[00:00:00] Kent: Hi, I'm Kent. 

[00:00:08] Anna: And I'm Anna. 

[00:00:09] Kent: And this is film and family, a podcast about feature filmmaking for professionals in the film industry with families. Hit subscribe to never miss an episode. 

[00:00:17] Anna: Let's jump right in. All right. Enough is enough. We haven't recorded a podcast for a week. And I'm sorry about that. It's been crazy over here. So things are going well with the film can spin out of town shooting stuff. He's back now after four weeks of shooting commercial projects. 

[00:00:39] Anna: Kent's way over on the other side of the country. Um, he's back. And I think most of you know, by now that we're expecting a baby and that's been, complicated, I've had a lot of health issues, so that's my excuse, but we're back. We're sorry. And we're sticking to it. 

[00:01:04] Kent: Yeah. 

[00:01:04] Anna: So today, we want to talk about, first of all, just some of the main excuses that people have, and I call them excuses, but they don't feel like excuses, to most people like being pregnant. When you have them, it feels very factual. It feels like a real problem or obstacle that is stopping you 

[00:01:27] Kent: from. 

[00:01:29] Kent: It's just a 

[00:01:29] Anna: thought, something that is actually stopping you from having something that you want or creating something that you want in this case for most of you, it's a film. but it might also be a family or a personal life that you feel good about or anything, any kind of result that you want to create. 

[00:01:51] Anna: And we're going to talk about where those ideas come from and why they might not be true. So hopefully that'll be helpful. First of all, I noticed this the other day when I was out with the kids and my son Marshall was asking why he couldn't. I think it was why he couldn't drive the car. And I noticed myself saying, well, you're not old enough yet. 

[00:02:20] Anna: You're not big enough yet, mom, I know. Just let him drive it. And I realized that I remember being told. All the time as a kid. I think every kid gets told that you're not old enough yet. You're not big enough yet. You can't have that. You can't do that. And I think that as a child, I was very focused on my future. 

[00:02:43] Anna: And this idea, you know, as a kid, you're playing, pretend of all the things that I do now, right. Find as enjoyable as I did as a kid. Right. You pretend to be the mom or the dad and play house and do dishes. and now I am the mom and I have a house and I do dishes and it's not nearly as exciting as it seemed as a child. 

but I think that for me, at least there's this idea that at a certain age, I would have freedom.Because I would no longer be not old enough for all the things that I wanted to do. so I just looked forward to, oh, at this age I can drive. And at this age I can go off to college and at this next stage I can, whatever get married. 

[00:03:27] Anna: So I was always looking forward to all those things. And then eventually as an adult realized, okay, I still don't have everything I want, even though I have all these things that I thought I wanted as a child. and that's sort of where my brain starts to go back to that old thought of well, what am I not enough of now? 

And so I think a lot of scarcity can come from this idea of filling in that blank with whatever it is for you. Attractive enough. I'm not outgoing enough. I'm not talented enough. I don't have enough time. I'm not rich enough. I'm not healthy enough, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Hmm. What do you think it is for you? 

[00:04:06] Anna: Do you have thoughts like that at all? 

yeah. Yeah. I was just thinking about like the latest script I've been working on and how much money I would need to make that film. So that's a thing, but it has to be finished and I need to get some pitch decking done, but of course I have to finish the other film that we're working on before. 

[00:04:28] Kent: I really get too deep into all of that. So, yeah, I mean, that's just a process thing. Maybe, there, look, I could do this with everything in my life. I think it's a normal thought pattern. It's like an attitude toward things. And I think there are some people who feel very content. And I think it's because this word enough isn't as big of a thing in the forefront of their minds. 

[00:04:50] Kent: Like 

[00:04:50] Kent: I will never have enough. Film gear enough toys. 

[00:04:56] Anna: That's what 

[00:04:56] Kent: it is for you. Yeah. And like your house will never be remodeled enough. Of course. I can't pick on you too much. Cause our house is 0% remodel. It's mostly in mid demolition. We actually haven't done anything to it other than destroy it. 

hi. True. But I can't think of anything we've done to like the house itself other than put furniture in it. That wasn't a big part of it. Yeah, we furnished it. Yes. anyway, so film gear, I'm super excited to get to work on the house. Whenever that's going to happen, but I can tell you right now, it's going to be like 20 years before I feel like, yeah, this house is pretty much done. 

