Bitter Heart

I feel like I've been defeated many times. It's the same old thing, where circumstances and events just prove that you have no value. These days, people come to me to get to the great director that's closely associated to me. As usual, these people hold higher value as directors. All you need to do is make one kick-ass film that wins itself an award somewhere and people will just flock to you. Never mind the twenty other people who slogged their guts out. They're just technical crew. All that matters is the director. He's the ONLY brain behind the film. Everyone else is basically nothing. The raves about a film goes only to the director. The job prospects only go to the director.

These days, I'm tired of having people receive credit for my work. Tired of being able to count the number of people who appreciate my artistic quality as a 'non-director' with one hand. Tired of Blue Tide being rejected all over the place. We didn't get selected for Singapore Short Film Awards. It is a disappointment, not a big one but still a disappointment.

I'm really bitter and I refuse, call it pride, but I refuse to ride on the popularity of another person to gain support. I believe in the individual's work speaking for itself. I'm just not given credit for it because only directors are the royal highnesses in the industry. Right now, I'm basically feeling the brunt of it and its putting me in a pretty bad mood these days. I've noticed that producers are made the scapegoats for everything that goes wrong on set. And after that, when the film earns some credit, they get none of it, despite all the crap they went through to make sure the film gets made.

Sometimes I wonder if I should've stuck to my previous job. By now, I'd probably have enough to afford a house. I'm paying a huge price just because one day I decided that film is the way to go for me. I'm a first class honours student earning less than 2 grand, I'm constantly exploited as a producer, I've been referred to not as me but as someone else's producer or editor or . And that someone else, would be the director. I'm not receiving support because what I do is "a waste of time". I've been working long hours and I might actually be paid less than a dollar per hour on average but whatever I do brings in shit loads of money or fame for some people.

It seems really hard applying the contentment theory here. Be thankful you have much and be thankful also when you have little. It's hard to be thankful when some else is given credit for your work and becomes esteemed way above you. It's hard enough to make me even want to think twice about being a founder of the company along with the rest of them. I'll just have to keep going through the mental stigma of being shoved aside, as usual. Editors, producers, sound people, who cares bout them.

Now's just trying to be fueled by passion and sense of calling rather than bitterness to excel.