Day 137: Wake up call

Woke up, went and met a director friend.
We talked about work. He is pretty successful.
So taking pointers from him really helped alot.

He made me realized how much I've been slacking.
I should be developing more content.
I'm a creative person, and I haven't been
using my talent to write. I should write more.
Develop stories. Sitting around waiting for
people to offer me directing gigs just doesn't
cut it.

I want to direct feature as my ultimate goal,
but what have I done to achieve it?

Even if my excuse was that I'm busy with
my graphic novel, I haven't even touched
it for a long time. Even I've promised myself
to work on it after coming back from the rave
as research.

Sigh.

Went to a premiere of a telemovie I developed.
I sold the concept to a production house.
Was semi-disappointed at the outcome.
But guess it was okay, the production house
made it work for the malay community.
I guess that is what important. Selling to the mass.
My hopes for it when I wrote it was an attempt
to rise up the taste of the locals.
Guess, I'll never know if my way works better
or worse. Oh-well, atleast I get a cheque out
of the project. Better than nothing.

Later went to the studio to paint.
Started using oil.
Difficult, but fun. I guess.

Drank some JD and chat with artist friend.

I'm so scared of not making it in Jakarta.
But I guess I have to give it a shot.
Local industry just seem too...
I dunno, not prosperous.

Reflecting the outcome of the telemovie
I helped developed, I really think to myself,
are these the stuff I want to be doing?

With such tight budget, no matter how
good the content is, it'll only go as far
as it can go. Or maybe it'll be different
if I've shot it myself.

I remembered the first episode of a show
I directed. It totally awed everyone of
what I could achieve with such tight
budget and restrictions.

As time goes by, my energy to prove
just gone weaker and weaker. Till I don't
even give a damn and just execute.

I need to build that energy back.

But this time, I gotto strategies where
to burn my energy.

I'll start today by writing concepts again.
Maybe make a personal short film.
My director friend did told me that you
could make tons of money even with
short films just by sending it out to competition.
But ofcourse the first rule of making short films
is not to think of making money.

Back when I first started working in production,
I would watch a movie every night and write.

I got to find back that habit again.

-chinyew