Part of me hopes that this blog post becomes an elaborate reverse jinx. One of the projects I’m going to talk about is being pitched today. If it sells, it not only makes a decision about which film to do first easier, the sale would also make that next film possible. But honestly, that’s highly unlikely.
We learned a lot and shared our experience
Sometimes when you’re going through the stages of grief, you don’t even realize it. Which is nice. It’s like dozing off on a long flight and waking up at the end. You don’t want to be conscious of the entire trip. That’s brutal. As I reach the end of this most recent flight of events, I’m relieved it’s coming to an end.
Our final numbers: 84 backers, $4,094, funding unsuccessful. Disappointing is an understatement. We were going for $28,000 and we fell flat on our faces. I fell flat on my face. That’s not to say the campaign was a failure. We didn’t raise what we needed for production to happen as quickly as I wanted. But I learned a lot about the project and myself. There’s a lot to take away from the experience.
“How long have you been doing this?” I dread when I’m asked some form of that question. Do I gloss it over or do I go into it? I’m never sure.
In the summer of 2004, I was on my way to grad school for film at Chapman University. I had sent my security deposit, had my classes assigned, and was planning my move from Phoenix, Arizona. But before I left, I was working a summer job that required a road trip to Albuquerque. Then things changed.
There was an accident. A blown tire. Our van rolled a couple of times. I didn’t walk away unscathed. Shattered 1st metacarpal, chipped elbow, fractured scapula, and a broken neck were the largest issues.
While in the hospital, they wanted to operate to fix my thumb. I was hesitant but agreed. That morning, not one, but two IV’s popped out. I took it as a sign and decided to wait until I was back in Phoenix to have the surgery.
When I returned to Phoenix, I found out that my neck injury wasn’t just a hairline fracture, it had slipped in such a way that the x-ray didn’t look pretty. Had I gone through with the thumb surgery earlier, the anesthesia tube probably would’ve hit the spinal fracture and paralyzed me.
I had a spinal fusion surgery to fix my neck and then a surgery to put a couple of pins in my hand to fix my thumb a few days later. Undeterred, I still thought I could make it to Chapman. It was August and I was going to be in a neck brace and cast through October. Since I couldn’t drive, I looked up bus routes to see if it would be possible. Then I had a follow up appointment for my neck surgery. I had an infection in the repaired area. It was so bad I needed another surgery to clean it out and make sure the instrumentation hadn’t also been infected. That would’ve caused major issues. I was stuck in the hospital for the next several days fighting off a fever. I made it through okay, but it meant more time in the next brace and required me to take it easy, stay indoors, and rest. No school for me.
Staying positive with the help of friends
After the cast came off my hand and the brace came off my neck, I had several weeks of physical therapy. I couldn’t lift more than a gallon of milk for a year. I couldn’t walk for very long without my neck starting to hurt at first, but I kept at it. By the time I made my way back to California the following year, the money I had saved up was gone, I had no car, and no money. I crashed on a friend’s couch and in Violet’s dorm. I worked at a Seattle’s Best inside a Border’s, which helped me regain some physical strength. I’d hide in the back and sit on a crate when I could because standing for an entire shift was exhausting and painful.
By the end of that year, Violet and I found a place and jobs. A year after the surgery, I received the all clear to resume all normal activities, except for riding a motorcycle or playing football. Not that I ever did either of those. It took a while to start digging out of the financial hole I had been in because of the accident. Two years after the accident, I should’ve been graduating. Nevertheless I was happy to be at a point where I finally had a life returned to normal.
I kept writing during this time. Writing actually helped me through a lot of it. But the film industry seemed miles away. I slowly crept my way back into it though, PA’ing on a couple of sets, joining NALIP, and then finally shooting a short in 2007. I worked my way up to Production Coordinator and UPM on a couple of small projects while focusing on writing. Then I grew tired of waiting for my projects to get made as a writer and that’s what led to initial creation of the Chutes & Ladders web series.
There’s a balancing act done for the sake of sanity between chance and fate. What an awful, unfeeling world we live in when we win lottery level odds to a bad situation. But fate is different. Maybe things happen for a reason. I renewed my relationship with some family members and old friends and strengthened it with others. It strengthened an already strong drive and gave me a fresh perspective to appreciate the moment. Who would I have been if it hadn’t happened? Would that me be a weaker person? Who knows.
