Doc Talk

I have decided to stop asking people for advice about my documentary. This is my first film and as long as I can remain ignorant about the risks and downfalls, I will succeed! After all, that's one of the main ingredients of success. How often have you heard a great success story say, "I didn't know it couldn't be done, so I did it!"

Il pater familias has already made several digs at me and my project. First, he called my film a "reality show." Then this past weekend he said that "nobody is interested in watching an hour-long film about the HCSO Reserves!" He also put down my script for having too much narration (which I totally agree with) even though his documentary "El BeBop Kid" is FILLED with his narration. Fortunately for me, last week when I was sick on the couch I read Tatum O'Neal's autobio Paper Life and her horrid, depressing accounts of being abused mentally and physically her whole life by her father Ryan O'Neal. So I feel like, even though I don't have it nearly as bad as she did, I am totally capable of considering the source that is my father and his putdowns and know academically and emotionally his words truly don't mean shit. My self-esteem is way too healthy to be bothered by his little remarks.

Here's the bad flip side to my knowing better than to put any percentage into what he has to say: he may truly have some good, valuable, and decent insights and suggestions into the filmmaking process, seeing as how he's done it for, oh 40 years. But for him to start to discount me and my ideas even before we've shot a single scene, well, his credibilty with me is now greatly damaged. It's a sad situation, actually! My mom had an insight to his attitude, however, and that is that while on one hand he says he's proud of me for following in my genetic code and he tells me that he's very excited about my project and will help me however he can--and sometimes I almost believe him--on the other hand he's feeling like, who is this little upstart that has the nerve to try and think she can just come out of the woodwork and make a feature film documentary??? I really don't know, but that theory sounds like it could be plausible. That's actually what happened with Tatum and her dad! While he loved making Paper Moon with her, when she subsequently won the Oscar for her performance and he wasn't even nominated, of course that caused all kinds of problems in their relationship. And she was just 10 years old!!!

This is what our parents do to us: make us spend way too much time blogging about their impact on us and spend way too much of our time and money in therapy! I could be spending my valuable time re-working my script, blogging about my amazing weekend, or reading American Libraries. But now I'm too tired so will reconvene later.