A Filmmaker's Survival Guide to Working from Home

Here are some tips that'll help you get ready to bring your office into the comfort of your own home.

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post by Adorama. 

The current coronavirus health crisis has changed the way people work all over the globe, forcing many non-essential employees to go remote. For filmmakers, that means doing their cinematic magic, whether it be editing, sound design, or pre-production from their home offices.

Since it is looking more and more likely that these working conditions won't change for a number of months, it'd be a good idea for those of you who are working remotely from your homes to ensure that your workspace is meeting as many of your creative and physical needs as possible.

Here are a few tips on how to turn your home office, your living room, or virtually any room in your house into a productive filmmaking hub.

Choose the Right Space

If you're going to be stuck indoors for months, it might be most beneficial to choose to work in the room in your house that makes you feel happy, creative, and productive. 

For you, maybe that means working in a room with lots of big windows. Maybe it means working in your kitchen next to the coffee maker. Maybe it means working in the living room with the TV turned on so you can hear voices other than your own!

Whichever space you choose, make sure that it's a place that provides plenty of light, has enough outlets, and doesn't make you feel isolated and disconnected from the outside world.

Essential Gear

What kinds of items will make working from home a whole lot easier? Well, that depends on what your job, as well as your work style requires. So, let's go over some computers, data management tools, power solutions, and other essential accessories you'll need to keep up your productivity.

Low Tech

For screenwriters (and other low-tech workers), you might benefit most from working as light and mobile as possible. Windows laptops can not only power pretty much any software you're likely to throw at it but they also offer most of the essential ports you'll need—if not, you can always grab yourself a multi-port docking station. If you prefer the MacBook Pro, it also offers tons of power, but you'll need a hyperdrive hub to connect to things like external hard drives, memory cards, and more.

Speaking of external hard drives, you'll definitely want to make sure you have one on-hand so you don't lose all of the work you're doing at home. A good go-to hard drive is the LaCie Rugged, which is outfitted with an orange protective casing that safeguards it from damage and normal wear and tear. It's also small and portable, great for those working on laptops.

High Tech

If you're an editor, colorist, or VFX artist, you might be working on a bulky desktop computer, like the Mac Pro. That means you might want to grab some accessories that will allow you to do your work from home as seamlessly as you did when you were working from the studio.

A good high-res display monitor that produces colors accurately is a must, but so is a 

Seagate offers a great 10TB hard drive for those who need a straightforward solution for backing up data, but if you're working with more precious cargo, like a film or TV show, you might want to get yourself a RAID system, like this one from G-Technology, to ensure that your data doesn't get lost in case of a drive failure.

Lastly, and this applies to all filmmakers working from home, purchase a decent pair of headphones and a surge protector.

Work Healthy

Sitting down and working on screens all day can become a huge problem for your health, namely when it comes to posture. This is why it'd be wise to optimize your workstation so you can sit up straighter and elongate your neck.

If you're working on a laptop, you could look into getting a laptop stand that allows you to work more upright. If you're working on a desktop, you might want to get a mount for your monitor so you can position it exactly how you like it.

Maybe, instead of working at your kitchen table or on your couch, you could invest in an adjustable standing desk, or, if you like the desk you have, a desk converter will—convert your regular desk into an adjustable standing one. And get yourself a desk foot rest—they are the unsung heroes of office comfort.

If you prefer to work sitting down, get yourself a comfortable, ergonomic desk chair or ball chair, and then make sure you're getting up and walking around every hour.

Also, wash your hands and video chat with your loved ones.