I can only describe what I’m experiencing now as “nesting”. I don’t know how else to describe it.

Let me explain. As we finished our shoot about a week ago, I took the first couple of days to just exhale and relax. Coming down from the adrenaline and caffeine was a bit of a challenge, but I started feeling normal again after a couple of days.

But even after coming down, I still couldn’t start editing. I would sit there in front of my computer and just stare at all the clutter around me, and it was not conducive for creative flow. I thought back to some of the post production houses I’ve worked in. They were so cool looking, very creative, clean and just fun to be in. Then I looked around my computer office, and realized, This isn’t much fun..

So, I told me wife, “We’re having a garage sale this weekend, and we’re going to get rid of a lot of junk.” And we did. We started cleaning and selling and cleaning and selling. By the end of the garage sale, I sold every piece of furniture in my office, along with a bunch of other junk. My office was barren.

With $700 cash in hand, we moved to our next step: Ikea. For my office, I wanted something cool, something creative, something different. I wanted a place to escape to, a place to create, a place to be different.

I started by researching colors. What colors create the right mood? What mood do I want to be in when I create? What do I want to surround myself with?

Two of my favorite colors are blue and orange. These two colors are foundational when it comes to mood. For example, take a look at this picture:

What two primary colors do you see? Blue and orange. They happen in nature.

They are also at the opposite ends of the color wheel:

Interestingly, orange and blue are used extensively in filmmaking to set a mood or tone for a certain scene. Let me give you an example. Here’s a shot from me and my son’s movie, Growing Up. And, I have removed all color:

What is he thinking about? Don’t really know. Could be thinking about school, about dogs or about stealing some candy. Not really sure. But, add some color…

Now, what is he thinking about? The color is “warmer”. Warmer colors are like those of a fireplace or a lamp in the front room. It often represents warmth, peace, home and family. Maybe Caleb is thinking about how much he loves his parents. 🙂

But, change the color to blue:

Now, he’s thinking about dangerous things, or about doing something at night. Blue is often used to set the tone for nighttime or darker scenes.

Next time you watch a film, take notice of the color of a scene. Watch how the color changes with the tone of the scene. What is the feeling of the scene, and what color does the filmmaker use to set the tone.

Check out this webpage on the science behind these two color “temperatures”.

So, with all that said, I decided on these two colors for my new office. But, I didn’t really want a sunset office nor a cold, uninviting office. So, I landed on orange. But again, I didn’t want a neon orange neither. So, I settled on a deeper, darker burnt orange for my new office. And since I’m a graduate of University of Texas at Austin, this was a great choice!

And so yesterday, my son and I painted all day long to change my boring white office into an exciting burnt orange editing suite.

Some may call it procrastination. I call it nesting.