Smiley Face

Pootie Tang

Let’s go to Prison

Here are some real Criterion covers.

8 1/2

M

Now, with that in mind, check out Fake Criterions. Somehow I missed the train on this one, but lucky for me I jumped on the last car. Here are some of my favorites.

UHF

Robocop 2
 

Annie Hall
 

Pineapple Express

Harold and Kumar go to White Castle

Yeah, chew on that!

So what’s the latest and greatest in the world of Merrel?

This week, I’ll be speaking along with Xandy Sussan at the Baltimore Chapter of Women in Film and Video  — this Thursday December 8th, at their annual Christmas extravaganza party. The networking fun starts at 6 pm and the meeting begins at 7 pm. The event will be at CBS affiliate WJZ 13, on TV hill, 3725 Malden ave, Baltimore, Md 21211. Come on out and enjoy what local filmmakers of Baltimore have to offer!

In other news, I’d love to share my new online store Mister Thirty Sixer’s Vintage Curios & Oddities — a store full of  vintage strange, weird and kitsch. We collect interesting items that tell a story in history, from hand painted Russian dolls to vintage camera accessories to hand bound cookbook from upstate New York!

Sometimes these items make it into photoshoots, many of them make their way into our in-development web-series. Along with Xandy, we ferret out the coolest pieces of history and their stories to share with you. Check it out!

Shaun of the Dead: How do you Pegg it, when you Wright?

The zombie movie is as pervasive in our cinematic culture as popcorn at the concession stand, but what Shaun of the Dead brings us is a new take on a staid and challenging genre by seamlessly incorporating fresh comedic and romantic details into the traditional George A. Romero style zombie film. Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg figured out how to take a genre and twist it around, all the while, never sacrificing the key elements that make it what it is: a true zombie flick.

How do you tell a standard story in a way that is so fresh, so new, that while the pacing and character arcs are familiar, the offering is unique and special? How do you avoid being cliché, when there are only so many stories to tell and so many ways in which to tell them? The answer: Change the details. Could it really be that simple? Indeed, the Devil is in the details and the details are what makes a standard, typical, pat plot, fresh and inventive. That is exactly what Wright and Pegg did with Shaun of the Dead.

Shaun of the Dead changed the details in several key ways. In most zombie films, we open with a mysterious outbreak of a virus or some government experiment gone awry. The citizens get infected and then finally, a reluctant hero emerges, with a sawed-off shot gun to save the day… of the dead. But he winds up tragically only saving himself. Wright and Pegg take those elements and redefined them when they created Shaun.

CHARACTER

Xandy Sussan: Shaun, as a character, is archetypal, relatable, and understandable. He has a girlfriend he loves but he can’t get his act together. He works a dead end job, because he can’t get his act together. He has a Hamlet-esque relationship with his sainted mother, and childishly hates his step-father, because he can’t get his act together. Shaun is your basic everyman. The twist? Shaun is, while healthy, a zombie merely plodding through his own life. It takes the confrontation with the real zombies to knock him out of his stupor , to seize life, and to regain his love.

Both as a character and a visual metaphor, Shaun is what makes this movie such a gem and it is the literalness of the metaphor that makes it so clever. While the concept of the man sleep-walking through life is a well established premise, showing a man literally walking through life like a zombie, until such time as he has to fight actual zombies is a fresh and inventive take on that basic idea. The script wove pedestrian character dilemmas in to the fabric of the story so seamlessly. It used action counterpoint so masterfully, to articulate the problems that it felt there were two films (a romantic comedy and a zombie flick) running side by side, in harmonious, parallel perfection.

Merrel Davis: It is Shaun’s day-to-day minutiae, which establishes his character as someone we know, but that is only half of the character equation. Every Lone Ranger needs his Tonto, and for Shaun, it is the daft and selfish, best friend Ed. Ed appears only as comic relief in the first act, a bumbling fool who is so self-involved that while everyone is running from zombies, it is he who pauses for a silly photo-op or takes a call from a mate looking to score some weed. Others, including Shaun, feel that it is exactly this behavior that is holding Shaun back. Ed’s actions, serve to highlight the duality of Shaun: the man-child and the emerging hero. It is these two discordant characteristics, which illuminate Shaun’s inability to marry his old life with his new.

When Shaun finally decides that he must grow up, that he must be responsible for more than just himself, it is Ed’s ridiculous and selfish behavior that forces Shaun into a moment of clarity and responsibility. At the height of being surrounded by hundreds of zombies in front of the locked pub, “The Winchester,” Shaun can no longer ignore what he hates about his friend, what he hates about himself.

Like a good “Tonto” always did, when backed in a corner, Ed displays a triumphant act of heroism and sacrifice. When the zombies are closing in on the cellar and it seems as though all is lost, Ed redeems himself and shows Shaun that while you can still be a child at heart, you can also be a man.

Visual Style

Turning an eye to the visual look of Shaun of the Dead, we discover frenetic and fast paced cuts ala Requiem for a Dream for the most mundane of tasks such as brushing teeth. It is this visual reinvention of pedestrian activities which creates a feverish yet controlled environment that enhances the pacing of the plot. It is this filmmaking style, married with intuitive use of tracking shots and visual call backs that makes this movie.

