On Quitting
Two rejections in one morning for two different projects. One for a screenplay contest that I don't care about anyway (but would have appreciated the nudge for this particular project) and one for a Fall Marketplace for the revised edition of a script I retooled earlier this year with considerable determination. The latter rejection has the further indignity of being a semi-professional association that required me joining for $125/year just for the privilege of being able to apply for an additional $50 (which I did twice this year, once for the retooled script, and once for their episodic lab with a script they rejected that happens to be the same one rejected for the screenplay contest I don't care about anyway.) Each rejection stressed that it was a very competitive year! and said the decision bore no reflection on the merits of the project, only on the random variables that washed ashore this year and both wished me well with my future artistic endeavors. If you've done this for any duration of time you know that those sentiments are cut/pasted over and over like endlessly replicating strands of an ungovernable virus.
Okay, who cares? This Sisyphean enterprise is just part of the drill. Rejection is like breath after awhile and you get accustomed to expect it, not in a self-defeating way, to extract any personal sensations, to not take anything to heart etc etc. I get all that but I have arrived at the place where I seriously need to be done with this arm of the artistic craving/aversion couplet. A quick look at the money spent this year on labs and film fests and grant applications is not unsubstantial and that amount doesn't capture the sustained effort on some of these applications, early morning after early morning, revision after revision and it certainly doesn't capture the time lost for actually writing screenplays or making movies b/c i was too busy working on applications for things that could maybe oh please oh please help me write screenplays or make movies. Meaning I am feeling like all this hope and aspiration - sometimes bordering on delusion and certainly a requirement for any aspect of filmmaking except maybe bookkeeping - is getting in the fucking way.
I need to stop looking up and weighing my progress and experience against false markers and bellwethers like whether a meaningless screenplay contest thinks I was good enough to advance to the quarterfinals or whether some anonymous ego on twitter is cryptically announcing their very exciting news or whether this course/class/video will the key to unlock eternal shimmering success as a filmmaker. An entire industry is out there to cater to this urge for approval - much of it a half-step from snake oil - and I think I need to unplug from that too. Unsubscribe, unfollow, mute, block. All this chattering that announces itself as somehow an aid to a desired destination but in fact becomes another obstacle. I need to put my head down and work on the adaptation for a short; I need to put my head down and finish post on this webseries; I need to summon whatever it takes and find the resources to finish the feature whose production got interrupted on by pandemic; I need to continue making movies but subtract the ego-validation mommy they gave me a certificate bs that ribbons its way across my internal narrative and mindframe for decades. This is tricky to do in film as opposed to, say writing or painting, b/c movies are dependent on other people for finance, for production, for post, for festivals & marketing etc. At some point you will get on a knee and look up and say please please do you like this? in some form. I need to turn off all that noise like a spigot and sit in the required silence patiently, let the work truly be the only thing. Not just say the work is the only thing but then still get snagged by approval/rejection. Quitting frankly seems at times like a liberation, like the best possible dry land there could be. Imagine being free and unencumbered by the tendrils of this thing, bundled with guaranteed misery and regret; imagine waking up to think about the lawn or the TPS report instead of racing to rewrite this draft by Thursday to apply to the GFY Labs which could lead to something or someone to help you make this next project. What glorious indulgence.
Maybe the mistake is thinking the Sisyphean rock you're pushing is to get your movie made. Maybe the rock is in fact the ceaseless need for approval/validation that deep down in the cavernous dark you think/hope getting the movie made will neutralize. But maybe instead let go of the rock entirely and still get the movie made. Maybe instead step to the side and let the rock roll past you, crushing ferns and insects as it rolls to the bottom, and then walk up the hill free and unencumbered.
