I’m discovering that it is really important to have friends for moral support when making a feature. As I am getting the materials together for the film, I feel pretty lonely. I get twinges of doubt. I doubt my abilities. I doubt the script. But good friends can really pick you up. 

I guess my biggest fear is that at the end of making this film, that I will be in exactly the same place as I am now. That will all this time and effort be worth it. Will I still be doing the dead end job? Will I still be making films that no-one sees? (Film festivals are avoiding my work again) Will I progress in my career and start to live off the money I make from filmmaking? These questions plague me.

All these thoughts were hanging over me like a dark cloud when I meet with Ashvin yesterday. We talked about everything that is going on in our lives. Talked about films. Things going on in the industry. How it’s very quiet at the moment for the British Film Industry. (There have been quite a few postponed productions this year.) Then Ashvin asked me how the film is coming along. I laid out my worries and concerns, and Ashvin laid out the support. Told me about other directors like Spike Lee who about 8 attempts to get their first film made. Pointed out to me that if this really bad director, and I mean really bad, can make a film and sell it, then so can I. It got my enthusiasm level up again for the project. The sun started to break through those dark clouds.

Also it got me thinking that there is no use worrying about the future. That once this film is finished, that if I don’t achieve everything I set out to do, so what. That I will get behind the camera again and make another feature and another feature and another feature and another feature until I get to the point that one of them will do well Even if it is 3 people in a room for 90 minutes, at least I am making films. That I am doing what I love. And that I know that I will always have support from my friends.