Howdy, Buckeroos. I’ve been speaking at a number of different events lately, offering any help or war stories I can to people trying to “make it happen” in this business. I just left a great Q & A at CBS Radford Studios tonight, hosted by The Greenhouse. I tried to say everything I could to offer equal parts inspiration and caution. I hope I said enough. There’s no one path and it can be daunting. It’s hard to help every young filmmaker know what to do in his or her unique situation. Every one of them wants to know how to gain a reputation in this town, or get an agent or raise funds for their project, or protect their idea or they ask about loads of business issues that are ever-changing. Every career has its unique set of circumstances and every person will find their path in their own way. So how can I really give any helpful answers?

Then it hit me on the way home — something I should have said tonight so I’ll say it here. If you’re wondering how to get through this business, I don’t need to complicate it for you. I think it just comes down to one simple thing:

Make stuff.

This works if you’re a writer, director, actor, shooter, editor, set designer or puppet builder. It works if you’re a pastry chef.

If you are a creative person and you want a career creating, then just make stuff. Do what you do as much as possible. Do it at any level you can, big or small. Because if you make stuff and do it a lot, pretty soon you’ll be making GOOD stuff… And once you make GOOD stuff, people will NOTICE it… And once that happens, getting an agent gets a lot easier… And once you get an agent, that agent will be able to answer the 200 other questions you have, like how to get paid, what the town is looking for, how to retain ownership of your work, how to find funding or set meetings or pitch ideas, etc.

All of that comes from making stuff. 

It works the other direction too: Look at any successful creator and reverse engineer their success. You can’t have a successful career without being well connected. You can’t be connected without getting good representation.  You can’t get repped until you’re one of the best. And of course, you can’t be really good at anything until you do it lots and lots and lots.

What if you have no money or no contacts?  You can still make stuff, even if it’s at the smallest level. A web series leads to a short film which leads to a feature. Writing one page leads to 100 pages. Raising 100 dollars leads to raising 10,000 dollars. Each step leads to the next level. But nothing happens until you take the very first, smallest step.

Make stuff.

That’s the plan. Make something, repeat. Do this for ten years and things WILL happen for you. If you simply keep creating, you’ll get better at it and the answers to all the other details will follow.

Boom. Now my Q & A’s will probably get a lot shorter.