a million monkeys typing

Newsarama: Neil Gaiman, Filmmaker

Posted January 10th, 2005 at 08:02am

Great short article over at Newsarama about Neil Gaiman’s first foray into directing:

From cult author-cum-filmmaker Neil Gaiman — the endlessly creative genius behind the otherworldly film fantasy MirrorMask, the Sandman graphic novels, the BBC-TV series Neverwhere, and the U.S. adaptation of Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke — comes A Short Film About John Bolton, a darkly hip and hilarious film which explores the question that torments artists of every medium: “Where do your ideas come from?”

I have always been in awe of Gaiman’s writing, from the Sandman to his novels, from his blog to his Hugo Award-winning Holmes-cum-Lovecraft story A Study in Emerald. It’s always interesting to see people from one creative field leap into another, because they tend to do so face-first and completely blind, usually with only the vaguest confidence that their quick-thinking will somehow get them out of any jam they might find themselves in. Sometimes it is far better to know too little than too much, at least if you find creativity through chaos. Seizing a new medium also tends to re-awaken the spirit and yanks one’s mind out of the mire of stagnancy. Artists become writers, photographers become filmmakers, printmakers become sculptors, and expression is free again.

See also his essay Where Do You Get Your Ideas? for an insight into what makes the man tick.