Lot of Friends having success and I worry I'm no good

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This week I've heard lots of good news involving friends. I'm a filmmaker, and I know quite a few others. One fellow I know has a feature playing at Sundance, which is quite likely the biggest film festival in the country. Another friend just sold a script to Lionsgate.

I'm really fighting my envy, and really trying to be happy for them. They've worked hard, and I've congratulated them.

But now I just feel such hatred toward myself. I'm working hard too. I've made three features, none of which have mattered a damn. At the moment, I'm developing two more films, but I don't know where or how I'll get the money to make them. And even if I do get the money, I'm afraid I'll botch them. They're both good concepts for films, I'm sure of that, and if they can be done right, I think either could take off. But I just don't know if I've got the talent or the skills to do it. I'm so afraid they'll wind up being mediocre, and met with the same collective yawn as my prior films.

And I see these guys my age who are really starting to experience great success. The guy with a film at Sundance is no doubt meeting famous, beautiful people, and I feel like a hick from Kansas who's never gonna do anything worth a damn, who's gonna work his butt off his whole life and at the end of it, die alone and with utterly nothing to show for it, at least, nothing anyone else values.

I mean, what is the worth of a film no one sees, no one cares about? Nothing. And the same goes for the filmmaker.

I've gotta do good. I've got something inside me to get out. Something great. I feel it. But am I too flawed? Is my social incompetence my undoing? Will I never be able to convince anyone I have merit?

I've written a contract with myself. To really motivate my efforts. It's simple: I'm 26, going on 27. If, by the time I'm 30, I have not made a successful film, I'm going to kill myself. Because if I haven't done anything of note by then, I'm never going to, and I can't bear living as a mediocrity. I've got few friends, never had a girl, and my work has been my life. If I fail at that, I don't deserve to live.

The next three years must be the busiest in my life. Because my life literally depends on it. I will succeed, or die by my own hand.

for what it's worth to you, you're still a world ahead of me and a lot of other people here on WP. there will always be those greater and lesser than oneself. it is all too easy to be in thrall to the brightness of the greater ones, while totally ignoring the lesser dimmer lights who yet suffer as much as thou, and could use a hand up or at least an encouraging word now and then.

Considering killing yourself over the fact that you haven't had any majorly successful films is just plain stupid.

I'm in college for film making myself, and I already know it's going to be a long, hard road out of obscurity, if I even get that far. But I don't let that get to me, even when most of my classmates have made or are making short films themselves, and I'm just taking the classes, doing the work, and biding my time until I graduate. I continue doing what I do because I enjoy it. Whether someone else recognizes my effort is secondary. If someone else besides me likes it, then that's just an added bonus. The main thing is that I got to bring one of my visions to life, and that's really satisfying to me.

Now that's just not true, in my mind. Every film is worth something, even if only a handful of people ever see it, and even fewer actually appreciate it. It's proof that someone did something, finished something, and that alone should be enough to give it some kind of meaning or worth. Even if the film doesn't seem to be worth much, the filmmaker is always worth something, much more-so than the film itself, always. A film is replaceable, duplicatable; a filmmaker isn't- even the ones who aren't as successful as others. A filmmaker can come up with new, fresh ideas for new films, no matter how successful or famous they are. And who knows, their next film might be their big break.


Believe me, I feel the exact same way. I've got all these good, even great (at least I think so, anyway) ideas for films in my head, but I also feel like I might not have the social capacity to make them happen sometimes, what with rounding up actors, production people, funding, and everything else that needs to be done before I can even really get started. And after that, everything that needs to be managed during production as well, and all the way into post and release. It's so much that sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be able to do it, but that sure as hell isn't going to stop me from trying, and trying again until I make it, big-time or small-time.

There might be other things to live for, later.

Strangly enough my Dad was a Producer/director for TV dramas so when I was young I thought it was normal to have all these creative (and fallible) people around. Fortunately I didn't go that way and I do 'boring' IT work (but I like it).
Its a strange line of work film work. I mean if I build a network, or fix something there is a tangible that is measureable. Everyones happy, on we go. Yet you can make a film that is lovingly crafted, and have most of the right ingredients yet because people are fickle..it goes nowhere. It is an industry that seems to be very hard on peoples egos.

I've seen your other posts and you do seem to be trying to base your sense of happiness on achievements. Trust me, doing that is like taking a really bad drug that completely deludes you and corrodes your life (Well it did for me anyway). I feel very strongly about that!!

What is your reason for wanting to be a filmmaker, and what is it that you like about it?

