Boy have I been busy since my film screened a couple weeks ago.

Here are 3 lessons I learned:

1. There’s nothing more cringe-worthy than watching yourself with an audience.
2. IKEA furniture assembly was made to engender heated arguments between those you love most.
3. Alfred Hitchcock’s great nephew is a fascinating filmmaker (his name is Peter Hitchcock and I’m proud to call him a friend)

This begs the question:

“Curt, you handsome devil… How do you get to the point where you earn enough from filmmaking that you can afford to help out your friends on set, move to a new condo, and travel across Europe, all within 30 days?”

By making yourself what Seth Godin calls “an indispensable linchpin.”

How do you get that point?

You have to add MASSIVE value. And sometimes you have to add massive value for FREE.

Sound recordists want to kill me right now like “OMG. FREE WORK IS EVIL. YOU’RE KILLING THE INDUSTRY.”

They don’t know what they’re talking about. Free work can work when you do it strategically.

As Peter Drucker says: The question is not how to be successful. It’s how to be useful.

The day you start to frame the world in that manner, the whole game changes.

Here’s a video on how to get meaningful free work:

Hit reply and let me know a lesson you learned this week from filmmaking (or the wistful lack thereof).

I just finished a move to brand new resplendent condo and wrapped the screening of my feature during the opening weekend of TIFF a couple weeks ago, so haven’t had the time to write to you much.

I’ll be writing to you more frequently now.

Plus in the coming weeks I still have to expound upon the lessons I recently learned filmmaking in Rome and the UK. 

It won’t be what you expect. Love ya.

– Curt

PS: If you’re in Toronto and want to volunteer to help out with a feature length documentary I’m directing, then email me back what you can do to help.

PPS: Soon I’ll be talking about how I was able to get the top rated article on the r/filmmakers sub-Reddit for April 2018, and how you can use the same techniques to build an audience for your film.