Introduce Yourself : Introducing My Fail! by Suzanne Garnett

Hi everyone and happy Friday! My name is Suzanne and I am a writer and producer based in the surprisingly sunny U.K.  

I’ve been working for over a decade so I’ve got a list of fails as long as my arm, but there’s one that I always circle back to. Without question it’s one of those formative moments you get in your career and as mortifying as it was at the time, I’m forever grateful it happened when I did. 

So let’s head back ten years. I’m fresh out of film school, into my first job and riding high on the success of my last short film - at that time it had just been nominated for an Oscar. Everything was going a little too smoothly! 

Then came my first major pitch market. 

I honestly can’t remember what it was I pitched! In hindsight it probably wasn’t a great project, but at the time it was my baby. I loved it, and to a point, it seemed as though everyone else did as well. The feedback I got was constructive. Kind. Phrased in such a way to encourage a young upstart! 

And then came The Executive. She wasn’t the first I’d pitched to, but she was the first one to cut me off half way through. I made it maybe a paragraph into my well rehearsed pitch before she held up her hand and killed my momentum dead. “I’m going to stop you there. I absolutely hate it,” she said. And oh boy, did she tell me why. In excruciatingly precise detail. I sat there mortified, nodding along with her and trying to remember that I was an adult and a professional and I probably shouldn’t start crying into my Evian. 

I’d like to pretend I didn’t obsess about her comments for the rest of the day, but I absolutely did. The positive feedback I’d received earlier meant little in the face of just how much she disliked it. I told myself that everyone else was just being polite and she was the only one who was telling the truth. 

Fast forward to the end of the day and I actually met up with her again, this time in a group setting. She was perfectly lovely to me and as I made a valiant effort not to show how terrified of her I was, we ended up circling around to her own slate of projects. It was a great conversation, and she gave me her own soft pitch for a film she was developing. 

And in the same space of time it took her to decide she hated my pitch, I realised something that totally changed my perspective: I hated her idea just as much! Possibly even more. 

And in that moment I realised it wasn’t my job to make something that everyone liked. We had totally different tastes and that was fine. All I had to do was know my audience and stay true to the story I wanted to tell. There’s no one size fits all in storytelling and that’s a good thing. 

It also taught the difference between liking something, and recognising the strength of it. 

We keep in touch. She’s been a good friend and mentor, and I value her opinion on many, many things. I just don’t send any rom-coms in her direction!