In the world of the “multi-hyphenates” having more than one interconnected skill is an asset, certainly in filmmaking. I’m always struck by how unequipped some creative types are when it when it comes operating outside of their immediate skill set.
With that in mind, I thought it may be interesting and informative to my readers to list my professional aspirations as they developed over the years, what I did (and didn’t do) with them and how I leveraged my skills to put myself on the trajectory I’m on now.
Throughout this all one thing remained constant: I want to tell stories.
My freshmen year of college, I was convinced I’d be the next great American Novelist. I voraciously consumed all sorts of books, but had a penchant for the works of the Beat generation. I was young and fashionably disillusioned. I always had a copy of Naked Lunch or On The Road under my arm. “Fuck writing their way!” I was a poet, an existentialist, the quintessential brooding writer, dare I say a visionary! Catch me at a party and I might be outside chain-smoking whilst quoting Nietzsche. (I think it is important to note that my writing from this time was terrible, just terrible. I once penned a cringe worthy novella about a gay man who had the personality of Hitler living in his head.) And though I was divorced from reality when it came to the quality of my writing, it was a time of great intellectual exploration.
As I schooled, I began to cultivate my musical talent. I played piano as a child and my musical sensibilities were heavily influenced by Tori Amos and Nine Inch Nails. Naturally, this emerged in my sound. After two years at two different universities, and a slew of personal problems, I dropped out and I went to a Recording Arts Institute to study to become an audio engineer. I figured if I learned the technical aspects of music production I would be better equipped make my own music.
I studied everything from live sound reinforcement, sweetening to MIDI sequencing. The layered and textured sounds I heard in my head would have to be refined in a studio space. As an exercise, I started to compose music and pretended it would appear on the television show The X-Files. I had “creepy synth” down like you wouldn’t believe! (And trust me, you “want to believe!”) Every step I took to better understand my interests sent me in a new direction. My appetite shifted from music production to sound design for television and video games. I was intrigued by the way in which sound can make or break a story and how important it was to the overall presentation.
Even with my audio education I lacked direction. After floating for a bit, I went back to school and studied video production/post-production. This sent me down the road of Editor. As an editor, I learned the visual narrative. Without knowing it, I was reverse engineering story-telling. There is no better crash course in story deconstruction than the visual assembly of narrative. Started cutting commercials, music videos, and corporate videos. I learned how I wanted things to look stylistically, and importantly I gained a sense for dialogue pace. Yet still, something was lacking. These were other people’s stories. And as I cut, I often thought what if I were involved in the creation?
Out of school and ready to take on the world, I made an interesting pit stop on my journey. One which occupied 4 years of my life. By strange serendipity and miserable happenstance, I was sucked into the faceless depths of corporate America. Each day was an exercise in personal futility. I worked post-production on the weekends and summers while my days were spent toiling in a cubicle. I was trapped. While it was a difficult time for me in many ways, it was a crash course in business sense. I learned how to deal with people and interact at a business level. That corporate experience, however dismal in retrospect, gave me the well roundedness to become a “creative professional.”
If I wanted to tell stories, I’d have to force the next phase in my life. I couldn’t stick around if the party was elsewhere. Against the advice of many, I forcibly uprooted myself. I walked away from guaranteed financial stability in a time where such a commodity was scarce. My peers, my parents, my then girlfriend were surprised, even dismayed. Why would I choose to do such a thing? I told them: “I have to define success on my terms, not yours.”
Flash forward to today: I’m beginning to see the fruits of my labor. A short I wrote, Obsolesk, (formerly I Can’t Wake From Obsolete) begins shooting this month. This past year I have worked as a script reader and on WebTV shows, the Beijing Olympics, and Documentary Television. Next month, I will attend a screenwriting conference on scholarship where I will workshop one of my feature scripts.
There is no “right” way to do what’s best for you. Define success on your own terms, go with your gut. The decisions you make will not be easy. People will doubt you. People you love dearly will drift from you. Ask yourself “Why am I doing this?” My goals deal directly with personal quality of life and personal creative fulfillment. I see myself greatly entrenched in a creative and entrepreneurial community, telling stories through writing and digital mediums.
Perhaps the real question is: “How bad do you want it?”
