Re: Ham....
Wow. Ham's post really hit me hard. I went through a very similar phase... and I can say that it's not just a personality thing. I am about one of the least "entitled-feeling" people I can think of... But I fell into a similar trap.
If you are someone who always feels their work is nowhere near where it should be... someone who can only ever see the flaws, or how this one scene doesn't have quite the effect you wanted, or what you would have done if you could go back and do that shot over again... that first wave of over-praise can blindside you. In the face of so much praise, you can start to think you're wrong... Maybe you're crazy and somehow, against all odds, you are as good as they say. Why else would people spend so much time lying to you? (This is, of course, tempered by the other inner voice telling you that you've only managed to fool them one more time...) You remind yourself not to get excited, that it happens to a million people... but that same inner surety that got you started writing/directing/whatever -- that same blind faith that you were going to pursue this no matter what and that you've staked everything and will be the one person, despite all the odds, to make it...
Starts to make you believe. Not necessarily in the hype, per se, but in the idea that maybe your inner voice is flawed. That maybe you've only imagined all the things that your work didn't accomplish. And what people are saying/what you want to believe starts to matter just a bit more than that inner critic.
This is coupled with the fact that now you have an agent, you had meetings, you have all sorts of things that seem just about to happen. Your agent is telling you how all these big things are happening, and as a result, I found myself doing less. You have someone doing things for you the official way, and start to lose a little of that utter self-reliance which is usually the only way of actually realizing a film. (I guess I'm talking more about directing now than writing, but... same principle.) I'm not talking about laziness... I probably have done more writing in the last year than ever before. But a lot of that -- too much, maybe -- was in the form of preparing pitches and takes, trying out for assignments I wasn't all that into. Because you start to feel there's a path, an accepted way into the career you want.
It took me a while to remember there's no official way of doing anything and that the most valuable thing you probably have is the thing you're most likely to discard in the very beginning stages of recognition -- your original ideas, the script/movie you would make for free, and without any hope/expectation of what it could get you.
i feel like i'm waxing poetic now, and unnecessarily so... Just wanted to say that i completely identified with you, Ham, and i too wish i hadn't lost the time I did. Hopefully, if anyone else is going through the same process we went through, we'll have saved them a little bit of time.
Wow. Ham's post really hit me hard. I went through a very similar phase... and I can say that it's not just a personality thing. I am about one of the least "entitled-feeling" people I can think of... But I fell into a similar trap.
If you are someone who always feels their work is nowhere near where it should be... someone who can only ever see the flaws, or how this one scene doesn't have quite the effect you wanted, or what you would have done if you could go back and do that shot over again... that first wave of over-praise can blindside you. In the face of so much praise, you can start to think you're wrong... Maybe you're crazy and somehow, against all odds, you are as good as they say. Why else would people spend so much time lying to you? (This is, of course, tempered by the other inner voice telling you that you've only managed to fool them one more time...) You remind yourself not to get excited, that it happens to a million people... but that same inner surety that got you started writing/directing/whatever -- that same blind faith that you were going to pursue this no matter what and that you've staked everything and will be the one person, despite all the odds, to make it...
Starts to make you believe. Not necessarily in the hype, per se, but in the idea that maybe your inner voice is flawed. That maybe you've only imagined all the things that your work didn't accomplish. And what people are saying/what you want to believe starts to matter just a bit more than that inner critic.
This is coupled with the fact that now you have an agent, you had meetings, you have all sorts of things that seem just about to happen. Your agent is telling you how all these big things are happening, and as a result, I found myself doing less. You have someone doing things for you the official way, and start to lose a little of that utter self-reliance which is usually the only way of actually realizing a film. (I guess I'm talking more about directing now than writing, but... same principle.) I'm not talking about laziness... I probably have done more writing in the last year than ever before. But a lot of that -- too much, maybe -- was in the form of preparing pitches and takes, trying out for assignments I wasn't all that into. Because you start to feel there's a path, an accepted way into the career you want.
It took me a while to remember there's no official way of doing anything and that the most valuable thing you probably have is the thing you're most likely to discard in the very beginning stages of recognition -- your original ideas, the script/movie you would make for free, and without any hope/expectation of what it could get you.
i feel like i'm waxing poetic now, and unnecessarily so... Just wanted to say that i completely identified with you, Ham, and i too wish i hadn't lost the time I did. Hopefully, if anyone else is going through the same process we went through, we'll have saved them a little bit of time.
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