[00:05:38] Kent: Like we should paint the walls, a new color now then it's I don't know. it's you'll run out of things, but like always 

[00:05:43] Anna: be things you can find to fill in that blank. I don't have enough of whatever. I am not enough of whatever the thing is. 

[00:05:52] Kent: I'm not tall enough. That's been a big problem for me. 

[00:05:56] Kent: My whole life. I've had short man's disease, It's not like a lack of confidence. It's just, I just felt like if I was taller, I'd have more opportunities that things, I mean, they say that for every inch of height you gained, A certain net worth like increased, like statistically speaking and stuff and job opportunities and just general leadership positions and just generally feeling like that. 

[00:06:25] Kent: Takes away from even my attractiveness level. if I was taller, it'd be more attractive even to you, which you insist is not the case, but 

[00:06:32] Anna: are you saying this to our audience? I'm just 

[00:06:34] Kent: saying, I'm just saying that's a thing for me, you were asking in my life, if there was enough that I felt like I didn't have enough 

[00:06:41] Anna: of, I know. 

[00:06:42] Anna: And it's interesting how your brain, you have that thought or you've had that thought and. You can readily supply some evidence for it that you've collected, but here's the thing is, first of all, all of these thoughts come from a scarcity mindset. you're either in scarcity or you're in abundance. 

[00:07:01] Anna: Abundance is basically that there's more than enough for everyone and for everything. And scarcity, thoughts are always a feeling of not enough of not being enough or not having enough. so those can divide into one category or another. but going back to the example with Marshall, our son, he is five years old and it's not really true that he can't drive the car. 

[00:07:31] Anna: Technically he could go put the keys in. And he could turn them and he could probably find his way down to the pedal and push it and move that car. 

if you can get it into gear, which is possible, it's possible. It wouldn't be hard to teach them to put it in 

[00:07:45] Anna: gear. He was very capable of figuring it out. 

[00:07:47] Anna: I think. But what's important is to differentiate between what you actually can't do and what you probably don't want to do. And I think if you really understand. that the car is a deadly weapon and that he could probably kill himself or break things that he couldn't pay for, or even, if he was large enough to see over the steering wheel, and drive the car, but didn't have a license, then there are certain 

[00:08:13] Anna: consequences for doing that before you have a license that he probably doesn't want. 

[00:08:20] Anna: So when we're being really honest, it's not always that you can't it's, a little more of these thoughts of it. Most of the time, we don't want those things and that's why we don't have them. 

[00:08:33] Kent: So what is an example of this? Because for me, like in the terms of making movies and stuff, I want it. 

[00:08:43] Anna: What do you want? let's talk about gear, right? 

[00:08:45] Kent: You said that one. Yeah. Yeah. Like I would love to have, all the zoom lenses that I want. So this is a perfect example. There's a prime set to all the, 

[00:08:54] Anna: this is the perfect example. 

[00:08:55] Anna: You showed me your shopping cart today. 

[00:08:58] Kent: It wasn't a shopping cart. It was 

[00:08:59] Anna: wishlist wishlist of items that you'd like to purchase. Actually several wish lists of varying prices. And I think it's natural for us to say, well, I can't, I can't have that, but you could, I could, you could just go press that buy button. 

[00:09:17] Kent: Yeah. So that's what I mean. I had a gun to defend my house from the IRS and police who will come after me when I don't pay for those things. But 

[00:09:26] Anna: that's where it's good to say. I don't want to buy them instead of saying I can't buy them. I actually don't want to hit that buy button yet because I don't want to have this huge debt that I can't pay off. 

[00:09:40] Anna: I don't want 

[00:09:42] Kent: to perfectly honest. I could pay it off. I actually have no doubt. We have other things that we're prioritizing over it. So it's not that I don't want it. It's that I want something else more. And that's a good thing too. It's no, I would love to have all of those things right now, but. I think if I'm willing to wait, I can have it. 

