Hard? What’s hard?

So everyone told you being a filmmaker was going to be hard, but did they ever really go into detail?  Did they ever really walk you through what it actually means to do a job which has no set ladder to climb, no set schedule to plan for and no definite pay to rely on?  No?  Yeah, well I personally suspect it might be a conspiracy to ensure people don’t go screaming for the cliffs.  Or no one wants to really admit that they’ve gone through anything but a perfect week.

I suppose I always thought the hard bit was going to be coming up with ideas but it’s really pretty amazing how quickly the ideas flow when they must.

But since this site is all “I cannot tell a lie,” here’s what I think hard means… Hard means that if you think the films that make it on the big screen are crap, imagine what brilliant scripts you’re going to have access to as a young director.  Hard means realizing that you just pitched your feature to everyone you know that might be remotely interested and nobody was.  Hard means getting up to write the great American screenplay at 5am every morning before trudging off to a day job in order to pay your crushing student loan payments.  Hard means going out to drinks after work that same day in order to make a good impression with a new contact even though you’d really just like to have a nap.  Hard means scheduling dinner with your boyfriend that you’ve not seen in weeks even though you live together and then realizing at that dinner that one of you is leaving town next week for a shoot – so much for that surprise birthday party.  Hard means knowing full well that you’re going to get thrown off your picture before your talent will so fingers crossed that no one wants to have a power struggle.  Hard means seeing a colleague at a mixer and having them say to you, “Oh, you’re still working on that, huh?”  Hard means turning on the television to see a show premiere that you just spent the last six weeks developing – gotta love that zeitgeist.  Hard means seeing amazingly talented friends of yours from school start moving back east because they can’t figure out the system and don’t have the strength to keep bashing their head against a very unforgiving wall.  Hard means all of this and much more, all the while not letting it drag you down so that when you go into that next meeting that might just turn it all around, you don’t walk in with a cloud of doom over your head.

Sorry for being a downer, I had a bit of a hard week.  Not to worry though, next week is looking up!