help, film-life crisis.

R

RealJasonBourne

Can anyone give me some words of wisdom.

How do you stop yourself from getting overwhelmed and procrastinating? Or feeling too tired to work on something and would rather do something else?

Whenever I think "we should go out to the park and practice" I get thoughts of carrying a bunch of equipment to the car, driving to the park, unloading everything, carrying it and then doing multiple bad takes that drain all your energy.

I waste too much time on youtube and on the internet doing nothing when I could be putting time and effort into planning a short film. (I don't have anything to put in a demo reel and I hate that).

What the hell is going on here man. I know that wasting time doing nothing is just basically putting your life on pause.

Has anyone ever gone through this?
 
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Thanks :)

I know I'll be ready next time because next time I'll make sure we practice every single shot and won't attempt to shoot it until every shot has been mastered.

you're right we should gain more set experience, we have been replying to peoples craigslist ads saying we'll help them with their project for free, the thing is they always take forever to get something set up.

We just came back from the park and even though we're kind of getting the hang of it, its not good enough. I can't stand making shit work anymore so i'm about to go drive back out there in an hour and try again.

It's always the small tweaks that's going to be a pain in the ass to master.
 
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I don't believe in tough love . It's not for everybody.
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Ok, we agree.... Tough love (and filmmaking) isn't for everyone... Gotcha ;)

There are people involved in the business of filmmaking who don't need passion. They don't need to enjoy it. They do what they do because it's their day job. It's their livelihood. It pays legal tender, etc.
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You're right. While this isn't my motto, it's a legit way to live for those who choose.

The scene was re-shot yesterday is now looking like a "movie scene". It still needs tweaking but we're about to go out in about an hour and go film it again and won't stop until it's perfect.
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I'm going through some training at the moment. They call each module "insights" trying to get you to drop the penny to garner that "a-ha" moment. Maybe you just need more "a-ha" moments or need to recruit more like-minded people into your team.

I consider my life to be almost at rock bottom right now
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This is always hard. While this isn't a filmmaking topic, it's very relevant to a lot of filmmakers. Personally my mood swings a lot, so I feel where you're coming from. People usually make significant life changing decisions when their life is going great or they hit rock bottom. Rarely in the middle. Sometimes people need to hit rock bottom to force them to make decisions they need to make in their life.

There are two polar opposite phrases that come to mind for this:
1). If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. (yes horrible English, but you get the point)
2). The story of the miner digging underground who gives up just before he hits the diamond jackpot.

The trick is you have to decide which is best for you. Are you hitting your head against a wall that you'll never overcome, or are you a certain number of steps away from achieving your goals (or the next step in the series of goals). We cannot make that decision for you. It is yours to make and yours alone.

If you want, PM me and I'll point you towards some training I did a while back. It's aimed at two types of people. 1). Those who have hit rock bottom and searching for the tools to find the right direction and 2). People who are already successful and looking to step it up a few gears. When I did it, the whole package was rather costly (5 figures). I don't know how much it'd cost these days, but I'd suggest at least trying the first step (which is cheaper - assuming it's still available)

I wish you the best.
 
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Sweetie said:
Ok, we agree.... Tough love (and filmmaking) isn't for everyone... Gotcha ;)



You're right. While this isn't my motto, it's a legit way to live for those who choose.



I'm going through some training at the moment. They call each module "insights" trying to get you to drop the penny to garner that "a-ha" moment. Maybe you just need more "a-ha" moments or need to recruit more like-minded people into your team.



This is always hard. While this isn't a filmmaking topic, it's very relevant to a lot of filmmakers. Personally my mood swings a lot, so I feel where you're coming from. People usually make significant life changing decisions when their life is going great or they hit rock bottom. Rarely in the middle. Sometimes people need to hit rock bottom to force them to make decisions they need to make in their life.

There are two polar opposite phrases that come to mind for this:
1). If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. (yes horrible English, but you get the point)
2). The story of the miner digging underground who gives up just before he hits the diamond jackpot.

The trick is you have to decide which is best for you. Are you hitting your head against a wall that you'll never overcome, or are you a certain number of steps away from achieving your goals (or the next step in the series of goals). We cannot make that decision for you. It is yours to make and yours alone.