MD: The first scene is a brilliant piece of filmmaking and editing that immediately pulls the audience in, while exposing several layers of backstory through a series of cut-aways and reveals. The scene begins tight on Shaun. It appears as if he is alone at the bar. Then, as we pull back, Liz is revealed. It now seems as though they are alone having a relationship chat. But then, we go wide again to reveal Ed, as he plays a fruit machine, mere steps away from the quarreling lovers. Then we ratchet back in tight to Shaun and Liz, until the line “It’s not like I don’t like David and Di” where we reveal yet again, there are more players in the room. We cut to a medium wide of David and Dianne as they sit right next to Liz; a hilarious reveal.

This style of editing and shot construction opens up the scene to five players, in a clever way that later echoes the interpersonal relationships and struggles the characters must confront. It also allows for us to go back in tight between two characters and then go wide again, without feeling too jostled.

XS: I love the entire “You’ve got red on you” sequence and multiple call backs. From the moment it begins, we find a foreboding, yet hilarious rake joke foreshadowing what’s to come. A simple pen stain on a white shirt really means so much more. It establishes character: a schnook of a man whose pen breaks open, ruining his work shirt. We suddenly know all we need to about that guy, and it’s all conveyed through one tiny detail: a small red stain on a white work shirt.

The red ink establishing the bloodshed to come is both a simple and elegant. It is a perfect visual clue to let us know what is just around the corner. When both Ed and Shaun’s Mother subsequently deliver the line “You’ve got red on you,” the meaning and intention is overtly clear. It is a quite clever touch, really.

STORY

The story is as basic as they come. Boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back by slaying zombies. What Wright and Pegg did was take a standard by-the-numbers plot and make it dazzling, simply by adjusting the details and changing up the visual way in which they were presented. They did so without sacrificing originality and staying true to their genre.

XS: The story, on the whole, is satisfying on a number of levels. There’s the romance between Shaun and Liz: their easily relatable problems, their commonplace if not charming arguments, their friends who can’t help but interfere with their own agendas. It’s your standard three act romantic comedy but it delivers with clever, fresh dialogue and a breezy pace.

MD: Then there is the zombie element, the action, and the adventure. All of which takes us down a path of thrilling edge-of-your-seat entertainment.

As the zombies spill to the streets there are moments that evoke Resident Evil 2, a survival horror video game. These are moments of intense desperation and fear, not only just of the known (zombies) but the overarching fear of the unknown (government conspiracy?)

Shaun embarks on a treasure hunt of sorts, he must go from location to location, saving person by person, until he leads them to relative safety. And, as though the filmmakers knew the audience was getting a little antsy for some gunplay, they deliver in the form of a pump-action shot gun!

XS: And of course there is the comedy to give us a much needed respite from all of the harrowing gore. There’s always room for a joke and Wright and Penn know the proper moment to deliver one, especially in the most dire of circumstances. Whether is be an off-color fart joke (“Shaun, I’m sorry. No, I’m really sorry”) or the more subtle joke (“No, what does ‘exacerbate’ mean?”) there is always an instance, which enhances the story or gives us a momentary break from the non-stop action.

MD: I especially liked the choreographed attack of the elderly zombie backed by the soundtrack of Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now. It was new, different and gave the audience a catchy tune to bounce around to, while violence was erupting all around us.

A zombie flick is several things: it is a visual story, it is an emotional, and oft times painful journey, it is a bloody catharsis, which by the end, leads us to be reborn, satisfied movie goers. Shaun of the Dead is a perfect example of a film whose details made all the difference between lazing down the path of least resistance and charging down the avenue of newly conceived, exciting peril.

It is with Shaun of the Dead that we rediscover our love of romance, adventure and are thrilled by an equal amount of gory, yet hilarious, zombie slaying. The audience leaves with two lessons: Pay attention to your life, because it’s over before you know it. And that any story is new again when you simply change the details. The details are what will make your script and subsequent film stand out from the lackluster trite projects that consistently glut the marketplace. Shaun of the Dead should inspire you, as it did us, to employ standard structure and stay true to our chosen genre, but be intrepid when crafting original and creative, stand-out details.

(MERREL NOTE:  I had a wonderful time speaking with Chris Newman. His candor and intensity for filmmaking was refreshing. This article originally appeared in the most recent issue of Sound & Picture Magazine)

Award Winning Life Lessons with Chris Newman

There are a handful of sound mixers in feature films whose work has ascended to the highest echelon of the industry. These names, even known to the average filmgoer, represent a small and storied pool. One member of this exclusive pool is Chris Newman, a three time Academy Award winning (eight nominations) sound mixer. You’d have to be living under a rock not to have seen one of the films he’s worked on. From The Godfather, Amadeus, The Exorcist, to Fame and The English Patient, Newman has seen 50 years of sound mixing and experienced the sea change of Hollywood first hand in the process. He sat down with me to chat about his life, his career, his teaching and his reflections on the state of filmmaking.

