Exit the comfort zone

One of the golden nuggets of advice I’ve had from good friends in the business is that a good film is a good story well told and well made.  Another is that you need to stand out by telling a story only you can tell, or in a way that only you can tell it.  Those are both reassuring to me because I’m not short of ideas and creativity, but I am short of experience.  Luckily I’m also not short of good contacts in the business which is how I’ve managed to make such good progress so early on.  It has not taken long to figure out that there are also plenty of talented people out there who, if you can get them on board with your project vision, will be able to provide the experience you need to execute on the ideas and help make the “dream” a reality.  That brings to me to two more important pieces of advice that accomplished independent film makers have given me: “nobody knows anything” (thanks Elliot Grove for your book!) and “if something is worth doing then do it well” (thanks Michael Bartlett for your time and friendship!).  In other words, take lots of advice and do your homework, but things are done differently on every film so do what feels right for your project and make sure that you do the best job you can.  Interestingly, there is a cautionary bit of advice attached to this last one: in all but exceptional circumstances the “fit” of the team you work with on the project is going to matter even more than their individual technical abilities.

As I wrote in an earlier post on the progress of the project so far, I certainly have managed to pull off a couple of tricks already.  As I said, I’m full of ideas and have good contacts!

The tricks I now have to pull off are:

• channelling the ideas into a proper treatment and script;
• researching story lines and lining up interviews;
• keeping the momentum going in the lead up to pre-production;
• finding more good people to get on board for the production stage;
• figuring out what this will cost and how to find the money; and
• keeping in mind important elements for distribution and marketing that need to be considered early on.

Edited with BlogPad Pro

If there is one word to describe progress of the project over the last few weeks, it is by far “serendipity”.  This shouldn’t surprise me really, although it does so happily.  Serendipity has woken me up to the incredible opportunity I have to get into film making and helped make the opportunity real in ways it could never have been even until recently.  This happy confluence of factors seems to be available to me right at a point in my life where I am personally ready and able to take this challenge on and charge into the “wilderness of my intuition.”

The project is less than 3 months old and a good start has been made by any measure.  A fortunate series of coincidences and connections, combined with a strong vision of where this needs to go, seem to have worked in the project’s favour.  It has grown from embryo through several cell divisions and is now starting to take on recognisable shapes!

Along with research, networking and setting up basic infrastructure for the project, I’m especially excited about the big steps taken to date.

• An award-winning director/producer has been working with me on the creative brief and is now excited to be on board.  I will write a separate blog post about this because it is a major milestone in this journey, and she is such a talented, interesting person and someone I’m lucky enough to have had as a good friend for the last 9 years.
• There is now a co-producer on board who is with me on this journey.  He is a very close friend having been my personal “wing man” for around 12 years.
• Three story lines have been drafted, and I’m very excited to report that our first potential interview candidate has agreed to initial discussions to take the process to the next stage.  With permission I will write another post about this too, without giving the game away of course!
• Networking has been a major activity, and will no doubt continue to be in the future.  I had dinner with the Head of Publicity at a well known distribution company in London, who had a lot of advice and is keen to be kept updated on the project’s progress.  Full disclosure means I must confess that this person is also a very good, long-standing friend of mine.
• Recently I was introduced to an accomplished indie filmmaker who has just finished his biggest feature film to date.  He has been more than generous with his time and advice.
• Another chance meeting led to a talented musician agreeing to score some sample tracks for us to work with. His style of music is exactly what I had in my head, and our first meeting went very well.

Overall this “wilderness of my intuition” is an exciting place to be, but already I’m even more excited that so far my intuition is working well (if the feedback I’m getting is anything to go by), and the wilderness is becoming slightly more familiar.  I hope that as things progress, I don’t lose sight of the golden advantage I feel I have in my naivety.

Meanwhile, please feel free to send me your comments and feedback, or even any advice or questions.  Over time I’ll gather these and write posts on them, with credits of course!

…starts with the first step, and I took that step a few months ago.  My soul has been restless for some time, troubled by regrets and pained by the feeling of something missing.  This is a shame as I am gifted with many amazing and wonderful things in my life, but after much self discovery I realised that the only thing truly missing in my life equation was me.  I realised an important part of my core being when I came out about 15 years ago after being married to my university girlfriend for 10 years.  Growing up during apartheid in South Africa, in a repressively toxic atmosphere of racism, misogyny and homophobia, made sure I became an adult with little real sense of myself and my capabilities.  In a way, it has been like emerging from the Truman show and discovering possibilities beyond the borders invisibly put around my world.  I should be clear here: I am not a victim.  Shit just is.  I am lucky enough to be in a very good place in my life, to know now that what I do next with my life is what really matters.  Regrets are now pointless because to regret any part of my life is to regret who I am now, and I don’t.  What I do regret is missed opportunities, and I can live with that happily if the journey I share here helps even one person to find their passion and follow it, which is what I am finally doing with my life.

There’s not a moment to waste and so much to be excited about for the journey, because no matter where I end up, at least I can say I experienced the journey.