Chasing the dream

“You can be anything you want to be.”

Since I was a child, I’ve heard variations on this idea echoed over and over. If you set your mind to it and work hard, you can achieve anything. You can have any profession and be successful at it.

There’s definitely a lot of truth in that but there’s a flip side that I hadn’t considered until very recently. What if you fail to reach that dream? Is it the end of the world?

A career for dreamers

I’ve been an aspiring filmmaker since I was 16 years old. It was then that I decided that I wanted nothing more than to make a living behind the camera. I wasn’t persuaded by aspirations of celebrity, fortune, or accolades. I just wanted to tell stories and create worlds.

I’m sure it’s due in no small part to the dreadful real world that I grew up in. A home damaged by poverty, addiction, divorce, and religion. I figured out that I could hide from those things behind every script, shot, and edit. I could imagine characters and scenes less depressing than the ones in front of me. So, I dove in.

I grabbed any camera I could and shot shorts with my friends. I enrolled in film school and volunteered at the student TV station, any chance to let the lens shape the world in front of me. I found my passion, and in the end, isn’t that what everybody wishes to do?

I began to spend way too much time in the land of make-believe. And why not? The major and job title that I chose allowed for me to immerse myself in motion picture storytelling. It encouraged and even demanded it. Under the cover of passion and commitment, I could ignore friends and family, reject responsibilities, even avoid showering for a whole week.

That guy reeks! Oh, he’s been in the editing room all week. Sorry mom, brutal shooting schedule. We’ll talk next month.

What if you don’t realize your dream?

After college there was a rapid pruning of those of us that went after our film industry careers, and those that didn’t. Some chose jobs in other fields, and the rest of us moved to either Los Angeles or New York City. Of those that moved, a large handful moved back home after just a few months.

I know it’s not an easy career path. Still, I scoffed at the people that moved back, mocking them in silence for not “having what it takes”. I told myself that I’ve persevered through so much in my life, there’s no way I could give up as easily as they did.

But opinions change with perspective. Film and television is a really difficult industry to break into, let alone succeed in. There’s this incredible “hustle” that I see in the people that are making it work. They blend socializing and job-seeking and become expert self-promoters. They absorb tons of knowledge related to the specialization they want to pursue, be it camera, lights, music, etc.