........So I don't really have anything to show them.........
We've been telling you for years now:
make short things.
Make fast, learn fast, improve faster... Be taken seriously faster...
But no.
You had to embark on a big short in an attempt to shortcut to a feature ("within 2 years").
Instead you haven't finished anything, because you are stubbornly waiting for the 'make cool movie-plugin' that will fix your first short in 1 click. It will not happen.
Just finish it. Learn from it.
Look what you could have done differently and look what you will do differently in the future.
All the things that went wrong in your first project: you could have done it wrong in a smaller one as well.
You don't need large projects to fail and learn.
You could have failed with far less effort and learned more, because you could have done more projects in the same time.
Now you can say on your resume:
"I've been busy in filmmaking for over 2 years. Nothing is really finished yet and what I can show you, will scare you away."
Sometimes I think, you can not think and make decisions on your own.
Do you buy your own underwear?
And if you decide it's often a strange decision or a wrong one or based on a black and white perception of the universe.
Think creatively!
There are shades of grey* between all the things you read about filmmaking.
Think creative in everything: in how you find locations (I've used my livingroom as 3 different locations in 1 project), in how you tell stories, in how you can suggest things, in how you can bypass production problems by rewriting, in how you can work within your limitations.
And most of all: learn to use google.
'How to write a resume' is a good way to find information about it. That way you don't have to wait for any of us and you don't look stupid.
Don't forget: try to learn to apply logic.
Logic will get you pretty far.
There is one downside: You need to understand certain things to reason logically.
And now you will reply:
"Ok, thanks... blablabla" and do nothing about it.
*) Far more than 50