Getting a project going, moving, done and completed

This story was taken from the book, “Conversations at the American Film Institute with the Great Moviemakers.”

I got this from Robert McKee who was talking about the actor Charlton Heston.

 “Heston said getting his first acting job came down to luck. After a theater production he had auditioned for fizzled and a directing job ended, his wife suggested Heston go to auditions for a production of "Antony and Cleopatra." Heston went over to the office and found it crowded. People who had connections in the theater industry auditioned first. Finally, Heston was the only one left. A staff member asked his name. "I said, 'Charlton Heston. Maynard Morris of MCA sent me up,'" Heston remembered. "I'd never been inside MCA and never met Maynard Morris. She said, 'Well, we're a little ahead, I guess we can see you'... Don't ever say luck doesn't count."

Again, let me be clear just as Robert was being. I'm not condoning lying or cheating to get ahead anymore than he was. That being said, I can tell you what the director Stanley Kramer once told me during a seminar series in talking about how he first got started in film.

He got his first film made through sheer guts. Since he couldn't get together the three pillars of filmmaking, what you need to produce a film, he told the bank that he had he actors and the studio. Then he told the studio he had the bank and the actors. And obviously he then told the actors he had the bank and the studio. And so he got his first film produced.

However that may not work so easily now a days. With instant media and such ease of checking into things now, it still may work if you handle it right. It's not so much in lying about things to get the ball rolling (though maybe sometimes). It's more about your attitude. About what you are projecting to those you need to be projecting it to.

It is about getting things done. Pushing through the impossible to the plausible on into the completed.

Never say die, they say. Never give up. It is those who stick with the process to the bitter end who survive to win.

If you have a dream, don't just dream it, but dream it big, with passion and bring others into that dream. Do things and get things done. Show people you can do those things. Infect them with your passion for your project, your business, your dreams.

You'll be surprised what you can accomplish if you just act like you should be doing what you're doing and then, do it.