That’s where Chutes comes in. It’s about the choices we make when we don’t think we have a choice. A man from the future has a collection of photos that reveal his fate as well as the fate of others. No matter what he does, the events in the photos happen. How long would you fight that before giving in? What does it say about your character if your actions are already written? When seemingly little events happen to Alex and Olivia that put them on a course with Vikram, is that fate? A lot of little events have to fall into place for a big one to happen. You can go crazy playing those events over and over in your head and feel helpless to them. But that doesn’t mean you’re not in control of your actions. What happens when Alex and Olivia decide they want to take control, photos be damned? What can change and what can’t? That’s what drives Chutes.
The same forces are playing out right now in our Kickstarter campaign. So many little events that lined up against us, our own actions included. A lot to be learned. Are we going to shrug our shoulders and call it a day? Or are we going to look back at all of the little events, good and bad, that led to the creation of a movie? Things can happen for a reason when you make them. Right now, this can be the story of how a project died, or it can be one of how a project overcame challenges to succeed. In hindsight, one way or another, it will look like those events were meant to be.
Maybe the universe deals the cards. And maybe they’re the house that, in the end, always wins. But regardless of the hand you’re dealt, you control how you play it. You can be dealt pocket kings and blow it. You can bluff your way to a huge pot with a 2 and a 5. But you get to decide how to play those cards, and how to make the most of them, if you so choose.
There’s still time to back Chutes. Click here or below to back us.
That’s right it’s from the N64 version
Working styles are like Mario Kart characters – they’re all a little different and they all have their strengths and weaknesses. I think the key to successfully maximizing your Mario Kart ability and not getting lapped by everybody (*cough*Keith*cough*) is to know and use those strengths properly. In Mario Kart, I’m a Yoshi kind of driver. But in real life, I’m a Bowser.
What does that mean, exactly? It means I need some ramp up time. I’m slow to get going, but once I do get going, it’s like a heavy boulder picking up speed down the mountain. The problem with Bowser is that the slightest misstep and he come to a dead stop. Then you need to go through the slow start all over again. This is exactly how I work – it takes me forever to get going, and once I stop, I have to start the long process all over again.
Sure I’ve tried to be “more productive” with my time. I’ve disconnected my internet or gone to cafes without internet, but I guarantee I will find a way to stall or distract myself when I need to write. And rather than go straight through my to-do list I will go A.D.D. for as long as possible. But at a certain point, something will click and I become the most productive person ever. Once I reach that point I can keep going until the sun comes up (and often do).
Now I had a couple of options. I could fight my natural tendencies, or I could embrace them. It’s not healthy to stay up all night, but it’s also not realistic to think I can sit down and be productive at the snap of a finger. The stalling is a part of my process. When writing, I work things out in my head while daydreaming and procrastinating before putting hand to keyboard. I plan around this – I set aside enough time to work my way into things. I know I’m going to need it if I’m going to get anything done. I’m fooling myself if I think I can sit down and do 30 minutes of writing cold.
The Kickstarter campaign has been similar. Once I got going the first week, I was absorbed in it. Then I got sick. That was that sudden stop moment. And with the clock ticking, it took a couple of days to get going again. The starting and stopping has been frustrating and something I hadn’t anticipated. With better planning maybe I would’ve had some content to plug in during those stop/slow start moments. Violet certainly filled the gap well during those times though.
Good planning keeps me from hitting those starting over points. Since our mid-campaign stumble, I’ve been able to keep going. Not necessarily at the pace I would’ve liked, but at least not running into a dead stop. You learn your working style, adjust, and make the most of it. And if you work off momentum, you hope you don’t hit a banana peel. Or your own green shell. It’s always your own green shell.
9 days left to go and 90% to raise. So what now?
Chute maps and crowdfunding. It’s all daunting.
We put a lot of planning and preparation into our campaign. But it’s hard to know exactly what you’re up against in a crowdfunding campaign until you’re actually in the middle of it. People often say there aren’t enough hours in the day, but it’s incredibly frustrating to literally not have enough hours – to watch one day end and the other begin while still trying to fit in work for two jobs.While we had some setbacks, such as getting sick, or the emotional blow and physical limitations of Violet’s broken foot, there are a lot of people that I’m sure have cleared greater hurdles on their way to a successful crowdfunding campaign than the ones we have faced.
The general trend with Kickstarter is that people either make just enough to hit their goal, or make hardly anything at all. There’s not really many in between that. I think that’s because people who don’t hit their goal either A)Don’t understand crowdfunding and leave their campaign page for dead the moment they launch it, or B)Recognize the overwhelming odds against them hitting their goal at a certain point and cancel the campaign.
