In my junior year of high school, I founded a film club in school with one of my friends out of our passions for filming. I created a mission and motto of our club to indicate our intentions that we strive “to see films aesthetically, and to shape a better world.” My school does not teach film courses, so I was really ambitious in creating this club a place and opportunity for students who are passionate about learning film, media arts, writing critiques of the film, and creating personal projects that have the potential to impact our community. During our first year of launching the film club, only four or five people showed up, and we did not create any final film or media projects. I consider this situation as a failure because I did not achieve the goals that I set for myself and the team at the beginning. 

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We met once a week on Friday, and each time for about an hour. Myself and my co-founder planned for the club to have one week to discuss and learn about editing skills, and the following week to watch films and share critique in a cycle. To track our progress, I recorded our agenda every time we meet. Still, I did not find a way to gather everyone in this small team to work on a project collectively because everyone has different interests and time schedules. I designed a club hoodie, and also maintained a social media for our club to post-film recommendations once a week on Instagram. I tried to take care of everything and listen to what the members wanted to do, but I did not come up with a strategic plan to lead the team forward toward our initial mission. The group went into a different direction than I envision it to be at the beginning. I had a solid drive in conducting film projects and have had experiences in the past of initiating them, but my club members may be less motivated about launching projects and less certain about how to take the next steps.

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Reflecting on the past, I learned that I could not control the club members and force them to achieve my ambitious goals. Instead, I realized that I could engage with the members differently and lead them to initiate their projects in small groups with more freedom and solid personal voices. Instead of being a “dictator,” I can learn to be a leader that flexibly delegate work for the club members and encourage them to seek for their passions and possibilities. I learned to shift my vision and make changes base on my members’ needs during the process.

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In my current senior year, I was aware of this failure and continues to improve the situation. I changed the film club mission into a more approachable one as “we see, we feel, we create” to encourage our members and bond with each with tightness. I am surprised to see how our club grows in size and reaches 14 team members in total. Reminded of the past experiences, I started the first club meeting by asking the club members of their intentions, passions, and goals that they wish to accomplish in the film club actively. I learned to shift my focus towards the members’ voices and create achievable goals for our club step by step as a team. Our club members showed their enthusiasm to carry film projects in small groups recently, and I believe that we will be successful in the future. From this project, I learned that I need to be a smart leader in leading the team collaboratively with smart goals while dreaming big. Even if we are still in the planning stages, I believe that we can create unique artworks that inspire our community and host the first film festival in my school with lessons from the failure in mind.