10 posts tagged “nyc”

one minute I love new york and everything that is happening. the next hour I am ready to quit because I have nothing going for me. I know I'm lucky to be here and blessed to stay here but I just wish my head and heart would stop this roller coaster. I'll still going to end up a filmmaker somehow it just want it to be now and I wouldn't mind if it was easy.

LA does seem like a fun option though once falls comes around. It closes doors and I have to start from scratch again...

This having no plan and no roots set down is a catch-22. pretty awesome and a pain in the ass.  

I feel like I have been busy the last few days, but not busy with anything important. C3 Manhattan held "Presence" a conference about experiencing the presence of God("so its not just a clever name"-Wanyes World). I was in attendance and I'm glad I was there. I think everyone is glad there are in the His presence, once they are there. Often there is whining before hand, "church on Saturday too, oh man."

  I had a false job interview as in "come on down, see you in an hour" 20mins later "Sorry, while I was talking to you some budget thing happened and now I can't even interview you." Needless to say that was a major bummer. I got all dress and was literally walking down my hallway on my way out of the apartment when the second call came in.

   I started a few new blogs, because I don't have enough I guess. one for reviewing iphone applications, but only the free ones. My sister is supposed to be doing it with me but not so much yet.  http://zerodollarapps.blogspot.com/ check it out if that is something for you.  My other one I am going to reserve exclusively for filmmaker related stuff, I'm not totally sure what that will shape up to be but so far just a few links to videos. If that sounds like your cup of tea then go here http://nicjustice.blogspot.com/ and get some tea.

   Reasoning behind all this blogging? Why not who knows maybe it will catch on or something. Some people making a living of their blog but currently I'm just entertaining my idle hands.

I have done a lot of walking around the city and people watching the last few days when I had gaps between my action packed days or just when I wasn't ready to face home yet. I'm not sure I've learned anything from it other than I would rather sit on the red stair case in times square (I wonder what the real name is?) for 2 hours than be at home some nights.
 
Also I almost got one of the 100 octopus hard drives Mark Hoppus[blink 182] and Pete Wentz[fall out boy] are hiding around the country.  I was about 45 seconds to late, but congrates to the winner now you have some rare goodie digital files from mark and pete but most of all you have a shiny new usb drive with an octopus one it. I'm jealous, my third place prize was a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup

GOAL OF THE WEEK
-edit new demo reel
-find a tailor my jeans
    -losing weight is cool until all your clothes don't really fit and you can't buy new ones.

I landed a sweet internship on Tuesday, unpaid so the job hunt continues for a little cash flow.
 www.mktg.com
That is the company website. They have some major clients like Nike, jamba juice, and pepsi. I think it will be an awesome experience and opportunity. So far as I can it wont be much of a "coffee getter" position I will mostly be logging and capturing footage it seems. So that isn't extreamly excting but I'm hoping to show that I can handle a little more than and who knows it could become a full time staff position after summer.

The biggest thing is that it give me purpose to be in NYC again. the last months or so I have just been floating around which is amazingly frustrating. I mean I had a few small gigs on the weekend working for free but it is hard to see much meaning in that. fun maybe, meaningful not quite as much.

I still plan on trying for some crew jobs on the weekends or when I can. but most of all I need to make sure I keep writing and need to make my own projects happen becaaue it is way to easy to make films in New York for me to let that pass me by. Now I just need to write something that I like. Maybe that isn't a good plan because I'll just mess up a good story with bad filmmaking so maybe I should just bang out a few films to make some mistakes on.

Well this weekend I booked a gig. It is basically volunteer status unless the film gets big and makes some money then I get something o the back-end. I don't have too many details, I'm meeting the director tonight. I won't be the 1st director of photography because I'm being brought on late in the project, but I am running camera.  We are shooting a big tournament scene for a grappling submission film and some of the the training montage.
  I'm still hoping my teachers at NYFA can hook it up with a TA job, but it has been about a week they have had my application so seems doubtful but I both my directing teacher and cinematography teacher said they would mention something about it.
  I finished a promo for GHOST BEAR and almost finished the 505/PICTURE THIS promo, just waiting on the final version of the song. I want to redo my demo reel with a new song add some more footage and cut some others and hopefully shorten it down by about a minute or so. I also still have that footage from washington heights that I shot and didn't edit yet. Then want to pick another area and do the same things, just a montage and maybe try to capture the life of the neigborhood then hopefully get overall feeling of Manhattan. This is a far off project that i don't really care if I ever complete but it is easy to do when I need to get ouf of the apartment and be productive for a day.
   I mentioned I was working on a few scripts, yeah haven't worked on them much the last few days (slap me on the hand)
   I need to start excersing too It just makes for a better day when you got for a run or something. Problem is that I used to have a hot tub to motovate me after a run at the gym, now I won't have that motovation.