A Career in Sound

Mixing and Production
Newman’s career is anything but typical. At the age of sixteen, he attended M.I.T. “It was overwhelming for me, intellectually, socially, in every way. It was a mistake to go at such a tender age, but I did,”  he said. I couldn’t cut it. I was gone in a year and a half. I was selling soft ice cream in Times Square.” By the time Newman was twenty, he crash landed into the bustle of New York City. Newman boldly announced to the world “I am a sound mixer!”

In the 1960’s, Newman began work on documentaries using his trusty Nagra recorder; “The first Nagra I ever had was in 1961, and when I got it, no one knew how to use it. The employer didn’t know how to use it so we had to figure it out together.” Luckily, by the time Newman landed his first feature, Haskell Wexler’s critical hit Medium Cool, his love for the Nagra was in full swing.

An old school love, the analog Nagra can be a hard thing to shake. Newman loved his Nagra; “The thing I miss about those kinds of recorders is the simplicity of using them. Working on the set is an almost bizarre experience where you are constantly bombarded with decisions, decision making and tension, your tension other people’s tension.” Keeping a simple recorder, he said, makes “life easier.”

As technology progressed in sound mixing and recorders, Newman eventually transitioned to hard drive based digital recorders. The first movie he solely used hard drive recording was Jonathan Demme’s remake of The Manchurian Candidate (2004). “I had problems, problems in the field. But we muddled our way through, and it made things a lot easier for the editors. Tthat was important. Prior to that, all we used was the Nagra D.”

When I asked Newman if there was a change in style of work since he began his career, he paused for a long moment; “Look, all this business about making movies, working on movies, all of it boils down to problem solving. We are constantly problem solving. One of the big differences I notice between movie making now and earlier on is that we had a hell of a lot more fun back then!”

A Set Life
Newman was surprisingly candid, “All I did was make mistakes, get better, make mistakes, get better.” He had a mentor, Jack Jacobsen, known for his sound work on Apocalypse Now and Kramer vs. Kramer. Jacobsen would call from time to time and tell him, “Chris, nice job.” But something Jacobsen said has stuck with Newman all these years later, “Look, all of film recording is about one thing. Signal to noise. It’s always about signal to noise.” Indeed, Newman encourages, “Question how much pull does the microphone have. How much of what you want can you get and how much of what you don’t want, can you eliminate.”

Newman has encountered his fair share of problems with sound on set. That is almost inevitable for all crews, and for him, the importance was always in how one is able to address and troubleshoot problems on set effectively and quickly. On his last film, What Happens in Vegas, he had problems finding enough channels for the wireless radio mics. Unbeknownst to him until production day, they were close to a Navy Yard. Almost all 16 channels were swamped. “I don’t know what happened, but it was probably God telling me time to stop working,” Newman laughs.

I wondered out loud if there was a film that Newman felt he had missed out on. “Plenty, but that’s no one’s business but my own. I turned down a movie that became Taxi Driver to do All the President’s Men and at that time there was no reciprocity between East Coast and West Coast unions. Ultimately, I was not able to do All the President’s Men. So, I lost both movies within a very short period of time. I tried my best not to have a nervous break down!”

Since Newman, couldn’t do All the President’s Men, he recommended Jim Webb. Webb asked if there was anything he could do for him. Newman simply said, “When you win the Oscar, you can thank me.” Webb did win the Oscar, but forgot to thank him. Humbled about it now, Newman reflects “I didn’t talk to him for 10 years. When I finally confronted him, he said, “I was so overwhelmed, I forgot. I apologize.”

Newman ultimately recommended Les Lazarowitz for Taxi Driver. “He did an amazing job and an even better job on Raging Bull. That was worth a lot to me because he was my second boom operator. I was very happy for him.”

Appreciation of his sound crew is important. “Sound mixers become famous because their boom operators were great,” Newman explains. “It’s not all the sound mixer. It’s a bunch of people… When you find great boom operators like Gregg Harris, Marc Jon-Sullivan, Dennis Maitland II, Ken Weston, Pat Suraci and David Sutton, you simply let them do their job.”

FULL DISCLOSURE: In my original interview transcription and conversation with Mr. Newman he stated 2 names; Greg Harris and Marc Jon-Sullivan. The additional names were added to the articles publication after my submission. I must fully disclose that I have not done additional reporting on this article. The paragraph as submitted is below:

“Appreciation of his other crew members is not without merit. “Sound mixers become famous because their boom operators were great.” Newman explains “It’s not all the sound mixer. It’s a bunch of people.” He admits, “I am a control person, I still am. When one finds a great boom operator like a Greg Harris or Marc Jon-Sullivan or some of the other great boom operators I’ve had. (note: over a half a dozen people.) One let’s them do their job, and one doesn’t second guess them, because it serves no purpose.”

School’s in Session
Now an instructor at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, Newman’s hard learned lessons on set are applied to his teaching syllabus.

