Find The Reason…
Step Away From The Computer
So, I was in post-production with one of my producers the other day. It was about 4:30pm and we had been working since about 6am. Seeing that we were nowhere near where we needed to be to stay on deadline for the day, I knew we were going to be there another 3 to 4 hours. It was going to be a long day and normally that would be okay, but for some reason we were all in “Zombie Mode”.
“Zombie Mode” is the physical state that you get into when you are no longer being creative, you are just cranking away, aimlessly, looking for that stopping point. We were not enjoying the moment and were even questioning the creative direction we were taking on the project we were working on. This was not good for many reasons, one of which is we had a tight deadline. I needed to get everyone excited again.
Looking for some relief, I went over to our post-production audio sweet to basically see if there was anything I could show our team that was nearing completion. And as anyone in this business knows, audio is the icing on the cake…it is what can make or break a project no matter how good the writing is, or the footage is. Luckily, I was able to see the beginning of the show we were working on.
After seeing and hearing the updated open to the show in the audio suite, I jogged back down to the edit suites, grabbed my two producers and brought them back down to see some of the fruits of their labor. What a refreshing feeling for everyone. We all stopped, looked at each other, grinned from ear to ear and asked to see it several more times.
My point in telling this story is that sometimes, you need to stop what you are doing…especially when things are “zombie like”, when you are feeling down or you are feeling unfocused. Take a moment to breathe. Take a moment to step back, take a look at the scenery and enjoy a moment. You’ll find out that everything really is okay!
There is a cycle of things that operates behind the curtain. It is always moving and is eternal.I often defer to the old adage, “Don’t sweat the small stuff, because it’s all small stuff.”
Totally agree Terry. As obvious as it sounds, we need to be constantly reminded.