In pursuit of quality, I licked all the automatic forms and decided it was time to start writing a training manual for graduates. We wanted to do something that would help and support them when they go to sea on their own. I started with simple instructions for setting up a sailing yacht and realized that I needed to supplement them with photos, then decided it was easier to record a video with comments right away. In the draft version, I assumed that this would also be useful for those who are just about to study, and decided to take a break to weigh all my thoughts.

Every day, my training manual turned into a yacht video encyclopedia, and I thought: a quiz show host doesn't have to know everything in the world, he just needs to learn the answers to today's episode. So I can start with what I already know and then see where it leads me.

Out of my imagination, I sketched out my little yacht show in my head, added a camera, a pair of lenses, microphones, and cameraman @dimamuzalevskiy to my basket for my salary. After realizing my approximate budget and time, I realized that my perfectionism and love for what I did would lead me to bankruptcy, not success. But it always worked out, which means it will work out this time too — you just need to figure out how to monetize this project.

Training manual 2.0 with video tutorials in a subscription-based mobile app was my best idea of the past decade, which tripled the project budget and took me to a whole new level. Did you watch “My Own Director”? This is about me, but the camera is better and the sense of composition came in handy.

I still don't know why my mother-in-law loved me, and as an ex, she still seems to love me. But she was the one who said she wanted to help me with my project and acted as a financial support, completely closing the issue of developing the application. I spent everything that was put on hold on the best equipment at the time, found an operator and invited him to Turkey. To support me, Turks shot down a Russian plane, Turkish tomatoes stopped flying to Russia, and Russian yachting enthusiasts stopped flying to me. Thus, giving me financial problems and freeing up most of my time to shoot video tutorials. This is how my first pre-COVID film vacation began. I've become a screenwriter, director, host, drone cameraman struggling to accept myself and my voice on camera.

I wrote scripts at night, during the day we discussed the storyboard, the next day we went to shoot, we watched the material in the evening, and the next day we went to shoot from scratch. Sound defects, exposure errors, my text jambs — and takes, takes, takes.

And that's why I stopped — “that's what the next post will be about”)))

‍