Like many other freelancers and independent contractors in the arts, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to idle at home while the industry crawls to a slow and measured reboot. Despite the uncertainty of when or how the industry will get back to normal, there are a number of ways that creatives can stay focused and positive while still building toward the road ahead.
Learning New Skills
As a cinematography teacher myself, I’m always going to be an advocate for learning whenever you can, whether it’s in the field you work in or something outside your usual discipline. I’ve seen a large amount of people start taking up editing and visual effects, an easy way to occupy your time at home.
I have a handful of friends who’ve started dabbling in Cine Tracer, a real-time cinematography pre-visualization tool. I recently overhauled my home workstation, mostly to retool an aging system, but with an eye toward being able to accommodate powerful tools like Cine Tracer in the future.
I’ve taken this time to continue advancing my knowledge in lighting and on-set management, absorbing as many workshops and podcasts as I can. I’ve also become a mean cook and an avid cyclist, something I’ve become fond of solely to squeeze in a podcast and a workout at the same time!
Creating Content with Available Resources
Recently, one of my former students posted a story on Instagram of an experimental video she had made with her phone and a couple of house lamps. No fancy camera or lighting equipment, just using the resources she had available to her.
As we begin to negotiate what film shoots look like during a pandemic, I look at an example like this as something that ought to be a source of inspiration to a lot of us.
We cannot and should not wait for clients and producers to come calling. There’s really no better time than now to be producing our own work, making the visuals and creating the stories we want to tell, with the equipment and the resources that we have available to us. What better way to challenge our own creativity than by coming up with a compelling story or an amazing set of visuals using just what we have around us?
I’ve often held the belief that your most genuine work happens when no one’s watching you. No outside pressures or influences, just your intuitions, your tastes, and a camera. I’m genuinely intrigued by the work that people will be creating during and after this pandemic.
Connecting, and Disconnecting
Being forced to take time off opened my eyes, and hopefully many others’ eyes, to the reality of the toll that is paid from grinding away at the work. The quality of work certainly suffers, but so does the quality of the connections to the people around us and the connection to ourselves.
Nothing has a bigger influence on the work we create than the life we experience around us, and those we experience it with.
In a time of social distancing and staying at home, we ought to be making even more of an effort to stay in touch with our friends and family, the people who matter most in our lives. Interestingly enough, we’re more equipped now than ever before to stay connected to other people through video calling and social media. So it can be as simple as a quick text, a brief call on FaceTime just to say hello, or a response to a story on social media that can quickly turn into a days long conversation.
We also have to take this time for ourselves. Mentally, physically, and creatively recharging; these are all things that time gives back to us that we shouldn’t have to take for granted. When the jobs come back in full, I hope we all remember what this time to ourselves has given us and how valuable it is to fuel our work and our lives.
Despite all that’s happening in the world around us, there’s still so much you can do to stay focused, plan ahead, and stay connected with others and yourself. We’re learning more about ourselves than we ever thought we would this year, and I think that’s a really good thing.
Onwards, upwards.
Written by Ben Enke | Director of Photography