Tales From The Inside

Chapter Thirteen: Unemployment

What do you do when you find yourself without a job? When your days are filled with applications, and resumes, and cover letters and still nothing seems to be happening? I was at a loss. My parents still did not know that I was unemployed, I was living on a nocturnal schedule, and I still had this uncontrollable urge to work in television news, with no credentials. (Oddly enough, no one was that impressed with an internship I did at Joe Blow News ten thousand years ago.)

I was putting in so many applications, and was getting no where. I was discouraged to say the least. My days were filled with sleeping and watching TV. My nights were filled with applications and reworking my resume, researching news, and surfing the internet for answers. It didn't take long for me to start applying for assistant editing positions. After my affair with the business world, I knew I needed something creative. I still had the desire to do the news thing, but I could feel myself getting the itch back. My problem was that I didn't want to do features. I didn't know much of the editing world beyond that. More importantly, I was scared a becoming invested in this career path again, only to be let down once again. I did what any person in my situation would do: I started walking dogs. My roommate was a part-time dog walker and easily hooked me up with a job. It was fun, albeit challenging in some of the more miserable days of the NY winter.

It didn't take long before I fell into a slump of depression. I was lost. I had no idea where to go from here. Even with the addition of the assistant editing applications, no doors seemed to be opening for me. Unemployment is discouraging. When you have too much time to think, sleep too much, and when you barely see the light of day, it happens. I felt useless and unwanted. Worse, for the first time in a long time, I didn't feel like I had a clear goal. I was floating around, not knowing where I wanted to go, what I wanted to be doing. At my lowest point, I found myself asking my friends if it would be completely crazy to cut gay porn. But I went on more interviews, for everything from a videotape inspector to a tech support person at a news station. I was tired of being told I was underqualified. I was tired of being told I was overqualified. (How is that even possible?)

I was close to crawling back to my Traffic job but Christmas break was fast approaching and I couldn't wait. I needed the break, and to get myself out of this rut. I couldn't wait to finally be able to leave the city for the first time since I had arrived, to be able to drive again, see land and trees again, to see my family. The family I had been lying to for two months now. I decided I had to come clean while I was home. To tell them that maybe they were right, maybe quitting a job without something else lined up was a bad idea.

Break was great, and I felt myself returning back to normal. I decided to tell my mom about my job. (I still couldn't bare to tell my father. His lectures were something I didn't want, nor need. He's not the most warm and understanding person on the planet. Surely he could knock my confidence down a few more notches without even realizing it.) Unbelievably, my mom understood. She hated that I had lied, but she seemed to understand my desperation. She even agreed not to tell my dad, an agreement I hated to ask of her, but she knew, like I knew, that his disappointment in me he would not keep to himself. Maybe I needed to be woken up, but I couldn't bare the thought of letting him down.

It was a couple days after Christmas when I received the phone call. It was a call from ABC and I had a interview in two days. It was for an internship, but I didn't care. As I've said numerous times before, I just had to get in the door. I had applied for so many jobs, I didn't even remember exactly what department it was for. In fact, I had no idea what the job description was. Telling my mom that I had gotten that interview was a great feeling. And it couldn't have come at a better time.

The L train wasn't working properly on the day of my interview. I had to take a shuttle to another subway line, and by the time I got into Manhattan, with one transfer and a hefty walk in front of me, I knew I was going to be late. I could blow this interview in many ways, but it wasn't going to be by being late. So I got off at the next stop and on the street level, called them to tell them I got held up by the train and was on my way. They were super understanding and with relief, I hailed a cab. In both of our phone conversations, I was surprised at how nice they were and how well we got along. I thought I had a chance. This wasn't human resources.

By the time I had gotten there, I was so flustered by my commute, I didn't remember to be nervous. I got to the floor of the surprisingly modest building, and something stopped me dead in my tracks. In all my running away from the world of filmmaking, it had found me. Surprisingly, I wasn't as disappointed as I thought I'd be. The door read "ABC Film and Video". This wasn't the ABC. This wasn't the job in news that I thought I finally had found. Their ad had been tricky. I had been fairly certain I was applying to the ABC and instead I had found a film and video company. The irony wasn't lost on me.

While I was waiting to be interviewed I flipped through their modest pamplet. It was a private company that did short films mainly. It was just getting its start and so far, seemed to be doing well.

The interview went great, probably because I actually knew what I was talking about. After looking at my resume, they concluded that I would be an editing intern if hired. I nodded my head in excitement before I realized I didn't think that this was what I wanted.

I got the job. And after my first day, they made me head intern of post-production. I would have eight interns below me, and as I quickly realized, we would be the post department. No one else at the company had as much experience with Final Cut Pro as I, and therefore, I found myself giving workshops and organizing all of their media. They were still very small, working on modest computers. I was delegating jobs and was editing again. The company was working on a documentary, actor reels, and other random things. It was exciting to be in charge. People were coming to me, asking for advice and guidance. People were asking to see my movies, and loved them. I felt like a hero, as cheesy as I'm sure that sounds. I hadn't felt this good since I was a sophomore. I had brought their fledging post-production department into its own. Before I knew it, my mood had done a one-eighty and my confidence in editing had been reignited.

I felt like I belonged there. I wasn't getting paid. I was still walking dogs and was even helping my friend with an independent documentary that paid. ABC Film and Video may have been an unpaid internship, but I loved every second. I wasn't doing it for the money. That was important for me to realize. I was loving it. I was loving editing again. At this point, I knew it was much bigger than a coincidence that I had gotten this job. I had come full circle.

Just when I though things couldn't get better, my phone rang.

