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.
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.
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.
I nearly named this chapter "That's a Wrap!". I'm serious. I immediately stopped myself and banged my forehead on my desk in shame. Eck. I hope you didn't lose respect for me during that confession. As much as I like puns, even that's a little too far for me.
I was finally a senior in college. It was surreal. It felt like mere months from when I had entered this place, hopeful and excited. I had worked on many movies, doing everything from script supervising to directing, and then finally finding my place in post-production. I had gained a great reputation in editing, and made wonderful friends on my journey. Superficially, all was well in my world. I was expected to graduate and get a wonderful editing job somewhere. People told me I was "so talented" and that they expected "great things from me". I remember telling one of my friends that it was hard to stay humble when you hear stuff like that so much. You actually start to believe it. I remember telling him that I had gotten so used to the positive attention for my editing that I was scared to graduate because I knew I would be a big fish no longer.
But below the surface, I was scared. The negative effects of "Hell" still lingered; the seed had been planted for career insecurity. I worried I would never again get that positive attention that drove me. And more than anything, I was scared to let everyone down. What if I didn't do "great things"? What if I never lived up to anyone's expectations of me?
My senior movie went well. It was called Sprinkler. It was chosen to go to LA for our annual screening at the end of the year. Five movies are chosen each year and there is a screening in which graduates and contacts working in LA come to. It felt like a big deal, but also was rumored to rarely help anyone find a job. Nonetheless, it was a great accomplishment, and I was proud of it.
The year flew by. Before I knew it, it was graduation. Our class had grown very close over the years. While we were waiting to go on stage, we stood in a circle, different people entering the middle and making great speeches of how lucky we were to of found each other. Looking around the group, there wasn't a single person I disliked. In four years, we had become a family. It was no surprise when one person started to sing the "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" theme, and everyone joined in. I almost cried because as odd as it may seem to you, it was one of the greatest moments of my life. We were standing as a class for the last time, and we were singing the theme song to a television show. "Now this is the story all about how, my life got flipped, turned upside down, and I'd like to take a minute , just sit right there, I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel Air."
At the end of the year, after graduation, the graduates get their last "hurrah" on the LA trip. Other than the screening mentioned above, it is a school organized field trip that includes visiting different companies and museums, and is really just an opportunity for everyone to see LA and spend one last week together as a class. There were a few people who didn't come, and saying goodbye to them was so very sad, and only was the beginning of a long series of "bad"byes.
As far as where everyone was going, many were going to LA, some other various places, but most, surprisingly were going to NY. NYC was where I was also headed. While most of my good friends were going there, it also appealed to me because it was still relatively close to home. I also liked the city better than LA. From afar, NYC looked like the perfect place for me. It offered some comforts of home, in the form of people I knew going there, still had industry opportunities, but would also give me an opportunity to explore other paths, should I chose to do so.
After graduation, I didn't even want to watch any movies. I didn't really want to make anymore movies. I was burnt out. I needed a break. I couldn't reconcile these feelings with knowing that I had a BFA in Film. I couldn't say the words that I had dreaded since I entered the school. "I don't think I want to do this." Keep in mind, this is a week after graduation!
It wasn't until a very unexpected moment did I acknowledge these words. In our LA hotel room, me and some friends were joined by a relative stranger. He had gone to our school for music composition, and was invited to come to LA with us, but we didn't really know him. My friend Tom, a guy who is always one to make people feel welcome, took him under his wing, and he started to hang out with us. After a series of events, I found myself alone with the shy newcomer in my hotel room. I was on my bed, desperate for a nap, and he was sitting in a chair watching tv. As friendly and welcoming as I am, I wanted him to leave. I wanted to sleep! I told him I was going to nap, and he said "Okay", and then proceeded to continue watching tv at a somewhat loud level.
Sleep didn't come. I finally gave up and decided to engage in a conversation with this guy. All hints I was dropping for him to leave were going by unnoticed. We started talking and I asked him what he was doing now that he was a graduate. He told me how even though his degree was in music composition for films, he was pretty good at computer programming and enjoyed it. He had recently gotten a job working with video games. It was that moment that I realized that I didnt have to work in film if I didn't want to. My degree wasn't binding to a career. And at that moment I decided that I would go a different way. I needed a break, and maybe, just maybe, this wasn't for me afterall.