[00:10:01] Kent: And I think it's helpful for me to just be like, yeah, I'm going to have that pretty soon. Pretty soon. Yeah. And right now I'm in the depths of editorial and also writing and prep on a different feature. So I'm not shooting right now. So I wouldn't really be able to use those lenses very much. 

[00:10:17] Kent: Maybe I'd used them if I'd bought them. A month and a half ago, I could have used them on these last shoots that I just did. But right now I'm likely going to end up in doing some commercial editing on top of the feature film posts that were, that I'm supervising. And yeah, everything I'm doing right now is editorial or prep or pre. 

[00:10:36] Kent: Writing, I'm not really working on production, so you're right. I don't actually really want,I mean, yeah, if money wasn't an issue, but even if it was like free, if someone just dropped them on my doorstep, I probably go out for a day and shoot a bunch of fun stuff with it. And then eventually be like, okay, I can't fill up all my hard drives and all my days with shooting on these fun, new toys and it would get old unless it was a real project. 

[00:10:58] Kent: So you're right. what would I really do with them? This second. 

[00:11:02] Anna: We're prioritizing other things, but I wish I could buy them all. You could buy all of them. you could find a way to buy all of them. If you really wanted to sell your house, you 

[00:11:12] Kent: could, and if we were remodeling the house, which is our other priority, and I bought the land. 

[00:11:17] Kent: And I got all the feature film editing done and everything. I wouldn't even have time to use the lenses, even if I bought them like right now. You're right. Thanks. 

[00:11:27] Anna: It's just, it's a hard thing to realize and we all do it. I just did it a few weeks ago 

[00:11:33] Kent: on possession of it will make me home. And attractive those long lenses will make me taller 

[00:11:42] Anna: my legs. Aren't long. At least my lenses are 

[00:11:46] Kent: the lenses. They shoot Tom cruise on. This is why he looks so tall, even though he's not, they make him taller anyway. 

[00:11:56] Anna: Yeah. So I just had a similar realization too, because I was getting coached on. Wanting to go and do things that I thought would make me look better. 

[00:12:11] Anna: So I was like, I haven't really loved to go get my hair done and get my nails done and all this stuff. And my coach helped me realize you could do that. Why aren't you really if you really wanted that you would find a way to go get some money and get that done. And find the time, you wouldn't have these excuses if you really wanted it. 

[00:12:34] Anna: And so she helped me see, first of all, that I was lying to myself by saying I couldn't and saying I couldn't afford it. And second of all, it opened up my mind to,why am I not then? And I began to realize that personally for me, I had some thoughts about it. I was worried about what other people would think, especially my husband. 

[00:12:54] Anna: Do you, 

[00:12:55] Kent: I get all the bank notifications on my phone. 

[00:12:58] Anna: You'll see that right away. Ask can you watch the kids so I can go get my nails done? And then he'll think I'm this high maintenance wife spending money on frivolous things. All right. 

[00:13:13] Kent: So that I can go buy lenses and use them for a few hours every day. 

[00:13:19] Anna: Had all these thoughts that were actually creating me to not want that. And so I found reasons why I couldn't have it instead of owning that for some reason, I actually didn't really want those things that I 

[00:13:31] Kent: wanted. All right. Now, given the circumstances confusing, it's kind of confusing, but it makes sense. 

and sometimes that's not what happens, right? Sometimes we say, oh, I want this thing, but I can't have it. Or I'm I don't have enough of blank. Or I am not enough blank. and then we say, if that's not true, then what is true and why don't I actually go do it sometimes it's that we do truly want to, and we're blocking ourselves in other ways. 

[00:13:54] Kent: maybe we don't, but we want to change those thoughts. so maybe I truly don't want to, but I don't want to keep whatever the thought is that is making me not want that thing or to do those things. And so For example, I think there were a lot of things that were blocking me from going out and getting our first feature funded or even making our first feature for as little money as we made it for. 

[00:14:14] Kent: And that was one where eventually I was like, why can't I? And then I looked at that and I realized the why can't I was a thought that I really didn't care to keep and I got rid of it. And then I went out and did it, and we got some money and we made the movie and it wasn't that easy, but we did just accept it. 

