Halp

I need help to make an exit from the film industry.

I haven’t really declared it on the internet yet, but most people that see me on set or in the small slices of life I get at home in Squamish have heard me saying that I want to start a coffee shop, more specifically a coffee truck. I think it’s the right move for me to get closer to home (reads, actually at home every night) and back to things that really do bring me joy (coffee, bikes, photography, skateboarding and, oh yeah! seeing my little family everyday). As much as working in coffee in Vancouver wasn’t sustainable with the costs of living in Vancouver, there’s a big difference between being a barista that makes barely over minimum wage and the guy who runs the place. I believe wholeheartedly that I have the right skills, idea, location and drive to make it work. But I have no idea how I can convince banks, or someone with money to well, give me that money.

So, I need help to make a business plan. Or refine what I’ve cooked up. I’ve been trying using a template from BDC but I really don’t know how to make what I see in my brain cohesive enough in a business plan and I genuinely don’t know how to turn the passionate ideas I have into the words and plan a bank needs to hear. I went to art school so I could make things and the reason I struggled to graduate at the same time as everyone else is probably some kind of anxiety over this exact kind of writing. I’m just better at doing the physical work. If you’ve known me over the last nearly twenty years as someone who did work on a bicycle in one way or another then you know that I’m not afraid of the work, bashing my head against a wall might be the thing I’m best at.

So, if you have those kinds of concrete writing skills I lack, please please reach out. I really want to make it out of the film industry. Also, if not obvious, I’m not looking for free. I can make budget for help, or trade, but I need help.

I need to make a change from the last five years of sleeping in my van during the week. We are in the very lucky and privileged place that we bought a home just under four years ago and the weight of sleeping there only on the weekends is getting heavier. Not waking up with my family, not riding my bike, not going to the skatepark, not doing hikes or the outdoors things we moved to Squamish for, not being able to think or feel through my art practice, it all adds to the weight. These are all the things that are joyful in life and I don’t get to see them. For me, the slices of weekend we get in the film industry often look exhausted, grumpy and sad on Saturdays with half of Sunday repacking my van to be away from home again. It’s always been a little unsustainable but the addition over the years is starting to feel like multiplication.

I feel like I need to add. The film industry is often great. I’m good at my job, I often feel very valued on the crews I work with. I’ve been steadily employed since the strikes ended, I’ve met such wonderful people here on set. I’ve done some wild things and been part of some cool projects. I’m not above being a technician, but as a creative person I still miss having my own projects come to fruition and while being part of film and television means I work on projects so many more people see than my personal work, it’s not the same kind of fulfilment. The lack of fulfillment is directly linked to the fact that I’m working exclusively for corporations that produce the super-rich, selling advertising for more people that are the super-rich. I don’t love that. I just want my friends in film to understand that I don’t think myself better than anyone else on set, or that the industry isn’t fulfilling for people. It can be and is for so many, but the trade offs aren’t worth it for me and where I am in my life anymore. But I do value the gifts it has given me.

I really do think I have the right skills to operate this coffee truck business. But I need help to get there.