Observation #1: Self Promotion Makes Me Feel Dirty

As much as it would appear otherwise on Facebook, I despise self promotion.  I have a Facebook Page and a Twitter Feed for my most current film, Rock N Roll Mamas (there, I just self-promoted again, blargh).

The film is now completed and therefore is much more difficult to promote in these social media spaces.  When I was working on the film, I would post and blog all the time.  Now I struggle to make and find "content."

I love finding articles that I think are interesting and applicable to the subject matter about music and parenting and posting them in these spaces but hate going on and on about the film itself mainly because I have been working on it for the past decade.  It showed in festivals last year and made an impact and now, I feel done.

Even though I feel done, these social media avenues are not done; they are still a brand.  Do I still keep them going as a last breathe of the film?  I want to in some sense as I want more people to see the film, for it to have more of an impact.

Alas, yet again, the film is at an impasse.  It is stuck in the netherworld frustrating world of independent documentary filmmaking.  Yes, the film is done but I still have to raise some funds so I can clear the music rights in the film in order to sell it as a DVD/digital download (I know that's a mouthful; I find that I need to gather strength and breathe to say it over and over and still have to explain it further to people.)

I am tired and done with crowd-sourced fundraising.  I so appreciate my many and dedicated individual funders and their vast and generous support for the film.  I so appreciate them that I refuse to hit them and any other supporters of the film up for money anymore.  That said, I do have a couple of distributors who are interested in purchasing the film and therefore clearing the rights (please keep in mind while this amount needed to clear the rights is ample for me, an individual, lowly independent, documentary filmmaker, it is merely pennies for a big corporate distributor, even one that distributes simple documentaries).  However, these distributors are busy folks operating on their own timetables so I haven't heard anything from them in a while despite my sporadic email check-ins (again, I'm reminding the reader here that I hate doing self promotion so even though I participate in "being persistent", I feel terrible and whiny about it.)  Hence, the film will be unseeable to the general public for the near future.

So then lies the crux of the matter, what do I tell people about where it is and the ever present questions that is "What am I working on?  What am I doing?"  Well, A) I try to stay away from opportunies where this type of conversation is the norm as the title of this article states "Self Promotion Makes Me Feel Dirty"  B) When I can not make excuses and must go to these "things" and talk to people, I had been telling the whole long saga of the film and the limbo it exists in.  Now I simply say that I am "putting the film to bed and am doing what needs to get done with it when I need to."  I say that I am transitioning into "freelance work" which I am and which we all are frankly.  And that, I'm writing a lot, which I am as well.

What I don't say is that I'm much happier than I have been in a long time because:

I don't have to constantly self-promote myself and the film (obviously it made me feel completely self-conscious and desperate)

I can work on whatever the fuck I want and I don't have to come up with a one sentence description of it that I have to repeat over and over.

I don't have to put on a smile and a jovial demeanor when I am feeling like crawling into a hole and staying there for a while I discuss my process.

I don't have to divide my energy up and decide not to edit the film so I can devote a week of time and energy to apply for a super competetive grant.

I don't have to get anymore numbing rejection letters from granting organizations to film festivals to distributors.

I don't have to discuss the years I followed subjects who were sometimes happy to see me, sometimes not, sometimes simply tolerated me or were self-promoting themselves while I hounded them, goaded them, empathized with them, flattered them, became friends, became an admirer of, got to know their families, socialized with them, and loved them.

I am done and it feels good.  But of course, what of the artist who reluctantly self-promotes or doesn't?  He/She dies with lots of work in his/her basement that his/her children find and say with a head shake, "Isn't it a shame that she didn't get to express herself fully?"

But I am expressing myself fully now.  Now that I don't have to deal with the public.  Now that I don't have to deal with art and commerce.  Now that I don't have to decipher coded speak from the purchasers of creation and feel like a complete idiot for not understanding what they were really saying and having hope.  I am expressing myself fully now and only now and I hope that counts for something, I really do.  Now and only now is when I have truly felt like a true artist.