Successfully Cinematic and the Bigger Picture

At times, I have wished that success had a clear and concise definition that could be used as the ultimate guide on what goals to have or how to go about achieving them.

Still, I also often appreciate the fact that success is defined in different ways from person to person. To me, success means being able to make films and discuss them without needing to have day jobs, night jobs and side jobs to support my regular living expenses. This is especially important if at the end of the day, I realize that there is not much funds leftover to support any filmmaking efforts while paying bills and such at the same time.

Success would require me to be able to earn income through filmmaking or related activities so that I won't have to constantly be in a state of trying to make time for my own interests....I would be doing it!

These days, I try to keep the fact that life is short and nothing lasts forever in mind. Since I know that I'm going to die (eventually), I try to measure success by other important factors in life such as achieving a constant state of peace, being of some service to others even if it's only one person and trying to always do more good than harm.

I guess right now, success means being able to cover all of one's basic needs while having some room for additional tasks or activities that offer personal growth....whatever it is.....learning how to cook a steak properly, change a car tire, teaching someone else a new skill or solution to a problem or being more pleasant when interacting with other human beings.

There is a "Successful" song that pretty much sums up a lot about how some people who want to achieve success tend to feel a quite often:

"I want things to go my way,
but as of late, a lot of S--- has been going sideways" - Drake featuring Trey Songz

What does Success mean to YOU?

This post was written for the topic of "Success" in the Group Blogging Experience (GBE 2).

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On Expectations of Short & Feature Length Films (GBE 2 - wk1)

I remember when "Titanic" came out and a lot of people who went to see it were complaining about it's three-hour long running time. One complaint in particular came from a friend who did not like this movie. Today, the complaint got me thinking about the way that short films are often given a bad rep at film festivals, among many filmmakers, film industry experts and even movie fans.

A lot of people treat short films like they are unimportant or some type of neglected second cousin of the feature film club. The disappointment from a feature length movie like "Titanic" or action films such as "Transformers" usually arise when they do not meet the expectations that movie goers had when they decided to visit the theater and watch it based on its movie trailer.

It is not unusual for a movie goer to feel like time was wasted that they cannot get back....two hours is a lot of time out of someone's life that is used to watch a film, so it should be good or at the very least....entertaining, right? This is an issue where short films should be given the benefit of the doubt because they are useful forms of entertainment that do not take two hours to watch.

Many short films are under 10 minutes in length, so whether they are exceptional pieces of cinematic art like some of the Oscar nominated short films...or whether they are bland...or whether they are bad....short length movies do not have to meet the same level of expectations that feature length films do.

More than one dozen short films can be watched in the same time that one views "The Lord of the Rings" (this is not to say that LOTR falls into the same category of "Transformers" because LOTR is a good movie!) so even if movie fans come across a short film that they do not like, there wasn't that much time wasted in watching it because the average person usually spends the same amount of time in the bathroom. In fact, you could watch a short film while you are using the bathroom and get it done and over with....unless of course, you spend the bathroom time reading a book!

This post was written for the topic of "Expectations" in the new Group Blogging Experience (GBE 2). Also, I want to thank Alana at Writercize for letting me know about this blogging project!

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