In some form or another, Newman has taught throughout his career, starting as early as the 1970’s. At SVA, Newman would bring students to the set, if he was working a job. “When we were working with Sidney Lumet on 100 Centre St., a series that he treated like live TV from the 50’s, Lumet was very generous. He’d let students sit with him when he called shots.”

Dealing with students has its challenges. A much more technically oriented generation has emerged, yet they are sometimes more insular in their risk taking. Newman reflects on this, “The whole idea of bringing discipline to kids 18-22 years old is very elusive. Try to get them to show up to set on-time.” And not just for sound consideration, teaching students how to put their boots down on the battlefield requires a total understanding of the production process, working with people, teaching them how to work on set, work in teams, how to shoot, how to take sound on the set, how to cut and criticize.”

There are many clichés about the sound mixing profession. Jack Solomon once said, “We’re technicians not magicians.” Newman is quick to share wisdom with his pupils. “I tell them, always be thinking. Always be conceptualizing. Trust no one myself included. Assume nothing. Double check the equipment endlessly. Always have fresh batteries as well as fresh underwear.”

Students in Newman’s courses are directed to be meticulous and to check everything again and again. Because in his eyes, something will always go wrong no matter how careful or prepared you are. One must always be thinking about how to deal. “I won’t enable my students. Meaning, I will not show them how to do things very often. I expect them to kind of blunder through things as I did.”

The Ultimate Reflection
As my candid interview with Newman came to a close, I asked him to reflect on his accomplishments, and true to form, he didn’t miss a beat. “I have been extraordinarily lucky and been in the right place at the right time over and over again. I had a lot of discipline. I tried as I got older to be more reasonable, just a little.” He paused one last time, “One learns that doing sound is not about the sound man. It takes a sound man a long time to learn that.”

It’s been a busy couple of months. I’m recently back from producing a docu-reality pilot, but before I left, I spent sometime over at video game publisher Atari to interview game producer Michael Fahrny about the upcoming video game Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale.

Read the whole article over at Wizards.com. Hey, that’s exciting, the 12 year old version of me just totally got jealous!

Exactly what constitutes Hollywood memorabilia is really in the eye of the beholder and depends on what someone is willing to pay for an item. Film is such a personal thing and movies touch us all differently, on many emotional levels. Growing up worshiping at the alter of cinema, honestly, most of the “traditional” memorabilia (collectible photos, autographs, props) I find to be such a pedestrian bore. I work in production, so that stuff doesn’t excite me. But what I do love, is how L.A. offers you a unique opportunity to thrift and find treasures from Hollywood nights past, like you can in no other city. There is a tangibility to an old bound script that you just can’t get with a sleek 120-page PDF. I read a lot of scripts. There’s a comforting feeling that accompanies a type-written script, even if it’s not a good one. That’s at least partly why I am enamored by “The Man Who Played God,” a 1974 script starring Martin Sheen and produced by the Emmy-winning company Bob Banner and Associates. They are best known for producing the Carol Burnett Show.

How did I end up with a vintage copy of this random script? I was walking on a Sunday afternoon around my neighborhood, when I passed by a man named Jim, who was loading up his van. I spied a Paramount call sheet from Monday December 9, 1974, stuffed in between a stack of bound scripts and I had to investigate. After a little bit of chit-chat, Jim gave me free reign to rummage, and rummage I did! I found several scripts but most alluring to me was the call sheet that had a familiar name on it. “Martin Sheen. Part of: Holmes.” Okay, so with a Paramount call sheet, name producers and talent, what else could possibly add to the legitimacy of this super-cool find? I opened the spine of the script and from the center fell a staff and crew list from the production. Full with title, name, address and phone number of everyone involved in the production from the director all the way to kraft services. Note: Most of these numbers are disconnected. To date, it’s been 36-years since this script was made. Jim wanted them gone, so I greedily grabbed the whole box of scripts and skipped home like Charlie with his golden ticket, theme song and all. When I got home, I wasn’t able to find anything about this film on the IMDB. All I had to go on was the Paramount production number and the title page which stated “Based on: The United States vs. Holmes #15382.” A short legal lesson later, I made my way to the origin of the story, the sinking of the American Ship the William Brown in 1841.

Wikipedia sums it up nicely: The William Brown was an American ship that sank in 1841, taking with her 31 passengers. A further 16 passengers were forced out of an overloaded lifeboat before the survivors were rescued. In the case of United States v. Holmes, crewman Alexander Holmes was charged with murder and convicted of manslaughter for his actions.

But still no “The Man Who Played God” anywhere to be found! Was this a theatrical release? Was it only released overseas? Never released at all? Back to the IMDB-mobile!

Then, I checked out “The Man Who Played God,”written by Douglas Day Stewart; did you know he wrote “The Boy in a the Plastic Bubble” and “An Officer and a Gentleman,” along with a slew of other memorable scripts? I know, me neither! But one title stood out, I must have glossed over it since I didn’t know the context of the story of the William Brown, but now it all made sense. “The Man Who Played God” was in fact entitled The Last Survivors Booya! This film does exist, it was a made-for-TV movie and aired on March 4th 1975; a quick 4-months after the call-sheet date. Armed with all this info, I went back to the box of scripts, to see if I could find anything else. What I found was a real treat, or should I say treatment. “Abandon Ship” is the treatment for “The Man Who Played God.” It’s not uncommon for scripts to have working titles, especially in the outline or treatment phase. But I’d be hard pressed to tell you I’ve ever been given a window made for TV movie starring Martin Sheen from the treatment phase all the way to broadcast. As some dude who opened up a storage locker once said: “This is the ‘wow’ factor.”

