Why do filmmakers sometimes behave like fish?
Dr. Deepak Chopra says that “If you talk to people who work in aquariums, they will tell you that when fish are separated from each other in glass tanks with a transparent partition between, preventing the fish from moving to the other tank, and then you remove that partition, the fish still will not be able to go into the other tank. They have made a commitment in their body-mind and believe that’s as far as they can go.”
He says our sensory apparatus, like those fish in the aquarium, develops as a result of our initial sensory experiences and how we are taught to interpret them. We function with a nervous system that reinforces and interprets what happened to us. It’s called a premature cognitive commitment.
Then, we commit ourselves to cognitive realities which are a result of conceptual boundaries that we have structured in our own consciousness. And our nervous system reinforces these boundaries.
I run into this daily in consultations with filmmakers. When they need to raise money, I often suggest ideas that I know to be successful. Many will say, No, I had a horrible time with crowdfunding or I had a party and we barely covered the cost of the food. Once they tried something, their body-mind has made a premature cognitive commitment.
To change this is impossible in one phone call.
A New Kind of Class
So years ago, I created The Trailblazers Class. I asked filmmakers to drive an hour to Oxnard once a month for 6 months to spend from10AM to 4PM with me in my home with lunch served. We started with the foundation of the film, pitch, proposal and trailer and we spent a month on each of these before we moved into funding ideas.
We created a vision board together cutting pictures from magazines, listened to Chopra and his Way of the Wizard audio. We listened to Bruce Lipton tell us how to change our thinking, how we are creating our future with thoughts. We began to think of things as completed and realized we must send positive images and feelings when we thought about our firms and our future. So we created completed visions of the films in our minds and saw them as successful.
Was it successful? Upon research, one woman who was just starting to make a documentary now has a brilliant, completed film and is starting another one. One of the young men in the class has won many grants and is now teaching at NYFA. Another woman artist did a stupendous job with her documentary and wrote a second book with her photos and it is published.
Intentional Filmmakers
That’s why I’ve now created the Intentional Filmmakers Class. It’s a nine month online course (no trips to Oxnard necessary) to help filmmakers remove blocks. It will have only a small group of filmmakers who will work together to discover these body- mind commitments and remove them. I want to help filmmakers accept and embrace new concepts for funding their films.
This is a business where the only constant is change. We must be able to adapt to new concepts and let go of old ones at the drop of a hat. We can do this through new information from scientists, doctors and investigators such as Deepak Chopra, Lynn McTaggart, Brian Green, Stuart Wilde and Michael Beckwith.
Miracles happen every day. I believe that we are all connected. I believe that we care for each other and we are here to support each other. We can create our future. Impossible? I don’t think so.
For more information on the Intentional Filmmaker Class, please go to https://fromtheheartproductions.com/intentional-filmmaking/
