Dealing with crap.

For two years running now I have been working on a campaign which uses a noted Oscar-winning actor as on-screen talent. This actor was chosen for his persona--of a no-nonsense man of integrity. In real life, or as real as it gets when you're shooting him, he is to curmudgeons what Stalin was to mass-murderers. Or maybe Mao.

There's a lot of crap we have to deal with in our business. From clients, from bosses, from account people.

If you're going to survive, you need to do a couple things. Among them are 1) Develop confidence in the quality of your output and 2) Develop thick skin.

Today I shot a two-minute industrial film with my talent. And it went like this.

He came in and immediately said, "Who do I see about this script? It's unreadable."

I stepped up to the plate and in ten minutes had worked things out. It turns out, he doesn't like sentence fragments. Ever.

After he had settled down, my producer grabbed the script sheet with his notes on it.

Like I said, there's a lot of crap we have to deal with in our business.

You have to face it. Handle it. Work around it. Make things work. And keep moving.

Oh yeah.

And don't forget to find a way to laugh now and again.