Quarantine Reflections
I woke up unproductive.
It's been almost a year since my last confession. Ha… what I mean is it has been a year since my last blog post. I woke up this morning and just knew today would be a difficult day for me to be productive. From the work out I struggled to finish this morning to not being able to disconnect from my phone and social media, I knew extra emergency measures had to be taken.
The Artists Way to the rescue.
Having done "The Artist Way" they say a great way to help with creative productivity is to do "morning pages," which are essentially 3 full pages of writing any thoughts that are on your brain. The idea is that this will offload whatever worries you have and perhaps help to jumpstart a more positive dialogue within yourself to be creative. Today I am going to reflect on my quarantine experience thus far and celebrate the wins despite the dire situation of the world. Maybe a year from now I'll happen upon this blog again and chuckle at my reflections.
This is literally my Morning Pages for today. So excuse me if this goes off in any random tangents.
I have been running a Facebook Writing group called "Quarantine Chronicles" since the start of quarantine. The point of the group is to encourage creative collaboration. It was inspired by my roommate who started using a little dry erase board in the kitchen to write 1 page of a script and subsequently we would switch off adding to that script. I thought this was such a fun idea that I decided to expand it further into the social media world. I wrote the first page and each page of the script subsequently has been written by a different writer each day. So what's the point?
The point is… we are already on page 52 of this script -- almost HALF A FEATURE. This doesn't even count the days when we slacked and didn't have a writer. We've been in quarantine for 2 months! Crazy! Maybe all of this isolation is finally getting to me.
What has been my focus?
So I guess if I were to summarize my quarantine experience thus far it has been focusing on the following 5 things:
Taking care of myself
Catching up
Staying creative
Staying connected
Staying disciplined
And here is how I have managed to focus on those goals.
Taking Care of Myself
My Body
Every day at least 6 days out of 7, I work out in the morning. I take a walk or run or do a home YouTube work out session (Pamela Reif is the shit. Just don't do it when you're PMSing because she literally never breaks a sweat, while I am dying). This has put me back into better shape and in a better mindset for conquering body image issues. I have followed a relatively strict diet, counting calories, and eating before 8 pm every day and intermittent fasting. Sure, I will occasionally slip because who doesn't love fried chicken, but I have been really strict about it all and am following through. It has been hard work but I have done this consistently from day 1 of quarantine and let's just say I'm pretty damn proud of myself. What I have observed from embarking on this goal is that I have more energy and I look better than before and I feel confident. I cannot wait for when swimming pools open and I can flaunt my improved physique in a bikini. Yay.
My Mind
I have been doing a lot of reading, trying to learn as much as possible. From books about successful people to the whole 30 diet and more. I am constantly feeding my mind. Recently, I have really enjoyed learning about social media marketing strategies and applying what I have learned directly to my online business, Get Reelisms. So much so that my Get Reelisms team had to limit the number of times I would message them on a daily basis about some new marketing eureka moment I had, and regulate my messaging to our weekly meetings, instead. No lie, I was definitely a bit out of control.
I really enjoyed reading Get Wash Your Face.
My Soul
I am feeding my soul with creativity -- writing, editing, innovating with Get Reelisms, and more. For Get Reelisms, we built 2 additional products and my team members have a few other new ideas in the development process as well. We revamped the Funemployment podcast and rebranded it as the Get Reelisms podcast and have been doing weekly live recording sessions on Instagram and Facebook Live. I feed my soul through connecting with other industry professionals through zoom conferences and podcasts. I connect weekly with friends and family via phone calls and Facetime sessions.
CATCHING UP
The next accomplishment has been filling out a lot of paperwork and organizing it all. This doesn't seem like a huge task, but when you are trying to make sense of paperwork from all of your past film productions since 2016, it gets tedious.
I have been wanting to join the DGA since the beginning of last year. But I have also been working non stop. When you work non-stop there is no time to process and organize. Now, there is plenty of time for that. I tracked down paperwork. I reconnected with old producers and directors and I am proud to say that my paperwork is officially on its way to the DGA board for review. Maybe by the time we are actually out of this quarantine, you'll be looking at a DGA eligible 1st AD -- a huge career milestone, considering I started ADing in 2016 -- only took 4 years lol.
