Lessons From a Previous Career

I learnt so much from being in the film industry. Mostly about myself, but some lessons were given to me in unexpected ways and had such a profound effect they changed the way I walked through life.

I want to share one particular learning with you.

When I was 17 I left home and moved to Melbourne to study film and TV. I did that for three years then went on to study professional screenwriting. At 23, with my study complete, I moved back to Sydney to begin my "career" in the film and TV industry. I had meetings with agents, went to small industry events, did auditions, but most of the time I found myself floundering, unsure how to move the needle significantly. So I went to my dad (veteran actor and producer, Bryan Brown) and said "what do I do now?". He responded rather matter of factly: "you do what every young budding film maker does, you make a Tropfest film." 

Gulp. That wasn't what I wanted to hear.  Making a Tropfest film would require a team, it would mean putting myself out there and potentially failing. I had no idea what my voice as a filmmaker or story teller was yet. The idea was terrifying. But, when my dad gives advice it weighs on me heavily, and all night I ruminated on it. I soon realised there was no short cut. I'd already inherited his agents and had a leg up there, but much more was required to cut through as a 23 year old in an extremely competitive business. He was right, I needed to make a Tropfest film.

For those of you who don't know, Tropfest is a short Australian film festival founded by director/actor John Polson in 1993. It was how a lot of young filmmakers began their career. Anyone could enter by making a 7 minute film and thousands did every year. From those thousands submitted, 16 finalists were chosen to play to a crowd of approx 80,000 people in Sydney's Domain. A jury of well known actors and film-makers watched, agreed on a winner and that winner was announced on the night. The 16 films then go on to have a second life on YouTube to a huge amount of subscribers. Tropfest could change lives.

So, I wrote a script, directed it and played both parts. Not because I'm a narcissist as one Youtube comment said, but because I was terrified of making a fool of myself. I figured if I did (almost) all of it myself, the less people there would be to witness me completely out of my depth. 

The whole process was incredibly fun, rewarding and hard. But there is one major thing you need to do in order to make a film (and in my humble opinion) it's the hardest part. You have to set a date. Or in this case, a shoot date. And you have to tell everyone that's the date you start shooting. And that's terrifying, because at the point of setting that shoot date absolutely nothing is close to being ready. You haven't started assembling your team yet, the script still needs work, there's so much to be done it all feels like an ambiguous (possibly terrible) idea floating around in your head. And that's exactly what it is. It's an idea, that you have to make real. And you could most definitely fail. That's an absolute possibility.

But... here's the part I remember every time I really want to pursue an idea that scares the bejesus out of me.

The shoot date, like any deadline, forces us into creation. It's really an incredible motivator. And, knowing you could fail and doing it regardless, is what separates the people who do things, from people who don't do things. That terrifying question: What if I fail? Is why so many people never give their ideas a second thought. And I'm not talking about BIG idea, those too of course, but any kind of idea, whatever shape or size. Yes. We might fail. We might freeze. We might make a gigantic fool of ourselves. But we also might make something beautiful. We might inspire. We might change someone's life. We might learn some valuable lessons. We might have fun. We might make someone proud. 

As it turns out, my film got chosen as one of the finalist. It didn't win, but it really did push me forward. I went on to make several other short films each year, then TV shows, until eventually at 26, I started my annual trip to the film-world's Mecca, Hollywood.

But that's a whole other story...