How A Filmmaker Can Overcome Fear And Build Confidence by Mark Harris
Film Courage: Have you ever written a screenplay where the intention was not to film it yourself? Just write it for a director for hire to make?
Mark Harris, Writer/Director: Yes, my first ten screenplays was written other for directors to direct because I had no desire to direct films at all.
It wasn’t until I did WHY MEN CHEAT and then everything after that is for me to I’m going to direct this stuff. But everything that was written prior to me directing my first feature was for other directors to direct because I never had a desire to ever, ever direct a film until I actually go on the set for the first time and I was like Oh, this is what I’m passionate about.
Film Courage: Were you nervous or you just didn’t want to have that responsibility of directing and managing 50 things at once?
Mark: Well, when I first got on a film set days leading up to directing I was definitely nervous but it wasn’t because I didn’t want to manage but it was because I didn’t have the confidence because I didn’t know what I was doing so there was that insecurity of not knowing what I was doing.
So we had all of those things going on. I was insecure, I didn’t have the confidence that I have now because I didn’t know what I was doing. But this has been quite a few films whereas it took awhile to get the confidence for me to deal with actors, to deal with…to know how to set up…to do my shot list and everything. So this was over a period of time. I didn’t just direct my first film. Then my second film, I knew it…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
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