"Strangely encouraging" is probably the best way to describe the advice Vince Gilligan offers new filmmakers in an interview with the Archive of American Television. The Breaking Bad creator sits down to remind us all that the entertainment business really wouldn't be the entertainment business without a steaming pile of failure lurking around every corner, but if you're going to go down, he says you'd "better go down swinging on something that's important."

If you've spent -- at least an afternoon working on a film project, you know that filmmaking is full of failure. The actor you want doesn't want you. That one film festival rejected your entry. (Or so you assume -- they never actually got back to you.) You hear "no" fifty times before you ever hear so much as a "maybe".

All that rejection, all that failure -- it really does a number on you emotionally. However, Gilligan explains how sometimes all of that anguish is worth it -- if you're working on something that you give a damn about. Essentially, passion is a near-perfect remedy for the brutum fulmen blues.

"Better to fail doing something you love than doing some hack work you're only partially invested in."

Passion can help carry you through the times when it seems as though no one believes in you or your project but you. It can keep you focused long enough to actually overcome the odds and find a way to finish your film. It can get you back inside your head to imagine another project waiting to be realized. Passion, not necessarily money, connections, or expensive gear, will help you get to the finish line when you've run out of the will to keep going.

If you want to watch the rest of the Vince Gilligan interview, head on over to The Archive of American Television.

Source: Archive of American Television

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