Mind of Migg

All I wanted was a mentor.  Someone from inside the industry, someone already established, who would put up with me.  There’s nothing better than a person more experienced than you are letting you hang around and ask questions.  I thought I finally had one.  I found someone who was instrumental in improving my script.  I think working with him helped my writing tremendously.

So imagine my excitement when he talked about wanting to work as a Producer on the script that he had helped with.  I thought I was set.  I knew it was still a long, uphill battle, but I had someone on my team who had been through it before and instantly added credibility to my cause.  He talked about the importance of collaboration and why he wanted to work with me.

“When you make a movie, you spend a long time with that group of people.  There are a lot of bad people in this town, but I want to work with good people.  If I’m going to spend my time working with someone, I’d rather surround myself with the good people.” he said.

He cared about the attitudes of those around him as well as their quality of work.  I really appreciated that.

The lesson here is, when push comes to shove, good people end up in the same place as nice guys – left alone.  In a business proposition, someone who says he wants to work with “good people” usually only does so at his own convenience.  And why not?  It makes sense.  I should’ve known better.  It is, after all, a business.  But what do you do when a mentor disappears for months?  When e-mails go unanswered and you discover by chance that he’s moved on to produce another project, suddenly realizing that it was silence with a middle finger you were getting? It sucks.

There are lessons to be learned from an experience like this.  Here’s what I’ve taken away:

1. I stated it above, but it bears repeating – when it comes to business, being a good person, and wanting to work with other good people can only get you so far.  If it would be tough for a family member or childhood best friend to go above and beyond for you, don’t expect a person you don’t know very well to come through just because you’ve started establishing a working relationship.  That’s not to say you have to be a jerk, but don’t be too naïve or optimistic about things.
2. Keep your eye on the ball.  I knew I wanted to make this outside the system – DIY style.  I knew we were developing a good plan to get the film funding and start growing a community around it.  I put it all on hold when this person showed interest.  Granted, I told him what I wanted to do, but then I listened to his more traditional approach, and I’m not sure if my desire to make it happen without a studio’s help turned him off to the project.  It’s a scary prospect to do things differently when you’re used to a certain system.  I shouldn’t have dropped what I was doing at the first hint of help from the inside.
3. Be aggressive.  Honestly, I was a little intimidated.  I deferred to his opinion and that of an actress he introduced me to that was also interested.  In hindsight, I had only worked on the script with him.  He had no idea of the amount of work I had put into the development of the film itself.  I think making that clear in the beginning may have helped the business part of the relationship.  Instead, I brought it up later, after they had already started cementing their, “when this is our project…” mentality.  I know that was partly my fault.  I let him rip me and build his own design without letting on right away that I had a clear vision for the project.  To say I had one later only looked defensive.

It hurts from a business side.  Having a Creative Producer with a track record definitely helps.  However, I can find another one of those.  What really stings is the lack of returned calls or e-mails from someone I thought was a mentor.  What stings more is that the last communication was about him being away for a while due to an illness.  Most subsequent replies were to make sure he was in good health, but apparently those didn’t even warrant a response.

What have I learned the most?  Rejection is going to be personal as well as professional along this path.  It’s going to be often and going to sting a whole lot each time.  I’d better be ready for it in the future.  I’ve also learned to not be so trusting, no matter how genuine the other person seems.  But has it made me jaded?  Nope, not one bit.  I’ll always wear my heart on my sleeve, and I’ll always want to collaborate with good, passionate people.  And in the future, when I’m a whole lot more experienced and there’s an aspiring filmmaker talking to me (if I’m so lucky), I will at least give him the courtesy of a response.  It’s the least a person could do.

Sometimes, you have to wash your hands of a bad experience before you can move forward.  So, hands washed, I say, “Enough.”  Back to work.