Training your eye: Sento MM’s sources of inspiration

In the creative process, inspiration is rarely a bolt from the blue. For professionals like Director of Photography Sento MM, the ability to create powerful images comes from constantly training the eye.

In our latest chat, we explored how he builds his visual world and the tools he uses to keep his «mental library» up to date.

What feeds a visual creative?

For Sento, inspiration is an exercise in systematic curiosity. It is not about waiting for the idea to come, but going out to find it with a clear method. These are his daily sources:

• The digital ecosystem as a mood board: platforms such as Pinterest and social accounts dedicated to film stills and photography are everyday tools. For Sento, they are not a pastime but a living archive for analysing compositions, colour palettes and textures that can later be applied to his own projects.
• Film without borders: the line between animation and live action disappears when the goal is to learn. Drawing on both worlds helps you understand different ways of telling stories, from the technical, naturalistic lighting of live action to the complete creative freedom and character design of animation.
• An open eye: perhaps the most important part of his process. Sento argues for staying receptive to every kind of visual stimulus. Often the solution to a storytelling challenge is not in a manual, but in the ability to connect seemingly unrelated references we come across every day.

Sento’s message is clear: to shoot or design stories with impact, you first have to learn to observe. Creativity is, to a large extent, the ability to digest what we see and turn it into something new. Keeping that «open eye» is what makes the difference between work that is merely correct and work with soul.