Hobbies that calm you down: Filming

Everyone likes to watch movies; comedy movies, drama movies, romantic movies, horror movies, action movies, even home movies. Today’s technology has made it extremely easy to make movies, we can make movies on our phones; can you imagine how crazy they would think we were if we went 50-60 years in the past and told people that a time would come when we could make movies even just home movies, with our phones. But I digress.

Everyone likes to watch movies, and of course people like to make movies as well, but could they like it enough that could help them deal with stress? Could the art of movie making aka filming be a therapeutic exercise to help against anxiety and stress? That is what we will be briefly exploring in this post.

So what is filming? Well, if you look it up on the online dictionary you will find a bunch of different definitions from a thin covering to a transparent sheet. The one we are focusing on is the act of recording something with intent of showing it later in a movie or video of some form.

Now, can filming help reduce stress? I tried finding articles on the internet that talked about this but I couldn’t find anything, so instead I’m going to explain why I think it is relaxing. I have some experience at amateur filming as part of my college course involved the making of a few short films, I can’t say the films were that good but I had a good time filming them. For me personally there were many fun/relaxing parts to the entire experience which I will list out below:

1. The creative process: I have stated many times in previous posts how creativity is one of the best ways to deal with stress and since filming is a creative process in and by itself, it isn’t that large of a stretch to say that filming can be relaxing as well. There are many creative things you can do while filming, making the story, making up and using camera tricks, acting some scenes, post production creativity, special effects and so on.
2. Running around with the camera: Making a film can be a real work-out, what with the lugging if equipment and running around and acting. Exercise is good for the body and the mind so this can be another reason for filming being relaxing.
3. Seeing the film unfold: It is hard to describe the feeling you get when you see a movie you planned out slowly coming to fruition but it is wonderful, I’ll say that much. Unfortunately this is something that you will have to experience yourself to know what I am talking about.
4. Bloopers: Everyone loves watching the bloopers reel at the end of a show and experiencing them first hand is even funnier. Sure they can be frustrating at times but I can’t help and look back at those bloopers and having a small chuckle.

Now don’t get me wrong, you can experience a lot of frustration when you are filming, something going wrong, a shot not coming out the way you want, etc. But personally I still had fun when I was making those short films. As I said before, filming nowadays has become much easier than it was years ago; even making a simple vlog of you chatting to the camera can be fun. So the next time you are stressed and if you are up to it give filming a try, you might have a lot more fun than you initially think.