Lemonade from Losses
Welcome to Canned: Conversations about Getting Fired.
We get overlooked by the film festivals all the time. We also get nominated with incredible frequency which — turns out we were nominated for Best Short at Hollywood Shortsfest in June we just… didn’t know it because we’re so busy winning? Oh, and did I mention I took home the best screenplay award from the Seattle Film Festival? It’s sitting right here on my kitchen table as I write.
We struggle against the odds all the time, just getting seen by a screening committee is a notable achievement, make no mistake. I was reading this screed about how hard getting published is and all this is before you even touch the numbers.
I’m rambling. I have a point. My point is the losses are common. Weird creative projects get shoved to the side for projects that line wallets. I watched Dead Man the other night, Jim Jarmusch’s bleak Western/noir and somewhere in the middle I snapped out of suspension and thought, “How did this even get made? Who paid for this?”
I’m still rambling. The thing I want to tell you is that I got fired from my day job. Until I get that email telling me to hop the next flight to LA, we’re signing a production contract for The Same River Twice (the award bedecked screenplay Amy and I wrote based on my memoir), I have to work.
I was kneecapped by this loss; two days before I’d been in a planning session with the project manager to scope out the next few months of work. The whole thing set me to thinking, it’s a hive of bees up there in my brain. I contacted Amy, the most “let’s just get this shit done” person I know, and now we have a new thing.
The odds are not great in job search land. I suspect AI is a cruel, unimaginative gatekeeper. If the machines don’t see your resume as a perfect match for the job description, you are not getting to a human. I am old for the market, too, here I am at 60, unemployed in a sector that favors the young. (Point taken, every sector favors the young.)
“You’re living the Hollywood dream,” my friend Dylan told me, “not only are you an award winning screenwriter, you’re an unemployed award winning screenwriter!” I loved Barton Fink, but that character is not aspirational.
(Mandel. Tell them about the new thing, already.)
Doug’s newsletter, Snack Stack, is worth your time.
I redirected my big feelings about getting axed to a story project called Canned: Conversations about Getting Fired. Two weeks in, I already feel better about getting fired. I should clarify, I’m furious about what happened and furious that as an independent contractor in an at will state, I have zero protections. On Tuesday I expected to earn enough to pay my bills for the next three months, minimum, and on Thursday I had zero future income. I wanted to know how other people in this place felt when it happened to them. Talking with others has made me feel much better about my role in this story.
I am fascinated by the stories I’ve heard so far. And I’m taken by how deeply damaging, and for a long time, getting fired seems to be. People tell me these stories and it sounds like they were yesterday, even though it was ten, fifteen, thirty years ago.
I have been an indy worker bee for many, many years. In the before times, when my work went away, I would go to breakfast with everyone who could make the time. I just wanted my people to know I was looking for work. This time, I guess I’m doing this instead, I’m talking to everyone who’s been fired. I don’t know where this project will lead, but I sure enjoy working on it.
So. Amy and I have a new thing. I do the interviews, Amy does the production. It’s called Canned, and you might enjoy it, please check it out. If you like what you hear, please share it. If you or someone you know has a crazy “WTF, I got fired?” story, I want to hear it. Respond to this email, I’ll get you on the list.
Also, I need a job.
//Pam