I’m a big advocate of creatives stealing ideas. This isn’t my idea, I stole it from Austin Kleon who wrote the bestselling book Steal Like an Artist.
Although this doesn’t feel like the sort of thing artists should do, Kleon quotes figures like David Bowie (“the only art I’ll ever study is stuff that I can steal from”) and Tarantino (“I steal from every single movie ever made”) known for being iconic and original.
(My favourite quote on this topic is, “Good artists copy; great artists steal”, attributed to everyone from Picasso to Igor Stravinsky. Apparently, so many people have stolen the phrase that we’re not actually sure who said it.)
The arguments for theft go like this.
First, this is what artists have always done, and if it’s a good idea for Bowie, Tarantino or Picasso, it’s probably a good idea for you.
Second, it’s a great way to learn. Trying to copy someone is like reverse-engineering, taking something apart to work out how it’s made. Also, as Austin Kleon argues, “the reason to copy your heroes and their style is so that you might somehow get a glimpse into their minds.” Understanding how they see filmmaking and the world — that’s the real insight.
Third, copying helps you solve problems. When I make explainers I repeatedly encounter the same problems — How should I hook the audience in the introduction? How should I display archive? — and copying gives me a treasure trove of solutions that I can use. (More on this below.)
Fourth, when you’re stealing you’re working on developing your taste and this is actually important. It’s tempting to focus on “hard skills” like how to use Premiere or operate the latest camera, but actually, your ability to have good ideas about what to do at each point in your film is your most valuable and timeless skill. And in my experience, there’s nothing better for expanding the range of ideas that might occur to you, than watching lots of new and different videos with the express purpose of finding things to steal from them.
This doesn’t mean originality is cancelled
Of course, copying feels counter to originality, which is something we strive for as filmmakers. But the strange thing is that, even if you’re copying, you’ll often find yourself being original anyway.
For example, I once made a film purposely in the style — or as best I could manage — of documentary legend, Adam Curtis. I went through playlists of his music and tried to find music library equivalents, pillaged the Prelinger Archive which he has used extensively, and tried to copy his writing style (“This is a film about…”). Yet by the time I’d finished the film, I’d ended up including a stop-motion section and a big cardboard cut-out of Donald Trump. Even though I was setting out to copy, I ended up doing these other odd things. (As Neil Gaiman says, “your ‘voice’ is the stuff you can’t help doing”.)
How to steal
Okay, so let’s say you’re signed up stealing from others. The next question is how best to do it?
Keep an inspiration bible.
For me, this is a Google Document full of screenshots and gifs. I turn to it for fun, inspiration and for solutions to particular problems. For example, I have a section where I’ve screenshotted various ways to display quotes from documents:
(You can find more ideas for text in this edition of Video Ideas)
And another section covering different approaches to displaying archive:
Your inspiration bible is also a source of references for whenever you need to explain an idea to a client or colleague. Rather than bumble through a verbal explanation, you can just show them what you’re thinking.
I try and add to my inspiration bible every day. I download YouTube videos or films to my laptop and then go through and grab things I’ve admired. Over time I think this is the single best thing I’ve done to improve my filmmaking. These days I think of it like practising my scales on the piano, something a professional needs to do to keep themselves sharp.
You can also have an offline inspiration bible, or as it’s more commonly known, a scrapbook:
If an inspiration bible sounds of interest, here is a “starter” document. Included are instructions on how to make gifs and a few interesting visual ideas stolen from the excellent NYT film on the New York subway.
If you’re looking for more films to steal from, I recommend my Video Ideas email list where I share various approaches to filmmaking from across the internet.
More encouragement to steal:
Francis Ford Coppola
“We want you to take from us. We want you, at first, to steal from us, because you can’t steal. You will take what we give you and you will put it in your own voice and that’s how you will find your voice. And that’s how you begin. And then one day someone will steal from you.”
Quentin Tarantino
A great video essay on how Tarantino steals from film:
Austin Kleon
Read more about his book: Steal Like an Artist
