2009 - my year in review

Last year was not a great year for me creatively. Stalled projects, false starts, fumbled paperwork and disillusioned collaborators litter the twelve months gone passed. But that's fine, because that's life. I set out to learn how to be an independent film producer on my own dime so that the only person these mistakes would affect would be me. And that's just how it happened.

Those are my mistakes. I own them. But they don't own me.

No-budget films, as anyone who's made one will tell you, progress at their own pace. Without the funds to channel into manpower, or to relieve yourself of the necessity of staying gainfully employed, time is your only asset - deadlines had to be flexible as I real-world issues demanded my time. The problem was, of course, that I'd set out with some false assumptions that shaped my strategy - a square peg, if you will, that I was trying to force into a round hole. As external pressures caused my personal deadlines to slip more and more, I wasn't giving myself time to reflect - I was just trying to hammer that same peg into the same wrong hole even harder.

Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I was absolutely driving myself insane.

That had to stop.

In July I'd had the foresight to plan a vacation - a visit with my family in Scotland to see in the New Year. The timing couldn't have been more perfect.

I left my work, and my computer, at home, and took a flight away from the pressure. And I didn't squander that time. I read Philip Hodgetts's "The New Now" and Jon Reiss's "Think Outside the Box Office." I reflected on the successes of my peers, particularly the ever inspiring David Baker, whose DVD of his feature "Mission X" I'd seen in December. And I spoke to other working filmmakers, like Kjeld Gogosha-Clark of Working Class Films notoriety, who gave me fresh and very welcome perspective on what's going on outside my own head in the world of independent filmmaking.

When you're too close to your work, too tangled in the problems to see what's causing them, you have to step away. You have to step back in order to see where the problem lies and to consider how to fix them. A short break can give you the time and the distance to assess your difficulties and formulate a new strategy.

By the time I got off the plane at JFK on January 11th I had a new treatment for "There Is No Drinking After Death" and a new set of goals for myself this year - new habits to make a clean, effective break with last year's disappointments. And since I returned I've also come up with a new strategy for the short film project, afilmabout.us. I'll be sharing those details soon. At the risk of overstating this, taking a break made all the difference.

James Joyce said that mistakes are portals to discovery. Well they are if you let them be. 2010 is going to be a great year. I hope you'll share it with me.