Instinctual Perseverance

[Above: Annette Bening in American Beauty, an unfortunately relatable figure for the ambitious and self-critical among us!]

    What a week it's been. What a month. Summer is coming to a close, and I always find this time of year a little sombre.

    I'm determined to keep up the 'once a month' blogging plan where I can. Apparently it's good for SEO, and also I enjoy it - but the blog post I had scheduled for this month is just not going to happen in time. It involves a lot of research, photos and links, and I'm in the midst of yet another manic time with my client work. So instead of the planned content, here's just a few words from me, from the heart. Because whenever I learn a new lesson in my career, even the difficult ones, I like to pass that knowledge on to you, whoever my regular readers may be.

   Two weeks ago, I felt as though I'd hit rock bottom. It wasn't the first time that's happened, and knowing how challenging the film industry can be, I doubt it will be the last. I'm starting to feel like myself again now, thanks to some rest and a bit of time back on set, and I also have a sense of clarity which only comes from feeling as low as I did.

   By way of context, it's worth noting that I'm the overly ambitious type. Like many creatives do, I put a lot of pressure on myself, and I'm unnecessarily critical when I feel like I'm under-achieving. And much as I love social media, it exacerbates the issue. People only really post about their successes, and on a bad day, when you see your feed flooded with stories of great filmmakers doing great things, it's all too easy to think, "will I ever be good enough?" 

  We don't share our failures as much as we should - possibly because sharing failures makes them feel even more real, and harder to move past. That's why blog posts like this one are important, even though, as I write it, I still don't know if I feel brave enough to share it like I shared the others.

   If you compare yourself to the glistening Hollywood success stories on Twitter, you can feel outcast, like you're 'not a proper filmmaker' or that you're not working hard enough. But when you stop scrolling and actually talk to other filmmakers, the truth is that many of us feel the same. We aren't all reaching our goals, and many of us feel like imposters. 

   Point of context number two is that I'd been having a particularly challenging month when the latest 'rock bottom' incident happened. Having just made the leap to freelance, I had been in a really good place (the happiest I'd been since I left my supermarket job in 2011 to make Stop/Eject, Ashes, and others); but just because I've taken charge of my career now, it doesn't stop the film industry from being an impossible nut to crack. And it won't stop rejection emails from reaching my inbox. 

   By this stage in my career, I am quite thick-skinned with rejections. None of my films have had easy festival runs (apart from maybe Growing Shadows), and at one point, I was getting so many rejection emails that I joked I couldn't even go to the bathroom without receiving one. I've actually had two in the time it's taken me to write this post! But sometimes, a rejection can still come along which hurts like hell, particularly if you see it as the 'next step' in your career that you're working towards. 

   A few weeks ago, I received just such a rejection; this one was from a sort of training programme I'd had my heart set on, and it really knocked the wind out of my sails. I tried not to be too hard on myself, but I was frustrated as I knew I'd not done as good a job as I could've on my application form; I'd had to do it in the middle of the busiest month of the year so far, and I had been tired at the time. 

[More Annette Bening, just because her performance in American Beauty is a whole vibe of its own]

  Shortly after that - and literally a month to the day since I'd left my job - I had a hardware failure on my computer. It was something vital to my everyday work (or so I thought at the time), particularly now that I'm working from home, but it would've cost almost a month's worth of wages to fix. Basically, in the blink of an eye, I was about to lose everything I'd earned so far. It was a very scary weekend.

  I started to feel unwell (probably due to the stress of the previously mentioned incidents, and because of my workload), and add to that, the constant stream of terrible news on the radio left me in a state of constant anxiety. One night, I said to my partner, Edward, "that's it, I can't take any more bad news right now. I think I'll fall apart."

   Then the next rejection came.

   Anyone who has followed my work thus far will know how much I yearn to direct a feature film. It has been the Moby Dick of my life. I'd had interest from funding bodies a few times in the past, when I was pushing to make Night Owls & Early Birds, the feature-length version of my award-winning short film Night Owls, and which I'd been working on on-and-off since I was fifteen years old. I wanted that film to happen too much. I still do. So every time the plug was pulled on that project, part of me went down the drain too - to the point where I had to stop working on it (albeit temporarily), and instead put all my efforts into making shorts and improving as a filmmaker.

   Last year, I started pursuing features again - a different feature this time. I didn't talk about it much publicly because of the aforementioned fear of looking like a failure to my peers on social media. A couple of months ago, I was given the opportunity to apply for some funding. I took a leap of faith, 'fought the fear and did it anyway', and put in my application. Then two weeks ago, in the midst of that particularly stressful batch of incidents, and also on the night when I was feeling the flattening side effects of my second vaccine, the result came in. 

   There it was in black and white: "we are sorry to say that your application has been unsuccessful on this occasion."

