Don't Give Up The Fight!
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race”
Calvin Coolidge
I recently had the honor of jurying a selection of work from art school students for inclusion in a major exhibition.
These students, by the very nature of their chosen major -and inherently in their particular choice of college, have benefited from the financial support of parents and emotional encouragement of high school art teachers who made it possible for them to enroll in art school as a stepping stone to a career in the arts.
I was tremendously impressed by the quality of the art presented, and accepted twenty of those students as part of a show composed of 150 artists total. Suffice to say that this was the first exhibition for these students, and hazard a guess that it won't be the last for any of them. Twenty percent of them saw their paintings sell on the opening night of that show. There is no greater encouragement than a public purchase, and the exposure alone will likely be enough to validate the rest of them.
Regardless of medium, be it musical, visual, or otherwise, for every artist who receives encouragement or guidance, there must be a hundred or more who do not. And among those who succeed, there is one common thread:
Tenacity.
When I finally watched the Oscars a day after the live telecast, the moment that really hit home and triggered a truly emotional reaction was Michael Giacchino's acceptance speech for Best Original Score. The young composer of Pixar's Up did more to enrich the future of the film industry in forty-seven seconds than most film school professors can do in decades. He told an audience of millions that being creative is not a waste of time. For his entire, unexpurgated speech, you can skip to the bottom of this column. Read it and forward it to everyone you know. With a little luck it may find its way and strike a chord in a parent who doubts the unconventional aptitude of their "artsy" child. Perhaps it will even spark the light of understanding and remind them just how difficult it is to follow a dream, and how important it is to do so while still young.
I find it unconscionable that the expectations of middle age are cast with such accelerated frequency upon young people. Youth is a time of taking chances, making mistakes and learning from them. It's a time for accumulating experience to better shape goals, before those goals limit our experience. As we get older, the luxury of trial and error is denied, as marriages, children and house payments pile up around us in a blinding heap of disheveled desires and unfulfilled aspirations.
Lest this sound like the ethereal ravings of a festival-dancing delusional, I should stress that I am (for the most part) a realist; I am well grounded, responsible and professional, and encourage common sense over folly, but I have always measured my own merits against what was expected of me -and was by no means coddled.
When I decided to forgo my scholarship and drop out of college to move out to California, I'm sure my parents were disappointed, but I didn't let that deter my decision to follow my muse. I didn't have a singular, specific goal, but I knew at the age of seventeen that life at that point was no make-it-or-break-it affair. Failure was an option, and I tried not to burn bridges in the event that my atypical choice revealed itself to be ill-advised. Twenty years later, I'm still here. I think my father finally stopped thinking that I had been wasting my time when he spotted me in my second straight Superbowl commercial back in 2007, at the end of which (my mother later told me) he was still smiling even though his beloved Patriots lost to the Green Bay Packers. The fact that my hair was cut and not colored purple or green probably made him happy, too. Some kids never get that kind of parental approval, and I'm glad I got mine before my old man died.
I have certainly made my share of not-great decisions, and I've definitely paid my dues for them. Luckily none of them ever involved venereal disease or unplanned pregnancy, and there weren't any bright ideas involving felonies or confidence scams either. I once got Michael Eisner to pay my check at La Cachette just by waving to him, but for the most part, the path I've followed in taking the road less traveled has involved whole-heart dedication, and such determination is more abundant in the young-at-heart than in a seasoned veteran. I seriously doubt that I could do the things now that I did back then. That courage and fearlessness have made the younger me a hero for the older me, and when I see kids now-a-days adopting a D.I.Y. aesthetic for their own projects with honest-to-goodness motivation, I'm god damn proud of them. If that makes me sound magnanimous, then so be it. The youth are the future, and it would be intelligent to give them more resources rather than limit them.
Maybe because I'm in Hollywood, I get phone calls from relatives and have conversations with acquaintances while traveling about how so-and-so is writing a screenplay or a book. I tell them all the same thing: Whatever they're starting to write, finish it.
It is the toughest advice to take, apparently, because even when I offer to read these magnum opuses, they don't send them to me. For most people, it's all about talking about writing. If they could finish a first draft, they would be ahead of 98% of the other would-be writers. A word of advice to the perfectionists: the polish comes after the first draft. Way after the first draft. Finish the damn thing, and don't talk about it until you do. I'm not the first person to suggest this, and I'm pretty sure everyone from Sinclair Lewis to Stephen King would tell you the same thing. Unfinished works don't get published by unknown writers.
Regardless of your chosen profession, these rules remain true. If you are in a band, you need to play live. Practice is fine, but real world experience will make you better than playing only for yourselves, so send out demos to clubs. Gigs that bomb will make you better performers. This is true of musicians, comics, and performance artists, too. Painters and sculptors? You need to submit to galleries. Even if you suck, if you follow the submission policy of the gallery to which you submit, you will probably get feedback, and that feedback will make you better, or at least motivate you out of anger. Writers: when you've finished that spec script or book or movie review, submit it to a publisher, agent or website. Being pushy is a necessity in getting noticed, so don't be afraid to pester that promoter, director or whoever until they tell you to bugger off. This is a well guarded trade secret, and in revealing it, I fully expect professional scorn if not outright death threats. You're welcome.
Hang in there, but only if you really mean it, because there are a bunch of people out there with a genuine need to be creative, and a passive fancy is an insult to those who live and die for their art.
"Thank you, guys. When I was... I was nine and I asked my dad, "Can I have your movie camera? That old, wind-up 8 millimeter camera that was in your drawer?" And he goes, "Sure, take it." And I took it and I started making movies with it and I started being as creative as I could, and never once in my life did my parents ever say, "What you're doing is a waste of time." Never. And I grew up, I had teachers, I had colleagues, I had people that I worked with all through my life who always told me what you're doing is not a waste of time. So that was normal to me that it was OK to do that. I know there are kids out there that don't have that support system so if you're out there and you're listening, listen to me:
If you want to be creative, get out there and do it. It's not a waste of time. Do it. OK? Thank you. Thank you." - Michael Giacchino