Bonus: How to find time to make your film

Surprise! I'm jumping into your podcast feed today with a bonus episode to help you find something we all seem to lose track of – time.

How does any filmmaker or content creator find the hours they need to craft the work they want to make?

Time is precious and everybody runs out of it way too quickly.

So I thought it was time (pun intended) to do a short episode on helping you find more of it so you can continue to produce amazing, impactful films.

Listen now .

To learn more from me,  head to www.MoonshineCommunicationsAcademy.com to find more great content and resources including my free ebook that will help you craft a compelling video story

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hello, fellow creatives. This is actually a little bit of a bonus episode, and I've put it together because we're talking all about the documentary development process or the filmmaking process in this part of the series, and it comes up quite a lot. You know, how do I have time? How am I supposed to find the time to actually make my own project? So this little sneaky episode is to try and encourage you to find some ways to create that time in your schedule so that you can produce your own work. I know when you're early stage career, it can be really tough if you're working for somebody else to then develop your own work on the side. And so what I'm going to share with you may be helpful in getting you started. Now, if you're new to the Moonshine Moonshot series, welcome. I'm your host. My name's Sue Collins, and I've been producing documentaries, films, and videos of all shapes and sizes for yes, well over my gosh, almost two decades. I had to really catch my breath when I worked that out the other day. So my specialist area is impact films, and that means that I produce films that are designed to take an audience from passive viewing to being active participants and get them doing something, getting them involved and being part of a solution. And I think that's a big part of what this little mini episode that I'm putting to you today is about trying to get you doing something about creating your own works. You know, how do you take that little idea in your head and turn it into a fully fledged project that you can release out into the world? Because that is no mean feat. Now, for many early career filmmakers, you're probably working for other people, which means your time's not really your own in your Monday to Friday. Or you might be quite an established filmmaker, but you're wanting to branch out and produce a piece of work of your own and not under the umbrella of somebody else. These are fantastic aspirations. But how do you find time to do that? How do you find time if you're already working for someone else or you have heaps of other commitments? Maybe you've just got little kids, and you know, let's face it, that's a lot of time in your week gone right there. So I want to put this idea to you. If you can set aside one hour a day, every single day of your week to dedicate to working on your project idea, that is seven hours a week. And that is almost a full day of work. So can you imagine if you actually had a full day on your project idea each week? All you need to do is claim one hour per day. So an hour a day is seven hours a week. It's almost a whole workday just broken up across a week. So in the space of a month, you would actually get around 30 hours. And over six months, that's 182 hours. And if you're working roughly a 40-hour week, then 182 hours in six months is actually four and a half full-time work weeks. So if you had four and a half weeks, do you think you could develop your idea to a pitch-ready project? If you set aside just one hour a day, you could find four and a half weeks to work on your idea over the next six months. And you're probably going, yeah, yeah, that's all well and good, but where do I find this hour a day? Well, do you commute to work? Because there might be 30 minutes in the morning and another 30 minutes in the afternoon where you can write or research or ideate. You could find articles and catalogue them to read later or come back to on the weekend when you have more time to dig in from home. Do you go to the gym? You could listen to audiobooks or podcasts on your topic to progress your research. Or could you get up an hour earlier in the morning and carve out that time to work on your idea? Or perhaps if you're a night owl, you could take time after dinner before you turn on the TV to unwind. And if you're rolling your eyes and going, oh, that's hard. I'm so tired at the end of the day to be creative, that just sounds really hard. Or if you're thinking, I don't want to get up early, I need my sleep to stay on point for my day job. I totally get it because every morning I think I should get up and go for a walk and I don't because I just would rather be in bed. And I do understand all of that. But what I have to ask you is this do you really want this? Do you want to make the project, the idea in your mind into a reality? Do you want to be a full-time filmmaker? And if the answer is yes, then getting up early to fulfill your dreams, is it really a chore? Sure, there are other ways and you can keep applying for jobs, you can slowly work your way up. But if you want to develop your own project and do it your way, then you're going to have to find the time to make it happen somewhere, somehow. So I'm just pointing out the possibility that if you can claim back one hour a day to get your project underway, remember one hour a day for six months adds up to four and a half full-time weeks on developing your project. You can achieve a lot in four and a half weeks. So I hope that's planted a seed for you on a little way you might be able to sneak some time into your week to really get some legs into your project and get it going. I'm just talking about development too. I'm just talking about how you can take that little idea in your head and develop it into a proposal that you can take and pitch for funding. So I've been talking all about all those development steps in the series from episode 35 onwards. So you can find some great things you can do in that one hour a day just by listening to the other podcasts, which will hopefully help you on the track to creating your own project. So I hope that little chat has helped. I'd be interested to know what you think. And if you get some success with this one hour a day plan, please let me know and share on comments on Instagram or wherever platform you're on on Moon Shine Communications Academy, because it could really help other people as well, knowing how you've achieved carving out that extra hour per day. Anyway, I look forward to speaking to you. The next episode is all about how to dodge imposter syndrome as a filmmaker. So hit subscribe and I will talk to you next week.