   I have read those words so many times in my career. I couldn't even count the times if I tried. But because this one meant so much, because it came at a time where my mental and physical health was already stretched to its limits, I'm sorry to say that I did, in fact, fall apart - so much so that I didn't know how to put my pieces back together. Not straight away, at least.

  I've had a plan for my career since I was a teenager. I've re-written that plan many times, whenever things have gone wrong or different opportunities had come my way. But this time, I genuinely didn't know what my next steps were. And after seventeen years of chasing a near-impossible dream, I started to wonder if it was time to stop. 

   If it hurt so much, as it had hurt so many times before, maybe I was mad for putting myself through this. 

   My self-doubt went into overdrive. What if I wasn't good enough? What if I'm actually delusional, and I've never been good enough? What if features just aren't on the cards for me? Can I live the rest of my life always feeling a little bit unfulfilled? And, as I had asked myself in a similarly bleak moment back in 2013, is there anything else I want to do with my life? 

   My brain was just bringing up white noise. I didn't just feel my dreams slipping away, I felt myself slipping away too. I just didn't have the answers.

   I was lying in bed that night, sleepless and feeling broken, when the moment of clarity - and the main inspiration for this blog post - finally came to me. Because even though I was feeling lost, doubting myself and my career, not knowing what on earth I was going to do next, I suddenly had the overwhelming urge to write. Not the project that had been rejected, but Night Owls & Early Birds - that script I keep coming back to, year after year. 

[The Night Owls & Early Birds script in January 2015, shortly before I 'gave up' on the project]

   In that moment, I felt like my career was going nowhere. I felt like I wasn't good enough. I felt like a feature wasn't going to happen for me - and having put the project on a shelf years ago, Night Owls & Early Birds was the least likely to get made any time soon. So why did I suddenly feel inspired to work on it, in the middle of the night, during a time where all hope felt lost?

   I wanted to write it out of instinct.

   And the realisation came: I wanted to work on that script whether or not it was going to get made. I wanted to work on it when I knew it wasn't going to get made any time soon. I wanted to write purely because it's a huge part of who I am.

   Daft as it sounds, it took me going to absolute rock bottom to realise that I don't need external funding or recognition on Twitter to be a filmmaker. It was there in my subconscious, at a time when my conscious brain had taken a severe stress battering. 

  That's why I won't give up. Because clearly, I couldn't if I tried. It's an inseparable part of what makes me me.

   And the ironic part? The very next day another email came, and it was the best news for my career to date. It isn't a feature, not yet, but it's the biggest opportunity yet, and I'm so damn grateful for it. I just had to get through that fateful night, and suddenly, I was back in business. 

   (Although obviously I couldn't celebrate straight away, I was too run down from everything that had just gone before, and I just needed to take care of myself. I finished my work a little early that day and ended the night watching movies. Peter Jackson, of course, as he's always my go-to director when I need a little boost.)

   Now that I have rested and recovered, everything is full systems go again. My career wasn't over, it's just getting started. And yes, I am aware that I'm saying that at 32, not at the age I was when I first left film school. I look forward to telling you all about what's coming next. As soon as it's public knowledge, I'll be lighting the beacons and sharing it with the world.

  Just as importantly, I then went back and re-read the last rejection email, the one that I found so hard to take at the time. Because I'd been so upset, I hadn't digested it properly, and there was actually some crucial feedback in there, as well as some kind words of encouragement. The email told me exactly what my application was missing, and some of those were things I knew I could address straight away, so I essentially had bullet points to tick off for the next time I apply for funding, whether it's with the same organisation or another one. That is a gold mine!

   Also, this is the first time I'd tried to get funding for that feature; I'd tried numerous times with Night Owls & Early Birds before I shelved it. Am I the kind of person who gives up after only trying something once? Absolutely not (unless it's driving)! So I just need to buck up, give the project some space, and then come back to it again in the future.

   And you know what, after a lot of thought and organisation, I then found a way to work without that 'vital' piece of hardware after all. So I didn't need it fixed, and almost all of my hard-earned money was mine again. So pretty much all the drama I went through last month was for nothing! Lessons very much learned, indeed.

   What was intended to be a quick blog post has, yet again, turned into a mega rant. So I'll close things by saying I definitely have my mojo back now, and I've shared this story not to receive pity, but because I think my key takeaway from this incident is really important:

   Why do you make things? Why are you chasing your dream, and would you stop doing it even if you knew you were likely to fail? Could you live without it?

   The film industry is beyond competitive. It's over-saturated and dominated by the wealthy. It's never going to get easier. So we as filmmakers just need to stay tough, keep persevering, and in our darkest moments, just keep making for the sake of making. Do it for ourselves, not for anyone else, not for a wage packet. Do it because it's a part of who you are.

Sophie