ARTICLE: A hard and uncomfortable truth

The baseline for indie filmmaking is that apart from a small, select group of people, nobody gives a shit about what you're making. Nobody wants to hear that, though. Everyone wants to hear about sunshine and butterflies and making films that are Sundance darlings (or whatever festival is your heart's desire) or maybe even screw festivals and just making films that people like and maybe make some money, but above all else doing something that launches your film career.

Every filmmaking book that I ever read always says some version of "Punk rock! Make art! Keep making movies! If you build it, they will come!" or some other bullshit message that people buy into because they want it so badly, and wanting it so badly should be enough to make success happen. It rarely, if ever, works out like that. Oh, sure, sometimes you get a film like CLERKS by Kevin Smith that hits at the right place, the right time, and is seen by the right people. But that exact same film today would probably go nowhere except for maybe a regional film fest and then Mr. Smith would still be working his shitty job, but now saddled with the unwelcome burden of twenty-something thousand dollars in credit card debt and a film that nobody outside of a small circle of people gives a shit about.

But nobody wants to hear that.

No, everybody wants to hear that their film is different, that they will beat the odds, and success is just a matter of hard work and sticking with it, no matter what happens.

Again, that's bullshit. Success is by no means guaranteed in filmmaking, and failure is not only a very real option, but the probable result for the majority of people. So instead of mouthing useless platitudes, I'm going to say this: Manage your expectations.

That's right, manage your expectations. I'm not saying be negative, I'm saying that if you know going in that nobody gives a shit about what you are doing, and you will more than likely fail anyway, then you have exactly jack shit to lose. Didn't get into the festival that you wanted? Didn't get picked up and cherished by review sites? Didn't win any awards? Didn't have a theatrical run? Didn't have a great turnout to the local screening?

Who gives a shit? That was the baseline expectation anyway. The only person that you have to worry about pleasing in the end is yourself. Did you do the best that you could? No? Okay, well try it again. What do you have to lose? Filmmaking is stupid hard, and the best thing that you can do about the long odds against you is simply ignore them. Nobody cares about your film? Okay, cool, that was expected.

Next.

When you cease to care about success or financing or any of that shit, then you are freeing yourself.

"But I can't make the movie that I want with the limitations that I have!"

You are absolutely correct. So make something else, then. Original ideas are free, and it's dirt cheap to make a film nowadays. When nobody gives a shit about what you are doing, then you are free to do all sorts of things. Get wild, get experimental. Try not to bury yourself in terrible debt. But at the end of the day, when you stop giving a shit, that's when you can truly do something.