Film making: Integrity and protecting yourself

This has nothing to do with current film Demonica that I am working on 

Its interesting and a learning experience to see who supports you in your film making and passions, who takes you seriously, and who pretty much disregard you in any and every way and yet they feel you need to support them and at times bow down to their dreams.  Its also very interesting the backstabbing and lack of integrity that goes on in the industry after people say they will do something regardless of verbal of or written contract.  I have been raised where integrity is key in life, and unfortunately I like to believe i can trust people on their word but mainly you find, while you can trust a few, people who don't have integrity in the first place or able to think for themselves will use you and lead you along for their benefit and their ego, to make themselves look good and professional until you wise up and realize the time, career and talent, were just being used.  This is often the case for eager and inexperienced individuals who wish to break in only to find dreams broken by people to careless to really care about the person from the beginning.

When you have this self awakening its often discouraging and heartbreaking and you just want to give up.  Move on find 5 to 10 people you can really trust and move forward with them as your support circle and team.  You may feel you are starting from the ground up, obviously you never had the foundation you thought you did. While this can be a cutthroat dishonest industry, there are the genuine players and for those who don't play nice, file it away in your professional mental toolbox, and remember it when they come to you later and decide how you want to handle it professionally. As a beginning or even experienced industry professional research the people you are going to team up with and find out their successes and failures, while people may have opinions or comments and sometimes what to destroy someone, be smart to follow your gut and really weigh what people say good and bad and form your decisions. There is usually some truth behind what people say.  As you gain experience, watch with a keen eye business dealing and be smart before you enter into verbal or contractual agreements.  I recommend having contracts for everything from conception of any project with someone who agrees to work with.  Insist and protect yourself while not allowing in one to shiest you. If people can not live by or honor your reasonable request in a timely matter that should be your golden ticket that something is wrong.

Keep putting yourself out there for every 100 no there is 1 yes.  Have faith, and keep putting yourself out there, do not give up on your dream as your break will co