reFilM Day 2: How it works, today’s tip, and yesterday’s update
This is a 100-day journal on remote filmmaking and production. For the full list of journals, see this page:
Today’s tip:
Try to work standing up and avoid sitting for long periods. Today, I made myself a mini-standing desk at home. It’s not ideal, but works. Plus, when you’re standing up, the legs hurt a bit, which makes me keep my activity to just the task at hand and not browse my time away, which is so easy when you’re on your ass!
It seems if you sit for over an hour or so, blood clots are created in your legs that move up to the heart and brain areas, creating potential problems. If you have to work sitting, take a break every 30 minutes. Use a timer in your browser or whatever way. I’m fond of the Pomodoro technique, so I use it for a short walk and eye exercises (I try, but I skip this often, my bad). The technique involves work for a stretch of 25 minutes without distractions, take a 5-minute break, work for the next 25 minutes, and so on. Gives me a mini-deadline and gets work done, better than any other method I’ve tried so far.
Mikey in the mind
We all have our Mikey, the guy inside our head whose voice we hear all the time while s/he is trying to be reasonable and rationalize our situations, giving excuses that are too comfortable for our own sake often.
Mikey was already making Top 10 Reasons Why Remote Filmmaking Won’t Work, and that Day 2 is a great day to quit, while no one has read our Day 1 journal. When I woke up this morning, I didn’t know what do we do today, our Day 2 is a Sunday, and a day after the hectic festival of Lord Ganesha Chathurthi.
That’s when I thought — I started this thing on the day when I asked Lord Ganesha to remove all obstacles. He is the Indian God who is an expert at it. How dare I quit already? Not today.
How it works
Meanwhile, I am making a few slides about the remote filmmaking, if I ever need to explain it some big shot. Here are the first few slides — hope they are self-explanatory. More slides later.
Time wasters
I watched TV today— Bandish Bandits on Amazon Prime. It’s a sweet watch for me as I dig musical stories (K Vishwanath of Telugu, Ashique 1/2, Almost Famous, Rockstar, and many others). It’s a drag in the middle episodes, predictable, yet watchable due to the excellent cast and Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s music.
Yup, I should add TV to the list of things to avoid including the Chrome browser and the phone. They just suck time out of your day.
Yesterday’s update:
- Began this journal.
- Spoke to a couple of folks and told them this idea. The response was positive.
- I discussed a few casting ideas with my wife and she likes them. But they are well-established actors. Why would they want to join this project? How much would they expect as remuneration? At this point, we need to either seek funding from sponsors, make cast and crew as partners, self-fund the project, or think of something else.
See you tomorrow and take very good care of yourself!
