Going into battle
I can’t reiterate how much courage this all takes.
Any artistic endeavor is the baring of a soul. But filmmaking is its own vicious beast.
I know that. This is my third feature. And heading into “The Dead Can’t Dance” I knew this was certainly my most ambitious endeavor so far — I was upping the ante completely across the board. I tried my best to prepare myself, to strap on the invisible armor and run head-first into the prickly gauntlet. But it took a lot of mustering and soul searching.
Through many parts of this production process, as it kept getting bigger and more unwieldy, I had an unwavering feeling that I was going to let everyone down. That it was a waste of everyone’s time, energy and resources — most of all, mine.
But somehow, I kept scraping my confidence off the floor — like it was old chewing gum that had been stepped on — and I amazingly made it through.
That was only that phase of the journey, though. As I wind down on post-production and as we start submitting to film festivals, I have to assemble even more sets of armor.
It’s not that I haven’t experienced rejection before — I could wallpaper my bathroom with the amount of rejection letters I’ve gotten from festivals. And being in a business that is built on rejection, if you can’t take it, then go bake a nice cake somewhere.
I just have to prepare myself. More energy to muster, from somewhere, and armor to build.
But the opinions won’t stop there. As “The Dead Can’t Dance” starts to shape into an actual watchable movie, there will be no shortage of opinions — good and bad, eloquent and harsh, helpful and ignorant.
For some reason, people just think they can say anything to you about your movie. I bet if it were a painting, it would be different. I doubt someone looked at Picasso and said, “You know, you might want to straighten those eyes out.”
But my own worst critic is myself.
I think I’m having more trouble watching myself and my performance this time. I hope I bring gravity to my character. Acting is at least the one thing I’m trained at. I honestly love it and the process, but it’s what I get to spend the least amount of time on, which is scary.
And while I’m not handsome nor charismatic, I’m OK with that. But photographing yourself at your most vulnerable — and blowing that up 200 feet for everyone to pick apart and scrutinize — takes yet a different set of armor.
This time around, I’m finding myself more emotional about the whole thing. Maybe more is at stake. Maybe it’s just the holidays. Or maybe it’s all in my head. This has certainly been overwhelming, and I haven’t really had a break all year.
I do realize that I’m not changing the world. I do realize it’s only a frickin’ zombie movie. But it’s mine. I just have to remember that, and just please myself.
Because while I know I lack the talent, that won’t stop me — I have to do this because it’s what I want to do. I hope I have the perseverance.
Or at the very least, the armor.
-r.
