Starting a new documentary; if I fail, I kil myself

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You may have a breakthrough when you least expect. it.
You may touch someone's life through your artistic expression, without even being aware of it. Creative people are often subject to dark and suicidal thoughs, it often goes with the territory, but can be overcome.
Don't judge yourself by such hard standards. I'm sure your movie can be a success but you won't see results overnight: I would love to see the result of your efforts and am sure many would.
Imagine if a variety of people such as Thomas Edison, JK Rowling, Stephen Hawking, Henry Ford... to name just a few, had given up while they were stilll facing an uphill battle. Edison had hundreds of experiments before he came right. Rowling battled to find a publisher.

I wish you the best and hope too that you can meet a girl who cares about you and wants to be with you. But don't make it an angst-ridden quest where its putting too much pressure on you. I'm not saying sit back and wait, but maybe you can even meet a suitable girl on the spectrum through WP or some other means, who understands you better and can be your soul mate.

Make every small thing a step on the road to success. Please seek professional assistance if you feel unable to overcome this depression.

Sorry Brian, but I'm going to have to be a jerk again.

By not making films to win someone's approval. You succeed by working at making a good film for its own sake.


Not long enough.





Now let's look at what exactly you are saying in the above quote. "I don't ask to make an academy award winner over night." First, one does not "ask" to "make an academy award winner" There isn't a magic film fairy who bestows academy award winning films on people. You just work to make a good film and if other film makers think it is good, you might get an award. But the accolades are secondary. Sometimes you make a good film and nobody notices. And you move on. Milos Foreman's "Valmont" is a far better film than Stephan Frears' "Dangerous Liaisons" but practically nobody saw it. It happens. It might be disappointing, but you have to keep moving forward.

If you had written "I don't expect to do my best work while I am young. But how can I get better faster" then someone might be able to provide useful suggestions. No one can tell you how to make a film that everybody loves. But there are some things you can learn right now to make a better film.


There is NO point that you stop trying. That's what life is. Trying and trying again. If you are not making progress, I suspect it is because you are trying to get people to approve of you rather than trying to make a good film.

I think you revealed something about your character that you may not be aware of in the animated film you posted recently.

The character (I assume he is more or less a stand in for you) wishes that he could go back in time with the knowledge he has of film making so that he could help create the language of cinema. Think about what that implies. He wants the credit for coming up with all these ideas that help shape cinematic language. He didn't do the thinking that shaped the language - he just learned it from watching movies. And then he wants to go back in time and get the credit for knowing stuff that early film makers did not know and had to come up with on their own. He isn't interested in doing to work to advance cinematic language for future generations beyond his own. He wants credit for work he didn't do in the past. It's like the common fantasy kids have of going back in time to show their advanced knowledge to great thinkers and inventors. The fantasy has nothing to do with wanting to be good at what you do and everything to do with getting undeserved credit.

I think you are too focused on approval and being perceived as a good film maker, but not sufficiently motivated to actually learn how to make a good film. When you stop pursuing awards and praise and instead commit yourself to learning to make a better film, you might stand a chance. (Yes, I remember, you've written that you are obsessed with making better films... I don't buy it. Maybe you are, but everything you post seems to be about getting credit without the inconvenience of having to work at it.)

How do you learn to make a better film? I don't have a magic answer, but I'm pretty sure it involves having the confidence to take the risks that you know are right for the film you are making. If you can face the prospect of people not liking your work and still go forward with it, you just might be able to do good work. This isn't easy. I still am frequently demoralized because people look at my films and photographs and just shrug with incomprehension. I run into the same problem that you do; I become frustrated and want to give up. But however frustrating it is, I have to keep going forward. I take photographs because I want to see if I can make a better one. I love the excitement of creating an image that really shows how I see the world. I would love it if everyone else could enjoy my vision. Maybe a very small number of people can appreciate how I see things. But being an Aspie makes finding that audience an exhausting task that I'd rather not pursue. So I content myself with making the best photographs I can. If I get praised for them some day, great. But that's not why I do it.

