Dear Boogie - Volume 7
Dear Boogie,
I am a fellow filmmaker and I’m submitting my first film to festivals. I’m getting rejected so much that it’s starting to make me question whether my mom even still loves me. How do you deal with all the rejection?
Sincerely,
No Thanks Hanks
Dear NTH,
Ah, the sweet sting of rejection. We creative types know it oh-too-well. Even your mighty hero has suffered through his fair share of rejections. Here is just a small sample of the rejection letters under my mattress:
“Dear Brendan,
Thank you for submitting your short film FAT PEOPLE BEING SEXUAL to the Fort Lauderdale Erotic Film Festival. We regret to inform you we did not choose your film for this year’s program. For one, the title is a little misleading. There are not multiple fat people being sexual. It is just you - shirtless - molesting a cruller. Secondly, including this film would really be stretching the word “erotic.” There is nothing erotic about what you made us watch.
We normally encourage filmmakers to not give up and keep submitting, but… please leave us alone.
Traumatized,
The FLEFF Staff”
“Dear Brendan,
Thank you for submitting your resume and cover letter for the position of White House press secretary. While you have some interesting ideas about what would play well at press briefings, we feel your approach might be a little too aggressive. Yelling ‘Stop waving your freedom-of-the-press dick around at me, Helen Thomas!’ would probably not look good for the President. Also, Helen Thomas has been dead since 2013. That’s something of which a prospective press secretary should probably be aware.
Your letter has been forwarded to the FBI. Please leave us alone.
Yours,
White House HR”
“Dear Brendan,
Thank you for interviewing to join the FBI. We even found your ‘Floppy Booby Inspector’ t-shirt kind of amusing. What was not amusing was when you doubled down on the bit and ‘motorboated’ Agent Tarkenton. He is very sensitive about the size and firmness of his pectoral region. While hurting Agent Tarkenton’s feelings isn’t technically a crime, we recommend you watch your P’s and Q’s before we muster up some sort of embarrassing sex crime charge against you. What is this we hear about you and a cruller? That’s gotta be illegal, right? We’re going to check it out and get back to you so don’t leave the country or nothin’.
Yours in Allah,
The FBI”
So yes, NTH - my life has been full of rejections. As an indie filmmaker, festivals are one of the only roads to getting your film to a wider audience. Because of that, things are incredibly competitive. Rejections can be discouraging, but here are a couple of things I learned from my years in the trenches:
Film festival programmers aren’t particularly qualified to judge films. We have this idea that film festival submissions are judged by a panel of esteemed film scholars with Scorcese-like encyclopedic knowledge of the art of cinema. They’re not. They’re just some lady and some dude and some other lady. They don’t have any specialized training or academic provenance. A festival programmer is just an regular ol’ person who either likes your movie or doesn’t. This isn’t a sleight on programmers, by the way. Programming a film festival is really hard work. But it doesn’t make sense to respect a programmer’s opinion on the quality of your film any more than you would the guy pooping in the stall next to yours right now. (I know my audience - you’re classic bathroom readers.)
In many of your bigger festivals, the programmers don’t even see your films. They outsource the screening to completely unvetted volunteers whose only qualification is a willingness to spend hours watching mediocre movies. This has ended in more than one complaint. I remember a festival a few years back (I don’t even remember which one - that’s how often I get rejected) offered “notes from your screener.” When the notes went out, they were peppered with well-considered critiques such as “This is the shittiest movie I’ve ever seen LOL!” and “This movie fucking suxxx, bro!” The festival had to issue an apology for the lack of professionalism in their notes. It was hilarious. Of course, they probably did nothing change their screener vetting policy. If you’ve got ten thousand films to watch, you’re probably not picky about who does the watching.
The point being - acceptance or rejection has nothing to do with the quality of your film. It has to do with a particular stranger’s opinion. How much of your artistic self-esteem do you want to put in the hands of some random chump? I choose zero. Because in a larger sense…
We can change our relationship with rejection. Nobody enjoys rejection. Unless it’s your kink or something. Imagine your kink were getting rejected from film festivals? Like, you couldn’t get an erection without a form letter from SxSW? There’s a short film idea for you! Quick - let’s set up a crowdfunding campaign!
Great hilarious digression, Brendan! So anyway, changing your relationship with rejection is your classic “simple but not easy” proposition. Here’s how you do it: work to disconnect your sense of your own value with someone’s opinion of you. Here’s an analogy that may help:
Do you like chocolate or vanilla ice cream better? Let’s say for the sake of argument you said chocolate. Now answer this question: is there anything wrong with vanilla? No! It’s just not for you! Your opinion of vanilla does nothing to change vanilla’s inherent value. Many people love vanilla. It only follows that your film (or personality or sexual attractiveness or whatever) is someone’s chocolate and someone’s vanilla. Vanilla shouldn’t beat itself up because of someone else’s taste. (Another short film idea: a sentient bowl of vanilla ice cream with low self-esteem! Let me draw up a quick pitch deck and reach out to some angel investors who like throwing money away!)
NTH, rejection doesn’t have to hurt anymore. People think I’m lying when I say this, but I barely even feel the rejections anymore. The pang of disappointment lasts seconds. The same is true with jobs, dates… everything, really. Rejection just doesn’t bother me because I know it has nothing to do with my inherent value. I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. Good! I’m not mass marketing. I am trying to find my niche of people who like my shit.
Now, I wasn’t always like this. I would avoid rejection like a mofo. It took years of practice, but these days I don’t connect my personal or creative value with someone else’s opinion anymore. I get my self-esteem from the only place that makes sense: penis size.
Boogie Writes is a completely independent endeavor by one hard-working funnyman trying to make his way in the world today (which takes everything you’ve got.) If you like what you read, please subscribe, support, and tell a friend! Also - do you need advice? Of course you do! Send your queries to brendan@brendanboogie.com with “Dear Boogie” in the subject and get some solid or at least passable advice!