I met so many funny and amazing filmmakers, actors, and comedians that it’s actually hard to recount it all. The full list of official selections for 2011 are here.  And, you can read all the winners from last night here. The parties were great, the ceremony was chock full of awesomeness like the appearance of “the most beautiful woman in puppet-land,” Lynne Marie Stewart.

Comedy was in the air even at the Kyoto Grand Hotel, since the “Leather Leadership Conference 2011″ was also going on. I haven’t had this much fun since CES and the Adult Video Awards were in the same hotel in Las Vegas. Though I asked several men in ass-less chaps (seriously)  about the convention,  but apparently it’s a “long and involved 10-minute answer.”

Festival Favorites

One filmmaker, Lorne Hiltser, was sharp and prepared for the showing of his AFI thesis film Karl Mulberry. Karl Mulberry is a sweet, slightly awkward, yet totally endearing story of a boy struggling with the absence of his father. His over-protective tendencies get the best of him as he tries to thwart the local flower shop guy from dating his mom.

I actually missed his screening, and after I met him he whipped out a shrink-wrapped DVD and said “no worries, here’s a copy for you!” Lorne was the only person who was advantageous enough to ensure every one got to see his film at the festival. That’s dedication and preparedness.

Lorne’s diligence paid off. Last night, he received an award for BEST COMEDY STUDENT FILM. As such, he won the coveted horse’s ass. Xandy and I mugged with Lorne and his award (by this point it had been a looong 4 days, can you tell?)

But perhaps the film that was the most sweetly subversive and heart-tuggingly funny was Something Fishy written and directed by Aussie Kristy Best. As far as I know, she was not at festival, and one of the very few filmmakers I didn’t get to chat with about their work.

Meet Maxine, 7-years old. She’s a sweet and twisted, yet always well meaning little girl who marches to the beat of her own drum. Or rather dances, fully clothed, in the sprinkler with goggles on, cause she’s just that darn free-wheelin and in touch with her adventurin’.

Something Fishy taps into the sweetest, most naive part of children and turns it on its head. And does so in a funny, and slightly morbid, but totally bad ass way.

Here Kristy talks about making the film:

Be sure to check out the last 3 days of LA Comedy Shorts coverage

- Day 1
- Day 2
- Day 3

Favorites of Saturday Night

Isabel Fay & Lee York’s With or Without U2 – A musical short, it appears to be about a man pining for his lost love. But it turns out as something else entirely. The short was good, but what elevated them above others on Saturday night was the filmmakers’ industriousness outside of the film.

When Isabel Fay began the short, she  the neglected to consider the rights of the U2 song they used. So, though they got into festival, the sound track was not licensed. What would any self respecting, industrious filmmaker do in such a predicament? Well, get the Silver Lake Chorus to perform the song live, acapella in the theatre. It was awesome!

It reminds me that filmmakers often work best when presented specific limitations – they came up with an absolutely inspiring solution that felt just the right bit of funny, old-timey, and performance art. Sadly, given the licensing issues around the short, the filmmakers shared With or Without U2 had its one and only public outing last night.

The other two favorites of the night were also foreign outings; Suiker a story accidental death and sugar and Appy Ever After the delightfully funny romp where a boyfriend uses a green-screen app on his iPhone, so he can drink with his buddies at the pub.

Rooftop Partay!

After the screenings it was onto the gorgeous Japanese Garden space at the Kyoto Grand Hotel.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s Day 4 wrap up and don’t forget to read about the first 2 days of the festival here and here!

It’s not too late to see what else is going on for the rest of this weekend! Check out the festival schedule.

DAY 2 Favorites:

The FUTURE-ER -  a great, lo-fi, dark, complicated time-travel dick joke from Utah filmmaker P.M. Baird. The short, while I’d say maybe 3 minutes too long, is an excellent lo-fi exploration. It looks great, has the right about of sci-fi ambiance and humor and I love the black and white aesthetic. At the Q&A an audience member asked what was the most difficult part of making the film, Baird’s response: “Convincing my mother to buy me the camera.” Win.

The FUTURE-ER from P.M. Baird on Vimeo.

Mutumbo Golberg – a brisk, faux reality comedy series, featuring grown-ass-black-man Anthony Anderson as a young adopted Jewish boy living in the home of a clueless suburban couple.  The series is absurd with is juxtaposition of race and culture, Jerry Minor plays a OB / GYN roped into pretending he’s an African tribesman on behalf of “Mutumbo”, while Thomas Middleditch’s character (whitey mc-jew town!) waxes poetic about the planes of Tanzania. When “Mutumba” horns on in on Mutumbo’s free living arrangement, Mutumbo puts his foot down when she tries to rip them off. After all their his parents!