We learned quickly to narrow the focus of our audience and in hindsight I wish we had done so in our original pitch script. We’re falling short because we either haven’t reached our target audience outside our network, or our project isn’t resonating with them. Or both. Hopefully not both. But we think there’s a lot of headway to make into reaching potential audience and there’s still time to do that. We also haven’t made a dent into our 2nd degree of contacts. Friends of friends aren’t backers. We have a lot of likes and I’m hopeful that we can make a case to convert them to backers in the time that remains while we continue to reach new people. On the bright side, there are a lot more “wow, he/she is a backer? That’s awesome” cases than there are, “I can’t believe he/she hasn’t backed yet,” ones.
When I was in high school, I went on a ski trip during Christmas break. It was only my second time skiing, so while I picked it up pretty quickly, I was still very much a beginner. But I just had to try some black diamond moguls. I was in over my head on the course, and to make it worse, it was right below one of the ski lifts. I wrecked every few moguls the entire way down that course. It was painful. But I was determined to finish that course, and in the end I did. And maybe if I had waited until I was a more experience skier, I would’ve left my first mogul course with fewer bumps and bruises. But if you’re going to advance, you have to dive in sooner or later. It would’ve been easy to take off my skis and walk down the mountain, conceding defeat. That’s not me though.
When you dive in, you might get laughed at. You might get hurt. You’ll probably fail. It shouldn’t matter. You keep going until the end of the course. I do. I’ll see you at our finish line on Friday, November 2nd. Battered and beaten, but successful.
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When 2012 began, I was very overweight. I had reached a point where enough was enough and decided to do something about it. After a friendly bet, a changed diet, regular running, biking to work, and walking places I used to drive, I lost 40 pounds by May. My long-term goal for the year to reach a healthy weight was 50 pounds, but once I won the bet and reached a comfortable number, I stopped a lot of the good habits I had formed over the first 5 months. It was easy to feel comfortable with where I was even if it wasn’t my final goal. There was a crossroads – I could either be complacent or I could continue being driven toward my goal. I’m going to stay driven.
I went for a run earlier this evening and was extremely tempted to stop early. During the first five months when I was focused on weight loss, I would run anywhere from 3-5 miles, but always at least the 3. Since then, I’ve run more than 3.5 miles only once and only more than 3 a handful of times. It became very easy to hit 2 miles and call it a day, feeling proud of myself just for doing anything at all. Sometimes, that’s not enough though. Tonight I finished a 3.1 mile run. I really want to finish off those last ten pounds and I’m not going to get there by settling.
I also want to make a movie. A science fiction feature film, to be exact. Chutes is all I’ve been thinking about all year. Our Kickstarter campaign launched Sunday afternoon. I have been touched and humbled by the people who have backed our project so far. But it’s not enough. We have a lofty goal of $28,000 because that is the minimum it would cost to get this thing shot. Now, given the support received so far, it would be very easy to take that same complacent attitude. “Well, it was a tough goal, but we tried.” It would be very easy to take away the support we’ve had to feel okay with defeat. But that’s not what’s going to happen.
It’s the early stage of a marathon, where the realization of how far this run actually is sets in. That moment of panic when you’re not sure what you’ve gotten yourself into. But you weather that, calm down, and keep going. We’re not even at the point of the marathon where we hit a wall. We’re just getting started. And until that counter says no time left, I will be pushing as hard as I can. The difference with this Kickstarter though, unlike my nightly runs, is that I won’t be crossing the finish line alone. There will be a whole lot of people with me by the end of this campaign. If you’re reading this, I hope you’ll be one of them.
When I started running, I enjoyed it because it seemed to be a time when I could clear my head. It was a chance to be unplugged. Very quickly though that time to clear my head became “time to get things done in my head”. Whether it was a plot device I was stuck on, or a checklist of things that needed to be done that night, I would spend the run multitasking. That was a horrible idea.
Multitasking while running sucked for several reasons. I would lose my sense of pace and either get winded too soon, or I would slow to a crawl and not get a good workout. I would lose my form and that would lead to sore knees and ankles. Sadly, my body’s fragile. Also, by the time I finished my run, my mind was a mess. I had a million things I felt I needed to get done or write down. It completed ruined the reasons I was enjoying running so much.
Now when I run, the only thing I focus on is the run itself: breathing in and out, my feet hitting the ground, my arms moving. Every so often I’ll find my mind start to wander along with a song, but I’ll always make sure to pull myself back.
