Sometimes you don’t even realize that the way you are operating is actually making things more of a challenge than they need to be.
The short films that I’ve been producing with my buddy through our production company have been going great. We’ve got no budget but we have some equipment and the drive to make some cool stuff.
Yesterday some footage got shot with our camera during the day on a beach and it looked great! The sunlight made everything look incredibly crisp and it was very impressive.
I then realized that a majority of our projects had been shot either at night or in a poorly lit room, and while they look good… they don’t look quite as sharp as these images.
One of the major elements of equipment that we don’t really have access to is good lights, so we improvise and use lamps. This is usually a challenge, non-professional lamps don’t quite give off enough light and can’t be directed as well as professional setups.
We’ve managed to make it work so far, but it’s been a headache sometimes, and I’m realizing this could all be circumnavigated by avoiding the whole conflict.
If we shot during the day, we wouldn’t really have to worry about light, not really. And then we could always achieve that level of sharpness that we’re looking for.
It’s silly because it seems that we aligned exactly with the one thing that could cause problems. It’s sort of that “Don’t think about a pink elephant” type of thing.
Anyway, try and recognize how you’re making things more difficult for yourself. The absentminded self-sabotage.