Chapter Twelve: Welcome To The World of Business Casual
The whole move is a blur now. We had signed a lease when we had come to NY earlier in the month.
On that trip we had stayed in what can only be described as the most glorified dorm room ever. I'll explain. Three guys that we had gone to school with had found a humble abode in Brooklyn. Their apartment was originally a gigantic, concrete room. LIke an oversized garage. No kitchen. No bathroom. No rooms. They had taken some sort of wood and built dividers for rooms, even giving the space a second story. The walls were filled, but not cluttered, with books, records, and humorous posters. Their living area consisted of about 7 chairs with ashtrays built in the arms, an entertainment center, and a blow-up doll, (if I'm not mistaken.) The room that they used as a kitchen, (although they had no running water to the apartment, or as much as a stove), had a giant pipe running through it, large enough that a person could not wrap their arms around it completely. This ran from one wall to the other about chest high. The bathroom/kicthen area, (notice the slash here), was down the hall for the entire hall the share. The kitchen was in the bathroom. The bathroom was in the kitchen. The shower was in the kitchen. The kitchen sink was were you would brush your teeth. And the whole thing was just gross and a bit unsettling. I had stayed worse places in the city, (a night spent on the floor of a studio apartment, huddled next to a radiator for heat, trying not to notice the roaches, and using the contents of our suitcases for warmth, comes to mind), but this experience sticks out for me, because it was here, walking down the dirty hallways, taking showers in flip-flops, and hearing stories about the neighbor who got held up by an eight-year-old, that it sunk in. I was moving to New York. I was going to be living this life that had been written about in thousands of books. Thousands of movies made about this place. It was scary and exciting all at the same time. This time we weren't here dreaming about the one day we'll live here. No. We were going to sign a lease. We were going to promise ourselves, and the better part of our income, to this city for at least the next year.
It was official. We were moving. Like I said, it was all a blur and happened entirely too fast. One day I was watching my uncle drive my car away, tears dripping down my face, the next, I was emptying out all of my possesions into boxes and trash bags, and sweeping things that were once swept under the couch into a gigantic pile. Our house was pretty messy, to say the least. I won't go into details here but wow, I'm sure our landlord was glad to see us go.
We were driving up, three girls, two dogs, a mother, sister, uncle, and Uhaul. All of our worldly possessions, three best friends, and 400 miles. There, we would start new lives. Start looking for jobs, good restaurants, hip bars.
Our apartment was biggest than the average NY apartment. We were in Williamsburg, Brooklyn beside a huge park, (perfect for the doggies). We painted the walls, organized all of our stuff, started to call it home.
A lot of the summer we all sat around in denial. We were on summer break right? School would be starting back up in the Fall. This was just a vacation. Less job searching went on that should have.
It happened one day, inevitably, money ran low and our parents started to get pissed. We needed jobs.
Craigslist, Mandy.com, Time Warner Careers, Monster. I was looking for a job in tv. I was looking for a job in news. My first interview was at Fox News. That first call for an interview is one of the most exciting things in the world. Finding a job is hard. Finding a job in NYC is damn near impossible. We were all looking and slowly, we all became pretty discouraged. When I got the call, there was something that reignited my confidence. I wasn't totally worthless and maybe someone would want to hire me! Woo!
My shoes were uncomfortable and it was raining. I wore flip flops and then outside of the office, changed into more suitable shoes. There was no covered area to change my shoes so I stood balanced on one foot, holding my umbrella under my chin, trying to change my shoes. It was pitiful. People were walking by, in their perfect suits, with their perfect umbrella that didn't turn inside-out at every chance, with their high-paying jobs, balancing fine in their heels like Carrie Bradshaw. I was a mess. I was so nervous when I went in, I blew it. I stumbled over words and was so intimidated I couldn't stop shaking. I buried my personality under a shameful pile of nerves. I didn't exactly know the names of any positions and winced as they told me it was "chy-ron" not "cry-on". In my head, I just had to get on the inside somehow. Then I would know the terms. There's a union for chyron operators? Really? This was turning into a mess. It was clear I didn't know much, but I tried to play it off. Unsuccessfully. I was trying to explain why I would be perfect for the job even though I wasn't a journalism major. I had the drive to succeed. That was better than any degree. Right?
