After having gotten into video productions 3-4 years ago, I find myself looking at life differently. PLEASE, someone tell me I'm not the only one. See the 3 paragraphs below as examples:

ONE: I can be out on a romantic evening at the beach with my wife looking at the sunset, and she'll be thinking about how lovely everything is and how much she loves me (I think she thinks that), and I'm thinking about what settings I'd use on my camera to capture the moment. What's worse, I even find myself having to "adjust" our seating arrangements so I can frame the imagery shot better.

TWO: I drive by a gas station with bright neon lights and other colorful things and wonder how that would look as a background setup as a shallow DOF image for a closeup interview shot at night.

THREE: As I turn off my lights and close my eyes at night to go to bed, (maybe this is just me), but I "see" a lot of fuzzy, sparkly stars as my eyes are adjusting to the new darkness. The very first reaction I have is that I need to turn down the ISO to get rid of all this "noise."

Please don't tell me I'm the only one. My family already thinks I'm crazy. (Sorry this is a bit off the more serious topics, but I have been thinking about this for a while wondering if I'm crazy or if this is normal in the industry).

Genius and insanity are not infrequently two sides of the same coin...
;-)

It's great to love what you do. Not everyone can say that in this world, eh?

I find myself commenting on the camera moves rather than actually watching the movie - really gets on my wife's nerves - "see, now that move had to be steadicam"

Hi Lloyd,

And every time me and my wife go on any trip I always have to bring the "extras", like the extra smaller camera, extra batteries, the DSLR (and extra batteries), the extra tripod, extra bag, etc., for a short holiday weekend :) Drives her nuts!

Best,

I too find it hard to enjoy movies now without commenting on camera angles, moves and editing decisions. Also, I have become increasingly picky as to which movied I rent on DVD....I want a good commentary track to listen to after viewing the movie. My wife is not amused.

If you're a weird-o, I guess I am too.

With time, you will learn to switch the video tech on or off as needed.

I think everyone who really loves what he does, goes through this phase - I know I did. Now, about 20 years into it, I learned to turn it off and enjoy the movie/scenery/etc whatever the case.