David McElroy

On Dec. 10, 2004, a small film crew gathered at 6:30 in the morning for the first day of shooting on a short film. It was only a three-day shoot — with some pickup shots on a fourth day — but everything was planned in detail.

For more than a year, I had struggled to take the germ of an idea and turn it into a film. I had recruited someone I knew in local video production to help me find a crew. Some of the people we recruited were fantastic and some turned out to be nightmares to work with. Some did their jobs and others were dumped along the way.

The process was really ugly at times.

I didn’t know how to write a script. I had to figure out how to structure something entirely different from what I’d ever written before. I had to trust production people who I barely knew. And I couldn’t afford to get better people (or paid actors) because I had a grand total budget of only $8,500.

The three full days of production were hard work. A lot of things didn’t go right. There were times when we hadn’t yet found the actors to stand in shots for the scenes that we were driving to a location to film at that moment. And I was always painfully conscious that I didn’t know enough about what I was doing. I got so stressed out toward the end of the first shooting day that I pulled the director of photography into a room privately and said, “I’m so stressed that I’ve forgotten what we’re about to do. Please help me here.”

But in the end, I made a modest short film that I’m proud of. It won a handful of awards and was shown at 25 film festivals in five countries. What I’ve realized lately is that the ugly creative process is just as important as the final film — and it’s time for me to open parts of my process to you.

If I’m going to be serious about changing my life — and becoming the artist I need to be — I’m going to have to show you the ugly parts of the process that I hope will create my films of the future. So here’s what I’m working on.

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As the phone call went on, I felt more and more annoyed.

I was talking Wednesday afternoon with a business associate and we were trying to solve a problem. We were both intent on resolving the issue and we both wanted the same outcome. But I found myself fuming.

In my frustration, I wanted to shout, “What’s wrong with you? Are you an idiot? Just let me handle this my way.”

I have no way of knowing what he was thinking — and we both remained professional and polite — but I could tell he was frustrated that I wouldn’t see things his way, too.

It wasn’t until an hour or so later that I could think calmly and rationally about the argument. I still wanted to blame him for not seeing things my way — since I was obviously right in my own mind — but I could be objective enough to realize what the problem was.

My friend and I approach the world with radically different assumptions about a lot of things. My assumptions seem right to me. (Of course.) I’m sure his assumptions seem right to him. What’s worse, I doubt he’s even aware of his assumptions.

And I found myself thinking — not for the first time — that most of our so-called miscommunication in personal relationships comes because each of us makes wrong assumptions about what the other person must be thinking.

So I unconsciously hold you responsible for what I assume must be in your mind. If I’m wrong — as I probably am — I might be hurt or angry at you for something you never even thought. And you might be doing the same thing to me.

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The teen-ager’s tone suggested he was sharing really big news.

“Did you hear that Bob Saget died?!” he asked me breathlessly.

I told him I’d heard that, but he apparently didn’t think I was suitably impressed. He added something about who Saget had been — that he had been a comedian and a big television star.

“And he died,” he said again, as though giving me another chance to be shocked or upset.

“Almost 8,000 people die in this country every day,” I said. “I didn’t know Saget, so his death doesn’t really affect me any more than the deaths of those other people.”

“But he was famous,” the teen repeated, confused. “He was on television.”

I’ve had variations of this conversation with many people over the years, and it still confuses me. I feel the same way almost every time a “celebrity” dies. I experienced the same thing last week when former actress Betty White died.

I don’t typically have negative feelings about such people, but their deaths rarely mean anything special to me. And every time I hear the loud outpouring from those around me — people who also didn’t know these celebrities — I’m baffled that our culture has trained us to feel something special about random celebrities.

We’ve been subtly brainwashed into believing people are special if they’re famous.

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