It's Been a While...
An update from Heath on the pandemic, creativity, new priorities, and the future of Quarantine Creatives
Welcome to the Quarantine Creatives newsletter, a companion to my podcast of the same name.
How’ve You Been?
I’ve missed talking to you all! I meant to write, but things got busy.
My last dispatch from Quarantine Creatives was back in June, 2021. At the time, I was planning my first in-person shoot in a year and a half. It was for a narrative, educational project. We were in the lull before the Delta surge, and things were feeling safer. That project went off smoothly, with only one minor COVID scare on set that turned out to be just a common cold.
As the summer progressed, I was busy and COVID felt like old news, so I temporarily suspended the podcast and newsletter, figuring I’d record a final episode, publish a final newsletter, and this would’ve been a fun project that I did during the lockdown. I never got around to officially signing off. Oops. But maybe that was for the better, as it left this whole project a little more open ended.
In July, I started a new full-time job producing at an in-house creative agency for a large company in Boston. The job has been fully remote and has involved producing and directing everything from webcasts, podcasts, weekly shows, and even documentary-style interview segments over Zoom. It’s a really fun job, and it helps that I can do it in slippers and without commuting!
So Why This Email?
Perhaps it’s the snowy weather here in Boston that’s put me in a contemplative mood, but something inside me has just been telling me lately that now is the time to bring Quarantine Creatives back from Purgatory.
Over the tenure of the show, my guests shared amazing stories of personal growth, adaptation, and self-discovery and I always liked presenting those to all of you. I have also been going through my own pandemic learning and growth process over the past two years. I thought sharing my own journey might be helpful for those of you at a similar crossroads to the one where I currently find myself.
Recently, I was approached with a very attractive job offer. A lifestyle brand was looking to expand and asked me to lead their video efforts. This would’ve involved oversight of both network and streaming series, plus social media videos, and sponsored video content. The salary was also more than I had ever been paid.
Logically, this was the next step in my career. I had 15 years of lifestyle programming experience as a producer and director. I would’ve had creative oversight of some very exciting new projects and the chance to really shape something from the ground up.
In the end, I decided to pass on the offer. Every part of me professionally wanted to make the move, but what really tipped the scales for me was the personal piece.
Since I first started mowing lawns and delivering newspapers at age 13, I have always had the drive to work. I started in the TV business as a Production Assistant, where I was usually required to be the first one on site and the last to leave. Even as I climbed higher on the call sheet, I still carried that work ethic with me and felt an obligation as a leader to be on set until the bitter end each day.
I was drawn to the TV business in part for the perks- travel and meals on somebody else’s dime, access to amazing locations, events like the Emmys, interacting with celebrities… all that jazz.
The last two years have taught me how shallow so much of that was. When I was forced inside of my house and spent time with my family, I realized that I actually really liked them! Plus, in speaking to artists I admired on the podcast, I learned first hand about the trade offs that can come with life in the limelight.
Over the last two years, I have learned what that elusive “work-life balance” looks like, and I knew that jumping into a job where I would have immense responsibility, pressure, and the expectation of giving 150% at all times was just not for me anymore, salary and perks be damned!
Perhaps I won’t be on the red carpet or backstage at The Tonight Show again anytime soon, but I know that most mornings I will be able to drop my kids off at school, and I know that when they get home from school, I can hear about all the amazing adventures of a 5 and 8 year old (who are only a month away from being a 6 and 9 year old). I like cooking dinner and eating it around the table with my family, instead of warming something up in the microwave after a 14 hour shoot day and the kids already in bed.
Knowing how COVID has torn apart so many families and ended so many lives, it feels strangely selfish to see the silver lining of these past two years. But I know that were it not for this time, I would still be a driven, career-focused person who shared a house and a last name with my family but not much else. I feel so much happier and fuller as a husband and dad now.
It’s sometimes hard when you come to a fork in the road to know which turn to make. I strongly believe that bigger and better things await me on the path I have chosen, even if money, fame, or acclaim aren’t on this road.
Emojis and Race
This week, I came across a tweet from NPR reporter Asma Khalid with an interesting prompt:
Like Asma, I tend to use the yellow emojis, in part because they seem more neutral, and in part because I sometimes struggle with defining my own race. My grandfather was Filipino, so I always see myself as at least part brown, even though my three other grandparents were white. Because of my lighter skin tone, people often see me as only white, and using a darker emoji may seem disingenuous for folks reading my message that don’t know of my heritage. But selecting the lightest one, even if it matches what I see in the mirror, doesn’t necessarily reflect what I feel inside, especially in the context of the rest of my family.
After I responded to Asma’s tweet, an NPR producer reached out and I recorded a little blurb about it for All Things Considered on Friday about this issue.
It turns out that choosing an emoji color can be much more complicated than I ever imagined, and yellow as a “default” option has its own pitfalls, as the guest in the segment presents. The entire piece is about 5:00, and really made me think.
Take a listen and let me know your thoughts too!
What’s Next
I am slowly coming out of my Quarantine Creatives hibernation and starting to feel like there can be a space for this newsletter (and maybe podcast) again in the world.
I have grown so much and want to share some of those new ideas with you all, whether it’s about TV and video work, hobbies like woodworking and cooking, or even just cool books or articles that I’m reading. I want to talk about life and what makes it worth living. Would you want to read about that?
I may also bring in guests from time to time to hear other perspectives about what we’re all learning after two years in a global pandemic. These will likely still be figures from the entertainment and media industry (both in front of and behind the camera), but maybe others too. They may guest in the newsletter, I may record a podcast, or it might end up being both.
I likely won’t write a newsletter every week, but I will send them when I have something to say. I will probably stick with the Sunday morning delivery schedule, as I like the idea of this space being more contemplative and a little more relaxed. Something you can read with a cup of coffee and a view out of your window.
I also wanted to send a sincere thank you to those of you who supported the newsletter with a subscription! It meant a lot to me. At this time, I have decided to discontinue paid subscriptions and keep the newsletter fully free. I hope this can allow it to reach even more people and help us maintain an even richer dialogue.
With that in mind, please send me your thoughts. Have you missed waking up to this newsletter on the weekends? Is there a feature you’d like to see more or less of? I’m all ears!
If you have questions, comments, thoughts, ideas, or anything else that you’d like to share, please feel free to email me anytime: hracela@mac.com
If you’d like to catch up on past episodes of the Quarantine Creatives podcast, they can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Please consider sharing this with a friend that you think might enjoy reading this, or better yet, share it on social media so you can tell hundreds of friends!
If you’ve missed past issues of this newsletter, they are available to read here.
Stay Safe!
Heath