The art of sleep deprevation.

[Chris Bové]

You know when you have an edit with a client, and on the first day of the edit it’s the “Big Guy” accompanied by his assistant… then for the rest of the edit until the 2nd last day your working solely with the assistant? Well, turn that idea against ’em.

Although it can’t really be done at my day job, I’ve learned to have an assistant editor for nearly all my freelance gigs – even if it’s just an intern that knows how to digitize and organize. Recently, the idea of killing my creative hours by staring at the 16th take of the 37th scene as it’s being digitized is only something I’ll do on the really big projects. I’ll coordinate the entire edit and simply include my A.E. in the initial negotiations, and as part of the estimate. It’s stopped me from syncing audio, and that’s what’s important to me right now. As long as the A.E. has my needs jotted down ahead of time, I’m good. (And I make sure that he/she goes through the process of hand-writing my needs. It commits their importance to memory better.)

One client in particular has grown to use me exclusively because I let him pick the A.E. from his pool of upstarts, knowing that I’ll get paid to fix his/her organizational mistakes. I dunno, for some reason he thinks that’s the coolest thing. Whatever. Sorting out poorly organized clips takes much less time than doing the whole process myself.

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/-o-o-\
\`(=)`/…Pixel Monkey
`(___)

[Charley King]

Guys, Be careful, reading this thread has brought back memories of why I burned out after about 35 years in the business. I was totally unable to work, or even think clearly for almost 3 years. People talk about creative burnout, but the hours you get into working leads to total burnout, which I feel you never totally overcome. I still have moments of brilliance, but I don’t have the creative endurance I once had.

Heed my warning, give youself time to breathe ocassionally. Get away, forget the creative world exists. Turn off all creative thinking and enjoy the flowers.

Charlie

[Mark]

Charlie,

Even though I work a lot, my kids provide a great way of getting away. I love spending time with my family and make sure that they always come first.

I really enjoy the extra work I do at my home business. There is something soothing about editing in pyjamas…..It can get tiring, but it is also something completely different than my dayjob, thus I find it less tiring. The one big thing that I lack is sleep. On the weekends I try to catch up, as sometimes during the week I get slightly dizzy spells, probably due to lack of sleep.

Overall, I feel pretty good. I think that helathy eating definately helps. Also getting fresh air whenever possible.

I’m going to be a t my first NAB next month. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to meet you.

Mark

[Alister Robbie]

Since I started this thread about a week or so ago, I have managed to get my working schedule sorted out a bit better. I still do all nighters with the digitising, but have a big couch and a pillow to catch some shuteye between tape changes. Any pre-cutting I do for the senior editor, I get done before midnight so that I am on the ball and focussed, and do it properly.
If I am doing a late night, then I try to book a late start for the morning or take the following day off completely. This doesn’t always work out, but already this week, there has been an improvement.

I have also decided to schedule my fiance in as though she is a client. This may seem a bit weird, but it means that I am making definite plans to spend time with her instead of letting work spiral out of control, and not seeing her at all. She turns up in my calender along with all of my other clients. This has worked really well in terms of keeping my relationship, and my clients seem to respect it too.

Cheers

Al

[Charley King]

[mark harvey] “I’m going to be a t my first NAB next month. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to meet you.”

You better, or I’ll never answer a thread you are in again. Ask Boomer or Mrs Boomer for my number. Tell em I said you could have it. Supposedly gonna meet Nick Griffin real soon and looking forward to that.

See ya at NAB
Charlie

[Mark]

Charlie,

Just got your number, the message also included your e-mail, so I will go ahead and shoot my number off to you.

Mark

[Alan E. bell]

My recommendation would be to do only one job at a time. It’s hard enough to do that so why make it difficult on yourself. Frankly I wouldn’t even consider highering an assistant that had a second job it’s just too much.

Regards
Alan Bell

[Alister Robbie]

Hi Alan,

I appreciate your point, but with this particular assistants job, I face the issue of basic economics. This assistants job is only 2 nights a week, and certainly not enough to provide a reasonable wage. Trying to get other jobs that are also at night, and compliment this job is extremely difficult, so necessity dictates that I work on other projects during both my on and off days. I would love to be working fulltime on this project, but the need is not there.

I appreciate that on a larger tv project or feature film, that an assistants role would be closer to 5 full days a week (or more). If this were the case, I would not consider taking other work, but at only 2 nights per week, I really need to keep other projects happening in order to both pay my rent, and further develop my career.

Cheers

Alister