IFH 237: Why You Need to Get Up Off Your Ass NOW & Follow Your Dreams

Alex Ferrari 0:11
But I wanted to talk about guys is following your dreams now. It is a topic that we all have talked about. We've all heard about. We all say follow your dreams, it's all gray, you got to chase the dream. But it's one thing to hear it and one thing to talk about it but it's another thing to actually fucking do it. And I'm going to just take I want to go out on a limb here and say that if you're listening to my voice right now, if you're listening to this podcast, you have a dream. You have a dream to be a filmmaker of some sort. You have a dream to be a cinematographer, a screenwriter, a storyteller, you have a dream to be in the film industry one way shape or form. And I have to ask you the question. If you are not currently follow, you're following your dream? Why the hell are you listening to me? Are you preparing? Are you preparing for the day that one day you'll have everything in place to go follow that dream to go take a shot and you're building up your arsenal? Hey, I'm one of those guys. I love to build up my arsenal. I like to get as much information as I can before I take a step. But you know what? There's a limit to that. And if you're listening to me, and you listen to this podcast weekly, is because you got a dream. And why aren't you following that dream right now? You know, you're right now on a commute to work. probably do a job he don't like listening to me. Listening to other podcast tell you about things that will help you get to your dream or inspire you to to get up off your ass. Alright, now I'm talking to the person. I'm talking to the tribe member who's driving or commuting to a job. They fucking hate. I'm talking to you. Why are you not following your dream? Why are you actively not following your dream? ask yourself that question. It's a question you need Need desperately to ask yourself? Are you happy at your job? Are you happy with where you are in life with what you're doing? If your answer is yes, then turn us off. But chances are, you go into a job you don't like. And you're like figuring out Oh, am I going to do it? How am I going to do this, I have these big aspirations. Look, man, I had a huge amount of aspirations. I still do. But it took me 20 years, 21 years, 2223 years to actually direct my first feature film, which was my dream. And when I finally just said, fuck it, I'm gonna go out and do it. I did it. And it was successful. And it opened up doors for me that I never saw happening. But I moved, I did something. Now, he doesn't have to be good right off the bat. But you got to make an effort, you've got to walk the walk, you've got to take that first step. If you've if your dream is to make a feature film, go out and make a fucking feature film. There's no excuse, grab the phone in your pocket that you're listening to this iPod, this, this podcast on and go out and make a movie? Is it going to be amazing? Maybe, maybe not. It doesn't matter if it's good. It doesn't matter if it blows up and takes you to your next step. All that matters is that you move forward towards the goal. I promise you, you will learn more by doing than just talking fucking about it. I know a lot of you out there are struggling financially. You know, filmmakers in general are just generally broke. I know. Trust me, I know. But you know what, even when I was broke, not that I'm super rich now. But even when I was broke, and I didn't have the money. I always moved forward on my dream, even though is miniscule moment. And I kept making excuses and going down different roads, like oh, I'm gonna go do this, or I'm gonna go do that. But I really wanting to make a movie. But I kept making excuses for myself, because I was fucking scared. I was afraid of taking a shot. I was afraid of making a movie. What would people think, Oh my God, that you can't wait around. You can't be worried about what other people fucking think about what your journey is. Because guys, I hate to tell you, you're on this planet alone, you came in alone, you're gonna walk out alone. And during the time you're here, you're gonna make friends, you're gonna have family, you're gonna have people help you, people who love you, people will hate you, people will be jealous of you, you'll have all gambits of every emotion. That's how many people are going to be in your life. By the end, you leave alone. And at the beginning, you came in alone. So don't give a fuck about what other people think. Just go and do it. I'm gonna get I'm gonna put it in perspective for you. In 500 years, no one's gonna give a shit about what you just are about to do. And want you to be aware of that no one's gonna care whether you did it or you didn't do it. Okay, there's going to be Oscar winners. There are Oscar winners right now, who won the Oscar for Best Picture you've never heard of. And you've never even seen the movies. Because there's over 120 years already of cinema. And at the time, and they won, they were the shit. But I promise you right now, you don't know many Oscar winners. Probably hundreds of Oscar winners, you have no idea what they've done. directors, writers, actors. They're just gone from your memory. And as the years go by, it'll be further and further back that people won't remember. But I promise you that they because they actually got up and did it. They remember. And when they leave this planet, they take that with them. That's the thing that you can take with you that I did it. I did it my way as Frank Sinatra used to say, but I did it. And that's one thing you can take. You can take your experiences with you, you can take the dream that you followed with you. Don't take the regrets with you. Trust me, don't take them. I know I was saying earlier that a lot of people are worried about money. I promise you that if you start moving towards your goal, towards your dream, money will come. I just promise you this. You're not going to get rich and I'm going to live in the Hollywood Hills. You're not going to be driving a fucking new Tesla. You know, but you will have money to live. If