher could tell. What can only come from you?
And finally he touched on how he has stayed creative during the pandemic. And how 2020 was actually his busiest and most productive year yet. He didn’t have to worry about traveling to promote his work, and instead he could just work. He could get his two writing hours in every day. It allowed him to write, produce and direct his next film as well as his next television project. It’s a good reminder of how to take the limitations we’re all facing, and using them to carve out a space to connect deeply with what it is that you do. May we all have more of that in 2021 and beyond.