Discipline of the Body and Mind

As it is show week for my NAIT NewsWatch team, we've all been very busy shooting and writing news stories. Since I'm shooter/editor again I've been out a lot, meeting all sorts of interesting people. We also had a three-hour videography class today and learned how to put together a jib. While thinking about all these experiences I came up with one common theme: discipline is very important.

On Tuesday we filmed a teammate participating in Bikram yoga for the first time. I had never heard of Bikram yoga before, and didn't know what to expect. The only previous experience I've had with yoga is (briefly) watching a lady on television, practising yoga in her living room. Bikram yoga is much more intense, because the temperature in the room is 40 degrees Celsius. Some reasons for this include detoxification and increased blood circulation. A beginner must have a lot of discipline and endurance to make it through without giving up or passing out. The people taking part in the class seem to really focus on balance, proper breathing, clearing the mind, and forgetting about the heat. They also had to be considerate of the other people in the class and only drink water at designated times. I felt really sick after about 45 minutes, and I was just filming. I still thought the whole experience was great, and it really makes your mind and body stronger. I'm not quite ready to put myself through the test though.

Today we had a guest speaker in our videography class, who taught us how to set up a jib for a camera. I thought it was so interesting, and a little bit complicated! What I really took away from this class though, is:

• You need to take care of your camera equipment and jib. It's expensive, and it lasts longer if you take care of it and repair it when necessary.
  
• It's important to be well-organized. There are a lot of parts for a jib, and some can be easily misplaced. It also looks better to your employers if you are well-organized and have nice looking camera gear. You give the impression that you care about your job.
  
• You can't rush when putting together a jib. You need to take the time to make sure that the jib is assembled safely and that the camera is properly balanced, or else you will have problems.
  
• When operating the jib, you can't let it get out of control. You will hurt someone.
  
• You need to show that you are reliable and that you will complete the work that is required. The guest speaker mentioned that he gets a lot of his work from referrals, so making a good impression is important.

It's been a really interesting week so far, and I'm really loving this program. I think it's going to be a really challenging career, but I love what I'm learning too much too quit now.