In Chapter 6 of 17 in her 2009 Capture Your Flag interview, filmmaker Tricia Regan finds expectations-setting critical in breaking a film project into steps and gauging the momentum. Even in uncomfortable places, Regan applies a persistent, incremental, open-minded approach to exercise sound judgment on storytelling potential. Through this approach, Regan positions herself to best understand whether or not project potential blossoms or withers.
Transcription:
Erik Michielsen: How has setting expectations played a role in your career as a filmmaker?
Tricia Regan: Well I’m actually in that process right now. It’s scary starting a film project because I know what I’m in for. It’s going to be a long haul, at some point everyone is going to be angry at me, I know that even if the money comes easily there are going to be financial issues and business issues. I just know what’s coming.
It’s scary. What I do is I get attracted to something and I don’t get invested in it. I take incremental steps even when I’m thinking this is so not going to work. Just go and show up and keep an open mind and let your wheels spin and let all the wheels of all the people spin. And leave it to providence more or less. If the wheels keep spinning and everything gets tightened and turned and it keeps progressing with some volition of its own, then you start to get involved. And once you do at some point you’re going to have to drag that baby along. But it has to have a certain momentum of its own because any film that gets made is a miracle. So if you don’t feel that miracle vibe, that providence involved at some point in the early stages, you can’t expect it to show up at some other point.
In Chapter 17 of 17 in her 2009 Capture Your Flag interview, filmmaker Tricia Regan finds reflective moments, such as long walks on the beach, help her compare risks and rewards, await decision-making moments, and remain open to new possibilities. Central to each are patience, thinking through ideas, and a remaining positive that the appropriate path will appear given a balance of focus and time.
Transcript:
Erik Michielsen: What do you get out of solitude? For example while you were making your film you took long walks on the beach to process, to think. How does that contribute to that self-confidence?
Tricia Regan: Yeah. This is where it could get a little trippy. But I think most creative people, most people who are really, really good at what they do, probably have that same sense of mystery about it. I sometimes feel like there’s nothing particularly talented about me. I just have the patient to wait for the solutions and recognize them when they come and to not be afraid to try things that I’m not sure are right with the hope that they lead me to the solution. So those long walks on the beach that I would take everyday, I would take them when I was shooting, I would take them when I was editing, were really just a way of sort of opening up, not thinking about it or thinking about it. Starting the walk or the day or going to bed the night before, this is our problem, which character goes next, this is our problem.
So I feel like that gave from providence. It didn’t come from me having a brilliant idea. I just thought about it for long enough until there it was and there was the solution.
In Chapter 10 of 16 of his 2009 Capture Your Flag interview, Internet entrepreneur Joe Stump shares the story behind the North Pacific Giant Octopus sleeve tattoo wrapping around his right arm. Done in traditional Japanese style, Stump uses the tattoo as a metaphor to reflect his personality.
Transcript:
Erik Michielsen: What inspired the sleeve tattoos and how do they reflect on who you are as a person?
Joe Stump: I’ve always appreciated the art and have considered the tattoo an art form. It is an interesting art form in that it takes traditional artistry on a very difficult canvas and intertwines a human with a piece of art. They are inextricably tied at that point.
It is very intimidating to walk into a tattoo parlor with all these rough and tumble guys and what not and I never felt comfortable doing it. I had always wanted a half sleeve. That was something I always wanted.
Then I went to Thailand for the first time and I saw them doing bamboo tattoos which is a traditional hand pump – prick, prick, prick – … and they do it out in the open out on the beach kind of thing. I saw it and I was like “I gotta to do this. I gotta get this done.” That’s when I got this first half sleeve, which is a large lotus and a dragon.
And I had this idea formulating once I got this one done that I wanted a north pacific giant octopus wrapping down my whole arm. I found a guy in San Francisco who is a six-foot three total white bread dude who was born and raised in Japan. His native tongue is Japanese.
The thing with traditional Japanese style tattoos is that they normally tell a story, there is a lot of folklore involved and there are very strict rules. So I had him do the North Pacific Giant octopus. And I got that because the octopus by nature are mischievous creatures, they are solitary creatures, and the North Pacific giant octopus is enormous and prefers the Pacific northwest and I felt there were a lot of analogies to my own personality.
Since 2009, Capture Your Flag has interviewed a cohort of rising leaders who share lessons from their journeys to help others plan, pursue and achieve life and career aspirations. The resulting 3000+ Near Peer Video Library can be licensed for commercial use.