I wouldn't have hired myself.
More interviews, more rejection. I kept losing jobs to people who actually went to school for news or journalism. I was discouraged and started expanding my searches to anything in television. I found an ad for a job at a national television station. I got the interview.
What was the traffic department anyway? I didn't care. All I knew was that this was a station that was on televison, had little news segments, and hell, wasn't anything to do with movies or editing. It was exactly what I was looking for. I got a new outfit, business casual attire, new shoes, and went in with confidence. At this point I had nothing to lose. For all I knew, I would be wearing an orange vest directing traffic affliated with this station. (Thinking that surely most of this traffic would be somehow involved in the news-getting-processes. Damn. I really needed to learn the terms.)
I walk in, and am amazed at just how many times this station's name appeared throughout the building. Walls, doors, television screens, tee shirts, pens. It was everywhere. The second thing the woman who was interviewing me said was, "I like your shoes." After an appropriate silence and period in which I internally congratulated myself, she added. "My mom has those same ones." Oh I recongnize snark when I see it. I smiled and forced a laugh. Somehow, someway, I got the job. Even after admitting I had no idea what a traffic department did. Only later did the reason I got hired become clear. I had a pulse. This is not a job people seek.
Let me explain what a traffic department does.
This job is a monotonous one. You sit in your business casual attire in a cubicle, next to a water cooler, staring at a computer screen all day. The traffic department is in charge of making sure the highest costing commercial spots go to air. For a two-minute break, there are usually roughly 100 spots that can go in. All ranging from 15 seconds to 2 minutes. It's like a puzzle, doing the math figuring out which spots will bring this company the most money. Eight :15 spots at $2000 dollars a piece, or two :15 second spots at $2000, one :30 spot at $5000, and one 1:00 spot for $8000. Or the 2:00 spot for $10,000. It all gets very complicated and putting the wrong spots in can cost the company thousands. It seems easy enough, but there are spots that have to air, and then there is also a rule about which spots go next to each other. A diaper commercial must air thirty minutes away from a competing diaper commercial. Are you asleep yet?
There was a joke that I had heard on multiple occasions about the lack of sanity in the traffic department. People that did this long enough were depressed, bitter, and often hated their lives. There's not really a punchline. I did this for three months. I walked the line of casual and business casual a little too closely. I nearly costed the company lots of money on multiple occasions and only once got to even walk onto the floor in which they did the news.
Discouraged and slightly bruised I went to my boss. She was eating a lean cusine with her perfectly manicured nails and playing on her Blackberry. She looked up as I nervously tapped on her door. Shakey, I walked into her office as she nodded her head. After having what I can only describe as a panic attack, I told her I was quitting. I tried to explain that this job, environment, life, just wasn't for me. I told her, in what I assumed was a lie, that I was going to go back to editing. (I was nervous about telling her my plans to go into news, knowing her ability to crush ones dreams in the drop of a hat. "Did you go to school for that?") I also told her I had a project lined up. Also a lie. I couldn't bear to tell her that I was quitting with nothing lined up, just because I hated the job so much. That it had drained me so much. I was so creatively stunted. When I would get off work, I'd want to paint or write or do something that was creative. I was going crazy in those four fabric walls listening to Oprah everyday at four o'clock from about fifty different television screens, resounding and echoing throughout the office. I was depressed and drained.
After my two weeks, I cleaned out my desk, and left. (Taking as many pens and pads and whatever other office supplies I could get my hands on, with me. I heard that's common.)
The funny thing about all this is that it was in October. I had told my parents about wanting to quit and they had expressively told me I'd be an idiot to quit without something lined up and strictly forbade it. So I didn't tell them. I only slipped up a couple of times, Once my dad called me in the middle of the work day asking what I was doing and I told him I was at the dog park with Hopper. He asked why I wasn't at work and I froze. I told him that we had a half of day today for a conference. Good one. I lied to them. Everyday when my mom would ask me how my day at work was I'd tell her great and try to quickly change the subject so I wouldn't have to lie further. I was still looking for a job, and got a couple of calls, but nothing that paid money that I so desperately needed. I obviously couldn't ask my parents for money, so I pulled out my credit card to get by and kept searching.
