[MUSIC PLAYING]
Whatever it is that you do every day,
make sure you learn something.
You probably will anyway by dint of just being alive.
But ask yourself at the end of the day, did I learn something?
Did I expand my knowledge?
Did I expand my practice?
And if you're about to go to sleep,
and you didn't, then make sure you do.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
In 2015, I received an email.
And actually, when I look back on the email now,
I think it said, "Dear Es Devlin,
would you like to recommend a director for a perfume advert?"
But I actually misread the email.
And I thought it said, "Dear Es Devlin,
would you like to make your first large-scale art
installation?"
So having misread the email, I then
proceeded to march ahead and devise the mirror maze, which
was really the first time I guess I used the term
artist about myself.
And I really would invite you to try different words on like you
might try on different clothes.
You might be in a shop and see something
you think you could never wear.
Put it on.
You might see a term that you think could never describe you.
Just try it, and you'll be surprised.
Because as soon as you start calling yourself the thing
you want to be, people will just follow suit.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
If you choose to go into the world of performance design,
one of the things that will strike you is, how do I start?
Where do I start?
How do I get a job?
Who will take me on when I've never done this before?
And it's always the perennial problem.
Whenever you are starting out, how
do you gain experience when what you need
is experience in order to gain experience?
That kind of catch-22.
And I think my advice would be this.
Firstly, you need to really know what
work it is that you want to do.
And you'll only know that by going
to see the work of others.
You must go.
The number of people who write to me
say, I want to be a stage designer,
and then I ring them up.
And I say, what work do you like?
They say, well, I haven't ever seen any.
I was like, well, you are going to have to go and see.
So it doesn't matter how you do it.
You can look online, you can watch videos of the work,
but you must do your research.
You must find out, who are the makers who
are making work that you actually really respond to?
Do that first, and then have a vision
in your mind of which room you want to be in--
if you want to be in a room with me.
You might want to be in a room with someone else.
There might be work that you really admire.
Really do that first, and then write to those people
and say, please just let me walk into your room for a minute.
Let me walk in the door.
In my personal case, I was fortunate enough to,
at the end of my studies in stage design,
there was a competition.
And the prize was a job.
And the job was in the Bolton Octagon
in the North of England.
So I went to Bolton and made a show there,
which was really important because it
meant I had something in my portfolio
that had been realized rather than model boxes
and hypothetical projects.
So that becomes very important, but everything after that
really was done from me writing.
I cannot tell you the number of letters that I wrote.
I hustled.
The amount of hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle--
please give me a job.
Please let me in the door.
Please let me come in.
And please don't underestimate the amount of hustle
that you will need to do.
And just enjoy it.
Hustle away.
Do not be afraid to hustle.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
It's a really important question to ask yourself.
It comes up in interviews quite a lot,
doesn't it, when you go for a job interview.
And they say, what is your weakness?
And I guess if you've prepared the answer already,
then you've already made answering
that question your strength.
I would say that one of the weaknesses that I struggle
with the most is actually having the confidence, weirdly enough,
to say things at the moment that you know they're true.
And that is something you want to build on
throughout your practice.
Because so often, you have a hunch when you see a sketch,
or you have a hunch when you see something passing
by you on the camera, or you have a hunch
at some point in the process.
And if you act on it then and trust your gut,
trust your hunch, you know that later--
especially in a collaborative practice
where so many people are going to be working
on something that you've made decisions
about further down the line.
So a decision from you based on experience,
based on your hunch, can save hours and hours
and thousands and thousands later on
if you trust your hunch.
And there is that wonderful Samuel Beckett
quote "If at first you don't succeed, fail again.
Fail better."
All that I ever do is fail better at this.
It's really hard to succeed, but I try every day.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
How will you balance your practice with your life?
How will you balance your work with your life?
How will you make a choice at 7:00 PM about whether you're
going to go home and put your kid to bed
or stay on at the shoot and continue making the work?
And as those choices add up to a life, how will
you look back on that part of your life
where you didn't go home, but you stayed working,
or you did go home, and you didn't continue working?
And my answer to that in my own personal case
is if you want to sustain a family,
have children, and sustain your own growth through your work,
again, you have to constantly calibrate.
You're always going to be between the red
and the green side of the dial.
And each day, you'll either succeed or fail
in one of those areas, work and life, but perhaps not both.
So each day, I will say to myself,
today I progressed in my work.
But I didn't attend as much as I should have done to my child.
Or tomorrow, I had a great day with my children,
but I neglected the things I said I would do in my work.
And I just try and shift either side of that balance.
And I try to be patient with myself
and forgive myself each day that I fail in one
and succeed in the other.
And as long as you're prepared to fail sometimes, succeed
others, and forgive yourself and get up the next day
and try again, you'll be okay.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
If you're someone who at the end of this class
has made a decision that you'd like
to try designing for performance in some way,
then please begin by watching as much performance as you can
and determining which area you'd like to go into,
and then please just start doing it.
Start by listening to a song that you love
and imagining how you would like to see this song
manifested before you at a concert.
See what you can bring to it that way.
Start out.
There's nothing to stop you.
You can use paper.
You can use pen.
You can use bits of cardboard.
Doesn't matter.
But just make a start.
You could just gather references.
Have a go.
Have a go, and see where it leads you.
If on the other hand, you're someone
who's watched this class, and performance design is nothing
that you want to do, but you want to use some of the tools
that I use to enrich your own practice whatever it may be,
then just set yourself perhaps a series of rituals
to engage in because rituals will never go out of fashion.
Thank you for watching this MasterClass.
I hope there have been things within it that
may help you, may guide you, may be of useful reference to you
in your practice.
Please grow.
Just grow.
As long as you grow each day, you're doing the right thing.
Thank you.
[MUSIC PLAYING]