Making a Living vs. Making a Difference: What being an Everyday Superhero Really Means

(l-r): Steven Samra and Tasha French Lemley, publishers of The Contributor newspaper.Of all the videos I’ve watched that highlight stories about disaster relief, the one where a Red Cross volunteer says she "worked in the corporate world for 30 years making a living,” and then retired, and now she wants to make a difference, stood out most. Her statement had me wondering how many of us choose one or the other, rather than overlapping them.

It concerns me that some men and women in communities across the nation feel like they aren't in a position to have a positive impact on other people while also being able to put food on the table. I don’t know about you, but when I picture what the right time to make a difference looks like, that image often doesn’t depict any one of us waiting until some abstract point in the future. After all, the future is uncertain and none of us can guarantee we’ll even be around to see it.

Of course, we all need to make a living to survive and have opportunities to enjoy our days here on this earth. Even in the midst of our daily hustle and bustle, there’s still room to make a difference at the same time, if each person puts forth effort in marrying the two. Prime examples of this can be seen in the tireless, underappreciated and often unglamorous work of everyday heroes who have a positive impact on other people or issues that matter to them upon noticing that something needs to be done.

Yoga training at Rachel Lloyd's GEMS are among the therapeutic and fitness services provided to young women.Thousands of teenagers, like those in the documentary film Very Young Girls would be in jail, dead, on drugs, or still exploited in sex trafficking rings across the U.S. if Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS) CEO and founder Rachel Lloyd waited until retirement to provide counseling, legal assistance and housing to children and young women in the sex trade.

Several hundred homeless veterans like those in the documentary film Street Paper would still be lacking a place to sleep at night if The Contributor newspaper founders Tom Wills and Tasha French Lemley waited for thirty years or until they were done with their careers in fine arts and outreach work, respectively, to provide jobs for men and women – some of whom served in the military -- affected by homelessness and poverty. Heck, most of us would even be up the creek without a paddle today, if the great inventors, activists, philosophers, leaders, and artists of previous generations decided to wait a few more decades before making their mark on the world.

People like Lloyd, Wills and French embody the fact that there is no better time to make a difference than now. We need not put off doing good deeds until later on in the future when it’s more convenient for us. After all, if you’re already on your way to mastering the art of being your own superhero, just imagine how wonderful it would be to teach someone else how it’s done.

M is for Meaning

What was the last documentary YOU watched?

If YOU inherited six figures from a long lost relative, conditional upon your using half of the money to impact other people’s lives, how would YOU make a difference in the world?

Leaning on the Festival Circuit is a Lost Cause

Photo by Pavan TrikutamAs difficult as making movies can be, there’s nothing worse than going through the trials and relief of finishing one only to have it sit on the shelf collecting dust because no one is watching it. Even the probability of some viewers disliking it, for whatever reason, still trumps the death of a movie that goes unnoticed.

Last year, I mentioned wanting to ease up on playing the expensive and anxious waiting game that is the film festival submissions process. Between then and now I’ve had constant reminders of how important it is to have several ideas of how the life of a film can flourish – with or without being in a festival lineup.

Of the many things alternative events such as Couch Fest and Secret Cinema has taught me, one is that the industry standard way of showcasing indie films via festival screenings does not have to be the end-all and be-all for anyone’s work. So in the age of evolving technology and the flexible ways people consume their entertainment, I find it interesting how so many of us keep throwing our darts and funding at the same ol’ targets.

While the trajectory of films playing in theaters seem pretty clear – limited or wide release, VOD/Disc rentals (e.g. Netflix, iTunes, Redbox), home video sales, cable television, network television, etc. -- the same cannot be said for the thousands of independently produced shorts and features on the film festival circuit. That’s not even counting the tens of thousands (and counting) of films getting rejection letters from festivals.

L is for LeanLots of indie film producers view festivals as an end-game for our efforts because some of them provide career perks such as opportunities to secure the kind of distribution deals that make it possible for our work to be playing at a theater near you.

Other advantages that could come from getting into festivals include reviews in newspapers and related publicity, representation of some sort, and connections with investors who could fund future work.

Too often, however, this is just a dream since most films don’t play in festivals. Even for those that do, it seems like the life of the film ends there.

It’s bothersome how indie filmmakers often get caught up in the limbo of submitting to festivals, crossing our fingers and hoping for an acceptance letter. We tend to lean on these events too much with the expectation of them bringing us an audience and thus, validating our work. Depending on a third-party to do the work of getting movies seen is not a good idea because it can backfire when we don’t have any other cards in play.

How long do YOU tend to wait for something to pan out before moving onto another opportunity?

Do YOU like to exercise several different options when trying to reach an objective, or go with one that seems the most promising?

Monday Movie Meme – Keeping up with the Kindliness

(l-r): Eddie Murphy and Louie Anderson in "Coming to America."We never know how much even the simplest gestures such as a smile or “hello” can alter the course of someone’s day, for the better. So, this week’s Monday Movie Meme is all about highlighting the good deeds that create a ripple effect of positive vibes and hope for those around us: Random Acts of Kindness.

Share on your blog or in the comments section, movies featuring kind gestures involving the main or supporting characters. This includes scenes where a movie character is either the recipient or the giver of some type of unexpected deed that had a positive impact on one or more people in the film. Here are my selections for this week’s “Random Acts of Kindness” theme.

• A fast food worker gives a pair of ruby earrings to a random subway passenger, after his girlfriend breaks up with him, in the comedy COMING TO AMERICA starring James Earl Jones, Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall.

• An abused and bashful housewife does grocery shopping for her partially blind daughter-in-law who was released from prison only to work a maid for the town’s mayor, in the drama THE COLOR PURPLE starring Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover and Oprah Winfrey. Although the housewife’s act of kindness was intentional and done for family, her good deed wasn’t exactly planned, so I still consider the gesture in this scene to have a level of randomness to it.

• Townspeople pool their funds to save a local business from folding after $8,000 in missing deposits put a distraught father at risk of going to jail, in the family drama IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE starring James Stewart and Donna Reed.

K is for Kindness

What movies, featuring scenes where random acts of kindness are being performed, would YOU add to this list?