This morning, I woke up tired - in a good way - after having spent a handful of days with my family. It was my ( and my twinsister's ) birthday, two days ago, and our parents, our siblings and partners, plus two 'little' nephews flew over to check out our new place and surprise us. It was my most memorable birthday in a long, long time.
<brToday it felt like I had to go back to work. Luckily, my work is fun stuff, being an independent filmmaker collaborating with a friend on our own project. Nevertheless, I felt slow today. I felt like taking another day off. In other words: I felt like giving in to resistance. I know, though, from experience, that doing that is exactly what I shouldn't do. It's not doing what I want to do.
So, instead, I decided to reach out to Ted, to ask if he wanted to talk film later that afternoon. I had breakfast twice and went for a little hike. After returning from my hike, I had a small lunch, headed to the cafe for wifi and started skyping with Ted.
Flashback To
Sunday Morning
A Rookie Mistake
That day, I was about to meet my parents - who I hadn't seen in 8 months - as well as my brother and his girlfriend. I was anxious to see them and decided I wanted to look sharp, so I started shaving. The razor was definitely sharp enough. Correction: it wasn't anymore, as my neck didn't like what I did to it. Halfway through the shaving of my beard, something dawned on me:
I am an actor in my own project and my character has a beard.
Oops...
I haven't got the fastest growing facial hear so I am happy that I realized the above before shaving my moustache. I left the bathroom, sporting a moustache. To be honest, I liked the result. A couple of hours later, my twin sister told me I looked 'different' and her partner told me I looked like an actor. Apparently I looked like an actor from a long time ago but I never managed to find out who he meant. Anyhow, I took it as a compliment.
Back to the 'rookie mistake'. I was planning to start filming again, very soon. Ted still needed a shot of me to complete episode 2. I would need to look the same as I did just before I shaved...
It's called 'continuity' and is ( probably ) the cause of many headaches for most filmmakers
Let's Talk Film Again
Today, I got to talk to Ted again, for the first time in a week. After listening to him for about 20 minutes ( he has done some filming and a lot of editing the last week or so ), I got to tell him about my week and the shaving 'accident'. He understood. And - as is usually the case - found a way to work around it. This is one of the reasons why I make movies with Ted and why we are both colleagues and friends. Nothing is a problem, everything a challenge. A puzzle to be solved. We both rock at solving puzzles and love challenges. Improv is our middle name.
I also told Ted that I received a bunch of stuff and furniture from Holland. The last couple of days my living room has gone through a lot of changes. It will be tough to make it look like it looked in the last clip I shot there. That would make reshooting the scene he needed to end episode 2 even tougher, whether my beard looked the same or not.
As mentioned before, we found a way to work around it. To end the episode in a similar but also different way. Who knows, we might actually make the video even better. It wouldn't surprise me.
Ted and I also spoke about how we can slightly change episode 3, that is mainly about my character. Luckily, there's hardly no light needed ( it takes place at night ), so the shadow of my beard will be in the shadows anyway ;>)
Long story short:
I'm back on Steemit and plan to get back to filmmaking very soon. In fact I hope to shoot some footage tomorrow night. If all goes well, I will send a bunch of videos to Ted on Sunday morning. He and I will continue our filmmaking talk that afternoon and I'm sure I will update you all soon after. It's gonna be fun :>)
Viva a criatividade!
P.S. If you have any questions to ask ( about the filmmaking process ), feel free to do so in the comments.
the image above this post is a screenshot from rehearsal footage, where I tested my freshly bought flashlight. Shot with GoPro Hero 5 Black.