Yesterday I publicly announced that I was working on a new film. I received a lot of positive reaction from friends, family, and people wanting to get involved in the project. I have to admit, it felt great. But literally within minutes of posting the blog announcement, I came across this new TED Talk by CD Baby Founder Derek Sivers, and realized that I had perhaps already doomed my project to failure:
It's a short video (3 min.), and I recommend you watch it, but the point of the talk is this: Telling someone your goals makes them less likely to happen. Psychologists have found that the brain is tricked into thinking that the goal is already achieved after you've announced it publicly to someone, and therefore you are less motivated to achieve the goal.
I sat back and realized that just by announcing my new film, I already felt that "high" I had missed since making my first film 5 years ago. Is my brain now tricked? Am I now less motivated to achieve my goal of making a new film? Geez, I really hope not.
But I do agree with Derek (who I was lucky enough to interview for "What is INDIE?"), as I have seen it happen time and time again with people who want to get in shape, find a new job, record a new album, etc. They talk about it a few times, and then nothing happens. It certainly happened to me after releasing "What is INDIE?", when I announced my next film was going to be a documentary about my first band and our 10 year anniversary reunion. Never happened. I talked about it a lot, but in the end I lost motivation to carry through the project for various reasons. I was probably better off keeping my big mouth shut, because to this day people still ask me what ever happened to that film. Oops.
Where does this leave my new film? Well, I can't take back the public announcement, the cat is already out of the bag as they say (although I really hope the cat doesn't come near me, I am deathly allergic). My first instinct was to just shut my mouth, never speak of the film again and just work to make it happen. But I'm not going to do that, because the film, as you will hopefully see one day, will be a very open project that will require participation from people all around the world for it to fulfill the vision I have for it.
So I've decided to be very open and honest about the project. Will the film definitely get made? I can't answer that question 100% right now, as it is still very early in the development phase (I remember while making "What is INDIE?", there were 2 similar films being made at the same time, but were never released). A lot can happen while making a film, so stay tuned for what will hopefully be regular updates about the process, one that I want to include you in and would appreciate your feedback every step of the way...
Cheers,
Dave