It’s been five years since that January in Utah. I’ve been hustling. Making up for lost time. Learning the ropes, learning my craft, making connections, developing my voice. Figuring out if I even have anything to say. And if so, who to say it with. Some successes. Some failures. There have been fits and starts. But, when I look back on “one-man-band” me back in 2011, I know I’ve come a long way. And for that, I am completely thankful.

One consequence of forward momentum in filmmaking is that even “small” productions, be it commercial, narrative, or even documentary, often require you to overcome an enormous amount of inertia. Seriously, it can feel like a hurdle to just get 5 people to go out to dinner, let alone make a film of any capacity. And thus, it can seem like the gaps between making work can stretch longer and longer as the scale increases.

But if there is anything I’ve learned thus far, it’s that daily, incremental improvements are the way forward in this industry. It’s an everyday commitment to getting a little bit better. Seeing a little bit faster, becoming a little bit more nuanced, making a couple fewer mistakes. Every day. This incremental progress is hardly noticeable in the moment, but aggregated? It’s progress.

So, how do we encourage this small work when the jobs continue to spread out?

That is the question we’ll each have to answer for ourselves.

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