Labels: dog walking, Final Cut Pro, finding post, full circle, NY, unemployment, unpaid internship

posted by ms bct @ 11:44 PM 0 comments

Chapter Nine: Full Speed Ahead

There's so much to cover, I really don't want, (or mean), to spend so much time on my college years. The problem is, this is where so much happened for me. I've already skipped a few things, one regretably so. Now I will back track for a small second to discuss.

I was a grip on a professional shoot of a short film called "Two Soldiers". Small as the movie was, it was a new and real experience. (And it later went on to win an Academy Award!) I learned three things:

1. How film shoots in 'the real world' differed from film school movies...

2. How similar film shoots in 'the real world' and film school movies are...

3. and I hated being on set.

The third, I assume, is the most important. Despite the fact that all the movies I had a hand in were pretty small, I felt like I had a pretty good idea of what being on a crew meant. The negative being: long hours, tons of hurry up and wait, and no immediate gratification. The positive: being in the middle of the process is pretty exciting, bonding with the cast and crew, and being able to be outside; traveling to various, sometimes new and exciting, locations.

The positives are great. They are. But for me, the enjoyment of the actual work just wasn't there. I had decided to make a living in this field, or at least try, so I needed to earn it.

So, catching up to the previous post, I was going to try for the editing disipline. I'm not deluted...and I'll tell you the same thing I told my friends who were stressed and anxious about the outcome of Sophomore Slaughter. It does not say "Editing and Sound', "Directing", etc on our degrees. In fact, it says Bachelor of Fine Arts. Only once does it even mention "filmmaking" on the piece of paper, and that is under our Dean's signature: "School of Filmmaking Dean". While Sophomore Slaughter did determine how we would spend the next two years, beyond that, it was up to us. The three most important things you get from film school does not come from what major you are in. Those three things? Your first success, your first failure, and contacts!

Having said that, both to you and them, I was beyond anxious. I just had to get into the Editing discipline! If I could only get myself to listen to my own advice.

Well, as the envelopes started to be put into boxes, faces were solemn, respectful. Well for the most part anyway.

The time came to open my envelope. I waited. Maybe because I knew what was in the envelope. Maybe I knew; I didn't need to look. Or maybe it was because the second I unfolded that flap, I would know. Maybe I did it because I'm sort of a tame masochist. But I think I knew. For all that I've been talking about my self-confidence problems, I was pretty sure that I was in. A year of people telling you that you were "the best editor in the class" will really help. You begin to believe it. And maybe it was true, maybe it wasn't, but it made me more self-assured. On the outside, I would wave off the remarks. Inside, a small bubble of less-than-humble thoughts were a brewing.

The anti-climatic part of this is: I got in. I was accepted into the editing discipline. I opened the envelope and it was there, a letter inviting me into the future, if you will. I was doing something right. And things were going great.

I went into one of my editing professors office to thank him, and we ended up having an interesting discussion. The highlight? He told me that within ten years, I would win an Academy Award. My mom had a field day with that one. I think she sent out cards to all of our relatives boasting, "My daughter is going to win an Academy Award in ten years! P.S. She's taking me so don't even ask!"

This blog would be really boring if it was all smooth sailing. I assure you, it's not. But at this moment, I was on top of the world. I had been invited to being one of ten editors in our school, then the Academy Award comment, and I was about to spend the summer making my first feature length movie. Damn. Times were good!

Well, happy-happy ship coasts on. For the summer at least. We made this movie with a crew of four to five people. Doing it guerilla style, very few lights, flying by the seat of our pants. I lived out of my car. We spent two weeks in Florida. We worked six day weeks, shooting around 12 hours a day. As the sound team, I was both the mixer and boom operator. I was carrying around two HUGE tackle boxes filled with equipment and cables and batteries. The cord for the microphone weighed like twenty pounds, and as I had to move with the actors, it rested over my shoulder in the 90 degree heat. I was holding the boom over my head for the majority of the day. Exhausting. I remember being tired, I remember being hot, sore, and sometimes, in pain. But I don't remember being miserable. It was the most fun. I have never felt closer to a group of people. We saw it all. In Florida, we were all living together and stealing each other's sheets and griping about who drank the last of the milk. But we were all having a blast. It was "Tell Everyone" for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week all summer. On our day off, we'd talk about the next week. We'd sit around and drink beer and eat yummy food and talk about life and school and the future and the movie. We knew it wasn't going to be a phenomenon, but dammit, it was going to be good. We all put everything we had into making it the best we could. And we were doing it. That's what kept spirits up. We knew we weren't going to make any money, but we were putting ourselves in the game. At twenty, we were making a feature length movie. Definitely not unheard of, by any means, but to us, to me, it was something to be very proud of.

It ended and I jumped in the editing process with the same gusto. For all the things you can say about post-production, talking about the actual cut and splice process is rather boring. So I'll spare you the details of cutting, but Brett, (the director and producer and actor and everything else), and I, found a great rhythm and worked so well together. I knew what he was thinking before he told me. He knew what I was thinking before I told him. It was the smoothest edit I've ever been a part of. It went too well. When it was all over, I was left feeling like there wasn't anything I couldn't do.

That's how I remember my summer after Sophomore year.

Here's a little treat I cut together after the editing was all done. The most narcissistic thing I've ever done. We shot on video so we ran the camera when we were getting room tone or wild sound/lines. Needless to say, I made a lot of the shots so I could easily recognize where the sound was. Hence, I bring forth this video. It probably represents my, (albeit short-lived), "I love this and I'm awesome" attitude best. Enjoy...well...me.

Labels: film school, Final Cut Pro, finding post, first feature, independent movie

posted by ms bct @ 11:27 PM 0 comments