Have you ever struggled to learn something new? You start to wonder if there’s something wrong with you because you can’t seem to progress past a certain point.

Do you hear the word “sales” and think of a guy with a comb-over wearing a polyester suit and trying to talk you into buying a used Honda Civic?

Learn the basics of cinematic lighting for filmmaking in this epic blog post.

I loved the drama of the performance. Getting dressed up in fancy clothes.

Do you have a creative block?

Have you ever felt creatively blocked, stuck or totally uninspired?

Maybe there are voices in your head telling you that you’re not good enough to take that next step. Or perhaps you don’t even know what the next step is.

As creatives, our process has peaks and valleys.

It’s not always a smooth and inspiration-filled ride. Sometimes your creative life might feel dry. You try to make something, come up with a good story idea, brainstorm….

And nothing. Your well is completely empty.

I’ve been there. Many times.

Just last year, my inner creative landscape felt as dry and barren as an abandoned baseball field in the middle of an August heatwave.

In this post, I’ll walk you through some of the things I did last year and other things I have done over my whole life to overcome creative blocks.

With the right filming techniques you can shoot anything. Find out the top 5 filming techniques you should master.

Learn the Film Lighting Basics First, Then Go Crazy with Pro Gear

If you don’t know the basics of film lighting, it’s easy to feel like you’re drowning in the shallow end of an Olympic pool.

Your footage doesn’t look quite right, but when you try to figure out what lights to buy or rent, you’re lost. There are so many lighting choices. Should you use LEDs or tungsten lights? Soft lights or hard lights? Do you need a reflector? What about flags? Should you be using a soft box or do you need something with barn doors?

You might look up lighting techniques and see images with 17 huge lights and an entire film crew.

If you’re just shooting a short film or doing a solo filmmaking project, then many of the film lighting tips you’ll find online are useless. You probably don’t have the budget to buy or rent 3 HMIs (these are incredible daylight balanced cool lights that are ultra powerful i.e. amazing but expensive).

I discovered the power of story while watching my bleary-eyed ESL students fall asleep in class at 7:30 in the morning.

A Good Headline is Enticing and Has a Clear Benefit

Your headlines need to be as enticing as an offer of free, freshly made cookies.

Your reader is always filtering through information with the question: Is this for me? The only way they can decide if something is right for them is if there’s a clear benefit.

Yet, when we write our websites, we biz owners are often self-centred.

We don’t put ourselves in our customers’ shoes and write for their problems, dreams, fears, and needs. We don’t offer up cookies. Instead, we write about how awesome we are and give a million esoteric details about what we do.

Often, we don’t even use headlines. We jump straight into shop talk without flagging our client down in the first place.

It’s like trying to leap into a moving taxi. You’ve got to flag that taxi down first before you can open the door and get in.