Inspirational Documentary Creators
»Inspiration can come from anywhere – an image, a comment, something that’s happened to me or someone I know. It’s hard to know exactly.« – Nicholas Sparks
Nowadays we are lucky to sometimes know, where our inspiration comes from. We are looking at content on Instagram, TikTok and co. daily, and if we safe it, we know where it comes from. I have started a variety of lists on Instagram to get inspired. It is an easy, natural process, that will help me in the future. Of course, I can always check the messages, I send to people, mostly consisting of reels, but as long as there is no great way to locate specific videos on Instagram, my method is practical. I have structured my collection into the lists: Master Thesis, Cinematography, Animation, Stop Motion and Inspo [Inspiration in general]. All the fields, I could see myself doing my Master Thesis in at this snapshot in time. I wish I would have started this sooner, because everything before that system is a mess of reels that I saved. From cooking, to vacation, to interior design, over to fashion and plant care – even Marie Kondo couldn’t organise it now. Better late than never to start a working system.
What am I looking for?
For cinematography, I am looking mostly for editing styles, mood, music and cuts. I do get inspired by the way the videos are filmed, but in this area, I am more attuned in already. I have the visual eye, the hands, the vision but I am missing the experience in post production in film.
Animation and Stop Motion is a field, where I have a lot of theoretical knowledge, through constant consumption. My practical skills are in the beginning phases. So, I pretty much put every reel I like, no matter if it is the style, drawing, cuts, composition, idea, everything goes in there. These fields are exciting to me, because I am so new at it, that I enjoy every improvement, like a child learning to take a first step. It is all interesting, and I am proud of myself for just making something move, or being able to draw something on my iPad. Hopefully, I can stay in this stage for a long time, even as my skills progress {hopefully!}.
The Master Thesis List was the one, that started my collection. I suddenly saw many surf videos on Instagram, probably cause I have been saying the word „surfing“ a lot. It is not a full-on conspiracy „our phones listen to us“ {duh} seeing as I have surfed in the past, and went to a surf camp just last year. It is a list of either great female surfers, or surfing documentaries/videos or surfing in general.
The general Inspo List is as it is in the name already, for anything that I find inspiring. It does not have to be study related, it is just something, where I mentally go „ah, nice, never thought about it like that before.“. As I am a collector of random ideas and thoughts since I could walk, I believe that anything can be useful someday. So if you need a random object to fit into something you have broken, knock on my door, you might get lucky.
To answer my own question: I am looking inspiration. In any way or form.
Looking back up the lines of text of this post, I can see my mind wandering from one place to the next, without addressing my chosen title. Therefore, I will give you some names, that I have collected. Names of people, who I believe make great content. Do with that what you will.
Animation:
stories are great, relatable, simple drawings (achievable for me), fun, great body language with simple figures
style is amazing, mixture of drawing styles, great text and music, interaction with real life, creative, feeling of „everything is possible“
It’s an animation studio, so a variety of creators.
very „right“ drawing style, powerful, feminist, relatable, versatile, 3D and 2D
showing process, comic style, drawing, great character animation, full of love
*My taste has started at „drawings that look cute“ to animation that tells as story. I just reflected that because I had to look at my list. I also saw, that I put a surf video into the animation list – mistakes are normal.*
I am going to make an extra blog post, showing more inspirational creators. I realised that I have saved still illustrations too, so might be interesting to creators from all specialisations. I believe it is interesting, because I always love to discover new „role models“.
