Well, You Failed.

As soon as I post this, it became ours instead of mine. This is something I have to remind myself of constantly. As soon as you share your work with the world it opens the door to feedback.

A lot of it.

Some of it useful, most of it not.

This is why one of the first things I changed as an educator was how I described others’ art. You quickly realize that “this movie sucked” isn’t really feedback, it’s just my opinion. What if someone in the room loved the film? There’s no where to go with the conversation if I already made their opinion invalid.

Recently, I had an experience where I was being evaluated without knowing it. Someone walked up to me, handed me a piece of paper, and said, “Well, you failed.” That was it. So I reflected, and it was at this point I realized I didn’t even know what was being evaluated.

I’ve probably thought about this more than needed over the past week, but I realize now that the feeling wasn’t about failing. It was about being watched without my knowledge. The feedback was received, but I didn’t even know the evaluation was taking place. I make a living noticing details, and somehow I missed it. I now find myself in similar situations, seeing if someone is watching.

And then it clicked. That’s exactly what it feels like to share your work. You make something, you understand why you made it and what it’s supposed to be, but suddenly it’s being watched by people you’ve never met. These may be people who never posted their work telling you what they would have done. What did they see that I missed?

When Inspiration Strikes

I welcome feedback, especially when it’s trying to make the work better. I’m not precious about it. If it helps the project, I’m in. But there’s a difference between feedback that builds something and feedback exists because someone saw it. If you’re not careful, the second version gets louder than the first.

But, what if that feeling is useful?

Inspiration doesn’t just arrive, sometimes it’s a strange interaction that sticks with you, something that doesn’t make sense until you move it somewhere else. Change the context and put it in an office, or the woods, or make the observer something else entirely and suddenly you might have a character or story beat.

This experience also made me think about feedback in general. The goal is to help someone get better, but I’ve seen, over and over again as an educator, how easy it is to lose someone in that process. You think it’s something to push them forward, and instead they shut down completely. When you’re making something, it feels like the most important thing in the world, but what if it isn’t?

At least not in the way we think it is.

By the time you read this article I’ve already made something else, and something after that. Posting consistently over the last year has made this clear to me. You are releasing a version of where you were at that moment, not where you are heading.

After I press submit it’s out of my control, and to be fair, it always was.

I once heard a story on set that ended with, “people don’t think, and if they do, they’re not thinking about you.” Pretty good advice to get a decade ago. So where does that leave someone who’s afraid to post? Afraid of feedback? The audience is the final step of the process, but they don’t all have to like it. What if one person loves it? Maybe that’s who you should start making it for, even if you don’t know who they are yet.

The older I get, the more I realize everyone is figuring it out as they go. There is no crystal ball to let you know what will work, or what won’t. This was never more clear than when I had a screenwriting tutorial cross 40,000 views recently.

If I had listened to every piece of advice I’ve gotten over the years, I wouldn’t have posted it. Coming from the film industry, or any industry, you get trained to second guess everything. What will people think? Is this right? Is this ready?

The life of an artist or content creator or filmmaker is not a traditional path. As of now, I’m have over 20 videos that are basically ready to go. I have four feature scripts in various stages, I have three experimental short films in post. These are things I spent a lot of time on, but I haven’t released them yet.

Part of me says that they’re not ready, and I’ve been doing this for almost 20 years. I’ve made films, I’ve had distribution, I’ve taught this, and still that thought is there. We all have that voice, no matter how long we are creating and thats what keeps most from starting, or even worse it keeps you from finishing.

For a long time, I was told not to. That YouTube was secondary. I was told if I wanted a “real” career, I needed to stay in one lane. Being a creator online isn’t what “real” filmmakers do. Now that I have been doing this for around 9 months I now see it’s one of the most direct ways to share what you’re doing, and actually engage with people that want to see what you are creating.

If you’re a filmmaker, educator, student, or just someone who wants to make something, I think it’s important to say this out loud: we’re all figuring this out in real time. This is the reason I started sharing all of this in the first place.

Make Your Work

If someone gives you feedback you didn’t ask for, take it with a grain of salt. A lot of the time, it has more to do with them than it does with you. It’s hard to go against the norm, but artists do this constantly. Reflecting back your experience and point of view makes you vulnerable but we need you to make your work. It’s a lot easier to tear something down than to build something up so when you see something you like, tell the creator. We don’t do that enough.

If you’re interested in collaborating, or you don’t want to figure this out completely on your own, I want to open that up a bit more. I’m working on my next feature and experimenting with various ways to collaborate.

If that sounds interesting to you, you can learn more by going here:

https://www.bronsoncreative.us/vhf21

Make what you want to see, not what you think people want to see.

I hope you have a beautiful day!

Jerry