Deadline squeeze
Several deadlines loomed at us as the month rapidly drew to a close. Our race to meet them was successful even if we felt dragged through bushes backwards.
Enabling The How #205. Reading time: 5 minutes
The 2025 Academy Award winners have been announced. The Oscar Challenge is done for another year. We managed to meet the deadline and watch all the movies on the list that we had access to. We are relieved. This year was one of the most arduous challenges we have ever had to spend our precious time wading through since we started this self-imposed task in 2017.
We wondered why this particular year had been so difficult for us. Was it because we just hadn’t given it enough time? Was it because we were rather jaded or possibly not full-length feature movie fit? We went back to have a look at all the other years. We have each year’s Best Picture nominees made into a poster that we frame and hang in our lounge. They are great talking points.
Saturated by too much darkness
The posters on the wall offered a useful reference to our Oscar experience in the previous years. As we worked through each one, we reminisced about the films we had loved, those that we had only liked and those that had us scratching our heads at their place on the list. What was very clear is that of the standard eight to ten Best Picture nominees, there were usually only one or two that had truly tested our resolve.
This year it was the other way round; only two out of the ten Best Picture nominees, Sing Sing and A Complete Unknown contained generative themes, and one, Conclave, was an interesting look into the politics of selecting a new pope. The rest were a trial to get through. Harsh, demeaning, ugly, vicious, painful explorations and, did we mention, long, tests of our will power.
We hadn’t lost our movie watching mojo, we had just been saturated by too much darkness, violence and dreariness. In this world where there is already so much negativity and conflict, being dunked and held under in a cesspool of movie pain and suffering was not a pleasant experience.
Had we not had to watch so many in such a short period of time it may have been different. Individually Shakespeare's tragedies are magnificent pieces of writing, language, narrative and theatre. Watching one after the other will quickly wear down even the most ardent fan.
Given time and space to process the difficult themes offered by the nominated films while taking gulps of lighter, fresher and more joyful films in between, may have allowed us to appreciate them a little more.
Black hole of swirling hoops
Working through the last of the dark arts of filmmaking was not made any easier by what felt to be a black hole of swirling hoops to jump through over the course of the week. Two different banks needed to do interviews, identity checks, security checks and send books of documents to sign. There had been several unforeseen delays opening a bank account for our newly formed NPC “It Starts with Me”. Our 5th Place banking account needed updating and renewing. These unpleasant administrative exercises had Matthew gritting his teeth and Chantal rolling her eyes while trying to remain polite to the client liaison person on the line.
A first coaching session with a new client was interrupted by a non-working microphone that necessitated a restart of Zoom, then a loud buzzing at the gate with no-one to attend to it, followed by a power surge that tripped all power and cut off the internet connection. A frustrated and apologetic Chantal had to resort to continuing the coaching conversation by phone. The client waved away the interruptions and focused rather on what they were able to derive from the engagement and left the session satisfied and sure.
Feeling disorganised and caught off guard while managing unexpected interruptions had us tripping and falling over each other and our work. We stumbled through our carefully laid plans for the week, kicking some aside, stepping over those that were important but not urgent and laying waste to anything that did not need our immediate attention.
Deadlines squeezed
As the last day of February loomed with month end and financial year end, the deadlines to close out accounts was further impacted by the decision to change accounts packages and people. There is nothing quite like a few tapping fingers on the other side of a cut off date that gets one to hyper focus on getting things done.
While Chantal chased payments and settled invoices, drew up trial balances and reconciled bank statements, another deadline bore down on us. We had to complete and submit abstracts by the last day of February for a mental health conference to be held at the end of the year that we hope to present at.
We had the optimistic idea when we embarked on this process to submit two each, the maximum number per person. Of course everything takes far more time than we think it will. Fine tuning our submissions took ages.
“Is this what we are actually speaking about?” asked Chantal, sending Matthew to work on another draft.
We only managed to complete three abstracts in the end. Précised to the correct word count and properly contained in the exact format required. As the day drew to a close, Matthew finally started on the actual submission process.
“What’s taking so long?” asked Chantal, watching the sun set on her suggestion of early drinks at the local wine bar.
“I have to register us first, more hoops! Only then can I do the submissions,” sighed Matthew emptying his water bottle and waving good bye to that big glass of wine he had been so looking forward to.
We got it all done
We did get it all done. Eventually and in time. We did feel a little bit like we had been pulled through a hedge backwards but as we sat, pulling deadline twigs out of our hair, we felt pretty good. There is satisfaction having moved through a bumpy couple of days and remained intact. There is gratification in getting the jobs done to the deadline.
We stumbled out of our shadowy office in time to see a reddening sky washed with swoops of dark clouds. We poured ourselves that big glass of wine, and settled in for soup made by Matthew and some light comedy silliness to make us laugh. Another month had passed. We had survived and even felt strengthened by the trips and trials that can be life.
Until next time.
Yours in feeling,
Matthew & Chantal
P.S. Here’s a shoutout to Cailyn for some wonderful images in her first edition of “Enabling the How”. Well done!