Feature Documentary Filmmaker, Demo Reel (1 min. 2020) Produced by award-winning multi-media artist Lester Alfonso best known for his film Twelve.
Day 41. At the weekly meeting, The Kid urged me to make a Director’s Reel. You gotta be kidding me, I said. He said “You gotta give them a medley. Just enough to give them a taste of each film.” I said. “I know… The editor makes everybody else’s reel. He’s too busy to have a reel of his own. Like the shoemaker’s kids having to go without shoes. What the heck would you do with a reel?” “There’s just one word you have to put in there,” The Kid said. “One word!” He exclaimed.
Another rejection letter yesterday from a film festival. They didn’t even mention the title of the film that they were rejecting. I don’t know if I just got rejected for Birthmark or Circus Boy. (I submitted both.)
I read somewhere that Stephen King used to hang rejection letters up on his wall where he worked to remind him. To remind him of what, exactly, I don’t know. Was he trying to get a rise out of himself? Did it serve to nourish a petulant “I’ll show you someday!” attitude to egg himself on — and keep trying??
Stick-to-it-ness is the key to success, some have said. Yet, rejection letters do have their undeniable Kryptonite effect. Yesterday’s letter, however, genuinely made me smile. It feels like I’ve come through the other side of a hard lesson.
Rejection letters have previously been heart-breaking. Rejection letters could mean that a real plan for myself in the near future is just gone. My plan needed the funding and — poof! I was really proud of myself. I felt that I can now take care of myself. I want to break this down because I think it’s really important to acknowledge that this is part of the game of stick-to-it. How to deal with rejection letters 101. My take, okay?
Really quick, I’ll just say that the idea I’m stuck on at the moment is that achievement does not necessarily mean reward. Nourishing the idea that achievement is a reward in itself would be helpful. Being the best at something by doing that particularly unique thing I love to do is enough.
Tonight is Oscar night. The last time I watched it, Louis C.K. presented the short documentary award where he made fun of short documentary filmmakers and quipped that the winner’s Oscar would probably be going home in a Honda Civic and “they’ll never be rich in their lives.” That burned me. (I have a Honda Civic.) Watching the Oscars that year made me reflect on my accomplishments, my career, and my life trajectory. It felt personal and mythic.
I felt compelled to quote this moment in my film Birthmark because I was trying to explain the weight of it to someone — the burden of a Dream — what that feels like.
This great backpack full of rock-solid dreams got too heavy lately and I’ve had to let go. It’s an invisible weight but it takes real work to dismantle. I’m quietly tidying my inner house. Getting my priorities straight. It starts with being happy exactly where I am. I have to do everything in my power to be grateful. Rejection letters, naysayers, and haters gonna hate.
So when The Kid insisted that I make a Director’s Reel, I immediately scoffed.
“Just add one word,” he said and winked. “Journalist. You gotta add the word Journalist.” More soon. — LA
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