I wanted to share it with you as i think it’s the closest, reader’s digest version of my own fears and why I am where I am right now. This is my brief History, how I hold myself back / my own “INVISIBLE SCRIPT”.
Of course there is more, much more, but this is the core of it all. I just wanted to share it with you. I did post it on my CFG FB as will, mostly because it deals with life story and healing (and depression). These are elements I am encouraging people to share in order to heal. I am still learning how to share and heal too…
Here goes….
The Script:
“no one will pay me to be a filmmaker or actor”.
The Story, realization & manifestation:
From when I was young, I wanted to be an actor, but I was too pudgy and too shy. I had a big break my last year in school, a community play, where I got the lead role, got lost in the part and got the audience’s love, but didn’t know where to go from that point, I was in a bit of ‘dream-shock’ you might say.
Right after the high school play at christmas, and starting to fill out applications for university, I was literally sick – my body shut down for the whole last half of the year – I went from being considered for the graduating class valedictorian to barely getting out of bed in the morning. I didn’t really know why – I was too young to understand what depression was, especially under the guise of mono-like symptoms.
7 years later, I did end up committing to fulltime acting training, focusing on feature film and TV, while holding down a fulltime job in Engineering. Again, I shocked myself and others after 2 years of hard, dedicated work to my acting craft, but didn’t know how to take it from class to gig. I lived in a city where film work was limited and when I moved to a city that did, Vancouver, there was a US/Canada writer’s strike, no filming was done during the strike, casting directors loved me, but there was nothing to cast during that time.
I went home after a few months, broke and back to the old fulltime Engineering job and no acting gigs. So I decided to make my own acting gigs, wrote a script, bought the camera and edit system, cast myself out of the feature film lead role in order to direct and ‘protect the story’ – funding it all by working in Engineering. All the while, “PAYING TO PLAY” as a filmmaker, writer, actor – not “being paid to play”. I guess I was told at that young age, that ARTISTS STARVE, so I should focus on a career that would make money instead. I guess, I believed what I was told.
It’s been 7 years since buying the camera and shifting from pursuing acting into independent filmmaking, and if you’ve been following me here and/or on Facebook, you know a ton of things have happened in that 7 years both in my film world and my personal world. And YES, my INVISIBLE SCRIPTS have been haunting me the whole way.
Now, I am just entering into post production (editing) on my first feature film and I am unable to personally fund this last stage at this point. My options are going back to the Engineering job to make money to pay to finish my film or put a proposal in for crowdsource financing via Kickstarter. On the acting front, I’m now 38, a little old, but ready to dust off the chops, get the headshots redone. I’ve booked my first read through for a friend’s first feature film. It’s non-paying and just a sit down read through for the writer to see how it sounds/looks off the page, but it’s a start. I guess I need to believe I can bring value to a story, a creative vision and an audience’s experience – enough so that someone somewhere will drop a dollar or two in my hat.
I have battled with these scripts ever since high school, and not really believing in myself or my talents, “artists don’t make money”, “why you over the other talented people”, “you’re too ambitious”.
I have been depressed / searching for a ‘way out’ of this script and a ‘way into’ the one I dream of ever since.
I think I am starting to live the dream…
-SherpaGuru, Shawna
This entry was inspired by, Ramit Sethi
…and his “How to overcome Fear by the 5 minute straight jacket technique” via his “Find a Dream Job” private list, via http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/insiders-kit/dreamjob/
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