Why not a look ahead
I thought it might be more fun and interesting to write about 2019 instead of looking back again, after all if one is interesting, there is a dozen of recaps from last year (January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December). But I do want to split this up into different sections.
Basel Stadt
One of the ideas for a personal project I had last year was to take a city map from Basel and walk through every street there is at least once, that way I can honestly say I’ve seen every corner of my hometown. So I took that city map and placed it within a frame and hung that on the wall. Now every time I walk through a street for the first time, I mark that street with a red marker. I will take weekly photos from that map to see the progress I’ve been making over time.
Movie Projects
Last year I had the bold idea of doing 12 movie projects in 2019, one for every month. I’m still committed to this plan and I’m already at work on my short film for January. But I want to refine that idea bit more right now.
Soap Lab
I’m playing around with the idea of making all these upcoming movie projects under a new name. Either A Soap Lab Experiment if it’s more of an experimental thing, or A Soap Lab Production if it’s something more serious. There’s even an idea for A Soap Lab Accident if it’s something really crazy. So right now I’m brainstorming for some sort of Logo for this or intro for all future movie projects.
Reflection
Last weekend I shot and edited all by myself the January movie project called Reflection. I did make some mistakes while shooting (damn auto white balance) and realized while editing what was missing and what needs to be redone or changed. It’s a rather complex short film because of timing and space constriction and the fact that I’m starring and directing at the same time, but I was able to do it all in 4 hours. So I will make some adjustments, plan everything a bit better and reshot everything again very soon.
Story Ideas
While shooting Reflection, I realized that I sometimes I’m having trouble finding new stories to shoot, or I’m too picky about what to shoot. So in order to shoot faster and a lot more stuff, I could reshoot scenes from movies or TV Shows which are doable. That way I learn from professionals by trying to recreate something and I don’t have to worry about coming up with a story (Those would fall under the Soap Lab Experiment Banner) and these videos could be more popular and generate more traffic. Because if Reflection taught me anything, it’s that shooting, editing and releasing a movie project within a day or two is absolutely doable, it’s the whole story part that’s taking up more time.
Now I’m not saying I’m doing anything original anymore but maybe I keep it simple stupid from a story perspective in order to practice the technical elements of making movies.
To Conclude
I plan on releasing at least 12 short movie projects this year, one per month, and they will be experimental, short, crazy and maybe even a bit more sophisticated once in a while, but this year is all about quantity, doing the work and practicing like crazy so that I can focus more quality next year.
SoaPatrickSix?
All these projects need to be highlighted a lot more here and like I previously wrote about it here, I’m not really sure which way to go. Add these features to SoaPatrickFive? Make a new SoaPatrickSix or buy a theme with all the functionality and therefore be able to focus on my movie projects? I’m still not quite sure what the best way to do here is and I think I won’t start doing something until I’m sure what I actually want. Making a completely new theme is tempting though.
Social Media
Making movies is fun and all but if no one is actually watching them then what’s the point, that’s why I need to be more active on social media and promote my work. This starts with being more proactive, making more interesting content and getting people to follow my work. I still think the best way to achieve that is proving to people that I do create new content on a regular basis and people like to get notified when new content is published (in case they like it of course)
So this is it, this is my plan for 2019 and I’m curious what will come to fruition from all those plans. When I look back on my resolution for this place in January 2018 I must admit that I didn’t post daily throughout the year (I did the first 3 months though, which I think is impressive) but I think it helped me to get to where I am now, actually making short films, so it all turned out nicely in the end