The Edit | Alexa Campbell on Overcoming Self Doubt in Film School

Award Winning Music Video Director Alexa Campbell, shares her personal story of overcoming self-doubt while attending film school.

Encouragement and insight in under 15 minutes.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Moved to Nashville in 2015, got to go to school at Belmont. And yeah, just I studied their motion pictures program, but just really dealt with a lot of self-doubt once I got here because a lot of kids in the program. Um, I remember there was a kid uh that said like his dad created Wizards of Waverly Place, the TV show. And there another guy said that his aunt worked at Paramount, and just these they kind of came from the industry. And so I just I think this limiting belief I had for myself was I can't make it in this industry because I'm from a small town and I don't know anybody here, and that just kind of I just kept telling myself that. And so just really struggled with a lot of self-doubt and ended up switching my major a couple of times. And I was also struggled with feeling like I didn't fit in the program because I was one of the only girls. I was also in sorority and a part of different things on campus, like um Welcome Week Leader and part of there on like Saturday, where new students come and like tour or prospective students come and tour the college. So there's just a lot of my activities I was in didn't match the program and I didn't fit in. And I think I thought, well, maybe I'm not supposed to do this and I don't fit in here. And so yeah, switched out and then um it was I think like a semester of being out of it where I um I can't remember exactly, I think just different people kind of encouraging me to maybe go back into it because they said like you were a lot happier whenever you were pursuing that for yourself, and when I would talk about my life, I'd be like, well, I don't really know, but I'm just gonna figure it out. But when I would talk about, you know, video, movies, film, and things, I would just have so much more excitement about it. But yeah, I think that was just a huge part of my story of just overcoming self-doubt in a lot of areas, and yeah, I there was also a lot of things I didn't know. Like I didn't know what a producer was, I didn't know what an art director was, a first assistant director, and learning all of those jobs just felt kind of overwhelming, but also hopeful. And I didn't know what I wanted to be. But a counselor said that they thought I would be a good producer, so that ended up being my major okay or my emphasis. So I was studying that, and yeah, I we had to direct a short film, and I there was one screenwriting class I had, and they talked a lot about like finding your voice and knowing what you want to say and what you want to put out in the world, and I thought, well, I'd love to put something good out in the world, so I'll do the feel-good movie of the year kind of a thing. So I yeah, I wrote an outline and there was like nothing bad in it, and I submitted it to my profession, and he said, Hey, there isn't anything, there's no conflict in your outline, so you're not gonna have a story without conflict. And I was like, Um, oh yeah, well, there's not supposed to be any conflict because it's the feel-good movie of the year, and um, it's gonna make everyone happy, and nothing bad is gonna happen to the characters. And um he said, Well, if the character doesn't experience conflict, a character's never gonna change. And the reason people watch movies is because they want to see a character change, and that like really unlocked something for me because I think I'd just been kind of like passively going through life, like, and even just questions about God, because I knew God was great. And I think there was just this middle ground of my soul that I didn't understand, of different emotions we experience and conflict we experience. And I think especially with my parents' divorce kind of being a low moment of my life, and then just learning about the outline of the save a cat beat sheet, and that um just learning about that all is lost moment, and then the um the darkest night of the soul, and then that like pushes the character change and to lose, like they lose everything they wanted to get everything they needed, and that just really helped me really understand life a little bit better, and it made me realize that oh, I think what I have loved about stories a lot of this time was that they've given me a lot of hope, but I didn't really know why I loved watching them or loved writing them, and there were some obviously that outline was an example, I wasn't even doing them correctly, but I feel like that is something that um I just like really gave me a lot of hope in my own conflict and struggle that I've experienced. Mm-hmm.