COUNTDOWN TO UNEMPLOYMENT PART 1

As of Friday around 8ish o'clock, when I shake the hairy hand of our fearless leader, Luis Proenza, I will officially be unemployed. As you all know the job market for designers is in shambles, and I unknowing 6 years ago, signed up for this major. Yes..I said 6 years ago. I am eager and optimistic that I will find a job. So far I have leads in each of these fields:

- Server

- Default Aversion Specialist

- Cuyahoga Falls City Council (Please don't ask)

- College Recruiting

As you can see, non of these stelar occupations need any of the knowledge that I have accumulated in the past 6 years.  If anyone has any information on design jobs or even video editing jobs (Phil), please let me know.  I would appreciate anything, or else I could be making decisions on peoples well being and thats not a good thing. (City Council)

More to come in the next installment

Wonderfool's AHA! Moment

Just finished reading the last couple of posts.....here are some thoughts:

1) Abby is right. This was not an editing class. This was a project-based class, one where the learning is supposed to come from the doing, as opposed to exercises or lectures. Hopefully Abby, you have picked up more than you think about Final Cut. At the very least, you now know what the process of filmmaking involves, and how hard it is in a collaborative process to keep everything organized and moving forward.

2) Wonderfool....what an awesome reflection! I am not surprised to hear that you are both demoralized and energized by what you learned. You are exactly right that anyone who actually manages to finish a film deserves to be recognized for the stunning accomplishment it is, even if the film itself is horrible. I mean, just go watch "Plan 9 From Outer Space." Spectacularly bad!! But they did it! They made a movie. And even Tim Burton tipped his hat to that awesomely horrible film (Ed Wood).

Even with all the money, time and talent in the world, films that should be great turn out to be horrible. As a fan of "The Lord of The Rings" books, I was both excited and scared when I heard Peter Jackson was going to make those movies. But I thought they were great, even if he DID cut out Tom Bombadil.

But then he went and re-made "King Kong." Loads of money. Big stars. All the time in the world. And it stunk...about 1 1/2 hours too long, boring, etc.

So it's great that you now appreciate movies even more...and I like your analogy of feeling the energy of the people coming through in the film.

And THAT, Christina, is a sign that you understand what it takes to be a director. It is your job to channel that energy in the right way, in the service of a compelling story, to make the audience feel the power of the people behind it. You get it!!!

Now, if only it was easy to do. But I guess if it were easy, we'd all be doing it. And I would be re-making "Plan 9 From Outer Space" just for the sheer joy of it.

Almost Finished.

When I signed up for this class, I was expecting something much different than what we did during this semester. I was hoping to learn how to use film editing software which I've become familiar with but unfortunately have not learned enough to be useful in the future. 

The process of making the documentary was fun and to have a part in the final piece will be pretty cool. After seeing the final segments from all the teams, I feel that everyone did a great job with the limited experience that we all had to produce something like this. 

So, class, what have we learned?

I feel like I should have some sort of grand revelation about race now, so let's see...

I realize now far more than at the start of this semester that I was drastically underestimating race's impact on on people now, partially because I'm not getting the short end of the stick, and partially because I was operating on a "if I ignore it, it will go away" mantra.  I never really saw race as biological, obviously people's skin is different colors, but that seems entirely separate from this concept of "race"... certainly no one is honestly upset about darkness and lightness of tone. 

But what then is the problem?  That is daunting, and I'm still torn between the idea of talking it to death and ignoring it.  Neither seems to lead to any solutions... but I guess I've started to ponder what our other options are.  For example, you can choose your friends, not other peoples, but yours.  I don't mean we should deliberately seek out people that look different from us, because we're still making assumptions about people based on appearance in that case.  Instead, get to know people around you.  I was shocked to find out the diversity that existed in a physically congruent group like the one Pat and I interviewed in the Student Union.  Our backgrounds are more diverse than we think, and that's something we have in common.

Another thing I've come to realize, and I think it logically follows when our focus becomes to get to know the other person, is to be aware that we all have different experiences that affect who we are, and some people desperately need the validation that comes from someone simply listening to them.  You do not have to have experienced what they did to listen.

I know I've had some grand revelations about filmmaking, mostly that it is beyond difficult to get what is in your head out into reality.  Left to my own devices, with my singularity of vision and a theoretical abundance of time, resources, and superpower-like skills, I'm not sure I could do something worthwhile.  Add to that that group projects were never something I've relished, and this is by far the most extreme variation of the concept of collaboration.  To call filmmaking "challenging" is laughable.  Every movie I've every seen becomes a miracle simply in existing.  Perhaps that is the magic of movies, you can feel all the energy of a zillion people pouring right out of the speakers and bouncing right off the silver screen.

I have to admit, I think I'm clinically insane.  After all of this, I'm possibly more in love with movies.  

well kids we are winding down. the last couple days have just been scattered because of the senior show, not much has been going on in class. I have been looking up some festivals that we could possibly enter and found some pretty good possibilities. sooooo I guess that's all I have to say byeeee

is it over yet

So here it is, my last week of college. I thought this would never happen. But I would like to just skip over this week and finals and just get to graduation. I have no drive left to finish anything. I just hope I have done well enough to pass everything this semester and not have killed my gpa too badly. Just bring on the cap and gown...

blogger sucks at compressing audio, uggh!