It may feel counterintuitive, but thinking about nothing but my breathing during a run makes me so much more productive afterwards. That chance to clear my head, to take a moment to focus and relax, makes all the difference in the world. It’s so easy to try to multitask things to feel like you’re getting more done, but all it really does is create a constant state of busy. Sometimes the most productive thing I can do when I’m facing writer’s block is the dishes. Or take a walk. I suppose you could call it mindfulness, but I don’t think I know what I’m doing enough to call it that. The greater point is, taking time to clear your head and be conscious of the present in a world where we’re constantly surrounded by texts, emails, tweets, and low attention span drivel, is a great thing to practice.
The other night I was walking back from a Starbucks near my house. It’s only a mile away, but since it is in the mall and I live in Southern California, my natural inclination has always been to drive. Lately I’ve started running and being generally healthier, so I walk as much as I can. I’ve even walked to work (1.8 miles) a couple of times.
As I was walking back, a guy was jogging down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. He wasn’t in the best shape and was definitely struggling, but I gave him a nod of understanding. It brought to mind a great quote I’ve seen everywhere since I started running, “No matter how slow you go, you are still lapping everybody on the couch.” It’s so true and it applies to writing too. No matter how awful you think your first draft is, it’s still more words than the person who keeps talking up his story that’s never been written.
The thing that made me relate as I saw him jog by was that he was doing it pretty late at night. It was dark and there weren’t many people out. Putting yourself out there as a beginner in anything can always be intimidating. When I started running, I would make sure it was dark out and the evening traffic was clear. I could just imagine some passersby pointing and laughing as I struggled along at what could only be described as a medium-paced walk.
Over time, I got faster. My form got better. Eventually I was running well simply because I wasn’t self-conscious anymore. Sure, I’m by no means a fast runner and I’m still a ways off from my targeted health goals, but I’m confident and comfortable running. I go running right when I get home now even though the sun goes down later. It’s daylight out and there’s a long line of traffic at the intersections I run through, but I don’t even notice anymore.
I’ve written some terrible first drafts and a couple of scripts that will never see the light of day. But it took those first couple times in the dark, struggling along while getting the hang of things in order to get better. I’m more comfortable sending out my writing now than I was before. It’s by no means where I want it to be, but I know that I’ve put in that time in the dark and can have my writing out in the open now.
Writing and Running - A great combo for me
Writing has always been something I’ve loved doing. But it’s also something that is oftentimes tough to make myself start. My writing approach has tended to be very draining mentally. As I’ve grown as a writer, I’ve learned to craft stories with the help of planning and proper organization to make it less draining, but it’s always a balance.
I’ve recently started running a couple of days a week. I hated running when I was younger. I played basketball and tennis and would love running in game, but could never sustain runs of a long distance. Then this year I started. The first time I managed a little over a mile. The second time, a little more. The third time I kept going until about two miles and the fourth I passed three miles. I played sports that required short bursts of speed, so I had done plenty of wind sprints when I was younger, but never any long distance. I had never actually run more than one mile at once and didn’t think I could, especially since I’m so out of shape now.
The thing is, I’m seeing the positive effects of being consistent with the runs. In whirlwind days, where I spend all day working for a paycheck, squeezing in social media and staying on top of the latest news in web series and film where I can, and then going home and writing, editing, and producing, it’s nice to have some time completely unplugged from the world. I don’t think I had the discipline to stay disconnected and be alone with my thoughts when I was younger, which is why I hated running so much. Now I’ve come to embrace it.
So too with writing. Rather than wait for the perfect creative moment to write, sitting down and doing it regularly can become rewarding. When I get home and really don’t want to run, but do it anyway, I feel great. When I really feel like I don’t have an ounce of creative energy left but stick to my scheduled writing time, the word count for that day feels like a bonus. If I didn’t push myself to keep running consistently, and find ways to enjoy it and track progress, I’d probably develop the same hatred I used to have for it. If I kept thinking I needed to get emotionally worked up or wait for the perfect inspirational moment, writing would continue to be painful too. Trudging out every day regardless of mood is a great way to grow.
I tend to be all or nothing in everything most things (side note: I wrote “everything” without even realizing the irony and had to keep it there to make a point about how true it is) I do. I also get easily distracted. Rather than convince myself that I can work casually when I have the time and not give in to distractions (an all or nothing attitude about changing my entire personality) I have found workarounds to better suite my personality. I need structured time, I need to track progress to see a return on that time, and I need a set schedule to stick with. Consistency is the key to growth.