Filmmaking, by most people, is considered a hobby. Something you do on the weekends or evenings after your day job. My mum still feels this way and waits for the day I give up Nexus and go back and complete that Business and Commercial Law degree I abandoned in my twenties. It's not just filmmaking though; art in general is considered a hobby, and the way artists are constantly asked to work for free across multiple disciplines speaks to the little respect art commands as a career.
So when filmmaking becomes your full-time job, and your hobby becomes your bread winner, this is a cause for celebration. Something we used to do for 'play' is now something we can do all the time. But all work and no play can be just as bad as no work and all play. Even though we love what we do, switching off from film and finding time to pursue other hobbies is crucial for work / life balance and finding a healthy way to de-stress.
I've learnt this from personal experience. I've spent years making films in my spare time, after work, after hours, my leisure activity of choice away from 'real' work. My first feature film Dace Decklan: Private Eye was filmed over four months on weekends around my own and the schedules of the cast and crew. I know many filmmakers who still do this and there is nothing wrong with it — life places different demands on us all and I recognize I am lucky to be able to do what I love full-time today.
But now that I am in that position, I find I am even more protective of my downtime and what I do for leisure. I simply cannot give all my spare time to filmmaking anymore — I need to switch off. I need hobbies to balance my life more than I did previously. Sure, there are nights when the last thing I do before bed is video editing. And there are weekends when Sarah and I do nothing but work on Nexus. But we try to keep these workaholic tendencies in check, because I find if I don’t take time to unwind and pursue leisure each day I feel on edge. I get anxious. Tired and lethargic the next day. I can feel the work / life harmony I strive to cultivate crumbling and I become overly keen to step away from Nexus.
So every day I read. I love fantasy books. I love getting immersed in the magical worlds my favorite authors create. I love learning more about the Cosmere by Brandon Sanderson or following the adventures of Nona Grey in the Book of the Ancestor Trilogy by Mark Lawrence. I watch wrestling. Yes, I love the soap opera of grown men in spandex fighting each other and the over-the-top theatrics of AEW Dynamite. I love travelling and exploring new places. Every weekend we walk. Every Sunday I try to not do any work at all. I try to stay off social media and emails. These newsletters, and our YouTube videos, which go out on Sundays, are completed and programmed ahead.
Sarah is worse than me when it comes to overwork. Often she is still working when I have switched off for the night. And I don’t remember the last time she went a day without checking our film accounts on social media. But she does pursue photography as a hobby and takes photos on 35mm film with her Pentax camera. She is not an expert photographer, but she is learning more about the process every time she practises. It is artistic, but it is an avocation, something done solely for enjoyment, with no financial incentive in mind.
Pursuing these activities for simple pleasure offers a mental break from filmmaking. And these breaks are crucial to recharge creative energy. The older I get, the more I need to recharge. This is something I would not have admitted several years ago when I was pursuing the ‘hobby’ of filmmaking in every spare moment and I was a card-carrying member in the cult of overwork.
You might be familiar with the cult: it’s the reason workers around the world are putting in an average of 9.2 hours of unpaid overtime per week, would-be entrepreneurs preach hustle culture on Instagram, and “sleep is for the weak” is used as a motivational poster. Even tech billionaire Elon Musk tweeted in 2018 “There are way easier places to work, but nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week.”
Earlier this year, Sarah was doing freelance copywriting for a company who had clients all over the world. More than once her boss, based in London (let’s call her Mary), would message Sarah at midnight with a gig. There was only one hour time difference between Malta and London so this meant Mary was still hard at work late at night. Indeed, Mary would tell Sarah how she had been up since 4am to take a client meeting in another part of the world, or how her weekends were spent drafting ad copy or preparing notes for clients. Mary would message Sarah on Sundays or on Friday nights — Mary, it seems, is on call to meet the demands of her clients 24/7. No doubt, she makes good money. But for Mary, work is life, and life is work. And that’s the type of life I could never again envy, no matter how much money is on the table.
I left the cult of overwork and I slowed down. I tried to switch off each day and I still do. I made space for hobbies. I still struggle with taking on too much at once, but I no longer burn the candle at both ends. I strive to find a balance each day between work and leisure no matter how busy I am, and my life is better because of it. Fuller but more relaxed. And more content.
Written by Ivan Malekin