Have you ever looked back at your past creative projects from three-plus years ago and absolutely cringed? Yeah, me too. There’s something about reviewing our past creative endeavors that tends to give artists the willies. It’s similar to how most of us don’t enjoy looking at awkward photos of ourselves taken during middle school.
This process of revisiting our own past work and being terribly disheartened applies to the full spectrum of creative mediums. The sentiment is the same with regard to painting, drawing, pottery, and just about anything else. I have old poems, prose, and graphic design projects that I’m equally unmotivated to revisit but, for the sake of this article, I’m going to reference a few of my old short films.
I’ve read various interviews with famous filmmakers who have said how they rarely, if ever, revisit their past films. Even if it’s a classic. Al Pacino said in an interview last year while making the rounds for The Irishman, that “…there’s no real need (to go back). I’ve seen it; I know what it is. If it’s good, I feel lucky. If it’s not, it’s something you try to forget.”
Of course, I’m nowhere near the arena of someone like Pacino. Yet, when I rewatch past projects like Stella, I can tap into what he meant. I said in a previous post that I’m an extremely nostalgic person. This characteristic doesn’t necessarily extend into the professional sphere, however. I’m not a huge fan of my early poems and stories, nor do I enjoy re-watching old videos I’ve made. That said, it can be a *fun* exercise to do so occasionally as a means of gaging your own progress. So long as the act of doing so doesn’t make you vomit or question your self-worth.
How I Feel About My Old Short Films
On a whim, I recently went back through my old Vimeo and YouTube channels, those I made while in college. I killed an hour by watching some of my early short films, mostly out of boredom. This was simultaneously a fun stroll down memory lane (shoutouts to my classmates who helped on set) and a torturous recollection of my artistic journey.
There are far too many aspects of these projects that make me want to barf. The audio is pretty rough (re: Ivan) and the cinematography is grainy and inconsistent (re: Stella). Not only that, it makes me nauseous to see how much of the dialogue is stilted and overly-grandiose (re: Astute, As Per The Usual, below). I see now just how high-minded I was trying to be. It’s perfectly okay to be high-minded in filmmaking but it’s rarely a good thing for a film to feel like it’s trying to be high-minded. Not only that, but I see how blatant my inspirations were at the time.
I made all these shorts around 2014 and 2015. At that time I had just started to explore the filmographies of the Coen brothers and Wes Anderson. I can see now, regarding Ivan in particular, how desperately I was trying to emulate Wes Anderson. Don’t get me wrong, I still love Anderson’s work. However, it’s easy to look back now and recognize how, while trying my best to be original, I was truly at the onset of a journey to find my own creative voice.
It’s not that I think all these old projects are bad. I don’t. I’m still proud of them in many ways. I’m proud to re-watch films like Ivan and Astute, As Per The Usual because I see how deliberate many of my shot choices were as a director. I appreciate how I challenged myself to “show not tell” and use visual storytelling techniques. Yet I can’t help but taste an unsavory flavor when I watch them. They represent a past incarnation of me as an artist. One who didn’t have a distinct voice yet (assuming that I do now?) and who was trying way too hard.
These films remind me of a kid who thought he had things all figured out when, in reality, I was terribly naive. Even now, I still have puh-lenty to learn as an artist, writer, and filmmaker. The difference is that I’m now much better at accepting and embracing the things that I don’t know. That, and I would like to think I’ve become better at writing from a deeper well of honesty and originality.
Why We Feel That Cringe
The way I see it, there are three main reasons why we don’t enjoy looking back at our past work:
1) We create art largely as an expression of where we are at in life at any given time, be that physically, mentally, or emotionally. It stands to reason that we might look back at the art we made during a certain period of our lives and shudder on account of the undesirable memories of that time period it conjures up inside us. 2016 was an emotionally taxing year for me, so I don’t really love to look at the things I made that year. They’re too charged up with the emotional weight I was carrying back then.
