Dead Ends, Labyrinths and Thick Skin

In seven years of doing this filmmaking thing, I’ve run into enough dead ends to give myself a concussion and a subdural hemotoma several times over. I’ve taken wrong turns, taken bad advice, jumped the gun, moved too slow, lacked confidence, had too much confidence and been promised the world, but delivered an I.O.U.

I was chatting on Facebook with my UK filmmaker friend, David Baker after reading his article about having thick skin. As of this blog post, David is 10-15 days away from knowing if he’s going to get the money to make his next film, Death Movie.  He wrote a blog about his state of mind titled, Counting Chickens. In a nutshell, David isn’t assuming a damn thing about the money. As he put it, the only time the answer is yes is when the cash ends up in your bank account.

Life is a beautiful maze

This got me thinking about the challenges I mentioned above. I have resigned to expect, deal with and ultimately get over every disappointment that happens on this filmmaking journey. Sure, I’ll bump my head, piss someone off, miss an opportunity — but that’s all a part of the process. When you choose a direction I believe you’ve got to see it through. It how you learn. There’s no point in looking back, because either you’ve learned a lesson or you haven’t. My goal is to learn from every misstep and mistake.

However, there is one thing I won’t deal with. Empty Promises. I’ve been promised lots and lots of things. From money, to equipment, to introductions to millionaire investors — someone along the way has told me they would perform and provide in a way I had never asked them to perform and provide. Unfortunately, they were full of shit.

So like David, I don’t count my chickens before they’re hatched. I wait.

I don't really mean it

The bigger problem here is that quite often people offer to do things knowing full well they have no intention (or no ability) to follow through. Why? Why put me through it? Why put us through it? Not long ago a dood responded to my craigslist ad. I was selling something to raise money for my film. He responded and insinuated that he had some ideas about distribution and could possible help me get money. I contacted him, followed up, and did my due diligence to make sure I wasn’t missing an opportunity. However, in the back of my head I felt this was too good to be true. It was. When I pressed him to make a firm statement as to what service he was offering he feigned insult and dashed away.

The same thing goes for folks who offer services then pull out without a word. I had a guy recently who contacted me on Facebook about a composing opportunity. He told me all these wonderful things about what he could do. He never asked what the budget was. When I told him the payment arrangement I had in place and asked to hear samples of his work he never responded to my email. Naturally I assumed that he did not want to work for the specific payment arrangement. That’s cool. But why behave in such a manner? All he had to do was decline and offer to stay in touch for future assignments.

"I promise..."

I’m pretty straightforward. Particularly when I’m making a film I try to lay it all out: what I can do, can afford, will try to do, etc. Too many people talk and talk and talk. All their sound and fury signifies nothing because they haven’t asked for what they need or haven’t clearly stated what they can do.

So, every time some awesome new opportunity presents itself I put my tongue in my cheek and think, “Let’s see how this plays out.” Then I smile and say, “”Sure, let’s talk.”