Yesterday was hell. We had a few people drop out, a few production disasters that have cost needless money and hell, and I mean HELL from agents. Both casting director Catherine Arton and myself pretty much checked out last night… But then we had some GREAT news, which I can’t reveal just yet. Hopefully tomorrow we can reveal.

Since I last made a movie, email and mobile phones have become utterly standard tools of communication. They were around before, sure, but now it's email push, with a million hours of cross network antime calls on your mobile! Ironically, this means everyone seems LESS in contact than before. It’s astonishing. Here’s the problems…

Email
1. You get spammed out at their end because you used a banned word like ‘free’ (I am not joking) in the text.
2. Mac / PC attachments don’t work as they should. Mac people blame POC users, vice versa.
3. People don’t read emails properly, or at all in some cases!
4. You can’t get an immediate response from an email.
5. You need a computer to get email. Maybe a blackberry or push email. But all of the above still apply.
6. Over communication by needless forwarding or copying in on emails wastes time and resources.

Mobiles
1. No-one, especially girls, answer their mobile phone unless they have you in their phone directory.
2. People switch off their phone, effectively locking your communication out.
3. People can really call screen, so you can’t get into a conversation by stealth.
4. Assistants can’t collect messages from a mobile like they could on a landline, so it means only the person whose phone you called can deal with the message.
5. People don’t actually like being in 100% communication, you inevitably catch people at a bad moment, not at their desk, not when they are focussed and calm, and deals fall through.

I know there are tremendous advantages to email and mobiles, but these disadvantages have proven to be a real pain. I have found that it makes people less disciplined when they need to communicate too. It’s all a bit irritating really. But hey, it’s the way the world has changed, so we have to roll with it.

Onward and upward!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com