When making an ultra-low-budget independent film, you call in lots of favors.
That’s why a film crew and I were shooting in my friends’ sprawling suburban house and backyard. I had convinced them to relocate their noisy rooster to our backyard and open their elegantly decorated home to more than a dozen 4- and 5-year-old girls, who would be extras in this scene.
We were shooting a princess-themed birthday party on a sweltering August day. The crew was dripping in sweat. The children could only go outside for short periods of time, so they were mostly cooped up inside and getting antsy.
Between takes for a key scene, someone mentioned that one parent and child had taken off after the girl spilled red Gatorade all over the light-colored living room rug. My heart sank, and I immediately went to clean it.
Then my phone rang. My husband, who was dropping off our daughter at a camp in Texas, said our neighbor had called him because the rooster had escaped our yard and was strutting around theirs, terrorizing their dog.
This was shortly after one of the teenage extras, wearing an old bridesmaid dress of mine and playing the role of a party wrangler, said she felt woozy because of the heat and nearly passed out. Meanwhile, my director and cinematographer were having some serious “creative differences” on set.
At this moment, I wondered what had possessed me to want to make a film in the first place. I had zero experience in filmmaking. But I had a story I had written and a vision for how it could be told.
I quickly realized that I would need to surround myself with experienced people who knew what they were doing. I gave myself a crash course in filmmaking via the internet and friends who were willing to share their expertise.
And it turned out that I had some relevant skills after all. In that moment of chaos, I did what parents everywhere have learned to do: prioritize, improvise and delegate. I focused on trying to get the stain out of the rug, sent people to corral the rooster and tried to avert any more princess meltdowns.
A year after that shoot, after post-production headaches and some despair about whether this project would ever get done, we had a nine-minute short film that brought to life what I had imagined on a page.
I had written and produced my first film. The stain came out of the carpet, the rooster was unharmed and the tiny princesses all looked adorable.
I didn’t intend to make a film to teach my children anything. I simply felt compelled by a story. But looking back, I realized that when I shared my crazy behind-the-scenes stories with them, I was deliberately showing them the many challenges we faced because I wanted them to see how to respond when they inevitably faced obstacles on their own journeys.
I wanted them to see me struggle with something unfamiliar. I told them when potential funders said “no” after hearing my pitch. I shared the times that film festivals rejected my project. I let them see my doubts and insecurities. I wanted them to know that ambitious projects take time and suffer setbacks along the way.
Reaching tough goals requires some failure. Modern parents work so hard to shield our children from it. But that doesn’t do them any favors in the long run.
When we finally started showing the film to audiences this fall and hearing great feedback, I also shared my joy with my kids.
I reinforced that we had achieved some measure of success because many people worked so hard toward a common goal. I wanted them to share my pride in having figured things out, working together with a team to create something beautiful.
Adolescents feel so much pressure to achieve. They jam-pack their school schedules and load up their extracurriculars. They constantly get the message that one misstep, one bad grade, one significant rejection will ruin their chance at a successful future.
That’s simply not true.
They will deal with their own runaway roosters, overheated princesses and disastrous spills.
It turns out that’s part of the magic of making something worthwhile.