 Welcome to The Crimson Engine, my name is Rubidium. Today we are talking about the one quote that changed my filmmaking, but pretty much my life as well, forever. Before I came to the States 10 years ago, I was a TV commercial director in Australia. I was a director at Australia's most prestigious, probably largest, probably most awarded commercial production company called Exit Films. I did commercials for, say, government, for Nintendo, for Sony PlayStation, to name a few. And, you know, it was a pretty good living and a pretty good life for a 20-something year old. I thought it would be a path to the films that I wanted to make. And in a way, I guess it was. I'll talk about that in another video, but on the side, I also had my own production company that I do corporate work with, which actually made more money than the commercials. And, you know, the thing that they both shared was that there was a lot of dealing with clients. There was a lot of dealing with other people's ideas, other people's input, other people's money. And, you know, it wasn't always great. You know, some people, sometimes I felt very underappreciated. Sometimes I felt like their client didn't really know what he or she was talking about. Sometimes they're underpaid. Sometimes they really kind of kind of tried to crush your vision. Sometimes they just kind of screwed you over, especially with advertising agencies that take, you know, get you to work for free and then when a big job comes along, give it to somebody else. You know, I would give them the work that I thought they deserved. If they're a shitty client and they're paying shitty money, they would get a shitty video. I think a lot of us do that. I totally admit that I did a lot of jobs half-assed. I kind of did as little as I could get away with because I wanted to save my resources, my energy for the films that I wanted to make. And I think that's pretty common. And I actually think that was a big part of why I was so unsatisfied in that kind of field. One day I read a quote. It's actually a proverb that a job well done is its own reward. And it took me a few months to understand that. But, you know, it really came through for me that it didn't matter who the client was or what the job was, there's immense satisfaction in doing something well. Even if it is the crappiest corporate video in the history of the world, if you are putting your heart and soul into it, you can't lose because, you know, doing a job well nourishes something inside you. It uses all of you. Time disappears. You get into that wonderful flow state. Even if it's just digging a hole in the ground. Even if it's just a video for someone's Kickstarter for $200, right? If I've discovered that if I treated it as though it were, you know, my dream feature film project and did all the preparation I could and showed up and got nervous and tried everything I could. And then in the edit tried every possible combination I could to make it as good as it could be. I felt much more satisfied. Even if the client didn't like it, even if they didn't appreciate it, I felt like by doing my best at filmmaking, at anything, I got the most out of it. And I guess these YouTube videos are a great example in that when I started, you know, I was getting 50 views, 20 views, but I was still pushing myself to get the lighting as good as I could, get the set as good as I could to cut them as quickly and as well as I could to try and get a lot of content out there to try as many things as I thought would work. And as a result, you know, this channel has really blossomed for me. This channel has really gone in the direction that I wanted it to. And I found this wonderful audience of people who are really receptive to to what I want to make films about and what I want to say. I guess I discovered that making bad films makes you a bad filmmaker. Even if you think it's below your potential, even if you think that you could do better, but don't you lose that opportunity to really shine and really you lose that time. That time has gone forever. You didn't get to make the most from it. I wanted to share that and I also wanted to reiterate it for myself because I feel it's a lesson that's so easy to let slip. It's really, really critical that you give your most on the things that you do because only by doing that do you become better at it. Thanks very much for watching. I'd love to hear what quotes, what lessons changed your filmmaking in the same way and we can share that and learn from one another. Really appreciate the support you guys. Subscribe if you want more videos like this. Let me know in the comments what you think and I will see you next time.