Productivity

I present to you one Rainer Maria Werner Fassbinder, director of 43 films between 1969 and 1982. That's about 3 films a year, for 14 years straight... including the 919 minute Berlin Alexanderplatz, a restored print of which is going to be screened next month at MOMA. The above picture is of Fassbinder on the set of this mammoth project, which was shot, edited & scored in six months.

Six months for 15 hours of film? It took me almost 14 months to complete Spleen, and that thing runs just a bit more than 10 minutes. To be sure, Fassbinder probably didn't need to create web templates for an online medical education testing service, or update quarterly and annual reports for a series of mutual funds, or edit bogus focus group footage for a hamburger chain, or PA a promotional video shoot for a Hassidic-run rest home, all in a futile attempt to make ends meet.

But still, Fassbinder's example makes me feel like I must be wasting a ton of time. I'd like to believe that it's just a matter of me not having access to resources which explains the paucity of my output. Should I ever manage to get Spleen into a damned festival (more on this issue later), and accrete enough mojo to launch paying, professional projects, then I think my motivation will be truly put to the test. In the interim, I'll have to content myself with a smorgasbord of internet-based side-projects.

Of course, if Fassbinder were making web videos, he'd probably have his own YouTube subdomain.

Did I mention the cat died of an overdose of cocaine and sleeping pills?