I ultimately decided that I had gotten a degree in my hobby. I would edit in my spare time, but didn't want to make a career of it. Instead, ideas of working in news, being a banker, or maybe even a single, white, female rap star entered my head. (Some leaving just as quickly as they came.) When I told my friends of my plans, they were all pretty shocked. "But you're sooo good!!!" Looking back, I'm scared to admit that I think a lot of this decision had to do with the fear of failing or proving them wrong. I think while I was exhausted and glad to be rid of film work, I was scared to enter the real world. It would be a lot less surprising to fail at something I wasn't trained in, or had a degree for. Basically, when the time came to pull the trigger, I chickened out. I told my friends that if it was meant to be, it would happen. For now, I was going to persue a job in a news station. My new ambition to be a live television director. I said goodbye to college, goodbye to movies, and goodbye to editing. NYC, here I come.
Next chapter: Entering the real world and how I ended up going full circle...kinda.
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?"
"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...
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.
Chapter Eight: Please Tell Me I Didn't Peak as a Sophomore in College!
If you could say that I've ever had "my year" in editing, it would definitley be my sophomore year in college. Freshman year was all about learning who you'd like to work with, who sleeps on sets and who would bust their ass to meet a deadline. It was all about learning to balance a social life with the hard work that comes along with making a movie. Well over the summer I landed an internship at a local news station. This will later come into play, but for now I'll just say that being part of live evening news was one of the most exhilarating things ever! I was seriously drawn to the concept of live television, the excitement during the broadcast, and when it was over, it was over. No first cuts, second cuts, fine cuts, final cuts, etc etc etc. Because it was a smaller station, I got a lot of responsibility pretty quickly. I was working the cameras during the broadcast, being directed on how to frame the reporters by a little headpiece I was wearing, and sometimes I'd even get to do the chyron, which is a fancy way to say, type up people's names and when they were on screen, put their name up. So I really liked live television but brushed it aside, and focused on the fact that I was in film school.
So back at school after the summer, there was a busy year in front of me. Sophomore year was when it started to get nitty gritty. This year was really hard. Our class had gotten really close freshman year. We all clicked. It was unusal, but almost all of us got along. And then came the pressure. Immediately sophomore year, we all had to announce our intended disciplines. It was like the Civil War. Brother against brother, sister against sister. Everyone's heads were filled with predictions of who would get what, who would have to leave, and sometimes, who was a shoe-in. Of course, the most intense competition was in the directing discipline, so needless to say, I was relieved about that. I've already discussed how much I hate competition. But the editing discipline was also very competitive. I think there was about 12 first choices, but nearly everyone had chosen editing as a second choice. It was scary, but for the first time in a long time, I almost felt confident in what I was doing.
This chapter is titled, "Please Tell Me I Didn't Peak as a Sophomore" for good reason. I actually need someone assure me I didn't peak as a sophomore! Sophomore year, I got really lucky. Well, it started out a little rough, the movie I "wrote and directed" was the Aimee Mann featured cafe heartbeat piece that I mentioned earlier. Oh, that one wasn't so great. The movie I edited fall term was banned from the screening due to not-paperwork-approved graphic titles done by a graphic extroadaire in our class. Yeah. But then winter term came around. We had been put into groups earlier in the year to do productions with in the fall and winter terms. I loved the group I had been put into. There was one editor, (me), one cinematographer, (a cameraman extroadiare), and then 3 director wannabes. The competition there, was enough entertainment for me. All three were very good directors, but sometimes they'd get into little arguements that had me reaching for the popcorn. Nonetheless, the point of all this is that I was the only editor. I think this was fantastic for me because not only did I get to edit the documentary, (which I'll explain in a second), I got to edit nearly everything we did as a group. This gave me the opportunity to work with three very promising, (aka shoe-ins to the directing department), directors. Well, all the groups had to do a documentary winter term. It was going to be the first thing we shot on film, it was going to be without sync sound, and our group's was going to be cut by me. It was called "Strike", and was appropriatelty a simple piece that followed the bowling ball and pins through a "stirke". Well the shoot went great, but we opted to use sound effects and music to fill the sound track. I think I recorded a little bit of stuff, (because being the editor of the group also meant I was the sound mixer/boom op of the group), but mainly it was going to have to be custom recorded. I tried with sound effects, but nothing really did justice to the piece. So I went out, humorously I might add, in this bowling alley, mixing the levels, holding the boom mic, and trying to bowl at the same time. I must have looked pathetic because someone that worked there came over to help me by rolling a few balls. I also got to go "behind the scenes" and record all these little gadgets and gears. It was pretty awesome actually.