Then it was onto the magic school bus, and a short ride over to ESPN ZONE at L.A. Live for the BIG ASS KIDS PARTY! Woo! We got our drink on and played many a free arcade game. It was like 1988 up in this bitch!

Watch out folks, I can stomp my feet in a mechanical motion to the beat of music for the sake of entertainment. Or @CoverMyScript said it better, I’m “goosestepping my way to dance perfection.”

Stay tuned for LA Comedy Shorts Film Festival 2011: Day 3! And be sure to check out LA Comedy Shorts Film Festival 2011: Day 1

Here is the lovely entrance way of the Kyoto Grand Hotel. On Saturday night LA Comedy Shorts roof top party will be here.

Then it’s off to the Downtown Independent Theatre, to pick up our badges. And slippers. Xandy opted for the pink ones. Perfect fit!

Down at the red carpet, we tried out new battle poses. Watch out!

Hey! It’s a little CoverMyScript.com Signage. Nice!

Then it was into the packed theatre for the opening night screenings!

It’s tough as ever to reach the dream. The talent pool grows and grows and at any waking moment in LA there is a cacophony of writers clamoring recognition and livelihood. When I say a screenwriter needs branding, it means they need to effectively set-themselves apart and above of their peers. Good writing is vitally important, not much can be done without a solid foundation, but so much is how you present yourself in the context of your good work.

Speaking of Branding there is even more exciting news in addition to all the goings on earlier this week!

L.A. COMEDY SHORTS FILM FESTIVAL PRIZES

Through CoverMyScript.com, winners of the Movie Magic Screenwriter Screenplay Competition for Best Comedy Feature and winners of the Funny Or Die’s Best-of-Fest Grand Prize Short will receive a Branding and Next Steps Consultation Package.

Over at the HQ of the L.A. Comedy Shorts Film Festival, the CoverMyScript.com team met with Artistic Director and festival co-founder Gary Anthony Williams (you may remember him from such comedy things as, everything) and Festival Director and co-founder, Jeannie Roshar – we were originally just going to transcribe an interview, but our time with them so lively, it kinda turned into a podcast.

Read the rest of the L.A. Comedy Short Film Festival news: here.

APRIL 2011

RT Booklovers Convention

HOLLYWOOD: From Page to Screen : Script Consultants Give You the Goods
Date: Wednesday April 6, 2011 01:00 pm – 02:00 pm
Event Type: Writer Industry Workshop
Location: The Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites, 404 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90071
Phone: 213-624-1000

RT Booklovers convention is hosted by RTBookReview.com and is a focused community of romance writers across several sub-genres. Though I’m not working on the next “Twilight-killer” I do know what makes for good story, and I’m delighted to be joined by fellow panelists and writers Xandy Sussan (imdb), Melinda Snodgrass (imdb) and moderator Vivi Anna.  We’ll sort you out. Romance lovers, hope to see you there.

LA Comedy Shorts Film Festival

CoverMyScript.com will be out at the LA COMEDY SHORTS FILM FESTIVAL:

The L.A. Comedy Shorts Film Festival and Screenplay Competition is dedicated to introducing the newest and hottest comedic talent to the industry, and helping them make the connections they need to take their careers to the next level.

In fact, the winners of the LA COMEDY SHORTS screenplay competition will also win a gracious CoverMyScript.com BRANDING AND NEXT STEPS CONSULTATION PACKAGE with myself and CoverMyScript.com owner, Xandy Sussan. Check it out, it’s going to be awesome, I mean Gary Anthony Williams people!  He’s very pretty (source: bio.)

Script Frenzy

Script Frenzy is an international writing event in which participants take on the challenge of writing 100 pages of scripted material in the month of April.

Along with Xandy Sussan over at  CoverMyScript.com, I’ll be co-writing a stoner comedy script, based on an outline we hashed out (pardon the pun) last year. Script Frenzy is an excellent tool to keep yourself accountable. My goals with this draft are simple; get it on the page, beat it up, slap it around. Many other will be pushing themselves to hit the 100 page mark this April too. Follow me on twitter @UncompletedWork and the hash-tag #scriptfrenzy for my progress and others. You can also sign up and track your progress on ScriptFrenzy.org

SCREENWRITER KARAOKE

Screenwriter Karaoke is going through some exciting changes in the coming months to include a NEW VENUE and NEW SPONSORS! Stay tuned for upcoming news about the when and where  and what special conventions and conferences you’ll see Screenwriter Karaoke attend. If you’d like to suggest your favorite karaoke joint in Los Angeles, tweet at @SWKaraoke.

ARTICLES

There are a million topics I’d love to be writing for and about. One of my most obsessive is probably video games. Last year I was able to indulge  with the sound design team on Medal of Honor.  This year,  I’ll be writing more content for other games. I can’t say which games just yet, but they are cool, well known franchises that fans definitely love.   I will also be contributing an occasional article over at Regrifters.com a new site about taking things old and making them new on the cheap.