2) Sometimes we don’t want to look back at our past work not out of fear or disappointment, but rather because there is simply no point in doing so. We have moved on to bigger and better things, therefore, dwelling on past failures (that we already learned from) is tantamount to an unnecessary pitstop. The professional artist knows darn well that their worst work is behind them, so it’s better to keep moving forward and try to make something that’s actually good tomorrow. (Re: the Pacino quote from above.)
3) There’s always the sad fact that some of our past work simply wasn’t any good. For each of the short films I shared above, those that I’m not fully contented with but don’t fully despise, I have one or two others that no one should ever see because they were rubbish. It’s not fun to look back at mediocre work. Plain and simple. (I’ll go out on a limb here. If you have any interest in watching some of my truly bad early films, you can find them all here.)
That Feeling Is Actually Good
That cringy feeling we get, by my estimate, is actually a very good thing. It indicates that you as a creator have evolved and improved since you made that now-cringy project. If you didn’t feel a sense of frustration or disappointment in your past work, that might be a sign that you haven’t grown as much as you could have in the subsequent years.
One of my all-time favorite books on creativity, The War on Art by Steven Pressfield, has a section that has always stuck with me. He discusses why fear of our own work (specifically, the doing of our work – the book is primarily about overcoming Resistance and beating procrastination) is actually a good thing. He states how the fear you feel when you sit down to write (or paint, or film a scene, or whatever else) indicates that you harbor a deep love for that which you aspire to create. If you didn’t love the work, then you wouldn’t be afraid of it. Because, as Pressfield says so simply, “the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference.”
When we revisit our past work and feel disgusted by our past incompetence or naivety, that’s a sign that we love our work and our craft too much to be content with mediocre work. If you look back on a shoddy painting or poem you made in college and feel no negative emotions toward it, that means your love for your craft might not be strong enough. Therefore, that cringy feeling is a positive thing. It proves that you love what you do.
What We Can Learn From Our Past Work
We as artists and creators put forth our best effort at every opportunity. We only have access to the knowledge and skill we possess at any given moment. With that in mind, your current work is surely going to surpass your early work. You’ve learned more about life, failure, and your craft since then. Taking a brief moment of retrospection shouldn’t be a depressing act. It should be regarded as an act of humility and an opportunity for honest self-evaluation.
Your past work, no matter how outdated and disappointing, can serve as a reminder of that which once excited you. It’s a signpost pointing in the direction you were already moving, likely before you fully knew which direction that was. You’ll find foreshadowings of your voice and stylistic harbingers of what would become your later and more mature work.
Perhaps most importantly, revisiting your past work will remind you just how much progress you have made. It can be reassuring because it will confirm that you’ve come a heck of a long way from the nonsense you used to be making. This can be particularly beneficial on the days where you feel stuck, at a wall, and uninspired.
When we feel lost, aimless, or uninspired, our old work can reinvigorate us by jogging our memories of the passion and (somewhat ignorant) creative energy we had in our younger years. These shorts might not be amazing but they definitely remind me of the enthusiasm I had for filmmaking back then. Catching a glimpse of our original passion can help us rekindle that same energy as we move forward. This can help keep the fire alive and empower us to continue making the best work we possibly can. And that’s the goal, right?
Postscripts
The embedded short film links in this article come via my old YouTube and Vimeo accounts. However, I am in the process of transitioning to my new Handwritten Kin YouTube channel. I humbly ask you to visit and subscribe to that newer channel if you wish to support this blog.
For anyone with time to kill and an interest in more of my so-so early videos: I recommend this stop-motion video I made as a tribute to my hometown of Missoula, MT or this video of my high-school friends and me practicing for our high school senior talent show. Believe it or not, these are my two most successful YouTube videos to date.
Finally, if you’re able to revisit your 5+ year-old creative work and not cringe then I am in awe of you. I implore you to hit me up on Instagram or Twitter because I’d love to talk to you.
