Haters, a problem that artists, filmmakers or anybody who puts themselves out there have to deal with. I know of many filmmakers who are crippled by what other people think or say about them. The fact is that you are going to create anything; a poem, write a novel, make a movie, write a song, cook a meal or build a house, there will be people who have opinions.
Now opinions are fine. As they say, ever has an opinion and the internet has given everyone with an opinion a voice. Now there are constructive, mature opinions and there are straight-up haters. People who want to bring you down for a myriad of reasons.
I decided to shine a bit of light on this topic because it is so important on your filmmaking journey to be free of the good opinions of others, as the late Wayne Dyer used to say. You can not allow other people’s opinions or thoughts to bring you down or stop your forward momentum when making art of any kind.
Take a listen to my experience with haters I’ve dealt with over the years. I hope it inspires you to continue creating regardless of the good opinion of others.
“Don’t let compliments get to your head and don’t let their criticism get to your heart.” – Anoyomous
Right-click here to download the MP3
Alex Ferrari 0:00
So guys today, you know I wanted to do this episode, because I think it's something that every artist and anybody who puts themselves out in the public at all has to deal with. I'm talking about haters. Now. I always like to say that haters you know, drinking you know haterade by the by the by the palette, they're buying the haterade of Costco that's how much they hate sometimes and you know when I first did my first movie back in 2005 and you know I got I'm really put myself out there pretty heavily with with that short film broken. And I got a lot of reviews, a lot of great reviews on the movie and just a lot of love. And the second I got a Roger Ebert quote, I'm not kidding you I had four or five bad reviews back to back the back to back right after that. And the haterade the haters, if you will, came out with such vengeance and just veracity that was it's still out there somewhere online if you want to check them out. They're hilarious, the the reviews and comments and things like that it was actually quite brilliant. And if these guys would just put a little effort into making their own movies, as opposed to all the effort into hating me back then. Maybe things will be a little different. But I wanted to talk about haters and people who don't believe in what you're doing. And a lot of times just trolls or haters that just go after you because of whatever reason they want to go after you for whether it be jealousy, whether it be just who they are. And that's the one thing I want to kind of really stress out about this. You're not going to make everyone happy as an artist. As a filmmaker, you're going to make movies that cannot you can't make everyone happy period. Some people might not like your style. Some I pick my people not like the way you do things, or the way you make your movies. But can you imagine the amount of haters that Robert Rodriguez, uh, Quinn, Tarantino, uh, Kevin Smith, a spike lee, a David Fincher, Chris Nolan, all these guys have had their haters. I know it's hard to believe. But all you got to do is just go on google and type in. Let's say this Shawshank Redemption, arguably one of the greatest movies of all time. I've yet to meet many people, if any at all. Who don't either like it love it. I think it's the greatest movie of all time, or at least it didn't enjoy it. They acknowledge it being a very well told story. I've never heard of, I've never met anyone who disliked it, like just really disliked it. Well, if you just go on to Google and go, Shawshank Redemption, bad review, you will read bad reviews of Shawshank Redemption, and it'll make you feel better if someone's crapping on your stuff. I mean, not that your stuff is, or my stuff for that matter is as good as Shawshank Redemption. But it just shows you that no matter how good something is, there's always going to be someone hate and always going to be haters out there. And I know it affects a lot of people differently. Specifically, you know, I've been around for 20 odd years, and I've gone through this multiple times with my projects, anytime you put your projects out there, especially on the internet, people will hate people will leave comments, people will do whatever they want to do. And that's fine. And that's who they are. And, and you have to understand that you can't, you won't, you have to understand that people are going to be who they are. So if they're nasty people, they're going to be nasty. If a frog is going to be a frog, you can't be angry at them for being the frog. You know, you just can't, you know, if you are hanging out with a snake and the snake bites you, you can't be angry at the snake because that's what snakes do. You know, that's what their nature is. So if people are going to hate that might just be who they are. They might be dealing with other things that they're dealing with, in their own personal lives. And this is the way they get it out. Who knows, maybe they just want to hate just for the sake of hating. And that's fine. It's completely acceptable if you want to, I mean, not acceptable, I don't accept it. I think it's horrible. You know, everyone has an opinion. And I've always tried to be very constructive with my opinions. I try not to be juvenile with my opinions, on on movies on on people because it's very difficult to make a movie, it's very difficult to make art to put yourself out there as an artist, it's very difficult to have a podcast to have a blog, a public blog, where it's you know, 1000s upon 1000s of people read it every day. And you know, people will have their opinions on what you have to say about things and that's okay opinions are everyone has them you know, just like they say opinions are like assholes. Everyone's got one you know, I don't mean to be rude crude about it, but it's the truth. You know, so, you know, I have a couple sayings I love to hear anytime I get haters or people dislike something I'm doing. And it says basically, a tiger doesn't lose sleep over the opinion of a sheep. And, you know, and I think that was such a great, great saying, because, look, I've studied so many different filmmakers over the course of my career. You know, the Ridley Scott's the Chris Nolan's The David Fincher is the Tarantino's. And I've noticed that among all these people, especially anybody at the top level, anybody that's made it to the higher echelons of whatever field they're in. One thing they all have in