Back when it felt like winter would never end, I wrote several newsletters about gardening. I first wrote about gardening in winter, when there’s tons of work to do, but none of it is visible to others. The second one was about gardening in spring, when everything is still frustratingly brown and barren, but it’s important not to rush things.
I wrote something in the latter that makes me cringe a little to read now:
And let’s not lie: we do all this not-so-glamorous work for the bloom season.
Well, lemme tell ya —
It’s bloom season, b*tches.
And now that it’s here, Summer Penny has a few words for Winter Penny.
Bloom season is indeed the best.
First of all, the “let’s not lie” part above is true. It is obviously gratifying to finally get to share your work with the audience after the months and years of mostly below-ground toil.
I am so far having a fairly awesome version of peak bloom: 1500 people came out to watch Wild Inside under a beautiful moon at our extremely special world premiere in Central Park. Every Q&A screening this weekend at IFC is sold out (and we’re in the largest theater!). It looks like the theatrical is off to a roaring success. Apparently audiences have been bursting into applause during the closing credits, even at screenings where I’m not there. All reviews have been incredible. We’ve booked 75 theaters so far, with more coming all the time. Fall film festivals are starting to come knocking with very attractive offers.
These events — these outcomes — are all incredible and I am floored and grateful and kind of just loving life at the moment. (Even if I’m really behind on some other stuff. Sorry, people sitting in my inbox.)
BUT!
Here come the buts…
Bloom season is fleeting.
Soak it up, Summer Penny, because this stuff won’t last long!!!
Producer Gabriel has reminded me several times over the past few days to stop and actually notice what’s happening. “Take it in,” he keeps saying. He knows me well enough to know that by next week I’ll be worrying about something else. That’s just how my brain works. It’s actually how most of our brains mostly work; welcome to the hedonic treadmill, my friends.
Even if you end up with a giant hit and a months-long victory lap, the number of days you’ll spend being publicly applauded will never compare to the number of days you spent banging your head against creative problems, researching, fundraising, editing, problem-solving, getting rejected, changing your mind, feeling lost, getting rejected some more, and generally doing all the behind-the-scenes work that is required to will a movie into existence.
Nobody will be clapping for you while you’re doing any of that.
Not a lot of it will be visible to others in a way where you’re going to get credit for it.
Bloom season isn’t up to you anyway.
And here’s the other thing about bloom season: you don’t actually control it.
I have watched entire release strategies evaporate as a result of one brief email.
A gardener learns this pretty quickly. You prepare the soil, and water, and fertilize. You do everything you’re supposed to do. Then the weather gets a vote. So do the insects. So does timing, and luck, and all kinds of conditions and contingencies.
A year ago, if you’d asked me what bloom season for Wild Inside was going to look like, I would have given you a very different picture from what it’s actually looking like. You don’t control the conditions out there — not the marketplace, not the opinions of others, not your competition, none of it.
Bloom season may never come at all, or not in the way you imagined.
Rare is the bloom season that could be called “an unqualified success.” Many are in fact extremely disappointing.
I had one summer where I put every ounce of my love and care (and money) into a massive crop of heirloom tomatoes and then — about 2 days before peak harvest was to begin— it was all totally wiped out by a hurricane. Even in great bloom seasons like the one I am having this summer, there is powdery mildew all over my honeysuckle, that dahlia never took off, and I still can’t tell if I am over-watering or under-watering my wandflower.
So given all of the above…
here’s the question Summer Penny wants to ask Winter Penny:
If bloom season is really the only reward you are chasing, and it comes so rarely and randomly and not for very long… why garden at all?
The Work is the Reward
The work — what you do, day in and day out — is the only part that really belongs to you, be that in the depths of winter or at peak bloom. The work is there every morning.
Having gotten to make Wild Inside feels like the honor of a lifetime. It was a joyful production, hard as hell, but steeped in a feeling of magic and serendipity at every turn. I felt confident in my vision of the film and certain about its purpose and need to exist. I got to make the film with the best execs and the best funders, alongside all my most trusted and beloved creative collaborators.
I wanted to make movies. Here I am, making movies. And yet, I am perfectly capable of spending years making movies while my predominant cognitive experience is worrying about whether I will ever get to make movies.
What I mean, of course, is: will I get to make the next one? Will I please my funders enough that they’d want to invest in another Penny Lane movie? Will enough people see this one? Will enough people like it? Will my career get bigger, or smaller, or disappear entirely?
These are not imaginary concerns! Creative careers are precarious. Movies are an expensive artform, and I can’t make them on my own. I can’t simply announce that external validation is meaningless and then pay my rent with my newfound inner peace. Access to capital, box office, awards, festivals, reviews — all of those things can matter enormously (if in different ways on different projects, and at different points in one’s career). But I’m trying to remember what they matter for.
For example, I want this movie to “succeed” (in the externally determined ways — I already think it’s a success creatively) because I want to make another movie.
That’s it.
That’s the whole game.
Which brings us to my inevitable conclusion:
Yes, I would love it if you would check the website to see if Wild Inside is playing near you, and buy a ticket. Or hell, buy three, and treat some friends to a fun time out at the movies!
Because every ticket sold, every Letterboxd review, every poster or hat or mug purchased makes it more possible for me to keep doing the work. And even though I haven’t gotten a paycheck in like six months and I’m even closer to total financial ruin than ever, I LOVE THIS FILM AND I AM SO THRILLED TO SHARE IT WITH YOU!!! And I want to wake up a year from now deeply enmeshed in yet another surprising, delightful, impossible documentary that is ruining my life and simultaneously giving me a reason to live.
The film is expanding beyond NYC starting Tuesday August 4 in celebration of International Owl Awareness Day. Here are some screenings I will be attending to do Q&As:
Tuesday 8/4 7:15 PM Boston, MA (Coolidge Theater)
Wednesday 8/5 Bronxville, NY 7:30 PM (Picturehouse Bronxville)
Thursday 8/6 7:15PM Brooklyn, NY (Nitehawk Prospect Park)
Friday 8/7 Montclair, NJ (The Clairidge)
Saturday 8/8 3:30 PM San Francisco, CA (The Roxie)
Sunday 8/9 2:15 PM Berkeley, CA (Rialto Cinemas Elmwood)
Sunday 8/9 4:30 PM San Rafael, CA (Rafael Film Center)
Wednesday 8/12 7:30 PM Washington DC (Avalon Theater)
Thursday 8/13 Rosendale, NY (Rosendale Theater)
Thursday 8/13 + Saturday 8/15 Rochester, NY (The Little Theater) PRE-RECORDED Q&A
Friday 8/14 7:00 PM Saugerties, NY (Upstate Films: Orpheum Theater)
Sunday 8/16 12:00 PM Milwaukee, WI (The Oriental Theater) VIRTUAL LIVE Q&A
Sunday 8/16 5:30 PM Toronto, CAN (Hot Docs Bloor) VIRTUAL LIVE Q&A
Sunday 8/16 + Tuesday 8/18 Cincinnati, OH (Cincinnati World Cinema) PRE-RECORDED Q&A ***this booking is not confirmed yet; save the date, but check the website***
Monday 8/17 7:00 PM Westchester (Jacob Burns)
Tuesday 8/18 6:00 PM Queens, NY (Low Cinema)
Wednesday 8/19 6:00 PM Queens, NY (Low Cinema)
Thursday 8/27 Rockland ME (Camden)
Thursday 9/10 Chatham NY (Crandell Theater)
Friday 9/11 Catskill NY (Community Theater)