When I went back and listened, a lot of the machanical sounds were really flat and uninteresting, so I took a couple of sounds that I had picked up from the machine and looped it as a gear head moving up and down. For the thing that set the pins down, the sound was excellent, but when it came back up, nothing, so I reversed it. I went through the entire 5 minute documentary doing this to every second of the film, putting in sounds for every pin, every footstep, and most importantly, every single machanical operation that we filmed. Well, needless to say, it ended up sounding great. And got me a lot of attention. It was the only documentary where sound played such a big role. And it was all custom designed. When I talked to one of the sound instructors on how I did it, he was just grinning so proudly and my own pride began to grow. I got so many complements on that movie, and it caused people to start rumblings of me being a "shoe-in"! I had never been a shoe-in for anything! And people I didn't know knew my name. That was one of the most unexpected things. People would come up to me and be like, "You're Betsy, right?" Well, that's when my confidence began to grow. To this day, that little documentary is one of my favorite things I've ever done. If it weren't for the unlicsenced DJ Shadow song we used, I'd have that puppy in festivals or something. I love it. (Obviously!)
Spring term. Coming off of the high that I had gotten from "Strike", I found that I was getting lots of requests to edit people's movies. I ended up going with a comedy piece that was going to be very dependent the editing. Lots of conversations, not a lot of action, most of the comedy being played on reactions, I was in! I knew the director was good, his reputation was floating around as well, and he was a friend of mine. I went into the project with a little pressure of expectations, but I faced it head on, using the confidence I had gotten over the months before. We spent a lot of discussing the editing in pre-production, and it was the first time I really felt like I was truely part of the development and pre-production process as an editor. When we finally got to the editing room, all of our preparation started to pay off. We had planned things like transitions, making my job in the editing room fairly easy. Interesting transitions, like movement on side A of a cut matches movement on side B, are small little touches that can really help. On top of this, there was also a three minute (or so) arguement scene between eight people. Each and every character was covered. Needless to say, with all the snappy dialogue, hilarious reactions, and the subtle rising tension throughtout the scene, it was a tough scene to cut. It was actually the first scene I cut on the movie. (That's what I try to do: approach what I believe is going to be the hardest scene to cut and cut that first. It helps me because I'm starting fresh on the piece and am not completely tired of the characters, can't recite all the lines, and don't want to "never see this movie again" yet. Perspective I guess.) Well, that scene went really good. I set a pace and kept reactions plentiful. Reactions make or break comedy and it ended up really working.
Once again, that dialogue scene got me attention and the "shoe-in" remarks came in full force. I couldn't stop grinning. I had actually found something that I was good at. After trying to play at least 8 musical instruments, attempting numerous sports, and even trying my hand at painting, I had found something that not only I enjoyed, but I was actually being recognized for my work.
But all my hard work came at a price. Second year is the most trying year for the students. We had so much going on, tons to juggle, and with the added pressure of trying to prove yourself to the faculty of your chosen discipline, it wasn't long before I had found myself at a breaking point. We lost one of out classmates that year. The emotional blow for all of us was hard. Ten of us, or so, made the car trip to Ohio to attend her services. There, we were greeted with more students, and even a few faculty members. It was a hard time. Our class seemed to unite in a completely new way, unfortunately, there's really nothing like a tragedy to bond people. A few weeks later, my grandmother, who I was very close to, also passed away. With the stress and the emotional turmoil, I nearly threw in the towel.
I remember one night just being exhausted and talking with someone from home, (and out of the little bubble that was film school), and just being completely tired and exhausted, wanting to quit and go home. Wanting to do something else, something that would allow me to have some free time, something that would allow me to sleep. Since I was usually working on "Aftermath...", (aka piece with transitions and conversation), until very early in the morning, I had picked up a bad habit. On the drive home, so I didn't fall asleep at the wheel (which would be bad), and to (incorectly) cope with all the stress, I had begun smoking. It started out, one or two on the drive home, but I quickly found some sort of solace in smoking, and picked up the habit. You know, I've made some mistakes in my life, but starting smoking was one of the biggest.
I've always believed life works on this scale. No matter how great you are feeling about one thing, there is something else to balance it out. While I was flying high with my new-found reputation, I was always exhausted and stressed, me and one of my best friends had a falling out of epic proportions, (that still, to this day, has yet to really be mended), and, to be quite frank, people just kept on dying.