Labels: business casual, interview, job search, NY, parents, quitting a job
Chapter Ten: Really Close To Hell
It was my junior year. I was in the editing discipline, had a great movie to edit, was still riding high on my "Tell Everyone" accomplishment. One day I get approached by one of the Directing discipline faculty members. He asks me if I'd be interested in editing a horror movie that he was doing this upcoming summer. A creature, feature length. He comes from the cult, straight-to-dvd classics that are still talked about in hushed, reverent tones, fame. "Umm, hell yeah!?" is what I really wanted to scream, but trying to remain calm and poised I declared I was, "very interested but would have to think about it and read the script". Ahh, what a mature and professional decision. Well, in actuality, there wasn't much to think about. I'd be editing my second feature the second summer in a row. And this one had the possibility of going to DVD! This was no time to be picky about projects. I would take whatever I could get. Unfortunately, what I didn't know, this movie would break my spirit more than I was willing to admit.
Eventually, (like a week), later, I told him I'd do it. For getting into the editing discipline, I got a generous gift from my parents to jump start my career. A G5 Mac complete with Final Cut Pro. Top of the line at the time. Still, a damn good computer. We would start shooting in July, and the editing would start immediately there after. I would cut scenes as they came in. I got to hire an assistant to log and capture all the footage, this was almost like a real movie. We were all hired on something called a back-end deal. There's many a reasons why this could be called what it is. In actuality, it means once the movie is done, you get a percentage of its
profits. These days, I feel like this deal is appropriately named because once you sign that deal, you might as well bend over and insert obscenity here. Lesson of the day: Don't sign a back-end deal if you want to ever see a cent.
But admittedly, I wasn't doing the movie for the money. For me, it was all about experience and resume/reel opportunities. The money was only a very wonderful perk. If things went as planned, the movie would be done around November, sold by January, checks by May...just in time for graduation. Going into the real world with a nice little chunk of change didn't hurt.
The movie I did junior year was great. It was a black and white, grainy, touching drama. Lots of room for creative play, like jump cuts, tons of parallel action that I adore. A quick note about parallel action: I love it because you are following two stories and, creatively, there's always a way to make the actions connect to each other, even if only for the purpose of subconsious flow for the audience. If there's two men walking, I always match their footsteps from cut to cut. If guy A is walking left, right, left, right, left, then I cut to guy B walking continuing where he left off, right, left, right. Little touches like that seem to make the flow and rhythm of the action so much smoother. You can also purposefully have the two working against each other to create an unsteady, or subtle conflict of action to represent the larger conflict in the movie. In editing, my theory is, it's the little motions and touches that really make the movie
flow.
Well, at the end of the year, I went to Cannes Film Festival. It was a student filmmaker program in which you payed a lot of money to go to the festival and work at the American Pavilion. Just the chance to hang out in the South of France was a great opportunity, not to mention the networking possibilities. So me and one of my close friends went. We actually went a week early and spent our time in Nice. It was amazing. The plan was we'd go to Nice, and then Cannes for the duration of the festival, and then go backpacking to such places as Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, England, and Scotland. Ending up in Paris and flying out. The whole trip would be two months, and I'd be back right in time to start the horror movie. Nice was amazing, Cannes was great. I was basically a waitress. I met lots of people. but no one really able to help me out much. We got to go to posh parties and saw many celebrities. This was the Cannes of Jen and Brad. I was actually catering a party that was being held on a balcony above the red carpet as they arrived. I could have spit on their heads. Of course I didn't. I was too busy pouring red wine into people's white, setting trashcans on fire by empting ashtrays too early, or opening the fridge not very carefully and ruining a tray of cream puffs when they fell to the floor. Eck. I wasn't cut out for this. They all ended up being laughable offenses and actually was a conversation starter with the editor of "Hearts of Darkness", Jay Miracle. All in all, it was a great trip. As the festival started coming to a close, my friend and I, who at the time both had dogs, were getting word from home that all was not well.