you're honestly going towards your dream doing it smart. Don't mortgage your house don't raise up your credit cards. Do it smart, do it with a plan but move forward little by little every day. And by By the end of it, you will have your dream, your goal will be there, you will achieve the goal. You know, my ultimate dreams are to make big movies. on a big scale, I want to do that I want to be able to touch the world with huge movies. And there's only one place you can do that. And that's Hollywood. Okay, I'm not there yet. I'm still striving every day to get there. And I know I share that dream with many of you guys listening today, all around the world. I'm not just talking about people in the US. I'm talking about people everywhere in the world that Listen to me, because I know there's a lot of people around the world who listened to this podcast. And this can happen for you as well. There is no perfect time to follow your dream. There is no Oh, I'm going to wait for this camera and wait for this actor or wait. For this to happen. I need to have this much money in the bank. And there's no perfect time. You know what the perfect time is to follow your dream, right? The fuck now? Right now, as you listen to my voice is the right time for you to follow your dream. I don't want you to wake up and be 80 years old and regret that you never took a shot. And you can take that shot. It's not that hard, guys, it isn't. Don't be afraid. It took me till I was 41 years old to shoot my first feature film. But before I did that first feature film, I took two other big shots. When I was in my 20s I'd spent $50,000 on a demo reel for commercials. Why? Because I was scared to tell a feature film, I didn't think I could do it even back then I felt so scared. And I didn't really feel that I could do it that I was wasting my time and wasting my money putting together a demo reel for commercials, which eventually paid off in other ways. But it's not what I wanted to do guys. And then I did it again in 2010 when I spent $50,000 on a short film, because I was again frayed too afraid to a feature film, which is what I wanted to do. The short film was supposed to get me the feature film, but I was too goddamn scared to actually go for it. take calculated risks, you've got to do it. And I just did it again with my new film. And I when you guys see it, you'll understand. I took a huge risk doing that movie. And the way I did it, but I said fuck it. I'm gonna go make my movie. I'm gonna go tell my story, because it's a story that I want to tell. And now I call myself a feature film director. And you have no idea what that feels like. You have no idea that you can you can honestly say with a straight face. I'm a director. I'm not a wannabe director. I'm not working on a movie. I'm not planning on it. I've never shot and I haven't shot one yet. But I've got like four scripts. No, I'm a fucking director, because I went out and I put my balls out there and I did it. And that's what you guys have to do as well. What are you waiting for? Okay, there is no perfect time guys, every filmmaker, every screenwriter, every person you idolize, or you look up to, they all have one thing in common. They all went for it. They all got up off their ass and did the work. Follow the dream day in, day out. Some of them it happened really quickly. Some of them took years, if not decades, before they got the shot that they wanted. But they followed their dream and they moved every day towards that dream. I know a lot of you are gonna say but what if I fail? Good. When you fail, you learn you don't learn from victories. You learn from failures, fail and fail often. That's the one of the best quotes I've ever heard, fail and fail often and fail quickly. So you can get it out of the way. But you will only learn by failure. So be smart. When you go out there and put your balls out there. Be smart about it. Don't go out there and make $100,000 movie your first time out, go out there and make $1,000 movie, make a $5,000 movie and so on and so on. till you're able to get to the $100,000 comfortably. So you're able to get the 500,000 2 million to 2 million to 20 million 200 million. Okay, you just have to go and do it. But do it right Don't Don't be an idiot about it. I can't stand when I hear filmmakers who risk it all because it's so fucking romantic. Oh, I put it all on my on my credit card, or I mortgaged the house or I borrowed my money, money, all the retirement money for my parents to go and take a shot. Bullshit. That's so unreal fucking sponsible. Don't do something like that. Be smart about it. Start small and take baby steps but move every day towards it. Because I promise you the one guy or girl Who takes it all on the line? And does it an irresponsible way, I promise you that a guy or girl who goes in there step by step, baby step by baby step that might take them a couple more years to do it, they're going to be more successful at the end of the game. I promise you that, because you're going to have a foundation to build off of my foundation was about 23 years in the making. It was a very sturdy foundation took too long, I could have made it years before. So don't wait so long. And to all my tribe members out there who are of my vintage, in their 40s in their 50s or in their 60s or older. I promise you something, it doesn't matter. When you reach your dream. The important thing is that you get there. That is the most important thing. I'll tell you a story of a great band is a great movie to it's called the Buona Vista social club. It was about a legendary band from Cuba. Okay, and it was about a documentary documentary filmmakers, I went down there and we're looking for the greatest band that they ever heard of. It was legendary called the one of it's a social club. It was this Cuban band. And they found all these guys up, they found them all. They rally them all together, they were all in their 60s 70s. Some in their 80s. They put them together for a concert. And they played. And they were so good that the Cuban government allowed them to go on tour around the world. They won multiple Grammys