okay, whatever

Don't get depressed about not being where you want to be. This nagging feeling of anxiety is actually called ambition. Ambition is your friend.

-Atom Egoyan, independent filmmaker

The short film came back into my life yesterday.

I had written it off. I was sure nothing was going to become of it at this point.

This gets me thinking about the strange ways I relate to projects and productions. Sometimes I feel as though I write about filmmaking like single people write about their myriad love relationships. Take for example how many ideas never get beyond that initial burst of inspiration. Maybe it was never meant to be. Then there are those projects that weave in and out of your life, but never get very far while still remaining significant and personal. Then there are the ones that wake you up in the middle of the night, because what they've got to say just can't wait until morning.

And finally there are the actual productions - the marriages, if you will. They fall apart due to poor planning, bad communication, money issues, and the like.

So, the short film was back briefly. I heard from the writer-director guy, who I'd recently written again. I wanted to hear about his abandonment of his own project. I was told he hadn't done so, he was planning on seeing it through, and that the script was almost done. Lies, lies, lies.

Oh, and now he isn't leaving town until the third week in August. That would have been fine information to have before, but after his three week absence from communication and somehow taking four weeks to edit thirty pages out of the script, I decided I'd had enough. "So you're bailing then," he wrote during our instant message session. Nice.

Creative endeavors are a nasty beast.