The book is a practical guide to being a Creative, not just as a career but as a way of life.

Every so often moving forward, I’m going to take a chapter of the book and expand on it with some of my thoughts and how I implement them in my creative life.

One of the key principles in the book that will help any documentary filmmaker improve their craft is probably one of the easiest. However, I have a feeling that many filmmakers don’t actually do it – and that’s watching and thinking deeply about – the best documentaries that are made each year and in the past.

I get it—for many people, it can be hard to find two hours to sit down and watch a movie, let alone take the time afterward to reflect thoughtfully on what they just watched.

Plus, with all the competing media formats ready to distract us (Instagram Reels, anyone?) and the fact that it can be difficult to find many of the best documentary films each year (No Other Land and Porcelain War, two of this year’s Oscar-nominated feature Films, are not yet available for home viewing, and No Other Land doesn’t even have US Distribution at the moment), it’s easy to forget about all the documentaries available.

However, as Rick Rubin notes, ”Because there’s an endless amount of data available to us and we have a limited bandwidth to conserve, we might consider carefully curating the quality of what we allow in.” By curating the quality of what we consume, eventually, we’ll be able to better differentiate between what is good, what is very good, and what is great.

I do this in several ways. I keep a list of films I want to see so I don’t find myself doomscrolling the Netflix menu, complaining of nothing to watch. I gather this list by watching what’s playing at film festivals such as Sundance, Hot Docs, DOC NYC, and other important festivals and keeping tabs on what the press is saying are must-see films.

Then, for the VERY best-of-the-best films (or films that act as a reference for a film I’m working on), I watch the film at least twice. The first time, for entertainment. The second time I watch the film, I go scene-by-scene and take detailed notes on the film.

I consider the following: Why was this scene included? How long is it? How did they film it? What were the critical moments in this scene that helped move the story forward? How was music used (if any)? What made this scene really work? How did they use natural sounds of the environment, or sound design? How did they cut the dialogue, or why did they cut to an interview in a specific spot?

Then, after the film is done, I look at the big picture and how the film was constructed. What were the main themes and messages that I took away from the film? How did the filmmaker and editor use different pacing and timing techniques to maintain interest? How would I describe the overall cinematography style? Why do I think they chose that style? For multi-participant films, how much time was given to each participant? Why? What was the purpose of including these participants?

This means it typically takes me 3-4 hours to watch the film on a second watch, but I gain so much insight from doing this that helps inform what I want out of my work.

While I personally focus on films to study (I have minimal time these days!), Rubin suggests including various types of artwork in your studies, from literature to art. If you’re a screenwriter, literature will of course be an important reference for you. If you are a cinematographer, studying the masters in painting and photography can help you master composition, lighting, and more.

To finish up, Rubin says, “The objective is not to learn to mimic greatness, but to calibrate our internal meter for greatness. So we can better make the thousands of choices that might ultimately lead to our own great work.”