[00:14:31] Kent: Who we were and what we had and did it , so that was cool. Yeah. It's not always, you don't actually want it is my point. but the point is that getting to the root reason of why will reveal to us, we do truly want what we don't truly want. And so these things that we want, that aren't the best thing for us. 

[00:14:47] Kent: We realize that we don't actually want them like these lenses. Aren't the best thing for me right now. I'll get him so I can be content knowing it would just be a little while, few months, maybe 

[00:14:56] Anna: not factual that you can't have it, but it does feel that way sometimes. And for every single one of these examples we gave. 

[00:15:07] Anna: You aren't attractive enough. You aren't outgoing enough. You aren't talented enough. You don't have enough time, enough money, enough health, whatever. There is someone in that same exact circumstance or worse who has found a way or who would find a way. And, there are all sorts of things that disprove each and every one of those, there are plenty of not attractive people who can make movies and get married and do all sorts of things. 

[00:15:31] Anna: There are plenty of not outgoing people who direct movies and who are great at what they do. you can go down through all of these. And so if it was factual, we would all agree that this set amount of money is enough to make a feature. But you get people who say no, 50 million is not enough to make a feature film. 

[00:15:52] Anna: And then you get someone else who thinks, oh, a thousand dollars is not enough to make a feature film. And then you find someone who has made a feature film for them less 

[00:16:01] Kent: than that for less than 50 million name one, no one has made it for less than that. 

[00:16:07] Anna: So that's how we know that it's not a fact, right? It's not like you do a blood test. That says, yes, you are a feature filmmaker or no, you are not. This is something that you can learn that you can do and that you aren't born, able to do or not 

[00:16:28] Kent: trying to think of something quippy to say. you got 

[00:16:30] Anna: a little smile on your face, 

[00:16:33] Kent: the whole idea, it's a it's Gatica. 

[00:16:37] Kent: That's what that whole movie is. Does your DNA test work out? Cause if your DNA doesn't look good enough, then you're not a candidate for all sorts of things. but it shows that's not really true, I think this is helpful for me. there are definitely those inspirational things were. 

[00:16:56] Kent: Ooh, I get wrapped up in this a lot with feature films, especially where I'm like, we'd have to push the budget up a little higher, we'd need this or that actor. We need to whatever. And everything's going to blow once you end up in this sag tier and I get down those rabbit holes really fast in my brain. 

[00:17:12] Kent: And then I always have to , look back and remember no, there are plenty of people. Who've done movies in all sorts of budgets. There are people who have made really successful films for $7,000. There are people who have made really successful films for about $90,000 or for about 250,000. There are people who have made really good films at 900,000. 

[00:17:30] Kent: There are people who've made Oscar winning films for just under a million or 1.5 million. just in 2016, best picture was $1.5 million production budget. Now I have been actually a little higher than that, but the fact that it was even in that range is pretty astonishing, I think. And it had big actors in it, but there are movies with no big actors in it that do super well that sometimes even end up in the Oscars and close out, made several feature films before with no actors, much less name actors. 

[00:17:59] Kent: They were just non actress, and so she figured out a way to do it, and she never had actors per se, 

[00:18:07] Anna: pulling dynamite was a huge. It was $200,000 and yeah, 

[00:18:13] Kent: production budget wise. It was between two and four. But my understanding was it was that it was about two. and then these all sound like anomalies or outliers, but they're proving that things are possible. 

[00:18:22] Kent: It's interesting that sometimes I get wrapped up in I need a better DP than myself to, make a film or whatever. 

[00:18:27] Kent: And so Chris Nolan, DP, his first feature, Jamie , Pete, his first feature, none of these guys even wanted to be DPS, but they just figured it out. And no one's looked pretty decent. She sells didn't look so great, but who cares? He knew , how to frame and how to edit. And he was creative and people could see the talent, even though it wasn't the greatest movie anyone I'd ever seen. 

[00:18:50] Kent: He was a very strong directorial talent. so it did what it needed to do that film. And yeah. It's good. Good reminder. 

[00:18:57] Anna: Yeah. So what I hope you'll get out of this is knowing that you are enough and you have enough right now, and that can be hard to believe, but it really is true. 

