Francis Ford Coppola: On Risk, Money, Craft & Collaboration

I ran across this interview with Francis Ford Coppola and found this part about students developing their own style to be particularly interesting, especially this line: "You will take what we give you and you will put it in your own voice and that’s how you will find your voice." Sounds like what I hope for my own students.

Is it important to veer away from the masters to develop one’s own style?

I once found a little excerpt from Balzac. He speaks about a young writer who stole some of his prose. The thing that almost made me weep,  he said, “I was so happy when this young person took from me.” Because that’s what we want. We want you to take from us. We want you, at first, to steal from us, because you can’t steal. You will take what we give you and you will put it in your own voice and that’s how you will find your voice.

And that’s how you begin. And then one day someone will steal from you. And Balzac said that in his book: It makes me so happy because it makes me immortal because I know that 200 years from now there will be people doing things that somehow I am part of. So the answer to your question is: Don’t worry about whether it’s appropriate to borrow or to take or do something like someone you admire because that’s only the first step and you have to take the first step.

Read the rest of the interview here: http://99u.com/articles/6973/Francis-Ford-Coppola-On-Risk-Money-Craft-Collaboration