Week 2

Jordyn Dunseath
February 20, 2024

TIP OF THE WEEK

“Motivation” and “inspiration” are really fun and nice when they show up, but they are not reliable friends. They’ll ditch you when you least expect it and won’t answer your desperate call when you need them. “Discipline” may not always be the most comfortable to be around, but will always take you where you actually want to go. “Discipline” will usually be that friend that you can say “man, I didn’t really feel like hanging out at first, but I’m so glad I did - it was worth it”.

JORDYN UPDATES

A picture of my grandpa and I to honor his life.

In honor of my grandpa, I thought I would show a pic of him and I.

Highs of the week:
• I traveled home to my family this week…though not work related, it was great to see them.
• “Home” is Las Vegas, Nevada and I made the effort to go take some photos, videos, and timelapses out at the Red Rock Loop (Las Vegas’ beautiful red mountains).
• It was so fun to be creative just for the sake of being creative. It was also great to find beauty in a town that isn’t known for its “natural” beauty.

Lows of the week:
• The reason I was home was for my grandpa’s funeral. Sad event but a great opportunity to celebrate his life.

My updates this week are way less about work and way more about “life” - and actually, I think that’s great. This newsletter will be focused on filmmaking, and tips, and tricks but in the heart of “more than a filmmaker” - life is about so much more than our careers. And this week…it was important for me to focus on family - even if it honestly meant sacrificing (or rather pushing back) my desired timeline to launch my online community. I think it’s so easy to get stuck in our own expectations of ourselves and forget that grace is a necessary component of life too. It’s all about perspective. I could look at my week and all of a sudden feel “behind” on my work OR I could look at my week and cherish the time I got to spend with my family when we all really needed to be with each other.

I’m writing about this because I know so many people who sit in that mindset of feeling “behind”. Now, I’m not advocating for laziness at all. I think having goals and discipline is great, necessary, and admirable. But I also don’t think it’s at all helpful to unnecessarily beat yourself up. Life is life. Interruptions are guaranteed. Mistakes are inevitable. If I entered this week feeling the immense pressure that “I am behind on work” - I would honestly live this week in stress and miss the blessing of the work ahead of me. I don’t want to do that. If you’re anything like me, I encourage you to have grace with yourself - if you were lazy and procrastinated on what you had to do, forgive yourself right now, and make a better choice today. Go enjoy the blessing of another day to breathe, work, and love the people around you. This life is a gift - even when it interrupts our plans.

This week’s creative challenge:
Well, in the spirit of what I did this week - why don’t you go out and try to get a star timelapse! If your camera supports it, enable your interval timer, play with the settings until you get it just right, make sure it’s in focus, and then go for it! If you don’t have a camera that supports an interval timer, but you have an iPhone, then go out, make sure your phone is completely still (on tripod or leaning on ground), and try doing some star photography (the new iPhones support long exposure photos).

Please share your results, I’d love to see!
Maybe I’ll even give a little shoutout to the best one next week 😉

A little insight: My settings for the “night timelapse” in the video above (ISO: 200, f/4.0, 30.0sec exposure). My settings for the “star photo” you watched me edit (ISO: 1250, f/4.0, 13.0sec exposure). I hope that helps!

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CATCH UP ON RECENT YOUTUBE VIDEOS

GEAR I USED THIS WEEK

Camera I used for the timelapses

Lens I used for the timelapses

Filter I used for the day timelapse

AN EXTRA FOR THOSE WHO MAKE IT TO THE BOTTOM OF MY EMAILS :)

Feel free to download these images if you’d like to use them for phone wallpapers.
(I think it’s only possible to download when reading on your desktop and not phone…if you’re having trouble downloading, just email me and I’ll send them to you.)

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Have a great day!

Best, Jordyn

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