Beautiful Losers: Making Something from Nothing

Through film, Aaron Rose, Director of Beautiful Losers, is capturing a creative movement that's transforming pop culture. Beautiful Losers celebrates the spirit rooted in the DIY (do-it-yourself) subcultures of skateboarding, surf, punk, hip hop, and graffiti, and explores the creative ethos connecting these artists and today's youth.  Aaron's many creative pursuits include being a film director, producer, artist, musician, writer, and curator.  We caught up with Aaron to talk about Beautiful Losers, subcultures,  and storytelling.

Aaron Rose is no amateur to execution, and when it comes to turning ideas into reality, he offers the following advice: "I always just do them! I know that sounds crazy but it’s true. I just get a bug up my butt and start...even if what I’m working on doesn’t have a destination. In fact, at the beginning, most of the time the things I do don’t have a specific destination. I just like making things and I try to be creative as much as I can. Ideas or works-in-progress can sometimes sit around for years before they find a home."

He explains further, describing a motivation that's purely driven by an internal creative force: "I think it all boils down to the motivation. I don’t think creativity should be motivated by success or even being seen by other people. In my experience, if things are just made for the sake of being made, or because it’s inside you and just has to come out, eventually the right method of reaching an audience just comes to you. Opportunities come out of the blue. Your energy becomes infectious and people want to help you, to participate in the feeling."

Creating a film about different subcultures wasn't an easy task, but Aaron emphasizes the role collaboration played throughout the process.  He says, "In my life I work with a lot of people. Making Beautiful Losers was incredibly challenging. There were some big fights and hurt feelings along the way for everyone involved. The thing I’ve learned over the years is that you have to learn to collaborate with people. That means really listening to people: hearing from them, finding out exactly where they are coming from, and being able to give up things that are dear to you for the sake of the greater good. I’ve found that in a healthy creative relationship if you give, other will too, and in the end you come up with something that pleases everyone involved."

When it comes to teamwork, Aaron believes that a healthy relationship between team members must be maintained and nurtured throughout the creative process.  He explains, "However, if everyone isn’t willing to do this you can run into problems. It’s almost like your project gets sick; you have to find a cure if you want it to survive. Sometimes I’ve found those solutions and sometimes I haven’t. When something dies it hurts a lot and can be very discouraging. I always try my best to heal sick projects, but sometimes you just have to move on and leave the corpse to rot."

As his success has grown over the years, Aaron has gained a deeper perspective on what matters. "I guess I’ve learned that it’s all really not that important.  I know that sounds funny, but after you have a good archive of projects under your belt, the stuff that got you so stressed out at the time just seems silly in retrospect. I think people in the creative fields sometimes take themselves WAY too seriously. There’s this feeling that you’re changing the world or something and really you’re not. In a best case scenario, you’re hopefully adding something of substance or beauty to the world, but time just moves on regardless. "

With that said, we believe that Aaron is changing the world in his own way. And it wouldn't be worthwhile if he wasn't having fun at the same time.  "It’s really important to have a good time while you work. Especially in creativity, because that energy ends up in your project in the end and your audience can feel it. I’m just waking up every morning and trying to take the next right action. It would be great if people are inspired by what I do and want to add something to our culture themselves instead of just consuming all the time."  We believe Aaron has already added something very powerful to our culture, and look forward to seeing how he continues to do so.