WEBSITES

As part of the overall branding of individuals, I often do web development and design for my filmmaking clients. This month I finished the site of accomplished special effect make-up person Scott Conner (imdb). His website is EvilgrinFX.com.

If you are thinking about making a website for your film, or as a portfolio of your work as a filmmaker, reach out to Uncompleted at MerrelDavis.com.

Mixing In Bullet Time: The Sound Team Behind Medal of Honor talks Sound Design
By: Merrel Davis

We  had the chance to chat with the sound team behind the new Electronic Arts game Medal of Honor. Audio Director Paul Lackey, Audio Leads Tyler Parsons and Jeff Wilson, Dialogue Editor Joshua Nelson and Audio Software Engineer Eduardo Trama sat down with us to elucidate one of the least discussed and oft mysterious avenues of audio production and mixing in entertainment: Video Games.

The newest entry in the Medal of Honor franchise is a reboot of sorts. Everything is real. The Speilbergian World War II backdrop is replaced with a gritty and visceral post 9/11 Afghanistan. This time around, military “Tier 1 Operators” hit the ground to fight the Taliban. The audio in the Medal of Honor series has defined the genre of first person shooter (fps) games. From the true-to-life gameplay to the crisp plink of a spent shell dancing on the concrete; Medal of Honor brings you into a real war zone.

The sound design, orchestration and implementation in the Medal of Honor series are unparalleled. So what goes into capturing the sound of an interactive, dynamic war zone? A whole lot. As Paul Lackey puts it, “Creating the sound is the easy part; on the other hand, sound integration for video games is akin to constantly solving a puzzle.” Indeed, he and his team are very aware and humbled by the tradition of Medal of Honor they must uphold.

From front then left to right, Paul Lackey, Eduardo Trama, Jeff Wilson, Josh Nelson & Tyler Parsons

In film, some say the sound perspective is dictated by the cut of the film and the single plane of audio. In video games, because it’s interactive, sound has to exist on multiple planes. What kind of audio setups would you describe as unique to the video game industry?
Paul Lackey: I think our work in the field would closely resemble source gathering for film, except we tend to record from a lot of positions at once. Our recordings need to transition seamlessly in real time from a 1st person perspective in 5.0 (mix) to distant 3rd person or interior to exterior.All the story requirements are the same as with features. The interactive nature of video games compounds the complexity.

Jeff Wilson: Firearms are a good example of how we uniquely use distance modeling for audio assets. We record firearms with multiple perspectives in mind: close, medium and distant. For our close recording set up, we arrange our microphones within 2 to10 feet of the weapon. For our medium perspective, we set up our microphones between 50 and 100 feet away. And for distant perspective, we have recording rigs set up anywhere from 200 to 500 yards away. We simultaneously record from all three locations and then in the editing phase we create distance layers that are designed to blend together to form one composite weapon sound.

Tyler Parsons: Variety is definitely crucial. Something as simple as a “dirt walk footstep” may have ten layers to it. Each of which may have ten constituent sound files to be randomly selected from and assigned semi-random parameters upon playback. Recording and editing massive amounts of source material is necessary in order to deliver a finished soundtrack that feels natural and won’t get repetitive.

What are your (audio) weapons of choice? What gear can’t you live without?
PL: In the field, I can’t live without my Remote Audio headphones. Having hearing protection incorporated into my monitoring is just essential to capturing good high SPL content and on Medal of Honor we record a lot of loud stuff.

TP: I’m a fan of the Sound Devices recorders and RSM 191 (stereo mic) for a lot of effects recording. In the studio, nearly everyone on the team is editing and mixing in Nuendo 4 on PC, which allows us to do all our development (including integration into the game) on one machine. Sound Forge also came into play quite often for mastering and simpler edit work. Kontakt was really handy as a sampler for ambient battle sounds; it made it easy to rapidly create organic sounding backgrounds with a lot of weapon variety.

JW: I can’t live without the Sound Devices 744t, Nuendo 4.0 and the Waves Diamond software suite.

“Worldizing” is a process of playing back existing recordings through a speaker then re-recording the playback along with new sound recordings. This allows for a more uniform acoustic characteristic – have you used this tactic?
TP: A lot of the dialogue in the game is meant to be coming from across the Afghanistan wadi (valley or dry riverbed). We wanted to get that dialogue to sound more authentically affected by the acoustic space of the wadi than it might if we simply processed it on a DAW. So we headed out into the Southern California desert and played back dialogue assets into canyons and against cliff faces. We experimented with different positions for both mics and speaker — some of it came out fantastically well and sounded very natural, while other parts just sounded like a loudspeaker.

Various mics and weapons are set up to capture the sounds of warfare

Did the team have access to the original Medal of Honor sound libraries? How much of the sound was a synthesis of existing content?

PL: We did have access to sound libraries, but most everything except for explosions and impacts came from new source.

JW: Since Medal of Honor originated at our studio in Los Angeles, we do have a large catalog of specific audio recordings at our disposal. However, very little of that material was used in the latest title. We recorded a new set of weapons, cloth and gear foley and a large number of unique sound effects specifically to represent the modern soldier. We try to capture as much original material as possible, utilizing commercial sound libraries as little as possible.

