Meet William Smelser

We were lucky to catch up with William Smelser recently and have shared our conversation below.

William, thrilled to have you on the platform as I think our readers can really benefit from your insights and experiences. In particular, we’d love to hear about how you think about burnout, avoiding or overcoming burnout, etc.

When you are fully immersing yourself in your work, regardless of what it is, burnout is unavoidable. I think even the most obsessive people can hit a wall. Having many different hats is what keeps me from hitting this point. I view my work like multiple little house plants laid out in front of me. Each is labeled: film, music, gym, work, etc. Any good plant owner knows its not good to overwater a plant. Rotten roots, wilted leaves and so on. Work is this way. You cannot just keep putting things in and continue to see results. At a certain point, you reach capacity and its time to care for something else.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I am an arthouse filmmaker. I have my hands in every aspect of filmmaking, from script to score. I have just finished recording the music for my first short film, planned to hit festivals in the coming months. I have a couple of other films in the early staged of preproduction as well as an album I am recording from home.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

The biggest quality crucial to pursuing the creative arts is being curious. What is the difference between the plural fish and fishes? What’s that smell I smell after it rains? Why is there a screaming cockatoo in the third act of Citizen Kane? All of these things can be fuel for your endeavors. It’s important to dig deep into every facet of life. A common phrase amongst the media illiterate is, “It’s not that deep.” I guarantee you, it almost always is.
More specifically for filmmaking; you should learn communication skills. Often this skill gets confused for ‘appeasement’ but that’s not what I mean. Learn to get your ideas across effectively. Figure out how people best take in information and cater your speech and writing towards it.
Finally, make sure you wear enough hats. When I got to film school I noticed that people had resigned themselves to the specification they had chosen upon taking their first class. If someone was a director of photography, that’s all they cared to try. A lot of them shunned me, a designated director, for doing stop motion or editing my own credits sequences when no one else would. This mindset is going to come back to bite them later in their career. Our current creative economy is ruled by polymaths; people with many disciplines. Make sure you’re one of these people.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

In regard to collaboration, I think the best people to work with are those who look at your vision, tear apart the minutia of it and say, “no, this would be better” and then apply those changes effectively. Production designers are insanely good at this but it applies across the board. The best method for these kinds of folks to contact me would be my Instagram: @__bill.s__

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/__bill.s__/?hl=en