I dealt. Once the movie was done, I collasped in exhaustion, but for all my hard work, had this wonderful movie to show. And I wanted to do it all, (well almost all), over again. That's the cycle, you know? A movie will push you to your breaking point, but you get it done, and it seems all worth it. I believe it's called passion. Well, I was ready to go again, which was a good thing as it turned out. Brett, one of the directors in my documentary group, was doing a feature length movie over the summer. He asked me to edit it. Not only was I completely thrilled to take part in an extracurricular movie, he had asked me, me(!), to edit it. I told him yes, and agreed also to do sound on the movie that would film around Winston-Salem, and Florida. To have a feature under my belt at twenty was an amazing opportunity.
But before the summer, I had one more hurdle to jump, the infamous Sophomore Slaughter. Technically, I wasn't coming back next year yet. And as confident as I felt about my reputation with the faculty, there was no way to really know what would happen in those portfolio reviews. Again, the nervousness rose.
My freshman year, I worked on my first student film set. It was for a fourth year thesis project. As most of the freshman, I was a "grip". In film school, a grip also seconds as a PA, a Gofer, and even an electrician. I was setting up lights and standing in the streets with an orange vest telling cars when they could go and when they had to stop. If someone needed something, they'd yell it out and I, (and ten other anxious freshman) would run to the trucks or staging area and retrieve said items. It was all pretty exciting but tiring nonetheless. The days were twelve hours and the shoots were Fridays through Monday. (Classes being held Tuesday-Thursday usually. An exhausting schedule that I never really got used to.) Working on set didn't leave much time for much of anything else. Including being fasinated. It all just started happening, me being in the middle of a film shoot. Me being involved. They were student movies, but movies nonetheless.
On one particular day, one of the members of the camera team yelled, (very distressed, I must add), that he needed a "C-stop" immediately. Now we had taken all these classes learning all the terminology of a film set, (for instance a clothes pin is called a C-47). One guy that I had befriend immediately made a mad dash to the truck. I, being overly anxious and somewhat scared by camera guy's tone of voice, went after him to help. There was no time to ask questions. It needed to be done; we were on a tight schedule! In the truck our conversion went something like this:
"What the hell is a C-stop?"
"I don't know. A light? A stand?"
"I think I've seen one before!"
(From the set) "Come on guys! We need a C-stop immediately!"
"Okay we're coming!"
"Does he mean F-stop?"
"An F-stop isn't tangible!"
"Okay so an F-stop deals with the camera and light entering the lens, so maybe a C-stop is a tangible F-stop!"
I think you get the idea. We had been joined by several other freshman, searching high and low in the truck for something that we had no idea what it looked like. I guess we thought when we saw a C-stop, we'd know. Finally defeated, we decided we'd have to swallow our pride and go ask someone with more experience just what a C-stop was.
When we left the truck, heads hung in shame, we heard uproarious laughter. Of course. An initiation prank. What could we do but laugh along?
We're told it's a tradition and who are we to argue with tradition? I had never felt more like a freshman before in my life. But it showed us to not be afraid to ask questions, and showed our wounded pride that no matter how well we did in "Film Production 101", there was still a lot to learn.
When that movie wrapped, I found I had made twenty-five new friends. The people that I had been scared of on set, ended up being pretty nice people. After that movie, I started being asked to work on sets and people would say hello to me in the halls. It was a great feeling, being accepted into this society of people. In such a small school, everyone was very close and how cool that I was starting to feel a part of that. It seems so cheesy now, but that first "acceptance" of sorts just felt really great.
Once I got through the initiation process: learning about sets, when to kick back and relax and when to stay out of people's way, when to joke, and the chain of command, I started to feel more comfortable on the sets. But I had something in the back of my mind that wouldn't go away. Post-production. I don't know why I was drawn to it. Maybe it was that computers interested me, or maybe it was the process itself, but that's where I decided I really wanted to be. I knew that at the end of our sophomore year, disciplines were decided. The process was basically you stating your top three choices of disciplines, (the choices being: editing, directing, screenwriting, producing, or cinematography), and then presenting your case in front of the faculty. After the reviews, on a given day, called "sophomore slaughter" by those who knew it well, you get an envelope in your school mailbox inviting you into one discipline. You either accepted the invitation or left the school. With this knowledge, I decided very early on to make it be known that I would like to be in editing. I went to the four editing instructors and introduced myself. I told them my intentions and asked what I could do in the next two years that would help my chances. They all pretty much said the same thing. Just get to know the older editors and try to help out on some of their projects. So that's what I did. I decided that if it was all or nothing, I was going to do everything in my power to try and get that "all". I helped some seniors out with their projects, doing little things like sound effects, or walking foley(!). I made a few friends and started helping out on set too. In our school, it was pretty common for future editors to work in the sound department. So that's where I found myself a lot of the time. I even started being typecast as an "editor". Hey, I like that title.
