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How’s business right now? (Also, what and where?) And how are YOU doing?
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I’ve been reluctant to post here, not because I am scared of facing the reality. I have read and was clued in early to the virus, the exponential nature of contagions, and the impact it was going to have. I know, not from an educated perspective but a ground work perspective, that people take a long time to come around to facts and shun the creeper fear of reality as a defense mechanism. That is to say, what is happening right now isn’t a total shock. Most of us can’t deal with a looming and exponential threat because the threat of slowing down at all means certain death, so why stop now?
What is a shock is that I feel like all of this could have been somewhat mitigated. I mean, yes, there has been death with more death coming. Certainly there is a LOT more sickness coming. But for most people, they will survive, despite this being a global pandemic. I understand that this will pass one way or another.
But damn, there is no circuit breaker. There is no backup. You can assign whatever politicking or political agenda or human being to this. This is all a fail.
And personally, I guess, I have been lucky enough to have business through 9/11 and 2008 and all of the ups and downs. Sometimes there wasn’t a lot of business, but enough to get through.
There is nothing out there at the moment. Everything we did have on the books has cancelled, and the few ongoing gigs have already been paid in ‘19. I’m not sure what’s next. The impending US election doesn’t feel like enough. The talk of sending $1000 checks immediately to US citizens doesn’t seem like enough. The administration in charge is just straight up f*cking lying. Working harder isn’t going to do anything at this moment. Said another way, I do not think I will be able to work myself out of this moment, at least not in a way that I am used to working.
My son’s school district is shut down for at least the next 30 days, and I imagine it will probably be the rest of the school year. I have been working with him to keep his schooling going as much as possible (2nd grade). His district pulled together a lot resources very quickly, for which I am thankful. So far, he’s doing a good job of it, and it’s pretty amazing to watch. He is working really hard at it, so therefore I am trying my best to help him to keep working hard at it. It’s the only work I have right now, so why stop now?
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There is a secure online service which has been around for quite a few years – VSee has all the privacy credentials. The requirements in the US I think have just been reduced for the moment to allow Skype and Zoom calls as well. As well as editing I also work as a hypnotist and have been seeing clients online for years. The Scottish Highlands also started using telemedicine several years ago.
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Thanks so much for sharing this, Jeremy! Man, I’m sorry things are so brutal for you. You’re definitely not alone, though. I’m hearing from folks saying the same thing, including not being especially psyched to talk about this in a public forum.
[Jeremy Garchow] “There is nothing out there at the moment. Everything we did have on the books has cancelled, and the few ongoing gigs have already been paid in ‘19. I’m not sure what’s next. “
[Jeremy Garchow] “Working harder isn’t going to do anything at this moment. Said another way, I do not think I will be able to work myself out of this moment, at least not in a way that I am used to working.”
[Jeremy Garchow] “My son’s school district is shut down for at least the next 30 days, and I imagine it will probably be the rest of the school year. I have been working with him to keep his schooling going as much as possible (2nd grade). His district pulled together a lot resources very quickly, for which I am thankful. So far, he’s doing a good job of it, and it’s pretty amazing to watch. He is working really hard at it, so therefore I am trying my best to help him to keep working hard at it. It’s the only work I have right now, so why stop now?”
I broke out these three quotes in particular because I know that they speak directly to a reality that a lot of people are going through. It’s not a matter of will. The work isn’t there for now, and nobody anywhere has any kind of idea when it might be again.
I also know that as much as people love their kids, not many school districts or parents really had any plans for something that might stretch on as this looks like it might. I can’t imagine how much more difficult it is for the millions of families who have also been relying on schools for food. The School Nutrition Association says that more two-thirds of the 31 million students who regularly eat school lunches, or 22 million, have that free or reduced-price meal as their main source of nutrition for the day. We have the resources to keep feeding those kids, but there are very narrow legal limits to what’s allowed to offer to kids who aren’t actually in class. (More about this Catch-22 here.)
