Chapter Fourteen: The End of an Era
So I feel like I'm getting pretty close to getting caught up on my life. Next post should be in real time. Woo!!Okay, so when I left off, my phone had rang. I was doing my unpaid internship, and loving it. I had been looking for paying jobs, but was quite content to stay were as was, knowing that it was a matter of time before I could actually get paid. It was early March of last year.
On the other end of my phone was a guy I had gone to school with. I had seen him at a holiday party and learned that he was editing VH1 news. At that time, the word "News" had caught my attention more than anything else. Granted, I had never seen these news segments, but I pictured the MTV Kurt Loder version and had gotten pretty excited. He assured me it wasn't that cool, but I insisted he take my information in case there was ever an opening. And yes, it was him.
There was an opening at the post house he worked at and the boss was interested in me. I was freaking estatic. I think I called everyone I knew and gabbed and gabbed about finally getting my "big break".
After throughly jinxing the whole thing, I met with the bossman. He was a nice guy, very straightforward, and funny. He took me out to lunch were we had a beer, and me in my nervousness, had not been able to eat all morning. Out of politeness, I ordered what he was having, a dark beer. I sipped a little too fast while we were waiting for our food, and got good and tipsy for my interview. Not a great idea, I know. Well, at least I was no longer nervous.
I tried so hard to contain myself and not fall off of the barstool. I told him that I was interested in editing and most of my experience was with Final Cut Pro, but I had worked on Avid before in the past. He then explained to me his business plan. He basically owns his own post production house. He hires young editing hopefuls and trains them to be editors. He pays a lot less than an editor should make, but the experience that you get, really pays for itself.
He had been burned by a lot of former employees, taking what they had learned and fleeing. Leaving him to train new people all over again. So he said that unfortunately, he is going to take his time with this new hire. He said he liked me, and I'd be hearing from him. Hopeful, and still a little tipsy, I tried to walk in a straight line out of the resturant and back to the subway.
It was a couple of weeks before I heard anything. But one day he called and asked if I could come in again. I told him I could and jetted over. He offered me the job, paying a lousy $500 a week, but I accepted. Five hundred may seem like nothing, and it wasn't enough to pay my rent, but I had been working at an unpaid internship mind you. I felt like I had just won the lottery.
He explained that I would be his assistant on a VH1 music video show. Again with the phone calls! I mean this was huge for me. I was a year out of school, had struggled with rather or not I even wanted to edit, and then six months later I was landing a job as an assistant editor on a nationally broadcast tv show, cut on Avid, and I was literally there to learn. Not to mention, the small but welcomes pay that went with it.
I had to tell my bosses at my internship that I would be leaving. That was hard, but they understood. They offered to pay me what he was paying me, which was probably the best feeling in the world. Here I was with two jobs that I wanted, and I got to chose between the two. Everyone wondered why I didn't pit the two of them against each other to get paid more, but the bottom line was, this was a great opportunity for someone like me. I still couldn't believe I had gotten the job and didn't want to do anything to risk losing it.
I explained to my bosses that while I loved working for them, I couldn't pass an opportunity like this up. It had much more potential for being something I could grow into, and it was a nationally broadcast television show, which is inarguably great for any resume. They understood, as I knew they would, and told me that I would always have a job with them. I returned that I would always be around if they needed anything, and that I was a phone call away.
We parted on excellent terms and I began to finally feel like the whole twisted journey I had taken since graduation was what was supposed to happen to me.
i was supposed to take the horrible desk job at Court TV, and was meant to be unemployed for a while. Therefore when this internship had come along, I swooped it up. Because again, it was supposed to happen. I was meant to fall out of love with editing, and I was meant to return to it. I felt justified in my months of misery, knowing that even though I had some hefty credit card bills to show for it, it was my path to this place.
That sounds so cheesy, I know. But I really feel like it was all baby steps for me, and that I probably wouldn't have ever gotten back on track without the months of self-doubt and time of serious self-reflection.