Film school. Yuck. Even I have a negative reaction when someone tells me they went to film school. Immediately you assume pretension and an ego that couldn't fit through a regulation doorway. And I'll be honest, sometimes film school does ingrain a slight "untouchable" quality in its victims. I'd like to believe I was pretty grounded while attending school, but the truth is, I probably was a snotty little ass, just like all those snotty little asses now that I hear boasting and bragging about their student film. You get held in such high regard for so long, friends brag about their friend who is in "the movie biz", uncles squeeze cheeks and inappropriately pat your ass saying things like, "I can't wait to see you up on the big screen," no matter how many times you try to tell them in your haughtiest tone, that you aren't an actor. As if! And you make a movie, and no one has the balls to say they don't get it or the acting is bad and the story is, well, not a story. Because when you're in the middle of it all, it's hard to step back and be like, "What would people who I've never met think? What would they enjoy?" But instead, you're in this bubble, and everything seems genius because you're doing it. It's a bunch of kids who idealize movies, making them. But let's be honest, most student films suck. Stories that are too big for their own good, dialogue that sounds so contrived you want to slit your wrists. Of course there are exceptions. One of the movies I made is not an exception though. I set myself firmly in this category of "most student films suck". Imagine a story where this girl sits in a cafe counting her pulse because she's sure she's going to die, and Aimee Mann's "Save Me" is playing in the background as her and the boy who came to her rescue sits having a conversation for ages about nothing, and now I wish I were dead. Jesus, who let me do that?
I hate film school. But I love it for all the same reasons. Because you are doing all these horrible movies and if anyone else sees them, they'll probably cry at the mere mention of an encore, but everyone that worked on it, holds this pride that is incomprehensible. You watched it form and it now is some sort of narrative, that may be horrendous in its own right, but you can't even see it because when the lights are turned off and that first credit comes on the screen, your stomach is doing all these things you've only read about. And you watch as this thing comes to life, and people laugh or pretend to be moved, and when its over people clap. And I swear, that first clap makes you thirsty. You want to film them clapping and cut it together with some music that you heard about from your friend who knows all this underground music that you think no one else is listening to, and put it on the screen just so you can maybe relive that moment. Everytime I did a movie in school, I swore that it was my last. You get to a point where the movie becomes your life and you hate it and dread ever having to watch it again, and then you hear that clap. It's all over and you want to do it again. That's why I love film school. Because you get that clap. You get to experience having an audience, and be assured, after that screening someone will come up to you and tell you how it touched them and you'll feel like you've done Ecstasy. And then you feel untouchable and when people ask you where you go to school, you'll say a little too proudly, "I'm a film student". Your head gets in the clouds and you forget your place. You may be the big fish in the small pond, but in the big pond? You are microscopic, no matter how amazing your thesis was. That's where some film students go astray. I've heard this called "dangerously deluded" as this attitude can cost you jobs, contacts, and money! This is where the line between pros and cons of film school gets blurry. Some graduates think, "Hey I've directed movies at film school! Why do I have to be a PA?!?!"
