On Passion

I still get excited about the sheer awoken-ness of characters sometimes. About the mystery of them. While editing scene 2 of Delta Phi I got to see the strength of a cinematographers instinct in a new environment, and the oscillation of disguise/reveal of Delta as he moves through a library. I knew it would be there in theory, it’s written into the script. But seeing something concretely is a huge part of the magic for me. It causes something in me to wake up, to stir a little, to just feel wonder and bewilderment. It’s like the discovery of a strange and exotic new animal. I’m absolutely in love.

This website is, in part, academic. It has to be if I want to share the meaning of metafiction, but I have to write to the beat of my passion. Passion feels like acting on impulse but with extreme slowness. It’s this deep compassion for every aspect of your unique, individual experience, to the point that your experience expands and it’s so much about what’s in you that it’s not about you at all anymore. Passion is so easily misunderstood. It so often controls us instead of the other way around.

I’m pondering this because I need to tap into it over the next several weeks. I need to be unequivocally committed to this work right now, to embrace an entirely different lifestyle if I’m to meet my deadlines, and more importantly, my potential. I didn’t necessarily want that for this season of my life. I wanted something more nurturing, romantic and restful. But we don’t always get to choose what season we are in, and fighting it detracts from your experience. Anyway, it’s a great place to be, to be working like this. I only hope that I can have many, many more seasons like this because there’s so much work I want to share, not to mention generate.
I never could explain the immense love I have for the imagined friends of our hearts, and with film, I may not have to. I’m in a place where my love makes sense. I have to fight to keep a place for it because it’s how I have to share my light. We all have something great to offer, but we have to find the place where it’s wanted and work tirelessly to keep that place.

Project Management for Filmmakers: Knowing Why and Assigning Whats

Knowing why and assigning whats is the most succinct way for me to share the value of the preceding articles in this series. As a leader, you are intimately connected the why behind the project. You are responsible for that connection. It’s the “why” that makes a project memorable. Remember, if you can’t sell a story to your team, they won’t be able to sell it to others. Every interaction you have about your project is, in some sense, a sale. When you’re not trying to get someone’s money, you’re looking for other investments: time, understanding, listening, or even just awareness of your project.

Everything, consistently, must be connected to the why. The story behind your project should be iterated at every opportunity.

The “whats” are the tasks and responsibilities. But before you ever get into the whats, every team meeting, every team update, must allude to the why. It doesn’t matter if the team member’s job seems to have nothing to do with the why. They have to know that you are seeing the why behind everything you expect them to do. This helps to build trust in your delegation process. You have authority to assign the whats when you demonstrate your investment by sharing the why again and again.

Another thing about the why: it should always take narrative form. If you can’t reiterate the story, you can use an anecdote about your experience working on it. Share what you are learning and it will encourage others to learn. When people learn from their work, they are more engaged with it. The why will contextualize the whats. Tell them what the project is about at its core, say it until you’re blue in the face, and then keep saying it.

Although sharing the why is a hallmark of a great leader, it can also backfire. Remember, it’s not about you. You do have to separate your ego from the why. You’re meant to inspire, not self-indulge. Some filmmakers iterate their story again and again, less for their team members and more for themselves. Making that distinction comes down to two things: intent and language. Keep your intent focused on giving clarity to your team members, and use conscientious language. Always speak as if you are talking to an individual rather than an audience.

This post concludes my four part series on project management for filmmakers. You can look at the preceding three posts for the other parts. Over the next few weeks I’ll be working on building a my first press kit for Delta Phi, so I’ll be sharing what I’m learning from that, as well as my challenges in polishing, exporting and distributing a feature-length film. 

Project Management for Filmmakers: Consistency

In the post about margin I talked about allowing room for circumstantial error. That’s only half the picture. Your project needs room for human error.

You’ve got to have a system that’s idiot proof; not because anyone on your team is an idiot, but because no one is perfect all the time. Expect and respect mistakes.

That’s not to say that you should ignore mistakes. In fact, I make a point to quench them when they arise as part of a pattern of behavior. But when a mistake is an outlier, coming from someone who usually doesn’t make such errors, then it’s best to acknowledge it and let it go. You’ll have this luxury of letting mistakes go just so long as you make sure that everyone is on the same page. It's up to you to set the expectations and, like I said in the article about delegation, your team members will only take their job as seriously as you take them. 

This is what workplace newsletters are for. If you’re a filmmaker or any other kind of creative producer, you can use a production newsletter. I use my own format for these newsletters and send them out to my team weekly. They are customized for filmmaking. You can download a template of it for free on my products page.

Ironically, the most important thing about newsletters is not the content. It’s the regularity. The confidence that comes to your team with the knowledge that they’re getting an update in their inbox every week without faith, regardless of fluctuations in the project, is priceless. It forces all members to take the project seriously and, more importantly, to be clear with you about how much they can actually commit.

When you project consistency, the people around you will behave with consistency.

They will feel armed with information. It builds trust.

I could probably make a whole workshop on this concept alone, so it’s worth downloading my production newsletter template. It’s free, so you have nothing to lose. And if you’re not heading a project right now, you can share this post with someone who is.