If you want, PM me and I'll point you towards some training I did a while back. It's aimed at two types of people. 1). Those who have hit rock bottom and searching for the tools to find the right direction and 2). People who are already successful and looking to step it up a few gears. When I did it, the whole package was rather costly (5 figures). I don't know how much it'd cost these days, but I'd suggest at least trying the first step (which is cheaper - assuming it's still available)

I wish you the best.
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Thanks a lot. I feel a little better about the film making now than when I made this thread. It's just starting to get to that point where little mistakes are becoming really depressing and frustrating. Matching timing with camera and action, smooth camera movement, etc. I can't accept anything that's not 10/10 anymore. I've wasted the past 5 years trying to get this filmed and.. It's only now that I'm putting the actual work in. I've been to the park everyday for the past 3 or 4 days now and I don't feel like going right now (maybe because the little things are starting to become a pain in the ass to master) but I'm going to force myself to go because i'm so sick of heading no where in life.

Me and my brother are going to be focusing on kids shows because thats what we watched when we grew up (lol). You know what I mean, we didn't watch prison break or all that other stuff. If there's a lack of something in the TV business, its kids shows. I couldn't write dialogue for a serious drama if I wanted to.

I don't have any money to fund another shoot but i'm not worried about that right now. I'm only focused on gaining skill. People are more interested in that anyway right? If you have skill and shoot something good on an Iphone with hardware lights someone will recognize that and pay you to make films right?

I think i'm headed in the right direction right now, just gotta get past the hurdles.
 
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It's also gotten to the point where I've done this scene so much that my expectations are high for the result. I'm starting to think in my head "don't screw up, don't screw up, don't screw up" so there's a lot of pressure.

I need to listen to eminem lose yourself or something because If I dont take this chance now its game over man.

and there really is no reason to not take the chance, the only reasons to not do it are laziness and weakness.
 
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That sounds like fear of failure. I'm not sure how one defeats fear of failure. I remember being taught about what it is, but I don't recall what solutions were suggested to counter it. I am sure that you can't allow it to keep you from trying.

You also seem to be saying that your perfectionism is a hurdle. Don't let it be. I suppose that's easier said than done. While pride in craft, art, or work is awesome, while striving for excellence is desirable, I would say that perfectionism is not. I think of perfectionism as something akin to illness, an unhealthy mental state or behavior. I recommend resisting perfectionism, especially if it's in the way of doing anything.

Instead, make peace with the possibility of failure. Tell yourself it's okay to fail; at least you tried. And of course it's by doing and sometimes failing that we learn and improve. Your film might be less than perfect. But that's okay. And your next films will probably be better.
 
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Well said.

I've got 1 thing to add:
a lot of people seem to mix up perfectionism with procrastination. Or use it as an excuse.
Michealango was a perfectionist: yet every day he went to work on the Sistine Chapel until it was finished.
But that was not his first endeavour as a painter: he had the motivation to turn his talents into skills. He didn't think: "I don't feel like drawing 10,000 clumsy sketches, I'm too perfectionist for that."

Like I said before: you seem to lack positive energy at the moment: go outside, be alive, do physical stuff, do social stuff, live life and get inspired again :)
 
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I'd also add I'd be surprised if Michelangelo didn't look up every time he walked into the Sistine Chapel and see mostly the flaws - flaws that nobody else is even aware of. That's the nature of any artistic endeavor - it's perfect in your head, but it'll never be perfect in the real world. You just have to learn that nobody else is comparing it to your internal vision.
 
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I haven't practiced this scene in 4 days because I have to work night shifts and my schedule was thrown off. I was about to go to sleep right now but i'm just going to force myself to go out right now, im so sick of being a failure.

I agree with you guys. I know other people won't notice the things I consider mistakes but I still don't want to accept them.

We filmed this scene once already when we were less knowledgeable and it actually came out 9/10 by luck. It was more experimenting and less intentional.

Now that we're intentionally trying to recreate what we shot before with better equipment, the bar is set and its tough to match it. I don't want to move on until we match or beat it, so far I'd say its been recreated 7.5/10.

This is going to be a pilot for a kids series on youtube. It needs to be done once and done right.


EDIT: fuuuck... rain season started and its going to be raining all week/month. I'm going to have to switch to indoor scenes now..
 
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RealJasonBourne said:
This is going to be a pilot for a kids series on youtube. It needs to be done once and done right.
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Definitely, that's the problem with youtube... they give you one shot, and if you don't nail it perfectly the first time, you'll never work there again. Someone should really come up with an alternative for those who aren't already total pros where you could upload whatever you have and if it's not perfect you get to keep trying until you get it right. A youtube for the rest of us, so to speak. Ah well, I suppose it's nothing but a pipe dream...
 
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