You know, there's so much more to say about film school. I fully intend to go more in depth in the next chapter, but I wanted to get that out. For now, I'll try and leave a little advice for anyone that is considering film school. Look at your life. Look at yourself. Are you ready to go out into the business? It's really easy to say yes here, but consider this: It's tough. It's harder than I ever expected. I have wanted to give up so much, but luckily for me, I had a lot of those first, "Holy shit, this is hard and I should be a banker" moments while I was in film school. Someone was always there to talk me down from the metaphorical ledge. Another important thing to think about, the key thing in this business is who you know. You can scoff and assure yourself that you are not in need of contacts, and you could be right. Hell you could take your money you would spend your tuition and make a movie, but in film school you are allowed to fail. You make all these horrible movies and bond with these people, (because there is nothing like a bond that comes from being on a film crew), and you are on top of the world. And then you graduate, and you hit rock bottom. It's almost perfect that way. (It's funny but you never really hear anyone bragging about being a film school graduate.) Because when you hit bottom, you have to go up. You have to get your shit together and do something with your life. But you aren't alone. You have all these wonderful people you've met experiencing the same thing. And when you start going up, you know what its like to fail, and you can still taste the success you felt in school, and you want that again. You start on a clean slate, and you do what you have to do. It's not the reel that you get, or the film school name on your resume that matters, its failing and then succeeding, and then failing again. It's about learning to deal with the ups and downs and possibly most important, learning about yourself and where you fit in the process. (You'd be surprised at how many people who came to film school positive that they wanted to be directors, only to find that they enjoyed cinematography, editing, or even producing a lot better.) The technical aspects, lingo, cinematic styles, all that can be learned by jumping in head first. You can learn all that by being a PA on the "indie" movie shooting in the mall. But while there's nothing like that first clap, there's also nothing like that first failure. Just ask yourself where you want to be when you fail? That's the question.
At this point in my life, I was moving away from home for the first time. All of my comfort-zones were four hours away and many of my friends were so busy starting their new lives that sometimes a phone call just had to be enough. None of this is necessarily new to a college freshman, but no matter how common it is, it doesn't retract from what a life-altering year that first year is. For me, for everyone. One of the hardest and scariest moments, is when you realize family and friends are just a support system. Your life, your decisions, your destiny, (for a lack of better word), is all your own. I remember being fascinated at not having to ask permission to go out late at night and fearing not waking up on time, as my mother was always around to wake me for school or whatever other activity I may have had going on. It was scary and new, but I was doing something different. It felt good to know what path I was going down, even if I was a little anxious. In high school, I had always been known as the "film kid". Now I was going to school with a hundred "film kids". It was actually very interesting to hear the same story come from every person. "I did the morning news." "Everyone asked my opinion on movies." "I played with a camera a lot." It was nice to have tons of people around that thought the same way as you. As cliche as it sounds, we were all weird. Art school has that reputation for a reason.
Walking down Main Street, the affectionate nickname for the main strip through the film school, I was excited to learn there was a Krispy Kreme and a Wachovia. ("A bank switch may be in order," was one of my first thoughts. "Danger! Danger! Where's the gym?" was my immediate second.) There were fancy street lights and everything just seemed, surreal. On the opposite side of the street was the backs of the sound stages, and what appeared to be a very shallow, and empty, swimming pool. Surely I was dreaming, but I was starting to feel the tiny surges of excitement in my stomach. It was really happening.
I soon found out that the sterile and plastic looking scenery on main street was an illusion. The Krispy Kreme, the Wachovia, the streetlights, and even the pool, that would later be known as the reflecting pool, was all in place for potential use for a movie. And I realized something that had been floating around my head since the job shadow, that I had signed into one of the most unreal worlds you could imagine. Where nothing is real and everything is just an illusion. The cardboard separating the Wachovia painted window and my professor's office made that painfully clear. And I started to wonder if it was the illusion I was after all along. Through the camera, you see what "they" want you to see. Once the street was stripped bare, would I still feel that excitement? This great package that I was getting, was it just as fake as the plastic street lamps? The excitement that I once felt, started slowly turning into dread, when in the first all-school meeting it was announced, "Many of you will leave before your first year is over. Statistically, your class of 85 will be 50 by the time you enter your third year." My dry mouth and racing mind pondered the water fountain, wondering if water would come out of it at all.
Of course, it was all metaphorical for me. In such an industry that I had always wanted to be accepted into, (always yearning to be on the other side of those barriers), I guess I was just scared that the reality would never live up to the dream. The possibility that my interest was only peaked due to the mysterious nature of the business was what I was most afraid of. It seems silly now, but my self-doubt ran deep. I am the type of person who likes to know what I will be doing tomorrow. I am a notorious "what-if"er. I just couldn't stop thinking that I had made a mistake by trying to enter this business.
I know, I know, "get a little self-confidence woman!" But it's scary. It's scary to "have it all figured out" or at least think you do. Because once you start down on that path, it's hard to turn around. There's no real room for, "Oops" and "Umm, I think I'm switching majors". As a person who loves to have choices, what the hell was I doing at film school?