My dog was having severe seperation anxiety and becoming a routine misbehaver. On the other hand, Maggie's dog was on the edge of dying. It was her childhood dog, and she was reaching the end of her life. It was becoming apparent that she would have to be put to sleep. Maggie made the decision that she had to return home. After sincere apologies, she insisted I do the rest of the trip without her. Unable to fathom traveling around Europe alone, and due to my own dog's problems, I decided to return with her. We got refunds on all of our train tickets and rescheduled our flight for three weeks earlier. We were leaving the next week.
I'm really digressing here. I'm finding it so much easier to talk about my accomplishments, that's for sure. Here we go. (Deep breath.)
The movie was starting up before I knew it. I started cutting away as the scenes began rolling in. As a general practice, if time allows, I will try and cut without the script as a first cut. I'm not sure if this is good advice or not, for me it works. It helps me look at the scenes as part of the bigger picture. If something makes sense to me without reading from the script, I know that most likely, it will also make sense to the audience. The problem here was that I was getting scenes that were missing pivotal shots. Basically, I had scenes A and C, and I put them together temporarily while I waited for B to be captured. It was innocent enough. The three scenes were all action and didn't even follow the script very well. With the low-budget hectic schedule, there was no time for dailies/rushes screenings, or watching all of the unedited footage shot that day. Daily screenings are helpful because directors can point out takes that they like, and explain what the unslated shots are. It's a way for everyone to see what was done that day, and great for getting editors up to speed, (especially in the low-budget, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants movie setting).
The director called me and said that they wanted to have a little screening of what I had cut so far. It was very early on, and of what I had so far, it was an assembly edit at best. Well, all of the other positions were filled by other faculty members or other grown and experienced professionals. It was easy to say, I was the only one in the room still, "wet behind the ears". I started to explain that some scenes were still missing and they responded by saying, "No disclaimers needed. We only want to see the cinematography." There are many mistakes I made on this fateful day. One was believing that. It's
never just about the cinematography. Admittedly, the biggest was not putting text or black up between scene A and C. "Missing Scene".
A first cut screening is the most horrifying thing I've ever experienced. It is terrifying. It was always my least favorite part of the process. In this instance especially. I was desperately trying to prove myself as a professional, trying to show that I wasn't a college student, or a female, or a kid, I was an editor. This was where everyone would see what I could do. If I lived up to all the hype. Every sigh, mutter, scribble in the room had my undivided attention. Heart slowly sinking as the sighs increased. When the lights came on, I was already near tears. Pure tears of terror. I sucked them back and focused on my pen and paper waiting for the notes that were sure to come.
"What the hell was that?" or something similarly shattering was the first "note" I received.
I tried to stay cool, "Well, there's still more coming, and it's just a first cut. I know it's rough."
"You cut out the cabin scene!"
"No, well..." I attempted to explain, but the director was hearing none of it.
"And there was no suspense! Where was the fucking suspense? Have you ever seen a scary movie?"
Tears coming up, pushed back, shakey voice, "Well yeah-"
"Why'd you show this to us, I just can't, I just-"
"It's rough, I-"
And wordlessly he left the room and went to his car and drove away. Drove away. Walked out of the fucking room and drove away. I felt hollow, like every good, encouraging thing anyone had ever said about me had been pulled out of my body in one fail swoop, leaving this skeleton of a person sitting in a room of sympathetic eyes, all on me. Waiting to see if I was going to say anything or jump out of the window, if I'd reenact scene 34 where the monster swipes everything off of the table in rage. Enraged.
I cleared my throat and shamefully turned to the other men in the room, humiliated, "There's a scene missing. It will be better."
And I left. I walked on my wooden, fucking legs, out to my fucking car, and drove away, my car creaking "failure" at every turn. The saddest songs playing on the radio. The tears still hadn't come. I just said "Fuck him". A lot. (And now I will continue to say "fuck" a lot. There's a possibility I'm still pretty angry about this event.) And drove, and drove by my house. Stunned and sad and feeling like everything that anyone had ever said about me being, "talented", all the talk about winning an Academy Award, everything was bullshit. My entire life up to this point was a fucking waste. All the hard work, and the nights watching them film Dawson's Creek, the movies, and encouragement, my uncles boasting about how they couldn't wait to see me on the big screen, everything was a waste. I was the biggest fraud of all time. Somehow I had convinced everyone I could do this. But put in a real situation, on a real movie, with real filmmakers, I failed. I was three feet shorter when I realized I had made a mistake. This was not for me. I couldn't take it. I wouldn't make it. Anger, regret, and then, then there were tears.
