Two Years! (Part Two: Successes and Failures)

When pursuing a creative career, it’s difficult to define success and failure… just getting into a known person’s network is actually a great accomplishment, but not one that registers on anyone’s radar but your own. Selling a screenplay or making a film is obviously a success, but then if they bomb, you might have been better off if no one had ever seen them.

In school, it’s easier to define success – they give you grades. On your own, in life, you set your own benchmarks and have to honestly grade yourself.

In my not-so-unbiased opinion, I consider my No MFA Project a success. Of course, though, there are things I would have done differently. So here we go, part 2 of my two-year summary: what was great, and what I would have done differently.

What Was Great:

I feel short and sweet bullet points suffice for this section. The things that worked well speak for themselves. One thing I do want to especially point out though, for anyone pursuing a career in this industry – and that includes actors, who have a harder time than anyone else getting work – learn filmmaking skills. Being able to produce yourself is the key to showing yourself, getting attention, and having a real conversation starter with other people in this business.

That being said, here’s my list of "great":

-The amount of writing I got done

-The contacts I made (best found attending a film festival and taking a few one-off courses)

-The films I completed, and winning two awards for my first short film

-Learning filmmaking.

-Getting paid filming jobs (another place to meet people)

-Now being brought on to a few major writing projects 

What I would have done differently:

1. I pushed myself a lot, but would have pushed myself even more, particularly with completing more short films this past year. My issue was indecisiveness in choosing the script for my next short. A producer gave me the advice that, with two shorts under my belt, I was ready to do a short version of a would-be feature-length film, and to find a “name” person to star. His reasoning was that the piece could then be shopped around to studios, who would pay attention because of the star, and quite possibly opt to make the feature. This was great advice. However, I got so hung up on finding the “perfect project,” I stalled and didn’t make a third short. Looking back, I should have just kept on filming whatever I wanted to film so that I had ever more on my reel and learned more about the craft.

2. Maybe this sounds presumptuous, but I would have quit my job even sooner. I was there for more than three years and the last year and a half contributed very little to (or perhaps even took away from) my personal growth, development, and confidence. The sooner I got out, the sooner I felt like I found myself, started churning out more and more projects, and learned the things I needed to learn.

3. Networked more. It’s only been in the past three months that my networking has really exploded – and in the past three months I’ve been brought on to a TV series, asked to do the script for an independent feature film, and found interest in some of my stage play ideas. My recent status as social butterfly is owing to several factors: meeting people at the film festival; being lucky enough to connect with a supportive producer who then introduced me to a wide variety of film and broadway professionals; the fact that there have been a ton of industry holiday parties I was lucky enough to hear about, and the decision not to miss a single one. If I was starting all over, I would have sought out networking opportunities every week.

4. Overall, being more structured. The challenge to working at home and not being in school is the fact that no one is giving you structure and no one is checking up on you. It’s easy to procrastinate by running errands, watching TV, etc. While I was actually rigid about working every day, I still feel there was more time that could have been used productively. I would actually write myself out a daily schedule with weekly goals in the future.

The good news is, even though I’ve passed the two year mark (the length of an MFA program and technical end of the No MFA Project), my progress isn’t going to stop. I can take all of the above and apply it to my future. Which brings me to…

No MFA Project for Life.

Education shouldn’t stop with the end of school, and of course, it’s not going to stop for me at this point in my life. Doing this project has opened my eyes to all the possibilities for making a creative career a reality. The career is creative – the approach needs to be, too.

I’m going to keep going, keep learning, keep meeting people, and most importantly… keep writing. And sharing all my progress with you, up to the moment when, finally, I see my work on the big screen and my books in a bookstore.

Hope you’ll stick around for what’s to come.  :)