COMMITMENT IS EVERYTHING IN HOLLYWOOD

It is not a lottery, people.

Those who actually get paid in the role that they are pursuing in the film industry don’t see it as a lottery situation or a lucky break. They just do it because that’s what they do. They surround themselves with the people who make them better in their art and craft. They immerse themselves with the tools to master their skills. To repeat: it is not a lottery. It is about preparation and effort. If you didn’t like immersing yourself in your homework back in school, you are sure to fail in the big top of Hollywood. It is way too competitive here to come to the showdown unprepared. It’s not even easy for successful people in the biz who are pursuing “what they really want to be…”

I have a cautionary tale about a first AD who had spent some time away from his job to pursue directing. He got an agent – only a step, not an achievement – to help him get the right meetings that would hopefully lead to directing jobs. After only a year and barely putting his toe in the water, he gave up and went back into assistant directing. He blamed his agent when he should have been blaming himself for lack of preparation and lack of immersion. Here’s a quote I picked up from a writing book: “When famous painters, composers, and poets did their most creative work, the artist’s significant creative work was produced after at least five to ten years of preparation.”

I’ll never understand why people pursue artistic jobs in the industry but don’t put in the time. If you want to direct, then direct. Do it however way you can. But just do it somehow, someway. Why did he wait for someone else to determine whether he was going to direct? Yes, it comes with tremendous risk, but at some point, sooner than later, the opportunity will come. If you don’t immerse yourself – investing in the time or invest in the right people to hone your artistic skills, why even bother?

At Writers Boot Camp, a screenwriting course for working professionals who can’t devote full-time to a film school, I’ve heard countless excuses from writing students who say it is difficult to put in their minimum ten hours of writing a week. There are 168 hours in the week, and you can’t spend ten hours on a craft that you want to be paid for? When I said on several occasions, I put in about 20-30 hours a week on top of a 60 hour film production workload, they marveled at the reason I put in so much work: “Because that’s what I do.”

Don’t get me started on actors.

If the filmmaking pursuit is subjugated by the need for other stuff, like a house, a car, and a nice living, I can’t help but think that the artistic gods just won’t hand you the key to the next threshold when there are so many others bleeding and blowing off the good things in life to earn the key. BURN DOWN THE LEVEES THAT HOLD YOU BACK.