Sometimes….. Sometimes I am severely lacking in confidence though. When I’m performing, I’m full of confidence. When I’m on a shoot, either side of the camera, I’m full of confidence, I know what I want to achieve and how I’m going to do it.
But when I get home, when I’m sat in the office, just me and my pc and my editing softwear, my confidence starts to fade. And by the time I have a finished movie, edited and rendering I’m not quite sure if what I’ve done is right.
Why am I talking about this? Because yesterday was the Zeroth British Fetish Film Festival, that is a “dry run” of the festival which is happening later this year, just for producers. I received an email earlier this year asking for submissions, and I really did honestly want to submit one of my films. I’d even picked out the film I wanted to submit. But when it came down to it, I chickened out.
But reading tweets from other producers yesterday who had submitted their films made me realise that I’m not the odd one out. Pandora Blake tweeted about there being a friendly cushion for producers to hide behind when their film was being shown:
We had a friendly cupcake cushion for self-conscious, embarrassed producers to cling to when it was their turn to have a film screened. 🙂
Pandora Blake (@pandorablake) May 19, 2013
And Spanking Sarah has blogged about wanting to turn around and go home again while she was on her way there. Both of these are ladies who make some amazing films, who I really respect. Suddenly I don’t feel so bad about my shyness.
And the tweets I received yesterday evening after people had returned home from the festival, saying I had been missed, has really boosted my confidence. I may not have gone into producing for my own site to make a political statement, or even with a very good idea of what I wanted to do beyond documenting my kinky adventures, but I am slowly finding my creative voice, and finding that I do have interesting things to say. And I am proud of my work. And I definitely shouldn’t allow my lack of confidence to hold me back.
I am definitely going to submit a film to the first “proper” festival later this year (and I know that several people are going to hold me to that!!), and I look forward to seeing what other people submit as well!!