With a gentle reminder that we can’t have the forums spin into directly political conversation, I definitely agree that there are wide swaths of trouble that feel too big for politics to solve, certainly with any of the currently available tools — and they’re pretty much ALL tools. LOL (Sorry.)
[Tom Sefton] “Look after your family, your friends and your elderly neighbours. Stay healthy, stay sharp and then when this is over, wreak your absolute f***king last on doing your job in the best way possible FOR THE LEAST AMOUNT OF TIME you can.”
Tom, this times a MILLION.
Here’s the thing about edgelord discourse about how cool it is to be relentless. There are 350,000 members in the COW. Ten million people pass through here a year, and I’ll bet you a real pony that maybe six of them have the least interest in working normal hours. (Six people, not six million.) There are whole careers that are famous for short, regular hours — they don’t call ’em “bankers hours” for nothing.
None of that has anything to do with why Creative COW is still here 25 years later. If we were counting on normies to pay the bills, we’d have been gone long ago. Heck, we never would have started! Every even halfway creative person is DRIVEN.
Sometimes it feels like we’re driven to work like demons by actual demons, because sometimes they ARE demons, and anybody who’s read much about angels knows that they’re not much better. Demons used to BE angels. Same dudes, different uniforms.
That’s why being driven isn’t special in this industry. It’s not unique, and it’s not hard core. It’s certainly nothing to brag about. Relentlessness is as common as dirt in these parts. It’s the cost of admission. It’s the bare minimum.
To the issues that Jeremy raises, and what hundreds of thousands of people in the world’s production capital cities are experiencing, we’re facing a condition where relentlessness is a force that can’t be applied, because there’s nothing to apply it to. The existence of production jobs right now is a binary. Used to be there, now gone until they’re back.
What I categorically reject is that there’s a binary choice between hyperdrive and empathy, between wanting to grind your competitors into dust and deep connection to the larger human community.
Looking out for elders is certainly part of it, but I want to observe again that the most frequent underlying conditions in people who are dying of coronavirus aren’t necessarily age, but high blood pressure (found in a whopping 75% of victims, twice as much as for diabetes, three times as much as for cancer) and being male (twice as likely to die as women).
I don’t have any way of knowing about high blood pressure in our community, but i know that just over half the folks who come to the COW are male, and I’m willing to bet that the incidence of hypertension is at least a little higher than average. So maybe more than for most careers, it’s true for US that the lives we save by not being jackasses may be our own. No point in winning if you’re not alive to enjoy it.
And really, even if you’re nuts enough to think this job is worth dying for, you’re just plain wrong if you think it’s worth killing for. Stay home for as long as it takes. Don’t be the reason somebody’s parents or grandparents die.
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I’m from the other side of the world – India.
We began our isolation/lockdown thing early in the game. when the count was under 5. Just 3 weeks ago. And now its crossed 200.
We stopped shaking hands for a month now. Most of us are used to folded hands ‘namaste’ anyway. We used to eat food with hands, but we stopped that. We rarely used hand sanitiser, but now we do, many times a day. We aren’t natural ‘huggers’, but we are crowded enough to be close to each other in large numbers.
On Mar 01 we had 6 cases, on the 10th, 65, and today 223. Some say the number is low because there haven’t been enough tests. But we have been quarantining and interaction tracking overseas visitors for nearly a month now. From tomorrow, all international flights will cease for a week.
As fas is our industry is concerned, we stopped all shoots on the 14th Mar. And edits will be moved to WFH (work from home) from today. Or stopped altogether for those who have to work out of a facility. All stores, malls, cinemas are shut for about a week now, and offices and other establishments will be shut down from tomorrow till the 31st March.
On Sunday we have the largest ever lockdown from 7am to 9pm as the Government tries to ‘break the chain’ by isolating the world’s second largest population of 1.33 billion people for over 12 hours. Everything has been asked to be voluntarily shut an everybody indoors. Its called the ‘People’s Curfew’. If it works, we will probably repeated for a few days.
