Film Courage: We talked earlier about the anxiety of this [entertainment] business. Can we talk about why it's
high anxiety and what can people do to work with it? Jason Satterlund, Filmmaker: Most people I know in this
business is full of anxiety I mean first of all if you most people in film don't
have full-time jobs most people you know it goes like this
so there's this financial anxiety first of all you know have busy seasons spring
summer and fall are often really busy winter is usually not so sometimes
you're like I don't know I don't know how to pay my rent next month that's
very common unless you're working making gobs of money you're probably fine but
so that's the first off second of all is we've all sacrificed so much to be here
nobody wants to make bad stuff so when you get these opportunities you want to
do a good job and you can end up putting so much pressure on yourself that you
start screwing things up that that's the hall man sometimes there's anxiety for
the people that you're working with you know you get a name talent for example
an a-lister actor that's coming in and you're so afraid
I think it's afraid of being discovered as a fake or you know not talented or
whatever your worst possible fear may be you don't have it and the actor can see
it no no you know what happen oh man yeah anxiety there there's the judgments
the egos you know someone thinking they're more than they are and they're
just their ego is ruling the set and the anxiety that comes out of that you're
also on film you know it's such a collaborative art all these
temperamental artists in a room together on set you know sets or pressure cookers
we're all working in under tight deadlines and tight financial
restrictions the Sun is going down we got to get the shot that's all super
anxiety so it's something I've definitely struggled with most of my
life I can be very high-strung and it's
something I really have to pay attention to because I anxiety is a killer you
know it can give you health problems it can it will shut down your creativity
you can work yourself into such a state where
you can get panic attacks and things I've had that happen like yeah it's so I
think it's important first of all you know I practice a lot of you know
self-awareness and meditation and things like that just to help me deal with a
lot of those issues and you know not that's a big rabbit hole but I will tell
you that one thing that's helped me a lot is there are two ways to look at
anxiety so your mind is like this freeway cars racing back and forth on it
and you know money's flying out the door oh this actors coming I'm so scared you
know it's going back and forth well you got a couple of options you can either
stand in the middle of traffic and try to slow the cars down and stop being so
anxious and fight it or you can sit on the overpass while the traffic's going
under you and go okay there's a lot of anxiety happening right now okay and
don't judge it and let it be and just acknowledge that it's there and
sometimes it'll start to move away you know you're not trying to stop the
traffic you're not trying to be angry at the traffic because that doesn't help
you're not trying to you know you're just acknowledging that it exists
without any judgment and I also think it's important to not say I try to avoid
the words I am anxious it's the same way of saying I am depressed well I am NOT
the emotion of anxiety I am Jason a person with strengths and weaknesses I
am NOT anxiety I am NOT anxious I am feeling this way right now but not I did
because we I think we all have a tendency to do that I am a pessimist
well you're right you're right you're labeling yourself with a certain emotion
and that can I think that can carry a weight so I think those kinds of
self-awareness techniques are really important especially for filmmakers who
are in such a high-stress industry and you know taking time to laugh at
yourself and realize how silly this business is sometimes and like I was
shooting a thing earlier this year that it was the feature I just did what
we had to shoot some anti-gravity stuff and we had the camera on a thing called
a lambda head so you go left and right and it's very much like Star Trek where
they you know they're all the actors had to throw themselves one direction while
we rolled the camera the other way and so in the monitor it looks like
everything's tilting and the actors are going whoa
and I'm you know it's an intense scene and I'm looking at it and I just start
laughing because it house silly it all is like how silly this
whole make-believe industry is like and I think that's healthy you know to like
oh my goodness look over mate this is so dumb what we're doing and so funny and
fun and all of that all together just laughing at yourself for a minute you
know and just you know letting some of that anxiety go and just because it's
not helping it's not serving you know it's not making you more creative it's
not making you more meticulous or anything it's just making you anxious
yeah another thing too is that the decisions change very quickly in this
industry in so many ways and all of a sudden like oh you know I'm so sorry we
don't need you and you don't know why you'll never be told why so knowing that
that could happen and to not even though you really want something but to know
that you could get that email or that phone call really sorry yeah it's not
gonna happen happens all the time and and to just alright be depressed for
like a day and then move on yeah I think it's important to say that it's anxiety
especially when it results from things like that or depression or
discouragement it's okay it's okay to be a little frustrated when you get the
rejection that's all right don't dwell on it let yourself feel it and then you
know give yourself a day or two and then try to move past it like but don't judge
the fact that you're just a little bit down because you entered the festival
that you wanted and they didn't just accept you yeah it sucks we all do it
we're not no one's different no one's different we're all the same
and it just it's okay to feel that way but then just give yourself a chance to
take a breath fight again another day because it is normal this business is so
uncertain you know how many investors I've talked to over the years trying to
get a movie out oh man the amount of times they pulled out it's maddening
sometimes close to the shooting date oh sure yeah that's all the DPS pull out
actors pull out projects fall apart and that's that ranges from feature films to
any any a manner of film job you know shoot I had a I had like three or four
weeks of work booked on on 2001 September 11 you know I was let's go to
Egypt for a couple of weeks on a nice great big fat job and I was gonna leave
on September 14 and I watched those Towers fall and my work stopped dead
that was depressing that was hard but normal what happens this is the business
that we fought to be in so you know try to enjoy it as often as you can because
it's fun what a night when it's working it's great sure it's great
you