So I started the new job, acting as an assistant, and as a sponge. Every keystroke he made, my eyes followed. For the first few weeks, I was lost. I spent my days hooking up decks in some of the other rooms, and sitting behind my boss watching his every move. Before I knew it, he had me cutting little parts of the show, like the coming ups, or cutting in music. I learned right away most of the commands on the keyboard, but was still pretty slow. Luckily, my boss had ADD, so he would just get up and leave the room often, leaving me sitting there doing nothing for long periods of time. I was so bored, I would get in the chair and just start doing stuff. This is a move I wouldn't recommend normally, but he had sort of left the door open for that sort of behavior.
I had gotten a lot quicker, and by May, felt confident on the machine. It was a few weeks later that I recieved a phone call one Saturday morning. It was my boss, who was distraught and told me his step-father had just died. It was a horrible tragedy and he wanted me to know that he wouldn't be in the next week. He told me I would do the things I was comfortable with on the show, and he'd bring in a freelance editor to finish the rest. I took a deep breath and told him that I could do the show all by myself. I knew it was pushing my speed, this being a two-hour show that airs on Saturday and is shot on Thursday, but I knew I needed to prove myself. I also reasoned, it would save him money. He was hesitant, and said he'd get back to me. I knew I could do it. Even if it meant spending late nights completing everything. I could place all the videos earlier in the week, and do all the coming-ups and intros before they shot. If I could just prep the show as much as possible by Thursday, I'd be able to pull it off.
He called me back later and said that I could do it. If I felt like I needed help, to call him and he'd call someone in to help me. I knew that this was my moment. This was where I was either going to make or break this position. So on Monday, I got to it. There wasn't a whole lot to do, but I did what I could. By Thursday, I had everything in as good of a place as possible, and when I got the shoot tapes, adrenaline started pumping. I was like a machine, doing everything as good as I could, making it perfect, and watching it two or three times to ensure I had done things correctly. I left the office on Thursday night at 11 o'clock. Not bad for my first show.
The screening the next morning went off without a hitch and because everyone knew the situation, was congratulating me and shaking my hand, saying "Good work!", "Looks great!", and "Way to go!". I was estatic. I got a call from my boss later that day thanking me, and I knew that I had pulled it off. Much to my surprise, he offered me the show. He offered for me to be the editor on this nationally broadcast television show. A mere three months after I started. The position came with a small raise, still not great, but obviously, I took it. And I started editing a television show.
I knew I loved the format of tv even back when I was assisting. A new show every week, an air date to have the show finished by, and a lot of fly-by-the-seat of your pants days. It was exciting and stressful and I was having a blast. I got really fast in the months that followed and gained the respect of all of my producers. My boss would get on another machine from time to time and help me out so I wasn't even doing late nights anymore. I loved it. When my friend from school who had gotten me the job quit, I even helped out with news, cutting a few segments every now and then. I was the busiest one in the office. Everyone came to me for help, and I was training assistants and working as tech support for the entire post house. I had been there when the Avid Unity was installed, and had become the administrator for that as well. My resume was actually starting to look like a professional resume!
As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. I had a job that I loved, and was surrounded by my friends, but New York had started to wear on me. It was depressing and exhausting and I hated it more and more each day. I wanted to suck it up and just deal with it, but I couldn't ignore the fact that I knew I had something great to leave New York with. A great experience, a pretty decent resume, and confidence that had grown exponentially in the past few months. It was December when I decided I needed to move to Los Angeles. I knew it was far away, and I knew it wouldn't be easy, but the pros outweighed the cons. I had lots of good friends working out here, telling me they could get me a job in no time. I knew I wanted to continue TV, and LA is the place to be for that. I thought I would probably like the city more, being as I would have a car again and therefore, regain some freedom I had lost in NY.
It wasn't an easy desicion, and certainly not a cheap one, but I got the support of my parents and made it official. The universe seemed to align perfectly for me after that. My lease was up at the end of Feburary, and I had a good friend already living in LA seeking a roommate for March onward. I locked in with her, and put in my months notice. (I felt like I needed to give bossman, whom had given me such a great opportunity, a sizable notice so he could start looking for a replacement.) He offered me a raise to "change my lifestyle", but I declined. It wasn't the pay. It had never been the pay, I explained to him. It was the city of suffocation. It was the lack of opportunity in television. I told him I was more interested in narrative or scripted tv. He bid me good luck and sadly, at the end of Feburary, I said good-bye to New York.
Labels: editing, interview, LA, moving, NY, parents, success, TV
posted by ms bct @ 1:56 PM
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