"What, you don't like to make money?" I've been asked that question a number of times, usually by men, usually by men who've made a lot of money, usually with an implicit judgment along the lines of "What, are you out of your mind?!"

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Does the project have the richness, the "juice" to maintain my interest in it over the next, say, five years it'll take to make? Am I passionate about the subject almost to the point of obsession?

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To understand how social rituals of debasement and humiliation work, there's no better filmic study than THE WHITE RIBBON. People humiliating and shaming one another is the villagers' primary means of interaction. Husbands humiliate wives and mistresses, the aristocracy humiliate the professional class and the peasantry, and most relentlessly, almost all adults, regardless of gender or class, humiliate the children. The worst offenders by far are the men, the fathers, who humiliate their sons and daughters with clinical precision and thoroughness. The composite portrait on offer is a society soaked to its deepest core, through every social relationship, every human interaction, with fear and loathing resulting from shame. It is the fundamental wellspring of social control determining almost every single character's decisive behaviors.

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If you haven't seen Michael Haneke's THE WHITE RIBBON you should. It's amazing. I've never before seen a film so effectively X-ray an entire culture thoroughly permeated and debased by the toxic effects of shame.

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When I began my freelance career in NYC in 1987 I was also getting a pretty good ROI. The investment at that time was hours spent on the phone, scouring pre-internet job boards and magazine listings, and networking, all trying to secure the ROI of paid work. (The amount of pay was another matter. I considered myself lucky to land a job as an AD or AP for $300/week.)

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