One of the biggest obstacles I have in being a filmmaker is finding or making the time to do the things that I want to do. Prior to the job that I have now I would have to get up early to drive an hour to work and after working anywhere from 5-9 hours I would drive an hour back home. Sometimes I would work four days in a row, other times eight. It put a real damper on my creative time and wasn’t flexible at all.
Initially when I was hired I was told that I would have time to continue to work in theater as a stage manager and such, this was a lie. My work demanded a lot of my time with little benefits and eventually not even enough to pay the bills. So I got a new job. Is it better? Kind of. Now I usually work fewer days however the hours are longer and I find myself coming home and have such a lack of motivation to where all I want to do is sleep.
So how do I get around this?
Initially I did nothing about it. However I did leave my days off to work solely on what I wanted. Mainly going to the library to get things done. I also had the flexibility to finally get back into theater as well. However that begin to take up a lot of time and I lost focus of building up myself as a filmmaker in the process.
This is where the catch-22 comes in: I needed time to build myself as a writer and a filmmaker working on projects BUT I also need to pay my bills.
A lot of times I would have to choose between a project OR not making enough money to pay a bills and my numerous student loans. There are many projects out there but not a lot that pays or pays enough as it were. With the down turn of our economy prominent positions are hard to come by and competition is high.
So like many other loan laden college grads out there I find myself struggling between my dreams and reality. Are there enough energy drinks out there to keep me awake to work after a long shift? Can I afford to skip a day of work in hopes of getting my name on a big project? Should I branch out and try to leave the old job behind? Or maybe I should figure out a way to turn back time so I wouldn’t have student loans in the first place?
If you got an answer I’d love to hear it. But I will continue to work the grind and look forward to the day when I don’t have to choose one or the other but instead I can have both.
The Me Year 