We were lucky to catch up with Aline Ballestero recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Aline, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
In constantly working my awareness: physical, mental and emotional awareness. The word resilience itself talks about sticking to it, as I believe we have to constantly improve – through practice – in all these 3 realms… And it seems we’re still in the infancy of the mental and emotional practices! And at the same time it’s doable, and we can also see the improvement in film crews, where I work, for sure. In people’s abilities to communicate with a bit more empathy for example.
For me, researching and practicing mental awareness comes from meditation. This millennial knowledge which for some reason seems to be ignored from time to time. And when we get back in touch with it, we realize we can figure things out. Being lighter, in the subtlety.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Being a petit woman in the camera operating business is my best gift from life. That took me on a journey to understand and improve resilience with efficiency. Starting with physical practices: Steadicam practice with other operators, yoga, acro-yoga, bike and physical therapy. And mental and emotional practices – meditation, psychotherapy and the study of philosophy. All bringing a fantastic array of human improvement ideas when you’re willing to put into actual practice. The compounded mix of it all can change a person’s perspective about themselves and their attitudes, towards a more productive and serene professional, which transforms them in someone capable of dealing with life’s surprises, in and outside of a film set.
I’ve been operating cameras since the year 2000 and Steadicam since 2011, in Brazil and the US, and adding the research on the other subjects, but still consider myself in the very beginning of the journey.
But I also believe acquired knowledge that’s not shared, makes no sense. So I started a workshop on Body Awareness on Set. I’ve been teaching in Brazil so far. And I’ll bring it to the US this year. Some of it is also on my Youtube channel. I personally did the research through the above mentioned practices, but in this workshop you can bring the awareness concepts from the reality we already live in our film set lives, since we’re there most of the time.
I must say it’s being mind blowing to get in touch with our real human potential, by doing so little. We just need to take the first step. That jump out of our comfort zone.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
It’s probably just one that leads to a great number of others: the urge to improve personally and professionally. Working in the creative business requires that non stop. Skills, it’s all about skills… We all have the “super hero” strength within. We just need to insist in the search and practice, practice, practice. I believe they’ll invariably come when you don’t give up.
In the work I do, it was the combination of these human areas of knowledge. But I don’t think we necessarily need to profoundly study it all, since it wouldn’t fit in a lifetime, but we can bring the most efficient elements that will help in our development. And for each individual it’s going to be slightly different. That makes it more fun!
Advice is make sure whatever practice you choose, it’s the one that constantly brings smiles to your face. Hopefully some butterflies in the stomach as well. Then you know you’re in the right place.
Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
I learned the challenges come from within as well. We have a tendency to find what or who ‘to blame’ for our challenges, but if you really dig deep, you’ll know it’s not a matter of “blame”, but responsibility. And that responsibility is completely individual. Even if we don’t want to admit it right away. So today I can say my challenge is a bit of impostor syndrome maybe. I do constant work and I never stop the research and practice, but maybe I take some extra time to bring the results of this work to the surface.
And the tools I use to deal with that varies, but it includes ignoring those feelings and reinforcing the work. Keeping steady with great friends. Real friends are the best thing one can have.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.alineballestero.com
- Instagram: @_balle_
- Youtube: Aline Ballestero
Image Credits
Ana Laura Leardini Dan Ikeda