There have been several friends' scripts that have been sitting in my queue ready to be read for months and I finally went through ALL OF THEM. I have read and given notes and I feel good that I have finally made do on promises. Yay.
I caught up with cleaning everything! I cleaned my car which had been sitting in months of film production grime. I caught up with organizing my entire closet! I have vacuumed the apartment a million times. Okay, I think there is definitely a pattern. When I deal with stressful factors, i tend to go into hyperdrive workaholic mode.
STAYING CREATIVE
I think what has kept me sane has been focusing on staying creative within the confines of quarantine. I shot an iPhone short film called "Quarantet" for the #cormanchallenge which I normally would not have time for and had a blast. Not only did this only take 1 day of filming and about 2-3 days of post production, we even got top 2 in the Film From Home Film Festival!
I have been in a never ending process of writing, rewriting, and perfecting my feature script, En Route. And have been getting all the ducks in the row to go into production -- even though some days it feels like it will never happen.
I am developing other concepts and treatments and pulling out old scripts that I never had a chance to complete and revisiting them all with fresh eyes and new ideas.
I am testing new marketing campaigns for both Get Reelisms and my own self distributed movies via Instagram through all the learning I have had time to do (I got myself a subscription to StackSkills, if anyone is interested. It is very helpful).
I caught up with editing projects. I finally have done everything that I have put aside because I didn't have time before.
STAYING CONNECTED
Though quarantine has kept me apart from people, it has surprisingly helped to bring me closer to people as well. When I miss someone, I pick up the phone or I FaceTime and Zoom people and have long meaningful conversations. My birthday was a great example of this. I had 2 x 1-2 hour long zoom meetings with groups of friends. My roommate threw me a surprise dinner get together. It was fantastic.
I think during times like these we really understand who we really care to stay connected with and those people provide a connection that cannot be replaced by parties and surfacy social gatherings. These are people that we often forget to connect with when we are busy because we know that they will always be there for us -- our parents, our best friends, our family tend to suffer when we have busy schedules. At least for me it does. One of my favorite things to do is stare at photos of my new nephew, Henry. Isn't he SOOO CUTE. I just can't. I really want to visit him when this COVID stuff dies down.
I really love how so many brands and organizations have been coming up with creative ways to engage their audiences. Film festivals such as Sundance have opened up their educational content for free. I was on a zoom with the steadicam operator Ari Robbins, who operated for LaLaLand!!!! Next week I'll be on a zoom with the camera op for Ozarks! I mean… this is incredible. On top of that artists are doing collaborative projects. I filmed a tiny piece of a music video for a collab music project. I've been on several spur of the moment podcasts and met people from all over! The human spirit is fascinating. We want to stay connected and we find ways to do just that.
STAYING DISCIPLINED
I think the hardest part for people has been to stay disciplined. Luckily, this hasn't been my issue. I self regulate very well. From notebooks full of to-do lists and goals, to apps that track my progress on projects, on money, and whatever you can think of… I probably have.
What I have trouble getting over is feeling bad when I am not productive. Like today. I feel like a total failure just because I was not up and running and accomplishing my to-do list like a boss.
I have a to-do list that I visit before I go to bed and I revisit when I wake up and complete my work out. I have both a to-do list that is written to give me immediate satisfaction when I can physically take a pen and cross out an item, I have a to do list as the screen of my phone, and I have a to-do list on my google drive.
For a little while, I even did a social experiment of tracking the 168 hours in 15 minute increments to see where I was wasting my time. Once I figured out where my idle time was, I worked to improve it. I am obsessed with efficiency -- probably why I am a 1st AD.
So there has been a lot of positives, but despite them sometimes I just want to complain. So here goes.
I am really tired of being in quarantine. I really miss being on a film set. I really miss working at a coffee shop or driving to my friends houses and hanging out with them. I miss going to the pool or coming and going as I please. I miss sitting in restaurants or people watching. I miss luxuries like going to get a pedicure or going to shop at the grocery store leisurely.
And now that I have complained and gotten it all out… I will continue to quarantine some more because the world needs it and our medical staff appreciates it. And honestly, there have been a lot of positives too from this great pause.