There have been some good repsonces here. I thought Zokk's were particularly good.

Be careful that you are not focusing on the wrong thing. You write of how your friends are doing well and how the films you've made have not succeeded. But you have written nothing about why you want to make films. When you wrote earlier about your friend qualifiying for the Olympics, again, there you seemed more concerned with ultimate glory rather than running for it's own sake. Here you seem concerned with gaining respect and approval as a film maker rather than about making a good film.

One of the great lessons that I learned from my mother, who is an artist, is "You should never try to paint a masterpeice." The point of this is that if you are thinking only of how this particular painting or film needs to be great, you won't be thinking about how to effectively tell a story or line up a shot to give the right sense of the relationship between two people. You won't be thinking about what you need to do to make a good film or painting. It is impossible to make yourself great at anything. But you might be able to make yourself good at something.

The point here is that you cannot decide if you are going to be great or mediocre. All you can do is to focus on the work, do the best job you can and accept the fact that you don't have a whole lot of control over whether the world takes notice or not.

Instead of deciding to kill yourself if you don't succeed in the next three years, try this; take a break from the demands you have put on yourself. Don't try to make a feature. Work on making a short film, something with only a few actors (or no actors at all) a simple, direct storyline, one location etc. Create a project for yourself where the difficulties of the physical prodction are fairly simple so that you can focus exclusively on refining the storytelling and just making a good film. Don't make plans for how this film will make you famous. Don't worry about it because one small film won't make or break you. Instead, do everything you can to just make a good film.

And then set it aside and make another film. Again, don't worry about getting it into festivals. Don't worry about what your friends will say. Be willing to walk away from it once you are done. Try to make a good film without demanding that it bring you rewards and glory once you are done.

I know where you are coming from because I spent most of my twenties planning on becoming a great director. I sought approval more than I sought making a good film. It shows in the films I made. One of them is so pretentious that I'm too embarrassed to watch it even though I made the film over twenty years ago. The first film I made was a goofy, silly comedy and frankly works much better because, despite my incompetence at the time, I was paying some attention to just making an entertaining, silly goofy film.

So I gave up trying to make films for a long time. A couple of years ago, I took a class in documentary film making and made a pretty decent little film. Nothing great, but it effectively made an intelligent point about creative work. This gave me a bit of hope and I have again started making very small films. I still slip into the error of making a film to get approval from people rather than making a film to tell a good story, but maybe I'll finally have some good sence by the time I'm 83.

My current project is this; I am making a series of 1 minute long films. The initial idea was to make 1 minute long documentaries, but for now, I am just focusing on doing image montage films. The first two were of some nicely designed packing material that came with a computer. Yesterday I shot, edited and scored one on a kitchen blender. These films aren't going to change the world. The best I could hope for is that people will look at them and think, "that's a rather nice visual sketch of that object."

But the nice thing about this project is that it is all about doing something to do it well. While I did show the first two to a friend, he and his family are the only people apart from me who even know about the project. I don't intend to put them up on youtube for now because I would fall into the trap I too frequently fall into; of making the films for approval instead of for their own sake.

In my opinion, what you need to focus on in the next three years is learning to make films for the sake of telling a good story rather than for the sake of being told you are a worthwhile human being. Anyone who tries to do something will get criticized. There will always be a segment of the population that will happily try to shoot you down. No matter how good a film you make, it will never feel like it is good enough. So you have to resign yourself to just doing the best you can in the present and letting go of the hope for glory.

Good luck.

I know what it's like feeling like a failure. I get up every morning and think it.

I don't know what to say except you're likely being too hard on yourself. If you constantly compare yourself to your peers, you will always be miserable. Thats a fact.

It does not mean you are bad. It just means they got lucky.

That sounds to me like a good idea for a great film!

Write your own destiny.

I've got to succeed in film because it's the one thing I love to to, and that (I think) I am good at. I have been a failure at everything else in life, and so it is all I have.

I've been a total failure at dating. A failure at making social connections. My whole life was one of exclusion, dismissal, misunderstanding.

With film I found I way I could reach out to people. Suddenly I could be funny, I could be popular. My god, the one and only time a female showed physical attraction toward me, by actually initiating a kiss (and one of only two times I've ever kissed or been kissed), was after I showed her my latest film.

I could be a new person! People liked me, if even just momentarily. At least they respected me. And since I don't think I am likeable, loveable or desireable on a personal level, I can at least achieve respect and perhaps even professional love for the works of beauty and intellect I can create.

