At the Vimeo Festival and Awards this past weekend I got to sit in on this interesting talk with actor/writer/director Ed Burns (The Brothers McMullen, Nice Guy Johnny, Newlyweds) and producer Ted Hope (American Splendor, The Savages, 21 Grams). Failure FTW (or For the Win, for those not in with the lingo) was a a talk not about failure, but about working through the problems that all creatives must face. It's very easy to get lost when things aren't going right, but those who become successful find ways to persevere regardless of the circumstances. Be sure to watch the video embedded below, as Failure FTW is a lesson in finding what made you fall in love with this industry in the first place.
I happened to be sitting next to Scott Macaulay of Filmmaker Magazine (an accomplished producer himself) and our very own Koo, who was livetweeting during the talk. Here are are few bits from that:
https://twitter.com/ryanbkoo/status/211211169086709760
https://twitter.com/ryanbkoo/status/211213508023566337
The key takeaway should be that knowing who you are as a person is the best way to navigate your way through this industry. Failures will happen, and even though many of the anecdotes from this talk ended positively, many times projects end negatively, and nothing good will come of it. It's important to be able to pick yourself back up when these things happen.
For a little more lighthearted talk, this keynote from Reggie Watts is entertaining on numerous levels, and he also interviews the festival winner, the filmmaking team Everynone:
If you've got any stories of personal failures that you turned into a positive experience or learned from, please share them below.
