Do IT Scared

At my college graduation a classmate said something in his commencement speech that stuck with me. I know that’s a lame way to lead a blog article, but it was good advice:

“Do it scared.”

When I graduated college I had three goals: to record my EP, build a portfolio as a director, and make my first film. To be honest, the thing I was most scared of was not getting to make any of them.

I recorded my 5-song EP called “White Fire” up in Nashville. It went great. I learned a ton. I put it on Spotify. A few people liked it, it was awesome.

Soon after I met a few filmmakers that I clicked with. We started making stuff together and turned it into a company called “Backstory.” I’ve been in the director’s chair, built out a portfolio and learned a lot about how the business works.

Over that chunk of time I wrote a script about my younger brother’s battle and triumph over cancer. It’s designed to be paired with my EP and also called “White Fire.” While it’s technically a short, it’s the scope of a feature: 70 scenes, 15 locations, 12 shooting days, some big ol’ scope and a big ol’ crew.

We just finished shooting a few days before Christmas. It’s an odd feeling to have it in the can after imagining it as a far-off thing for three years. Someone told me I would get postpartum depression now that it’s over, but I really haven’t. I feel more at peace, content and confident than I ever have. The difference of what it felt like driving to set on day one is light years from what it felt like driving to set on the last day. It was like every nugget of wisdom, every piece of advice, and every hard lesson snapped together scene by scene, shot by shot.

There was a moment every morning on set where I would look around in awe at the amount of people and effort going into bringing this story to life, and for that I’ll be forever grateful. I could have never imagined the amount of support, sacrifice, encouragement, tenacity and generosity wrapped around the project. This story of my family fighting through a tough time turned into something so much bigger than one person and I’m still a bit overwhelmed it came together as it did.

On our last day of shooting I had a scene between our lead, a twelve year boy, and a ten year old girl. The idea is for our main character to meet this girl on his first day of chemo treatment. She’s been through months of chemo and becomes a sort of mentor. Our actress had never acted in a film before and was incredibly nervous. If I’m being honest, I was not the most un-nervous person either. It’s tough to rely on two kids to carry a scene. But I was able to sit down with the young girl before we rolled. She told me she didn’t want to mess it up, that she didn’t want to ruin everything and that she was afraid of forgetting her lines. I told her I felt like that every single day driving to set but that a crazy thing happens when you decide to do it anyway: the fear goes away, your instincts kick in and everything else fades away.

It was one of the most rewarding moments of the entire experience when she nailed the scene. She walked out of the room beaming. I couldn’t have picked a more meaningful way to end the shoot that gave me the same experience as our young actress. All the roadblocks, disappointments, curveballs and seemingly insurmountable odds over the last two years added up into an immense feeling of pride and accomplishment having gotten this project off the ground.

I have a deep desire to find ways to marry film and music in compelling ways and this project truly was a dream come true. If all goes well, each one of these goals simply earn me a spot at the starting line. But I do know that regardless of what I’m doing or making, the difference between success and failure is often the willingness to “do it scared.”