[00:19:08] Anna: And the reason that this matters is because as long as you think that there's these obstacles stopping you, you're stuck behind them. And it's like trying to treat an illness when you have been falsely diagnosed. So you're. medicating for the wrong problem to probably gonna make it worse. 

and if you think the problem is that you don't have enough money, for example, then you're going to be trying to fix that problem, as opposed to trying to fix that belief when really this is a mental obstacle. 

[00:19:40] Kent: Yeah. we've seen that in Hollywood, like crazy. We see people make millions and millions of dollars doing commercial film and. 

[00:19:49] Kent: It takes them decades to get around, to making a feature film. And they all talk about what it out, like at what point do they quote unquote, feel like they have quote unquote enough money. I opened and closed too many quotations. I only meant to quote unquote enough that word. Okay. And Tarson, before he made the fall, he spent $30 million of his own. 

[00:20:09] Kent: That's how successful of a commercial director. He was, he spent $30 million of his own money. there's another guy that I've been reading about from Australia who just, made his first feature and he spent $2 million of his own money. I think most of us listening to this podcast would probably be like, yeah, if I had that kind of cash, I'd be like, yeah, that's enough. 

I'll make a good film for that much money in today's great technological age of democratized, everything, but These guys all had different enough's right. And so none of them actually needed any money because Robert Rodriguez made a movie with $7,000 of his own money, it's like he gave blood and he got enough money. 

[00:20:42] Kent: Anyone in the working class, poor below the poverty level, scrape up $7,000. 

[00:20:49] Anna: Just, yeah. I mean, you watch Christopher Nolan's first film too. And 

[00:20:53] Kent: that was $9,000. 

[00:20:55] Anna: they shot it on weekends and they should cause he was 16 

[00:20:58] Kent: millimeter film. I don't even know how they fit that into the $9,000 

[00:21:01] Anna: budget and make his film now than it was for him then. 

[00:21:04] Kent: Yeah. I wonder how much Tangerine cost because they don't iPhones iPhones. So there was no film stock and there was no hard drives, hardly being filled up. maybe a really tiny one, a really cheap one. I can't imagine how much costs there was involved in that movie other than maybe art and actors. But I think they were not actually, I've never seen it. 

[00:21:23] Kent: So it's just, it's that legendary film shot on the iPhone that went to Sundance and kicked off his career. 

[00:21:29] Anna: yeah. Anyway, I'm not trying to say that there aren't obstacles. I'm saying the obstacles are mental and you can overcome them, but they are off. Your beliefs that are really the only thing stopping you from having what you want to have. 

[00:21:45] Anna: And that's why we talk about coaching, which might seem unrelated to filmmaking, but it's very related because most of us are stopping ourselves because of our beliefs about how it has to be done or what we think is actually the problem, but it isn't. so that's why in our film and family academy, you learn how to. 

[00:22:07] Anna: Identify your own unique mental obstacles and get out from behind them. So you're not stuck and that's a lot easier to overcome than some of these, these things, if they were true, if you aren't attractive enough, that's a hard thing to change. if you don't have enough time, we can't do anything about that. 

[00:22:25] Anna: Everyone has 24 hours in a day, You're out of luck, 

[00:22:27] Kent: Hawk got taller and Gattica okay. All right. Hey, ambiguously show an image of a spinning saw, and then him lying down with a bunch of needles in his legs, and you don't even know what they did, but they made him taller. 

[00:22:40] Anna: You know, if you really wanted to be taller, I'm sure there'd be a way, 

[00:22:46] Kent: but they did it to Gonzo and Muppet treasure island didn't even take that long. 

[00:22:51] Anna: All right. Thanks for joining us today on that note, we'll wrap up. If you like what you're hearing on the podcast, you'll love the film and family academy. It is currently closed for enrollment. If you want to be notified of our next enrollment window, you can join the interest list@wwwdotinvisiblemansion.com forward slash film and family. 

[00:23:15] Anna: And we'll link to that in the show notes. 

[00:23:18] Kent: Yeah. In the program, you'll learn what is actually stopping you from making your first feature film. You'll also learn to apply our proven model until you've achieved your dream career. And best of all, we'll teach you how to do this without sacrificing your relationships, your values, or your saying. 

[00:23:33] Kent: We'll see you next 

time. 

[00:23:34] Anna: Bye. Bye.