The meaning of Victory!

There are many types of Victory.

As I am still learning.

When you are freelance - you mark your victories by how well your show is received. Yes you survived production. Yes - it looks really good. Yes - people like it. And then you know you did OK when the client calls again.

Its pretty cut and dry.

When you work somewhere... well... not so much.

I remember coming back from China the first time.

We had a company foot the bill for part of our production. We were over there an ungodly amount of time and survived. We pulled off the first co-production of its kind - an unlikely feat in China. And when we got back - we were put to the fire.

Not for what we did - but how we did it.

I about lost it.

Shawn held me back.

I calmed myself down as I realized that this company really didn't care about whether or not we completed a show or whether or not the show itself was any good.

All they cared about was maintaining status quo.

And that's what I see now.

Its never about the work - but about how the work is done.

Production is a beast. Even at its best - it is a raging machine of moving parts with multiple heads threatening to go in all different directions at once - and all it takes is a banana peel to take it down. To survive you become part juggler, part engineer, part showman, and part con artist.

And I am all about process. It is easy to forget. Most people just care about the end result and don't care who they step on to get it. I believe the opposite. The process is important. But so are the end results.

Now that I'm at a company - while the results are important - what really matters most - is control.

Checking in every day with all the details of your day are way more important than what you did or what details you are reporting.

Victory is achieved by not upsetting the delicate balance. Don't rock the boat. Do as you're told and what you're told and little to nothing more. We're not so much interested in what you're doing as we are that you are telling us something.

And it's pretty sad.

Far better to raise a sword to this Monday being the same as the one before it that to make it a better one - because in making it better - we also suffer the chance that it might be a worse one.

Or something like that.

My personal Victory is measure by the fact that I returned home. That no one died on the shoot. And besides the footage being incredibly dirty - the shots looked great. My part was done to the best of my abilities - pretty much.

And while no one gives a rats ass that we did our jobs - that we did it in another culture, in another language, with entirely different ways of working and understanding and at less than a 10th of the budget - I know that my wife at least thinks I'm cool.

Or ... she used to think that. Now she just has to love me cause she's stuck with me.

I think. I hope.

So let's toast to a meaningless victory from a meaningless battle that's still being fought over meaningless terms.

FREEDOM!