Last week was the week from hell. Aside from all the Gone Fishing stuff, I had to take care or an enormous corporate video job, and host one of my gruelling two day masterclasses over the weekend.
The corporate job was ENORMOUS and I enlisted the help of second unit director on Gone Fishing, Simon Cox. Together, we worked away for a week, editing and mastering three films in English, French and German, and in both NTSC and PAL, with the client constantly making changes to all three! We put in 20 hour days for four days in a row… and then I had to do my two day masterclass straight of the back. The class was an incredible event and everyone, including myself, left exhausted but amped up and ready for action…
The only problem for me is that the client on my corporate had changed their mind yet again, and more changes were needed, plus 100 DVD’s! And all by tomorrow morning at 9am for a presentation. So after the gruelling weekend, I then spent the whole night editing and mastering DVD’s, then duplicating. It was hell. Really very painful.
But… it also reminded me of just how hard we can push ourselves. And how often, we don’t push hard enough. In fact, almost all of the time. On this occasion, I was pushing Gone Fishing, my course and the corporate. Usually only one of those would dominate my time, but now I was managing all three. I was amazed at how much I could achieve in a 15 minute coffee break during the seminar – while others stood around chatting, I was beavering away on a DVD and setting off another one hour render… Effectively, how much you can do when you really need to do it with focus and no procrastination. To me, this is one of the real joys or working under pressure.
And I managed it – I did everything I needed for Gone Fishing, the course and I managed to deliver the DVD’s on time… And then I slept for a whole day. Really, it feels like Monday to me but I know it’s Tuesday.
Blimey…
Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
[email protected]