You just have to keep working on what you feel is right. You have to be in it for the work, not the payoff.

Post your movie I would like to see it don't do that you gotta find something.

He was the son of a king a pampered prince who sacrificed a life of pleasure to seek enlightenment.
even Buddha himself in order to achieve final enlightenment needed hard work.
he was sleeping on nails, standing on one foot.

There is no knowledge won without sacrifice in order to gain anything you must first lose everything.

Seriously.
"If I don't get a girlfriend by next Tuesday I'll kill myself!"
"If I can't make the perfect movie this month I'll kill myself!"
"If I can't get a cheeseburger with pickles I'll kill myself!"

Why not try just being a little disappointed in yourself and keep trying?
Instead of weeping and wailing and gnashing your teeth over every little mistake, trying learning from them. That's how you improve, not by going into fits of despair every time something goes wrong.

Sweet Pea hugs

Are you using one of those crowd sourcing sites for funding?

A documentary may be worth trying, provided it's not too obscure a topic. It may be a better avenue than your claymation short films.

Personally I think your documentary idea isn't interesting at all. But what I was thinking was maybe you should make a documentary about yourself and your experiences, now that's something I'd pay to watch.

Just to back track a bit on the negativity of my previous post...

I think this idea could have a lot of potential. The questions that immediately come to mind are things like why does a person with a great deal of skill in a field drop out? It's a question I'd be interested in exploring since I ended up in a similar situation (I had a promising photography career that I walked away from)

I think this kind of story would be particularly interesting to Aspies in that it could explore overwhelming pressures that NTs rarely have to deal with.

Anyway, I think the documentary idea is a good one and I hope the shoot in Hawaii goes well.

Look you all are right.

I once really enjoyed making films, and part of it was because at last I was able to reach people. My first few shorts people laughed at and enjoyed and I enjoyed it because I had found a way to reach out to people. But I wanted to keep challenging myself, and as I did, the audience disappeared, and I couldn't generate interest in the work. And it saddens me.

Because I want to redeem myself for all the times I've failed at things, and let people down. I want to prove that, hey, I was capable of something. I want to leave something good behind when I'm gone that future generations might cherish. And it scares me to death that when I die, no one will care, and my work will all just be scattered.

A lot of people tell me my documentary idea is no good. It lacks a hero, it's not inspiring. It speaks to me personally. I believe it is a story a lot of people can relate to, and I feel I know this fellow, the subject of my film, better than anyone. In some ways we're one and the same. I feel I'm equipped to tell this story right.

But what if I'm not and I blow it? I want to tell a really good story, and what if I'm not capable. Or worse, what if I DO give it my all, and when it's all done...no one cares, and I'm still alone, nothing to show for the work and I'm a lot poorer. I've let down the crew of people who helped me make it, and I've let down my family, by proving them right. They've long doubted I'd chosen the right career. My mom pushed hard for me to get a job as an archivist. To hell with that. I don't want to spend my life some sad little person in a dusty room, caring for OTHER PEOPLE'S LEGACIES. I want to make my own, positive mark. But maybe my parents are right? And if I fail, I prove them right.

I say you maintain that attitude and give it your all, but still hang in there in case something does go wrong.

You do not have to earn your family's approval for anything. We all want to achieve the best possible goals but it is difficlt to measure success. A film that is a commercial success is not necessarily the best. To achieve personal satifsfaction should be your aim.
Learn from your failures in the past, but do not let them define you or who you are today.
I trust your documentary is a success in every way, but even if not, some people only rmake a mark in their 30's, 40s or later in life.

Stop trying to validate yourself through others..........

Why do you care about success, Brian?

Were your parents hard on you or something? I'd honestly like to know, I'm curious.

That's the story I'd like to learn more about.