Ok… so while I know many of you are really excited to find out what new craziness is happening next in my own little world, I thought I might take a little time and give you an idea of what it is that I do every day. Now, bear with me here as I’ll do my best to abbreviate so as not to make this a novel, but here’s just an example of what I did yesterday: I generally get up a bit later in the day, usually around 9am-10am(ish) (keeping in mind how late I work… read on), most days the first thing I do is sit-down at my computer in my home-office and spend the better part of 2 hours replying to just the most important of the e-mails I get, keeping in mind that much of the work I do is done long-distance, since I live in Ohio and work with industries based for the most part on the West Coast. Anyways… e-mails, I generally get anywhere between 40 and 70 “important” e-mails in a day (this does not include spam… these are e-mails that are from people I work with, or about projects/productions I’m actively working on… most need to be replied to immediately). So, I get through as many as I can each morning and forward the ones I’m able to on to other people who work with me (like my colleagues at my production company, my manager, producers of the various projects I’m working on, or other asst directors for the film festival) to take care of since I simply don’t have the time to respond to every one (that alone would easily take my whole day, every day, right there). After e-mails I generally focus on getting ready for the day, eat, shower and all that… so that by around 11:30am I’m set to role with whatever comes my way (I pretty much run on an LA schedule, which is 3-hours off from the eastern time-zone I’m in, in Ohio so that’s like Noon to 8pm EST) anyhow.. . what comes next varies literally by day… generally I have either conference calls or in-person meetings booked back to back every weekday (lately we’ve been double-booking meetings and events over a year in advance, simply out of need, that just to say that my life can get kind-of busy all the time), anyway, this particular day started with me driving to an event-site to help setup for a local performance gig for about an hour… right from there I went down the block for an extended lunch meeting with a producer/distributor friend of mine (former studio executive) who is now running his own US distribution house, is co-producing my feature and is also partnered with the film fest (we try to do lunch every couple weeks to catch up in person and go over lots and lots of new info). Anyhow, that meeting ran until 2:00pm. From there I went back to my home office for a conference call to LA, then a couple local follow-up calls for the film fest… replied to a few more e-mails that popped up during the day (and ignored a bunch more), then headed off to the Post Office to pickup/sign for about 80 more film festival entries that we received over the weekend, log them in, then pack them into the car to be dropped off with the festival programming director the next morning… which brings us to 3:30pm. I had a meeting with film festival Marketing staff scheduled to go over marketing strategies for 2009, which I arrived frustratingly 10minutes late too (any one of the above reasons should easily explain that). Because we were also officially bringing on a few new assistant directors, that meeting ran over until nearly 7:00pm before I got back to my office. Knowing I only had so much time left in the work day (again on an LA schedule here… so 8pm EST is 5pm PST) I ran back to my office and made a few quick follow-up calls to agents regarding cast for my feature, then grabbed a quick bite to eat from my kitchen and proceeded to sit down to actually start getting some real work done… I had seven (3-10pg) contracts to read, revise, and sign (ranging from bands/special guests we’re working with to perform at the film fest, to new staff contracts, to legal agreements, letters of intent for film crew –for the feature- to registration forms for a new film festival membership program we’re developing). Which brings us to around 10:30pm. Now is when I start to freak, since I realize how much I haven’t accomplished in the day that needed to be done LAST week. So, I sit down and re-work my already triple-booked schedule by priority deadlines and send out e-mails to about a dozen different people on various different staff’s and boards to let them know where things stand as of that day. Ok… so now my day is half-done. Between the hours of 11pm and about 4am to 5am is when I actually end up working on some of our Star Com client-based materials (which range from new-media work to consulting to script supervision, live event management inquiries, etc). I’ll often take a few minutes break at some point in there, grab a snack and maybe watch a portion of one of the Late Night shows before getting back to work. Note that most of my script-writing and re-writing is done during the wee-hours as well as looking through audition tapes, online reels and such, since that’s often the time when I can be the most focused. Before I head off to bed around 5am, I’ll often check the morning industry publications to see what tomorrow will bring…. and that was (for the most part) my Monday. Tuesdays are much, much busier. Keeping in mind that I didn’t even have time to address most Miami Film Association programs or inquiries at all (Mondays and Fridays are supposed to be my “free days” to work on the MFA and film fest… which is somewhat of a joke). Anyway… I get a couple hours of sleep and get into a whole ‘nother arena the next day. Now, I should say that no day of mine is ever like the previous one… I’ll often be dealing with completely different issues for different events and productions each day, which I absolutely love. But it goes without saying that most weekends are just spent trying to catch up for things not finished during the week (that is, the few weekends I’m actually in town, and not traveling or speaking someplace, or actually on set or on-site at a production I’m producing, managing or working). Such is just a brief insight into my day-to-day life. I try to catch movies every chance I get… you’ll often find me sneak away once or twice a week to a movie theater (whenever I can manage)… I do all my shopping at 24hr stores because generally by the time I get around to making it to a store it’s often 4am. Another fun fact, since I live alone, I also actually have to schedule time every other week to do laundry… because if I don’t, it just doesn’t get done (I found that out the hard way). So… now you know (I just know you all were simply dying to know about my laundry) but hey… that’s life… at least for me :-). Now that you’ve read all that, hopefully you’ll at least get an idea of why it often takes me a few days to get back to people (even close friends) and especially how hard it is to schedule in-person meetings with new/young filmmakers (which I absolutely love to do and get requests for on a regular basis) but often simply just don’t have the time to do most weeks unless it was scheduled several months in advance. Anywho… it should also, hopefully, explain why I’m writing/posting this blog entry at 4am, and why I don’t post more often :-P. So there you have it. –Oh, and this is also why I have to schedule my film shoots at least a year in advance…
Just as a quick response to one of YOUR questions… “How do you juggle all the things you do?” The answer to that is quite simply careful planning, and minute by minute scheduling, every day of the week, every week. I use an electronic online schedule/calendar that can be/is constantly updated both by myself and by other people who schedule things for me (like my manager). That way I always know where I need to be and when. All my schedules also include reserved time to travel from one meeting/site to the next estimating possible traffic delays etc… and yes, I do often either schedule, or reply to phone calls while in the car driving from place to place… it’s the only way I can keep up with things (you should see my cell-phone bill :-). So… to answer your question… very careful and specific planning, organization, and scheduling… setting and keeping priorities is always key.
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