Last night my wife and I were watching Hulu. She wanted to watch "Fear The Walking Dead" and I wanted something a little more fun and upbeat.
So, after the first episode of her choice she offered to make cookies and told me to choose something else.
I went with the second episode of RocketJump.
For those of you who don't know RocketJump. It is a series on Hulu where these two guys are given 8 episodes to make some of the biggest budget short films they can.
Now, I must admit I don't carry much of a nerd card. I didn't know the term "rocketjump." I figured they just named their company (and the show) after two words they wanted to put together. Think "Bad Robot" from the mind of J. J. Abrams or some such word conglomeration.
It is in fact a term for a video game where the player can aim their rocket launcher at the ground and fire while jumping to make a more than average leap from one cliff to another.
Nerd card still not in play though because I haven't the foggiest idea what video game it is they're referring to.
So, at this point in my daily blog you may be asking yourself where I'm going with the hashtag challenge from my friend Tyler to actively share love with a different person a day for an entire year on social media.
Well, it all ties together here.
In the second episode of the series a woman named Ashly Burch got the chance to direct the big budget short.
At one point on the show she spoke of her anxiety. Something I deal quite a bit with in the creative world. Yet, until she spoke on it I hadn't put the pieces together in my own head. She said, "The thing about anxiety is that you're constantly obsessing about worst case scenarios and you're constantly worrying about all the things that you're afraid of actually happening. If they finally do happen, kind of the most freeing experience is that you realize that you're still alive. And you kind of realize that you're stronger and you're more capable than your anxiety leads you to believe that you are. And I deal with that a lot in my day to day. And on the action day of "Fan Friction" it was the first time in a long time that I didn't feel that way."
Now, for many of you in my circle of friends, you probably can't understand those last few sentences. When this actor/ writer/ director said these words it was like a light bulb went off in my head.
I have, for the last year, been working for myself. I left a job to work and live in the creative realm.
I always loved the notion (from a quote from Steven Spielberg) that artists get to dream for a living.
I love the creative process. My honest to goodness favorite part of film making is the pre-production where all the parts and pieces get to be dreamed up. Getting together with a team of people to work out what it will look like, what it will sound like, and what it will feel like in this no holds barred front end is a total joy to me. Make no mistake, getting to the day of shooting is a blast. Hard work, long hours and creative soaring... but the prep is the magic for me.
Yet, in that magical time is also the time of trying to find the funds, working out the logistics of who to hire, where to shoot and how long we can be at a particular location. Maybe some of that would be taken care of on development but I'm still learning all this so this is where it sits for me at this time.
I spend that time, the same time I love, in a constant state of worry that one of the things we've dreamed up will end up getting a "no."
Example: I did a pitch for a commercial shoot recently. My partners and I poured out all our creativity on the project to pitch the very best campaign we could. We gave the pitch.
And.
Crickets.
No response from the company.
For two weeks I would check my email every 35 minute all day long. Sadly, even on the weekends I checked knowing the business was closed.
It was a life-sucking compulsion I couldn't shake.
All until Tyler, the same one who issued this challenge on January one, told me I had to let it go. It took several days to do so but I am finally letting it go. If it happens, great. If not, great.
But the anxiety. Oh god, the horrible gnawing at the insides playing out all the worst case scenarios. Morning. Noon. Night.
So, with that, I give today's #thisiscrazylove2016 to someone I've never met and frankly knew nothing about until yesterday because through Ashly's words and openness I found fraternity and possibly a little help on moving forward.
#thisiscrazylove2016 is a challenge put down by my friend Tyler Merritt. With all the anti-social behavior on social media it is nice to take this love and spread it amidst the political name calling and horrible words being slung in every direction. Thanks Tyler. My days look different and so do my social media experiences with the notion of sharing love to a different person everyday!