The following Career Dispatches essay was written by Anna Mastro, director of “Secret Society of Second Born Royals,” premiering Sept. 25 on Disney+.
As I think back over the last year and a half, and how much you change as a person making your first studio movie, I feel super nostalgic. A year and a half feels long for an ambitious filmmaker like me, and yet it seems short in what I hope will be a long career of making movies and telling stories. I’m grateful for all the wonderful people I’ve gotten to meet and work with and miss them dearly between projects—and especially during this long last six months of quarantine or lockdown or whatever we’re currently calling it. I wonder when this pandemic will end. I wonder if and when I’ll get to do it again.
None of us have any of the answers right now, which in and of itself is the weirdest feeling. I think about the journey and about how I wanted this career so badly and worked so hard for it. The struggle is real and it really never ends. There’s no path to success; no right or wrong; no “if I do this, I will become this” like so many other careers.
Disney Channel’s SVP of Casting Shares How to Get Cast in Her Audition Room These days I’ve been doing a lot of press for the film and many journalists ask me if I have any advice for young filmmakers. The one thing you can do is afford yourself the chance to make mistakes. That doesn’t make sense? Here’s what I mean by that: Make films. Make things that are good, and things that are not so good. Write a script, film it. Create a reel for yourself. Craft a story. You will never have another time to simply work on your craft without judgment.
We all have phones and therefore we all have a tool to make a film—long or short. Personal or mainstream. Write something and go shoot it. This is your opportunity to make mistakes and to tell stories. Every time I’ve gotten stuck in a box in the last 10 years, I’ve gone out and made a short film. These films have allowed me to grow as a filmmaker and have led to opportunities to grow as a professional artist. That is my advice to young filmmakers: You can always be working on your craft. No one can stop you. Stories and entertainment have been needed since the beginning of time. Art is not cancelled.
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