And so I do feel envy when my friends have this great success while I continue to work my ass off for little in return. They've got lots of friends, are in relationships. I get sick when I see all the beautiful people at these festivals being photographed and getting attention lavished on their films.

I've got none of their beauty or charisma. I'm going to die alone, I'm convinced of it. All I can do is make the best films I can, but if no one will screen them, no one will watch them, what the f**k am I worth? Absolutely nothing. My last film was a labor of love, 2.5 years to make, and it was rejected by 19 film festivals. The only place it screened was at a local festival, and I got into it because I was a local filmmaker. It was affirmative action, and I know I'd have failed at that too if I'd tried to enter it in the regular field. Even still, not many showed up.

I see these other films being made and they're so GOOD! They're made by people my age, younger even, who clearly have talent where I have none. My only hope has been to work harder than everyone, to make my skills better, but is it enough?

I've got to make an impact with one of my next two films. One's a documentary and the other's an animated short. They're both great concepts, and if I'm good enough, if I can pull it off, I know they could finally make my life worth something. The next 3.5 years of my life will be devoted to making these films great, and hopefully getting some other projects off the ground.

I've got to do it, otherwise I know I truly am a failure at the one thing I thought i was good at, and if that's the case, I've got to kill myself, to remove one more mediocrity from the world. If I can't make anything happen with what I've got, I deserve to die. 3.5 years to save my life, and I've got to do it.

I agree. I've been trying to move out there for the past 20 years so I can get in the acting biz. I completely envy you. If I ever get out there, I'd want to be in one of your movies.

It might be helpful for you to look at your situation from the other side, as if you were the audience and someone else was the film maker.

Use me as an example.

To what extent are you likely to embrace my films and tell me how wonderful a film maker I am? How much do you feel like setting aside your ego, your hopes and dreams for yourself and instead devote all your energy to pointing out how brilliant, perceptive and influential I am in your life? Probably not a whole lot.

But you seem to expect the world to stop what it is doing and tell you how wonderful you are. You might very well be a good film maker. Or you might be terrible. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that you are a very good film maker, and yet your films have not gained the recognition you feel they deserve. Why?

Well, if you are anything like me, having Asperger's Syndrome likely makes your mind work in a way that most of the rest of the world can't even begin to understand. I have been looking at the short films I have been making lately and I noticed that despite my trying to show what an object looks like, I consistently NEVER show a full wide shot that makes the object clearly identifiable. This isn't an intentional choice. It's just how I tend to do things. I always reduce the object to abstract forms and details. I can't seem to get myself to show the object plainly so that the audience gets a clear idea of what they are looking at. This is just a feature of the way I see things and how I choose to photograph them. It works for me, but it means a lot of people are going to be left scratching their heads, wondering what the heck that thing was in the film.

The result is my films appeal to only a very narrow audience. I made a short animated film that I put on youtube. Despite posting it a number of times on various sites, I can't seem to get people to find it interesting enough to mention it to their friends. I think it's still under 50 views and it's been up for nearly a year. Most people who I force to watch it seem to think it's amusing, but that's about as far as it goes.

You may be running into the problem that the films you make are just not right for a wide audience. You may have to work extra hard to find the audience for your work. Look at film makers like Guy Maddin or Stan Brakhage. These aren't the kind of film makers who are ever going to get a very broad base audience. The fact that they have some success is a testament to their willingness to keep going. If they had said, "if I don't succeed in 3.5 years, I'm giving up," then they would have probably ended up being known as the guy who stocks the shelves at the local Walmart rather than a rather eclectic film maker.

I will say again that in your latest reply to these posts, you seem far more concerned with gaining approval than with actually making a good film. Other people are only going to praise you if you the films you make have value to THEM. Like it or not, your audience is only interested in watching films that affect them personally. They don't watch a film simply because they want to praise the film maker. As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, if I showed you my films, would you tell me how wonderful I was if the films had no meaning for you? Do you expect others to praise you even if you are unable to affect them?

You cannot change the world. You can't make people love your work just because you want them to. But what you can do is work hard and persevere. You claim you have worked hard. If that hasn't worked, all I can suggest is try to figure out how you can work more efficiently and improve what you do so that it resonates with the audience you are trying to reach.

Don't pursue approval from others. Instead, work to become the person you would approve of. Maybe then others will see value in you. Maybe they won't. But even if they don't, you still have done good work.

I was in the process of typing a long post but I think the one above is really good so I'll leave it at that. But what I will add is that I think being "known as the guy who stocks the shelves at the local Walmart" is an extremely worthy thing. As long as you give it your best I reckon.