And on Sunday at 5pm, we are supposed to stand by our windows/balconies, and clap, beat a vessel or a drum, play a musical instrument, anything we feel like, as a show of appreciation for the countless health workers, airport security personnel, quarantine facility workers, Army, Police, everyone who are out there, so that we stay safe and healthy.
Depends on the response, this is likely to be the worlds largest creation of human noise.For most of the editors I know, these days are an opportunity to catch up with family since most of us have a neglected family life. For others, its a good time to upgrade skills. Try out Fairlight, give FCP X another look, check out Fusion, or if your an FCP X head, then try out Avid, or Resolve.
Editors are used to being confined long hours in one room, so most are approaching it as “How hard can it be?” We’ll soon find out I guess. Its one day at a time.
I hope you guys stay safe and healthy.
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Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India -
Most of my work is corporate and events, 100% of the events work has gone away. Fortunately I have a few corporate Vlog and online training edits for the next month or so but beyond that who knows?
I started an online subscription channel a few weeks ago for my “hobby” business (Aviation and airshow films) so the free time is going to enable me to spend much more time working on that.
The next big problem for everyone might be the internet “slowdown” gets to a critical point where uploading and downloading video becomes a real issue. We’re into uncharted territory here!
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Since the majority of my work is sports, it’s not looking very good at the moment. I’ve been through major league strikes and lockouts in the past but there were always other events to fill in the gaps. This is a completely different level.
Some of the networks have paid us for some canceled events which was unexpected and much appreciated.
Ironically just a few weeks ago I was speaking at Drexel University and traveling through South Carolina with my little X made documentary. A much needed source that has helped fill in the cracks a bit.
Some tiny little film that I made to help others and is now there for me. Luck, fate, something higher, or whatever one wants to call it.
I walked across the land of Redcliffe Plantation as a free African American and imagined what those who came there before me would have thought had they met me.
I had incredible experiences that would have all been missed had they been scheduled now. I try not to ever take anything for granted in life.
Cherish what is in front of you in that moment.
Be well
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Love the positive post Tony!
And another positive is Netflix quickly establishing a $100 million dollar fund for creatives:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tmprods
tallmanproductions.net -
The last 20 years for me have been script > shoot > edit > repeat. This has got a pause for now. Time to redo my website https://www.santanu.biz. Learned some HTML online and put it all together. For long Google was complaining that my website was not responsive therefore my inquiries were dwindling rapidly. Hope all ends well for the world.
Santanu Productions, Mumbai
The Swiss Army Knife for All Your Creative Needs -
Tim, I guess that I’m really f….d, 85 years old ! I’m cutting a complicated doc at home, Media 100 of course and want to get it done before I die. Mind you, I’m pretty fit, two hard gym sessions a week for thirty plus years bu, as you say, the odds are against me. See isolating but for how long, this darn thing is going to go on for ever it seems, at least until we get a vaccine, and then there’ll be a scramble for it. Never mind, the art is the thing.
Michael Slowe
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well, I agree with you 100% Mr. Slowe, but I don’t think that Creative Cow management appreciates my controversial opinion, so I am being reserved. I am responding because you said “never mind, the art is the thing”.
If there is no TV production, no new films, no new documentaries, no new live or recorded music, no live performances of music, dance, etc. – no sports, no public interaction, no conventions, no bars, no restaurants, no theme parks, etc, etc. BUT WE ARE ALL STILL ALIVE – then who cares anyway.If we ever get out of this situation, there is one thing I have learned about all “the new stuff”, like 3D, HDR, etc. Remote access, remote editing, remote production will without question (in my opinion) become the hot “new thing” – and will completely take off. Of course, we are all at the mercy of the Internet Service Providers (who are not financially suffering during this time period).
Bob
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com
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