The Curse of Numbers
This is Finish Your Monsters, a weekly newsletter about the creative process. I'm sharing adventures in art and life as well as setting CLIFFHANGER goals for myself, so--
DID I MAKE MY GOAL?
Last week, I committed to reading a book on funding independent films. And I made it! The book was very short so it was an extremely attainable goal. I'm throwing no parades here. The confetti cannon had one single piece of confetto. But sometimes reasonable goals are the best goals.
I learned a lot of stressful (but necessary) things about legal structures for film fundraising, laughed through the circa 2013 chapters about this newfangled Kickstarter thing, and got on with my adventures.
ADVENTURES OF THE WEEK--
Another rollercoaster week. Some thrilling highs and some moments of getting stuck upside down watching change fall out of my pockets.
For the lows--I had to accept a TV show I developed needs to sit on the shelf for a bit. It's an animated fantasy comedy. I wrote a pilot, hired an animator to do a 3 minute sizzle reel, built a pitch deck--lots of effort and passion! I've been shopping it around for a while. Luckily, I had some people show interest and got some great meetings out of it. But the reality is the market for selling animation is brutal right now. So it goes.
For the highs--Our short horror film, The Nightmare Adorable, has been accepted into two more film festivals. The best part about getting into festivals is that my team and myself made a thing. It exists. Humans will sit in a dark theater AND REACT TO IT. Arguably, the actual point of ART. (An important contrast to that animation pilot curling up on the shelf for a long nap.)
The other good thing about getting into more festivals is just COLD, HARD NUMBERS. The more festivals the film gets into, the more it helps me get more things made.
This was my biggest creative adventure this week--coping with the tension between ART and NUMBERS.
Numbers do NOT define our value. Our souls can't be quantified. I'm a firm believer in art for art's sake. If you write a poem about a tree and drop the only copy off a cliff and watch it waft away into a forest, that has value.
But it's very easy to get caught up in numbers. They're everywhere in our lives and growing constantly. Your income, your gas mileage, that Owl on Duolingo riding you about your streak points, your follower count on all 27 social media sites. Some days, I feel my fridge won't open unless I tell it how many credits I have on imdb.
Numbers can be soul-crushing. I might have been able to sell that TV show if my numbers were different. Thinking like that gets corrosive. It eats away at our confidence and our ability to channel our unique selves into our art.
So it helps to define why numbers DO matter to me. The reality is I want people to see my work. I respect anyone who wants to write a pilot and just put it on a shelf, but I think art is a gift not only to yourself but to whoever might be positively impacted by it. There's undeniable ego in making art. But you are also SHARING something of yourself and you never know who might need it. I feel very grateful the artists I admire didn't decide it was too vain to aspire to sharing their work.
Crucially, having more people see your work makes it way, way easier to CONTINUE to create art. The value in having a million followers on social media isn't vanity, it's being able to translate those numbers into making more art.
So, in my opinion, numbers do not change art's intrinsic value. But they deeply impact how many people see our art and how much easier it is to keep making art.
When I'm feeling tortured by the tension between art and numbers (like when I was reading that fundraising book) I turn to wisdom I first encountered reading the autobiography of Sammy Davis, Jr:
It's called show business. There's the show. And there's the business. And you gotta take care of both.
Separating them in my mind helps. They're connected, but they need their own attention. When I'm writing or performing or directing, that's the show. I've got my show hat on. (A beat-up old bowler hat like Laurel & Hardy wore.) When I'm writing press releases or counting film festival acceptances or asking people to subscribe to this blog, that's the business. And I have to wear my business hat. (A sensible baseball cap coveted by Ron Howard himself.) There are awkward moments where you must double-hat it, but every career has its burdens.
Separating the show and the business doesn't fix the tension, but it makes it easier for me to face.
If you're interested, I made a short film about the horror of being defined by numbers. It's called Unboxing The Cosmos and you can watch it here.
MY GOAL FOR THE WEEK--
I'm going to double-goal myself. One for the show and one for the business.
Show goal: An opportunity popped up to make a very short, very low budget horror project. So I'm going to complete a rough draft of a 5 page script.
Business goal: I have a live show I want to do, but I need to start planning for it far in advance. So I'm also going to task myself with sending a minimum of 3 scary emails.
YOUR GOAL FOR WEEK--
I'd love to encourage folks to tackle their goals. Hopefully, Buttondown will add a comments section soon, but until then feel free to reach out to me on social media and let me know what projects you’re working on this week.
LIGHT PLUGS--
I am now wearing my BUSINESS CAP and harrumphing about NUMBERS. This past Sunday was Squirrel Appreciation Day which reminded me of a photo I snapped of a squirrel from a moving car. You can pick it up as an art piece on Threadless here.
All proceeds go straight to my production company, Strange Path. You can also check out comedy albums and a cosmic horror tale on Bandcamp. Early access to films and other rewards on my Patreon. And more Strange Path t-shirts on Threadless.
A LITTLE SKETCH--
This week, I sketched a friend who was also burdened by a stressful book. Thanks, bat-friend. And thank you for joining me. I look forward to next week. Will I make my goal/s? Will you make yours? Will I sketch a bat sending emails? Only the FUTURE KNOWS!
