How to know when to stop

Knowing when to stop is an important part of creating any kind of work, whether it be a film, a fine art painting, a book, or whatever.  You are never going to get it perfect, but you need to get close enough to communicating your thoughts and feelings so that your audience will be responding to what you intended to create.

Because, presumably, the reason to create is to communicate.  And if you aren't communicating, well, all that time and effort was for nothing.  It could be kind of sad-unless you put your work in the closet and chalk it up to a learning experience.

Ernesto Olmos with his Flute of Fire.

I've done a lot of writing, mostly non-fiction (things like these blogs, and my scholarly books and articles), but also some fiction, like the script for Domino and I feel reasonably confident about my ability to communicate when I write.

As for my work in film and video, well let´s say I´m still learning.  And it´s a hard medium to learn in because it is so expensive.

And of course, one of the most important lessons to learn is when to stop.

Thinking of the matter in terms of another medium, can you imagine the Mona Lisa with, let´s say, a little bit more happening in the background?  Wouldn´t be the same.  Probably wouldn´t be a masterpiece either because the focus would have been diluted.


This is true of all art forms.  If you overwork your piece, you´ll dilute your focus.

Script writer-film director (me) and crew on the set:  creating a scene.

 So the first step in knowing when to stop is knowing what your focus is.  Sounds easy, but if you are creating, you often don´t really know until you are nearly finished, or even not until after you´ve finished, and sometimes, not even then.

Art and the creative process have a lot to do with emotions and sentiment.  They have a lot to do with our subconscious, and with non-verbal expression even if you´re working in a verbal medium such as poetry.  And the art needs to speak to these same centers in the ideal audience...to the audience´s subconscious, to the audience´s emotions and sentiments.  Yes, to the audience´s rational mind as well, and the question as to which part of the audience´s conscious and subconscious is the primary target will vary with the particular piece of art.


So how do you know where to stop if you´re not sure of what your focus is, if you don´t know what you hope to achieve?

Painter Hershell West in front of one of his paintings.

 One common mistake is to imagine that what is crystal clear to you, the creator, is also crystal clear to your audience.  You need to be able to back away from your work and look at it from the point of view of someone outside yourself.  This is not necessarily easy, but it´s important.

Once you´ve done that, and satisfied yourself that it should be comprehensible to someone else, well, I think the next step should be to go over and over your work once you think you´ve completed it.  Show it around and listen to comments, not that you will make all the changes people suggest but to see their reaction, decide if that´s the reaction you want, make whatever changes you feel are warranted, and then...

STOP.  QUIT.

To my mind, the only way to finish a piece of art is to say at some point:  "That´s it.  I´m done."  If in the long run you don´t think you achieved your aims, well, use that information for your next piece of art.  You´ve got to move on at some point, and refuse to let yourself turn back.

Actor Javier Padilla emoting.

 This is one of the most difficult things for me, but usually, there is a point at which I say to myself

ENOUGH.

And I think that´s enough for this blog.

Comments anyone?

OUR NEXT BLOG will be about some misadventures I´ve encountered when shooting.