When I walked into my house I would have usually made a beeline for my bedroom, unable to let anyone see my weakness. See me cry. But I had too many tears. I didn't know what to do with them. They kept coming, and I was hyperventilating, and I was a mess. And this voice in my head kept reminding me, "I was a failure".
My friends and roommates were great that day. They tried desperately to restore my confidence, a fruitless effort I admit. Tom, one of my roommates who had a bad experience himself with this guy, grabbed his phone enraged. I made him put it down.
"How dare he?!"
"Who does this?!? And to a kid!"
There it was. I was a kid. I was out of my league. I wasn't an editor. I could do a decent impression, and I could laugh at the jokes, but I was still a kid.
I cried myself back to the present. I knew I had to finish the movie. If they'd still have me. I couldn't give up on it. Because then he'd know what he did to me. I would not give him that privledge. I could do this movie, and I would do this movie, and when it was done, I would forget about it, and move on. I couldn't, and wouldn't, let this guy stop me from continuing on. I couldn't let him know that I was just a kid. I had to be an editor. But I was scarred. And it was deep. And even now, I haven't forgotten. I don't think I ever will. But I continued the movie. I watched a lot of horror movies, (at his insistence, not a bad idea I admit), and I just worked and cut the movie passionate-lessly. It was cut, cut, cut. Makes sense. Scene done. Suspense, suspense, suspense. Anytime I tried to put any creativity into it, I was shot down. It was one of those instances where I knew that I wasn't being viewed as an editor, I was being viewed as a student. Any ideas that didn't come from the "professionals", wasn't even considered. It was far closer to hell than originally advertised.
It got to a point where I was merely a puppet. I didn't have creative input, and when we finally got to the fine cut, school had started back up, and I had to begin thinking about my senior thesis project. A project directed by the mastermind of "Tell Everyone", someone who I knew valued my opinions and would let me work and play as an editor. Because really, in editing, the work should involve a lot of play. Especially if you like the job. I had to step away from the project. I was tired of two frames left, 5 frames right. I was merely controlling the machine. I had never quit a job. Seeing something through completion and getting that satisfaction is one of the reasons I'm an editor. But I couldn't be there anymore. It was hurting me far more than it was helping me. And I knew, if I wasn't careful, my senior thesis project would suffer. At that point, many people would be effected, not just me. So I quit. We got another student with a compatible computer to finish. I got to approve the final cut, and still got the editing credit, but I wasn't going to finish it. I watched the final cut, and knowing that it was merely a formality, and any objections that I had would be overruled, I gave them the go ahead. They started on sound and I put "Hell" behind me.
For all the bad things I can say about this experience, I should say that I'm still glad that I did it. I learned to have a thicker skin, and I'm now no longer frightened of first cut screenings. I still get nervous, but I know that no screening could go as bad as this infamous one. These gains came at the price of a lot of self-evaluating and second guessing.
I still have yet to see the final cut with music and sound. I still have yet to see a dime. It sits on someone's shelf, maybe one day going to dvd, maybe not. Unfortunately, I can't bring myself to give a damn.
Rereading this entry, I realized that I sound very ungrateful. I was compelled to edit the hell out of it, but I decided to keep it as is. Because it is a lot of raw emotion that I hadn't really ever gotten out of my system. It's also truth. Well, from my perspective, which is all that matters here in TFTI. I am very thankful for this experience, because as bad as it was, it was a great opportunity and also allowed me that first failure that I spoke of in an earlier entry. And come on, it was bound to happen right? No one stays on top forever. Just ask Britany Spears. So I thank the people that gave me the chance on this movie, and do regret the way things turned out. I needed a kick back down to reality, and frankly, I think I needed to fail. It helped me make an important decision. But more on that later. Stay tuned...Labels: back-end deal, fear of failure, Final Cut Pro, independent movie, quitting a job
