"We can't worry about competition. Besides, you aren't competing with anyone but yourself. They have nothing to do with whether you make a good movie or not"
About this Quote
A director’s pep talk that quietly doubles as an indictment of an industry addicted to scoreboards. Chris Wedge frames “competition” as a seductive distraction, the kind that turns filmmaking into a proxy war of box office, awards chatter, and trending metrics. His move is strategic: he strips the word of its romance. Competition isn’t fuel here; it’s noise.
The first sentence is blunt, almost managerial: “We can’t worry.” Not “shouldn’t,” but can’t - as if the mental bandwidth required to obsess over rivals is incompatible with the concentration that craft demands. Then he pivots to the real target: the myth that other people’s success is the main threat to yours. “You aren’t competing with anyone but yourself” reframes the anxiety artists are trained to feel - the fear of being outpaced - into a more intimate, harder challenge: whether today’s choices surpass yesterday’s instincts.
The subtext is anti-market without being naive about the market. Wedge isn’t claiming audiences don’t matter; he’s arguing that the only part you control is the work. “They have nothing to do with whether you make a good movie or not” draws a clean line between external conditions (release dates, studio politics, cultural timing) and internal standards (story, pacing, emotion, clarity). Coming from an animation director, it lands with extra force: you can’t “game” a film built frame by frame. You can only build it well - or not.
The first sentence is blunt, almost managerial: “We can’t worry.” Not “shouldn’t,” but can’t - as if the mental bandwidth required to obsess over rivals is incompatible with the concentration that craft demands. Then he pivots to the real target: the myth that other people’s success is the main threat to yours. “You aren’t competing with anyone but yourself” reframes the anxiety artists are trained to feel - the fear of being outpaced - into a more intimate, harder challenge: whether today’s choices surpass yesterday’s instincts.
The subtext is anti-market without being naive about the market. Wedge isn’t claiming audiences don’t matter; he’s arguing that the only part you control is the work. “They have nothing to do with whether you make a good movie or not” draws a clean line between external conditions (release dates, studio politics, cultural timing) and internal standards (story, pacing, emotion, clarity). Coming from an animation director, it lands with extra force: you can’t “game” a film built frame by frame. You can only build it well - or not.
Quote Details
| Topic | Motivational |
|---|
More Quotes by Chris
Add to List
