You Wanna Know The Secret Of Making It?

All my friends who have been successful in the film industry have done a few things. Want to know what they are?

1) keep working - this is what gets people done more than anything. The work involved in "making it" has nothing to do with attending parties (a small portion does) or does it mean partying with friends. It means...working. A lot of people have spent weekends...working. It's the worst, because you lose a lot of friends this way. They are out there having fun. You...can't. It has to be meat in the seat and grind it out. Saturday nights are the worst. But you have to take yourself out of the game. This means sometimes being incredibly lonely. That is the sacrifice.

2) never start something you don't finish. Always finish. If it's bad, it's bad, but that sense of accomplishment carries into a greater truth, which is... always follow through with what you are promising. IF you promise something...fulfill that promise. Again, it may be inconvenient, but you get nowhere if you keep making these grand plans to sink them. Now you know why some people never even start.

3) Always create. This is the worst for people who have personal lives. Because your focus is on movies, a lot of the rest falls to white noise. This is NOT good for relationships. You forget birthdays, anniversaries and plans. YOU NEED TO CARVE OUT TIME.

My friend once asked me if I was a fag because I never talk about girls. Now that I get older, it occurs to me that in the back of my mind, the selfish part of me doesn't want to waste a few minutes of fucking (yeah, I suck at it, shit in a hat) for hours, days, months and years with a girl. This is why people in my business hire whores. They are cheaper than having to pretend you actually care about someone. I like to think my best asset is that I listen. I process. This is an art. Most people in our business (listen to them) ramble about what THEY'RE doing. Who fucking cares? There inevitably will be someone doing something MUCH bigger, better with a budget. In other words, stay humble. Be that person who processes what people are saying. When you discover film people are vapid, you can go ahead a never contact that person again. Most people like to talk about themselves. Nothing more clear than working around movie people.

My final words on this...WORK. Work sucks. Making movies suck. But that's what it is. You'll get to tell war stories later but for now...work.