  It has been a high roommate drama which I just find a little funny. Nothing really specific just little bickering about trash, dishes, loud music, lost keys and weed. I guess eight people in an appartment will make you see everyone's tiny flaws and quirks.

"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being
wrong."
-- Joseph Chilton Pearce

"The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do,
something to love, and something to hope for."
-- Allan K. Chalmers

Ok maybe SOUL SUCKING is a bit dramatic but It has been a few weeks since school got out and I"m bored out of my mind. I need more reasons to wake up before noon, I need more reasons to get dressed. I need more friends that I don't live with. Most of all I need a way to pay rent.

I can't say I have tried very hard to find a job but I have tried a little bit. I must have sent out nearly 30+ applications and resumes, but really that is only a few afternoons on the computer.

I also need to upload my final film for the world to see, I mean I have international fans [I'm so important in my own world], so coming soon to a website near you.

here is my demo reel, it kind of looks like a promo for Reno but that is what I did for 3 years, promote the City of Reno so it makes sense

http://www.vimeo.com/3719256

I have a visit home scheduled for March 31st.

Basically I need to light a fire under my own ass, find a job, at this point I realize that even a lame day job at a restaurant or blockbuster would be good because I operate better when i have things to do. When I have a full day of nothing planned I realize i accomplish very little, especially when I have some stuff to get done. I could be reading a book, watching and doing lessons to better my editing/vfx skills. I could be writing a script that I can shoot, I already have a crew and live with 6 actors. HELLO there are plenty of things for me to do but I have not pretty much NONE of them, because i have nothing to do. I just found something else I need to work on time management haha

MY FLAWS I DISCOVERED THIS WEEK
-time management
-I suck at chess
-I suck at checkers
-I'm pretty good at connect four

also my final screening is tonight and I have another one on friday. I have some Canadian tv show that has asked to play my short film also. I applied for a few jobs as camera op. and have a few projects with some other students after graduation too. More on that stuff later

here is a quick run around tour of my new resting place in New York.

me starting it off

make my way down to times square to met Al at his work-lots of people, cold, cold

make our way to SOHO

watched the ball drop with a bunch of musical theater folks

Al puke on the way home.
but that pic is him passed out on the subway(pre-puke)

turn the corner on our street and some guy is passed out (way drunk or more) so we kick, shake, slap him to wake him up since is like below zero out side. nothing but a few drooling noises and snoring. So we called 9-1-1. firemen came as did the ambulance then he got taken off to the hospital.

life saved

not a bad way to start of the year

now all i can hear is mexican(or some latino) music coming from upstairs they are also dancing.
so its good i'm not sleepy yet, right?

I am less than 2 weeks away from moving to New York. I have wanted this for a long time and have planed for it for over a year.  Once I get there, I am all out of plans.  This is very new idea for me, I have always had a charted course for the next year or two maybe more. I'm the guy that has a plan, I can normally stay focused on it and come somewhere close to making it happen. Even when the 'shit-storm' strikes and everything is derailed, somehow I've normally been able to pick up the pieces. An Excellence quality, I think but also one that can be limiting. It is limiting because when you are focused on a goal in the future you forget to live in the moment.
Maybe I should be a little bit nervous or scared about this, maybe I am little. I am really excited about having no plans. Once I get there I have no plan, I don't really have a living arrangement lined up I have a few options but they vary. I have no real sure return date. I know when school starts and when it ends, but that is it. I should be going with film ideas already written and mapped out in my head, at least that is what I would normally do. I pretty much haven't even tried to write anything yet. I have old ideas from years ago but I don't want to do those I want the fresh stuff. Moving to NYC hopefully will be inspiring, I'm certain that it will be a totally different experience than i have ever had before. I just don't want to be caught up in the common questions of "what am i going to do?" What about that thing that happened last week?"
I want to become totally lost in the experience, I already know that it will change my outlook on life. I mean just going to film school might do that or just moving to the other side of the country might to that or, moving to New York might do that for anyone. All of that combined I'm expecting a life changing experience. I really just want to take as much away from it as possible. I got some people praying that I'll come right back others praying I don't come back. I really don't know what I'm praying for I have no expectations (do not read as "I don't expect anything will come of this") I expect something will happen but I'm not even going to try to imagine what I will experience or what doors will open and what ones won't.
I have some cool offers already for after school one is back in Reno and one is in LA. One is safe and one is risky, both are not even in my mind. I'm just going to play the game see how the cards fall. Will i get a job there, will I further my career there? Just a few questions that I should ask myself but I'm not asking until I come to the point where I need the answer. I don't think(or at least I don't remember) ever feeling like this. It is freedom I think, it is adventurous, maybe even dangerous and I'm happy with it.  
I don't know anyone there but that is part of the thrill not because I get(have) to make new friends, but because I can be a totally different person (not to be read as "I am unhappy with who I am") I won't have to be person people see me as, I get to test who I really am, what I stand for. I think I know but when I get removed from the people I know, the places I know and the routine that I know.
That routine has got me though some rough times because it is comforting. Just different groups of friends and different levels of friendship really is a comfort I have. It can be a way to hide. When you have separate parts of your life that don't overlap, you can hide. Batman can hide from the villains simply be being Bruce Wayne. Then gathers himself with Alfred and then he can put on the batman suit and cape again.
That comfort will be gone when there is only me there alone I have to deal with the challenge head on and right away. Somehow that is exciting to me.