common, is generally speaking, they don't let other people's opinion really matter that much. They just go forward. You know, Ridley Scott has not read a review of his movies, I think since some of the early ones he made prior to Blade Runner. Because I mean, someone like Ridley Scott has been, you know, bashed so many times over the years for the kind of movies because you know what, you know, you're not going to bat 1000 on all your movies, every artist, every filmmaker, you're not going to be making, you know, homeruns Oscar winning things every single time. It doesn't work that way. Art doesn't work that way. So, you know, someone like him, he just kind of just puts his head down. He's like, I don't listen to it. I just do me. And that's my advice to you guys. You're always gonna have people around you who don't believe in you who are hating on you just literally just because they have their own issues and they want to hate on you. There's other people who are going to try to bring you down and of the day guys, is just listen to yourself. And, and, and just do you just do you do the art you want to do, do the movies you want to make. Do you think that someone like Lloyd Kaufman, who runs troma films, who's been a guest on our show, and I'll leave a link in that in the in the in the show notes. Lloyd makes movies like Toxic Avenger, and class of nukem Hi. And you know, by all accounts, a lot of people do not like his movies. They're not for everyone. You know, they're not supposed to be mass consumption. They're not for mass consumption. They are for a niche crowd. There's a lot of people who just don't like him or how he's been doing things. And you know, he's been doing it for like, 30 odd 40 years now. And he doesn't care. You know, as you get older, by the way, comedian Wanda Sykes always says, As you get older, you give less of a fuck. And it's very true. Because what they don't care, they don't care what they look like, they don't care, but they just don't care. They just don't care. And as you get older, you you kind of give less of a shit about what other people think. And some people are crippled by artists, I know a lot of artists, a lot of filmmakers who are crippled by it. And it's something that it bothered me very, when I was early on in my career bothered me a lot. But it doesn't bother me anymore. You know, of course, you you want, you don't want people to talk bad about you about about about your work as an artist or bad about what you're doing. But you know what, at the end of the day, you know, they're not paying your bills, they're not looking at, you're looking at you in the mirror at the end of the day, they're just doing them. So instead of just concentrating on them, concentrate on you concentrate on what you want to do, and don't exert any energy, by reading comments, by looking at what they're doing, or what they're saying. Just do you, you know, can you imagine all of these big music stars like a Justin Bieber or Drake, or Beyonce, or Jay Z, or m&m or any of these guys, I mean, people have just completely tried to tear them down, and they just shake it off, they don't care. You know, they just keep doing it. Because it's not positive for themselves. It's not positive for their own artistic journey, their own personal journey, they just got to keep going. So my advice, guys, is to just do you. Don't worry about what other people are saying about you. People are going to hate, don't try to defend yourself, to try to go after anybody. Because at the end of the day, it's all about you on your journey. As a filmmaker, as an artist, as a human being as a soul, whatever you want to call it, you got to do you, and not worry about what other people are going to do, because other people are going to do what they are going to do. And you have no control over that. All you have control of is how you react to when things happen to you in life. Not you can't control the circumstances. All you can control is how you react to the circumstances. How do you react to the haters? Drinking that haterade by the gallon. It's up to you guys to keep going because I've seen too many artists in my career and my travels, I've seen too many artists who get sidetracked because are really crippled sometimes because of negative comments, people trying to bring them down, all sorts of stuff. And that's just the way things are. So please, do you guys. Don't worry about what other people think about what you're doing. Just do you. Now, with that said, Okay, with that said, as an artist, if you're listening to constructive criticism, yes, listen to constructive criticism, because that helps you grow as a filmmaker, as an artist. If it's something constructive, if you're doing something and there's just a wave of people who just like, Look, this is not if you're trying to achieve reaction a and 80% of the people who watch your movie are not getting reaction a well you should probably understand why they're not getting it and maybe listen to what they're saying. And then maybe adjust accordingly. But if there's just people who are just hate and be like, oh, look what he's doing. Oh, look at that. Oh, they add Ooh, boo, boo boo. That's not constructive. By the way, that was a great impression of a hater. I'm just I'm just But anyway, so guys, don't worry about what other people say about what you're doing and who you are, and any of that kind of crap. It's a lot of times it's just bullies. And the internet is full of these trolls and bullies who who love to sit behind their keyboard, anonymously, just spewing crap just to spew You know, and I really wish not only them but everyone only good things in their lives. I hope that every every hater out there eventually gets to where they want to go, you know and if they do that maybe they'll stop hating on other people and maybe stop criticizing other people and trying to bring other people down. I really wish them nothing but love and support and good things on all their future projects. So from the bottom of my heart everyone listening, just do you and don't let anybody else try to bring you down guys to download the show notes go to indie film hustle comm forward slash zero 84 for all the links and things we talked about in the show. And don't forget to head over to free film book calm that's free film book calm to download your free film audio book from audible. So guys, thank you for listening. Please spread the word on indie film hustle on the podcast and on this as Meg if you can, I really appreciate it. And keep that hustle going keep that dream alive and I'll talk to you soon.
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