I’m a little burned out these days, due to a number of pressures and people in the big studio machine… but it’s given me something to say here.

Many of you who read this blog consider yourselves artists, or at the very least, creative thinkers. That means you live and die by one thing: your INSTINCTS.

One of my favorite quotes about directing comes from Irvin Kershner, director of one of my favorite movies, “The Empire Strikes Back.” His DVD commentary sounds more like your grandpa telling stories than a classroom lecture, and there are some golden nuggets in there.

At the start of the commentary, Kershner says, “Directing is guessing. You GUESS that the script is good and ready to shoot, you GUESS when you hire the actors that they’ll do a good job, you GUESS at where you want to put the camera when you shoot it, and you GUESS what to cut out and what to leave in when you edit. There’s no right or wrong. There’s only your best guess.”

Way to whittle it down, Irv. And what is at the center of an educated guess? Instinct. Instinct is your first guess at something when you don’t think too much about it. Instinct is the tip of a mental iceberg that you have built over many, many years of experience. You study, you make mistakes, you learn from your last project, and then you have cultivated this response as a creator.

Don’t get me wrong: rewriting is essential. Listening to notes is important. Considering your audience is part of the job. But as an artist, if you’ve spent years cultivating your instincts, then you need to listen to them and always return to them. If you start over-thinking your instincts, you’re dead.

Then you’re just fulfilling a committee’s requests. You’re letting all ideas in. Even good ideas can be damaging if they do not fit into the director’s original vision – the gut feeling he had when he began.

I say all this because, if you create in a popular art form, I believe it is the root of any obstacle you will face. There are a lot of voices that will pull at you and tell you how to create. But you’ve got to stay connected to that voice inside you, the one that made you respond to the work in the first place. I would add my own quote to Mr. Kershner’s: “INSTINCT IS EVERYTHING.”

After the problems I’ve faced with a number of studio executives this past year, I am convinced it all boils down to instincts. First, they don’t have any. Or it’s fair to say that any creative instincts that they ever had were deadened long ago. They’ve been in too many meetings, working hard on pleasing too many agendas. Their job is to listen to trends, to their bosses, to the marketing department, and then, maybe then, to the storyteller.

And that’s okay! Let’s just acknowledge that some people have a different job. And their job is to listen to other things that are not instinctual. They do their job, I do my job. The problems arise when they start pretending that they’ve got creative instincts too.

I think we can all agree that great suggestions come from business people, the common man, even focus groups. But they are not to be replaced with the gut feelings of the artist. Everything has to weigh against that.

I’m saying this today because lately I have had to remind myself. You might say I am taking some time to “rededicate myself at the altar of Instinct.” This is the only way I can be refreshed to fight the good fight, to make the good stuff. If I lose my belief in my instincts, I’m dead.

Instinct, much like inspiration, is not only where art comes from, it’s usually what great art is ABOUT. Instinct is that magical realm of the spirit. It’s where The Force comes from. It’s why Neo can see the code of the Matrix, or why Indiana Jones knows where to dig when no one else does.

We are artists. We have the keys to that realm, if we stay open and alert to its call. Get to know your instincts. Sharpen them, learn their voice. When you’ve built up years of trusting your instincts, you become a confident artist. Then you can weather the storms of the naysayers and committees and the second-guessers. They have their job to do, you have yours.

It’s the only way good art is ever going to sneak through the cracks! And let’s face it, sometimes that’s the only way it gets out there.