Sienna Tohar Week 2 - Back to the (movie watching) Basics

     I’m definitely a movie/film lover. A few years ago, I used to be so organized with keeping a schedule for when I’d plan to watch a new film I hadn’t seen before (and I had a long list of movies to watch). But, recently, over the course of a few years, I gradually stopped watching movies in my free time (or at least not as many as I used to). I’m not really happy about it since I enjoyed watching old classics, getting inspired, and learning from films (especially those “hidden gem” type movies that not many people talk or know about even though they’re so fun and thrilling to watch). 

    The initial reason I stopped putting time aside to watch movies is because I had so much work to do that I just didn’t have as much time to watch movies, or I was too tired to watch them by the time I finished working. One particular year, I had committed myself to more things than I was comfortable with, and I pushed myself to take advantage of every free moment I had to either get work done or work on some of my hobbies. Since I was so busy that year, I started to value free time so much more than I had before. I began getting obsessed with the idea of taking advantage of free time out of fear of not completing things or meeting personal goals/deadlines. 

    Because of this, I found it more difficult to let myself sit down for a couple of hours to watch motion pictures simply because I was just watching something rather than getting something done or completing something. This wasn’t just on general week days, but also weekends, and breaks, too. 

Being that there’s a pandemic causing most of us to be home now, I almost took it as a sign to begin watching movies again (maybe not as much as I did before, but more often than I had been recently).I tried taking advantage of the summer time to watch movies, and surprisingly (and this never happens!), I actually got the urge to watch movies in the middle of the day sometimes (I usually only watched movies at the end of the day to wind down). For the first time, I just stopped what I was doing and thought, “You know what? It’s summer, you have the time, and some things can wait. Just relax, there’s nothing wrong with watching a few movies here and there if you have the time to. No one will punish you for it.” So, I let myself watch a few films and it felt great! I found myself growing familiar with this feeling of intrigue and curiosity for movies once again. 

Fast forward to now, I had recently finished watching a documentary that was recommended to me. It was called The Pixar Story (2007) and it led the viewer through the origins of Pixar. I loved it because it really gave insight on the process of illustrating, animating, the progression of 2D animation to 3D animation, as well as the process of creating the first computer animated films (like Toy Story). I’m so happy I watched it because I feel like I’ve learned a lot about the animation/movie-making industry (and the making of one of the most famous animation companies). Not only was it fun to watch, but I learned a lot from it. 

So, next time I have this urge to let myself relax for a moment and watch a movie, I’m going to try to not think twice about it (there's a chance I might even learn from whatever it is I want to watch)! How about you? What movies have you seen recently? Is there anything you used to do a lot that you don’t do as much anymore (that you miss doing)? Until next time!