Thursday, December 31, 2015

Productivity in 2015

So with the year coming to an end, I'd like to take a look back at what 2015 had to offer, and what I look to accomplish in the year coming up. It's been a pretty productive year for me, one my most productive yet actually. After having spent the past couple years focused mostly on my novel writing pursuits, I decided that I had been neglecting my filmmaking aspirations for far long enough, and so proceeded to shift focus onto that for the majority of the year.

There have been ups and downs, but to jump straight to the positives, I filmed and released two new short films this year, which I'm just ecstatic about. Dream Girl was a bit of a smaller, more scaled back project, but a nice way to segue back into the filmmaking groove, and we managed to pull it off all the same, putting together and nice solid little film. And it received a generally positive reaction all around, which I was very pleased by.

And Breathe was a bit more of an experimental work, which I used as a means to test myself as a filmmaker, and which released to a more mixed reaction as a result. But even so, I was still personally satisfied with how it turned out in the end, and found the experience working alongside my cast and crew to be an absolute delight.

And these experiences have lead to other projects that have lined up, some of which have panned out, and some not so much. But of those that came through, working on the stage production Splintered Judgement turned out to be quite a rewarding new experience for me, and really tested me as an actor. And, again, working on this play introduced me to a whole lot of great people who I hope to continue to work with moving forward.

I did allude that not quite everything went smoothly, however. For instance, at the beginning of the year, I had a job that restricted my availability to really work on a lot of these projects, which proved to be a real hurdle, and it still bothers me thinking back on just how much I missed out on throughout the first half of the year as a result. But I've since found a new, much better job, one that's got a lot more flexibility with their scheduling, and is a relatively stress-free work environment, giving me plenty of time and peace of mind to work on these various projects of mine, which is definitely a far more ideal situation. And, well, some other collaborative projects may have just fallen by the wayside, for one reason or another, but I've decided to just keep focused on my own thing in the meantime, and so far, it's worked out pretty well for me.

Since the conclusion of Breathe, I've been hard at work writing again, and have actually completed the screenplay for my first feature length film. And trust me when I tell you that this one's going to be to die for! But we've now entered into pre-production, and intend to move forward with the project going into the new year. And in the meantime, I've also worked out a lot of the kinks in one of my older script ideas I've been working on in an on and off fashion over the past few years, and for the first time really, it finally feels like it's starting to all come together and actually work, which I'm very pleased by.

So I'm happy with my efforts in the past year, working more and more towards this goal of mine, and I look to continue those filmmaking pursuits in full force going into 2016. But that's not to say that I've abandoned novel writing altogether. I also completed a final outline for the third book in The Ninja Kat series, The Masquerade, with intent to move forward writing the actual narrative next year as well. Believe me, I'm feeling the itch to return to the Velcro world once more, so it won't be too much longer now before we all feel that sweet relief!

So yeah, looking back at all of that, it's actually kind of hard to believe all that happened in only a year. See, I don't just spend all my free time watching every single movie that comes out! Though, working on these various projects of mine has effected my blogging activity a bit, though really, what I've been working on lately is far more important than yet another review for the latest new movie. But it's been a pretty decent year, I must say. I met a lot of great people, made a lot of new friends, and got a lot done towards working on my bigger goals. So that's all I've got for now, and hopefully it was a good year for all of you as well! And here's to yet another solid productive year to come!

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