8 Years

My son turns eight today. It's another of life's ordinary yet profound triumphs. I don't know if it's because he's our first child or he's a boy or if it has something to do with my own childhood never quite being realized, but he's always seemed huge to me. He certainly has a willful personality. His teacher says its a good thing there are passionate and opinionated people like Henry in the world, otherwise nothing would ever change. He's been like that since birth. He never learned to crawl and went straight to walking. He's always known what he's wanted. There's a sweetness to him that comes out as well. I've long suffered trying to let the strong willed side of him coexist with his sweet and tender side. My own expectations of how he should behave have been challenged every step of the way. I don't have a favorite amongst my three children, but I will say I've learned more about communication and my own limitations to do so effectively from Henry than from any one else in my entire life. Which makes him a different kind of special to me. As I've come to understand him on his own terms rather than in relation to my own boyhood or my expectations, my love has grown from the prosaic love obligation a father feels for a son to something much more profound. He will continue to challenge me. That I know.
When he was born, many people asked if I was going to get serious about a career. At that point I was about a year into transitioning from working as a full-time club promoter and band manager to a filmmaker. I was tired of managing the dreams of others and wanted to pursue my own. I was writing screenplays and working in the art department on films and commercials. And I was doing some acting. I was very unfocused looking back. Yet I was clear that I wanted to write and direct films. I guess because I had been so successful at my previous career and I hung around a lot of famous industry folk combined with my tendency to "look the part" and talk a good game, all conspired to give me an air of confidence in my new endeavor that I hadn't really earned. Even when I was working as a PA people came up to me at craft services thinking I was the director. But it didn't translate into wealth and fame. I thought both were imminent. I had this great script and a million other ideas. People hired me to shoot stuff for them without seeing a reel. I sat around with accomplished actors talking as if we were on the same level. As far as I was concerned, my career as a filmmaker was well established.
But the people who didn't see all the elbow rubbing, people like our accountant and our lawyer, the grown-ups in our lives, they wanted to know what I was going to do for a living. I thought about going to law school. What underemployed thirty-two year old doesn't? I thought about going back to teaching. I thought about a career as a set technician -- the union art department guys were on me to take the Local 52 test. My friend and boss Happy Massee simply said, I don't see you wearing a tool belt. He was also very excited to hear me take over as director on a short film that I had originally planned only to write. Happy's votes of confidence helped, but they weren't the deciding factor. What it really came down to, and I remember the exact moment of clarity, I was sitting at my first Mac G4 teaching myself Final Cut Pro 1.2 and I realized that I didn't want to tell my kid what I could have been or what I always wanted to be. I wanted to tell him I became what I was through hard work, sacrifice and believing in my dreams. Or that failure came only after I had exhausted every last resource. I figured that would be a better example than a stable career doing something conventional that didn't have my heart.
Henry asked me about a year ago why my movies aren't in theaters. There are a lot of reasonable responses to that question, but before I could offer one I experienced a deep feeling of shame. I felt like a fraud and a failure. The last person I want to subject to any smoke and mirrors is my son, but I wasn't ready to admit defeat and I didn't want to make excuses so I just told him a takes a long time to get to that point and I was working on it. A few months later, he made a comment about how I was trying to get into Hollywood because isn't that the point of making movies. Oddly enough it coincided with my homeschooling him and my complete absorption into caring for him and my family. That experience underscored my reluctance and disinterest in leaving my family for weeks at a time to make movies. I was in the process of embracing making small films, of being a regional DIY filmmaker for the rest of my days. So without any shame at all I let him know that not everyone wants to make Hollywood movies, that some people are perfectly happy making movies that only their friends and family see. I didn't care too much if he understood or if he thought I was making excuses. He'll get it or he won't. The important thing is that I get it.
In a very real sense, Henry has been a key factor in my sticking with things. I've never done anything consistently for eight years before he came along. Sometimes I like to fantasize that if I didn't have a family my career would be much further along. But I know that's not true, without the grounding center that they serve in my life who knows what I'd be doing. So not only has Henry helped me grow as person and heal some of the wounds from my own childhood, he's helped me to become what I was always wanted to be - a father and a filmmaker.

Grazie,
Signore Direttore