I really like my new blog name: Victim to the Journey
I even think it is original I don't recall reading it anywhere or hearing it. So maybe I'm just that awesome. Well I'll stop here since this isn't read by anyone and rightfully so.
MAN1:
"I have nothing to say,"
MAN2:
"blog about it"

Well I have been officially accepted to New York Flim Academy in New York City. I'll send out my first payment this week and its none refundable so here we go. no backing out now. I don't have all the details just yet but they will all work out, I'm sure of it. I may or may not have a friend going with me. Only time will tell on that, I have no doubt that he wants to go but i don't know if he has the focus to actually make it happen.

In other news, my little brother's band, See It through, played their last show on Friday sept. 26, 2008. While I wasn't in the band, it was a much a part of my life was it was any of the members. I released the CD on Firece Justice Productions and I was on the major tours. Really it has been a good time and that time has come to watch it faducde away.

Also, SNCAT has just shot its self in the chest(on the foot, its more serious than that) the guy that has held the company together with duct tape, for 11 years. He gave is two week notice and said that he will stay on part time and teach some of the classes we offer. Seems like a resonable offer right? yeah. Did the head moron take it? no. rather he would like to make his two week notice into a two day notice. So now I have to teach the classes and am the most veteran employee. sounds like I need a raise.

It is funny how this specific person really wants to create a problem and is convinced that I have wronged her in some way but really it is quite the opposite and she has stabbed my whole family in the back and is out to destroy my little brothers life. I can't wait until he takes off the rose colored glasses and sees that she is a sucubus that is out to tear down everything around her.

READY TO MOVE ON
I am growing more and more excited to move to NYC in january as each day passes. Nearly everyday there is one little annoyance that pops up that I know I won't have to deal with that person/thing in a few months. Most recently, it is my job. I am ready to walk away from that place. I've enjoyed the time I was there and truly do like what I do but don't like the place I work. It is run by a total moron and all he does is talk and blow smoke up peoples ass when really he has run the company into the ground to the point where everyone has been laid off or quit. I have worked there for over 2 years and normally we had 7+ staffmembers plus the management now we sit at 3. I just see the company as a sinking ship that I don't want to be on as long as the same person is driving the boat.

The guy has lost one of our three government clients and he trys to spin it like it is a good thing for us because "now we have more time to work on other projects." I say he can take his "other projects" (which don't pay by the way, some kind of introductory offer he cooks up) and do them himself while i do the projects we get paid for. If I have to pick up the peices after he has fucked up a project again I swear that I will finish it but at the begining with the opening credits I will explain exactly wat kind of a pile of shit the excutive director is.

I don't make the money I deserve. I know that everyone will say they are worth more but I am  skilled, have expirence in this industry and could make more working at Raley's bagging people's groceries. I have been there for 2 years and there isn't one thing that we do that I can't figure out on my own and I get a .50cent raise. What a slap in the face. I work with the city goverment client because they like me more the the rest of the staff. I teach our classes to the public and I still only make .50cents more than when I started 2 years ago. I'm thankful that I had this job as a training ground for me to use and develop some skills and learn new ones but that season has passed and Im ready to move on.