for their albums. The documentary, got all sorts of awards, and the entire world was introduced to the one of his a social club. A bunch of old fogies in many eyes, who were geniuses who never got a shot, because they were literally in a communist country, they literally could not do it, because they could not go anywhere with it. But even then, they still practiced all the time. They still played their instruments all the time, individually, not as a group, but individually. And they kept following their dream in their own way, every day, for decades. And yet, in their 60s 70s and 80s. They found the dream, they accomplished the dream that they've been searching for their entire life. And they're the one that they're the one I'm quoting one of them that says, it doesn't matter how old you are, when you reach your dream. It's only important that you get there. And in my eyes, while add to that saying, it's a bit sweeter to because I promise you something, I would have made my first feature at 20. It wouldn't have tasted nearly as sweet as when I made it a 40. And that's just a straight up honest truth. Would I have liked to make it in my 20s? Probably not. But what I like to make it earlier. Yes. But my life circumstances put me where I was. And that was the time I made my first movie. We all can't be Robert Rodriguez. We all can't be Orson Welles making their movies at 23. Okay, it's your path, your journey, we all have a different one. This episode is just a wake up call, guys. I just felt it in my gut that I needed to do this episode. I feel that somebody out there if it's just one tribe member who listens to this and starts to follow their dream is well worth my time and effort to put it out there. I wish I had someone or I wish I would have heard someone tell me these exact things in my 30s when I was making my first feature or my first short film, and thinking that that was going to be the big thing. You got it just go for it guys. It's life is too short. And if we're not here to follow our dreams, why the hell are we here? Are we here to be in an office somewhere in a cubicle for the next 30 or 40 years? are we are we destined to just work to pay bills all our life and have no happiness? I can't believe that and I won't believe that. I don't allow that to be in my life. And I want that for you guys. I want that for whoever's listening to this. To follow their dream. Because by you following your dream, you inadvertently help other people. You have no idea what your art, what your film, what your screenplay, what you are doing. If you're a crew member, a cinematographer, a production designer, a PA, whatever, you have no idea what the work you're doing, how it affects other people. We are in one of the more magical industries in the world. We're magicians we tell stories. And people need that now more than ever in this world. And you have no idea the power of you following your dream what it means not only to other people, but to the world. I promise you you You will feel so much better, you will feel so much happier. And that will spill off to other people around you. If you've got kids, if you got family, your family, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, it will spill off to everybody around you. And people will say, Wow, you're different. And then you'll go because I'm following my dream. And again, don't do it stupid. Do it day by day, little by little, do it as a side hustle First, if that's what you need to do, to get the ball rolling, but every day, move forward. And don't be asked yourself that I need this or I need that just do it. Okay, because the guys who make it, the people who make it in this industry, are the people who do, and don't just talk about it. There is no passion to be found in settling for a life that is less than one you are capable of living. As Nelson Mandela once said, at the end of the day, guys, it's not even about conquering your mom, your monsters, your mountain. What you need to conquer is yourself. You need to be honest with yourself. You need to look inside and see what the truth is about what you want to do and who you are. Now, I know this is not your general indie film hustle podcast episode. But I hope it has inspired you and has made you think and in many ways, I hope it fucked you up. Because I know I needed every once in a while a nice kick in the ass. And I hope this episode did that for you. Listen to it often. Share it with as many, many friends and family members that you have colleagues in this business. Hopefully it can help as many people as can get, I can get it out there too. So if you liked this episode, share it with five of your friends. And if they like it, tell them to do the same thing. Get it out there. But I think this is one of the most important messages. I can tell anybody listening to my podcast, or watching what we do at indie film hustle, or going to the blog or anything is to follow your dreams. Because my God, man, what a waste of a life if you don't. And trust me, I know those people. Many of them are in my family. Many of them are in our friends of mine. Many of them are past friends of mine have not follow their dreams and their miserable. Life is not about being miserable. Life is about being happy about sharing with other people by helping other people. Look inside yourself guys. The truth is there. Sit quietly in a room and ask yourself the questions. I promise you the answers will appear. If you give up on your dreams, what's left. I hope this episode was of service to you guys. with all of my heart with all of my love. I wish you nothing but the best on your journey. And I hope you jump on that journey very quickly and very effectively to get to those dreams. It might take 10 years might take 20 years. Might take six months might take a month. But you've got to get up and do it. So with all of my love and support. I wish you guys nothing but success on your journey. Love yourself and follow your dreams. Because you want if you want it bad enough, it will happen. As always keep the hustle going. Keep that dream alive. And I'll talk to you soon.