On my last post I examined ten factors that led me to film producing. I think there are ten more that I need to share. This list is not complete yet. I am sure I will still be contemplating it on my deathbed. But let’s jump in and see if there is still a case for free will. Isn’t that what it all comes down to? Did I choose producing or was it my sword in the stone?
Neurosis can have some positive effects. For a variety of reasons – some systemic, some situational, some personal – I have often been clobbered by disappointment and then cast a veil of lack over my present, defining it all by what’s missing instead of what is. For a guy that is full of hope (how can I not be), I felt the glass needed more.
It doesn’t always make for happy times. But disappointment and lack does lead you to find solutions, or at least it led me. Yeah, maybe I am justifying, but I gravitated to trying to imagine what would improve the situation, and then did my best to enhance the enhancement. That got me to utopian thinking. Or at least pondering a better way.
What would we want if we could have it as we want? I think the neglect of ideals allows us to easily overlook the needed transformation of something that most perceive “good enough”. We deserve better than that.
We can build it better if we know what we are looking for. Dreaming big gives us a bullseye to aim for. I think it is a tendency that behooves a producer and many producers embrace. But nothing is easy. Nothing! But if you turn those negative attributes into positive solutions, no one is going to complain very much. That is a large part of producing for me: recognizing what we want, understanding what is currently lacking, and then engineering the circumstances where it best can be achieved.
But dreaming big doesn’t mean that is sunny all the time either. In fact, I have always felt that producers benefit from having an imagination that skews to the “worst that could happen”. We who imagine disaster often become good at preventing it in the first place. It’s how we learn to see the leopard or lion before they really see us, right? It’s a bit of a chicken vs egg scenario, sure, but whether producers learn to have negative fantasies, or rather their negative fantasies make them a better producer, I find they fit with me like peanut butter and jelly.
When the negative haunts you, you need to find ways to escape. Dreaming and idealizing what could be better helps, but holding onto conviction helps even more. When I decided I liked creative expressions of many different sorts, I wasn’t going to let go, be it generally or specifically. I hold onto my projects like I hold onto my convictions. I am going to show the world that these films are needed, by hell or high water.
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