On Giving it All
to Failure
I’ve always been both a sports gal and an arts guy, and taken many lessons from one into the other.
Following this interview with Christen Press, I’ve not been able to stop obsessing about this quote.
But what's more beautiful than giving your all to something and failing?
That level of vulnerability and rawness—we're all so uptight, we're all so embarrassed and afraid to lose, and I feel like we miss out on the full human condition, which is just giving everything that you can.
Having loved both soccer and film for a long time, I know they’re obviously different, especially as
though both have their ups and downs, soccer ability has a specific window, and then a quickly declining rate of return from injury and/or age; while [in theory] filmmaking trends towards improvement the longer you practice
‘failing’ at filmmaking is not so objective as in soccer
But in other ways, soccer and film the same.
They’re both: fun; wildly challenging; necessarily collaborative, a team sport; insanely hard work; exuberantly good fun.
To be any good whatsoever, you must invest hours and hours and days and weeks of your life into practice, grinding, constantly learning and improving without knowing whether the return will be a tryout, not knowing if that tryout will result in a callup, not knowing if you will be able to stay in the game or be sidelined through injury or luck or imperfect performance or a change in personnel or or or . . .
Only the smallest percentage of people will make the top levels, and that involves a combination of innate talent, collaborators, skill, hard work, luck, timing, performance under pressure, and more.
Film and TV are now my work. Sport is now a hobby.
Filmmaking is also my hobby, my obsession, my life wrapped up in enjoying and studying and writing about it even when I’m not doing it professionally.
I do film stuff on the side, with friends, by myself. I guest on podcasts, I read magazines, I practice, I attend industry panels, I watch behind-the-scenes, I listen to more podcasts, I watch movies, I break down scenes, I write scripts, I read scripts, I write about scripts, I write more scripts.
I pour hundreds of hours into Shot Zero, and while it’s true you can pay for that content (which IMHO is damn fine stuff), it’s still at the point we’re paying for the ability to do it, in cash as well as time.
All knowing full well it may not amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.
I love film, I love making TV, but I am frustrated, demoralized, sad, furious, utterly and completely exhausted. I am all those things and more at the untenability of this career in making a life, in gaining any stability, in earning enough to let me breathe let alone travel and experience more of what I need to make the art good.
This job is particularly hostile for people who do not come from money, and do not have a built-in support system with means and motive: by which I mean, family, partner(s), etc.
Still, I have friends, I have teams anew, production partners more talented than I at a dozen things, I have experience, I have stubbornness.
Near the end of “Carter Beats the Devil” Carter is told by his brother James that his magic show is so far in the red, they don’t have money to put on another show. James continues:
“You know, most people never get a chance, even once, to do what they want for a living. You’ve always been luck enough to follow your passion, and on behalf of most of the working world, I’d say there are far, far worse ways to go than in a blaze of glory.” [. . .] “You have nothing to prove any more. Enjoy it.”
Most of us aren’t given even that kind of gift — to know when we’re sailing on our Viking funeral boat.
To us, it’s any other boat ride.
You hear actors and directors who’ve won multiple Oscars say “you never know where your next gig will come from . . . or if it will come.”
How much more the rest of us?
Yet perhaps the most significant difference is, sport has an end date long before your life’s expected expiration date. Failure in the film industry is nebulous and you may not know it happened until years past the occurance.
Knowing whether I have been successful as a person is easy. Writing it out would be its own book, but it involves growth and abiding by my own moral code which I am constantly assessing in light of new information and learnings. Admitting I am wrong. Loving despite feeling. All that jazz.
Know whether I have been successful in art is immeasurable, and the end date is my last breath.
Have I been yet? No.
May I yet be?
Well.
All you have to do is ask yourself what it is you really love, then give yourself to it for as long as you can.
On this new birthday, I take a deep breath, I assess . . . and I decide, I still can.