Josh Nelson: Additionally, we did almost 9,000 lines of original dialogue that shipped with the game.

Does the sound production team have to take into account whether or not a game is “online” or has an online component?
TP: Not from a recording standpoint and not significantly from an integration standpoint. For both singleplayer and online multiplayer games, we’re creating and integrating sounds for a first person player’s perspective of non-player opponents; the main difference to us would be in the naming conventions used for the thousands of sound and dialogue cues in each version.

JW: For titles that have an online multi-player component, you have to consider the number of audio voices that will be used. Since gaming consoles have a set ‘voice limit,’ you have to implement a system for filtering the number of active voices being used based on priority and distance. If you exceed the console hardware voice limit, without a voice limit/priority system in place, important sounds may be prevented from playing or prematurely cut off. This is an issue in offline games as well, but is even more of an issue when you join a server with 60 other players.

Biggest pet peeves regarding audio in video games?
JW: Lack of variety. Especially with dialogue. People rarely use dialogue well. A line like “I’m reloading” in the middle of a battlefield is not realistic, but if you only have three asset variations, and they trigger once every few seconds, that noticeable repetition completely removes you from the experience.

TP: Mix dynamics. There are lots of first person shooters that gradually devolve into a “wall of sound.”

JW: Definitely, dynamics. Silence is sometimes just as important. We excel at a very cinematic mix. We give the player a sense of space as opposed to a nonstop barrage of sound.

Do you have any stories or tricks up your sleeve for a good unique sound?
PL: Never assume that what you set out to record is going to be the best or most useful thing you capture. In fact, I was at Fort Carson to record Apache “live fire” training. Before the range went hot, I placed portable recorders near the targets. I really padded my recorder’s inputs as I expected the rockets and 30mm to be exploding. I was pretty disappointed as the first attack took place and nothing went boom! I did not know “live fire” meant inert projectiles. Two hours later I retrieved my recorders, and I found just above the noise floor some amazing ricochets and impacts. After a shameful amount of gain and EQ, these became the basis for the 30mm and 50 caliber impacts that break apart walls and rocks. However, had the practice rounds been explosive, I never would have captured these gems.

JW: Loose change makes good whizbys. (Note: The team used little slingshots to propel the coins into the air, to create a whizby effect for various bullets.)

TP: Looking back, I’m amused by the number of washing machine recordings that found their way into the game. We had a session in which we destroyed an old washing machine in creative ways. I ended up using impacts, ronks, and scrapes from that session as sweeteners in vehicle collisions, RPG impacts on helicopters, anti-aircraft gun explosions, and more. Still more washing machine source came from a recording I made while vacationing in Sydney – my friend had a very modern washer that generated an intense, almost sciencefictiony roar/whine. The spin cycle sounded so much like a big turbine that I ended up sweetening some of our real Chinook helicopter source with it.

What resources are there for designers and mixers interested in being involved in the industry?
TP: Game development conventions like GDC (Game Developers Conference) feature presentations by game audio teams discussing their recent work. There’s also GameSoundCon, a convention dedicated entirely to sound and music in games.

PL: The Game Developers Conference is a very good place to start and make connections.

Audio Lead Tyler Parsons at Fort Irwin

How did you end up in the industry?
PL: I had been working in TV post when my roommate who worked at a small game company said “Hey…we are hiring a sound designer” in a voice that indicated he wasn’t sure what a sound designer would do. “You interested?” This was for the Nintendo 64 and I thought games would be fun for a year or two…but with every console transition has come new challenges and features that have kept each new title as fun and interesting as my first.

TP: I went to school for film production and computer science, leaning at first toward editing picture, but got interested in production dialogue mixing and then sound design. After working on a number of student and independent projects, I got a break in 2004 when Electronics Arts LA was looking for audio integrators to help finish Goldeneye: Rogue Agent. A friend at the studio recommended me for the position and I was lucky enough to get hired. I started doing technical sound design on my second game Medal of Honor: European Assault and have been loving it ever since.

JW: Definitely attend GDC (Game Developer Conference) and meet people who worked in the industry. Most game companies have job postings on their websites and at that point it becomes like any other job search. However, the only way you will get noticed is if you have some basic knowledge of interactive audio. If you are new to the industry, research the tools and methods used by interactive sound designers (this is not a linear medium, so it requires a different way of thinking). Your skill as a sound designer is important, but knowing how to author audio for interactive games is key.

What is the biggest challenge in this line of work?
TP: The toughest part is probably just keeping our sounds integrated and playing as expected. Given the vast number of changes being made to the game as it evolves, it’s not uncommon for sounds that were working exactly as intended yesterday to be somehow broken by a well-meaning designer, artist, or animator within a week or two. We record, edit and integrate the sounds to play exactly the way we want them to, but the real fight is shepherding them all the way to the shipped product.

PL: Honestly, making good sound is the easiest part of our job…still hearing it in the game as intended on the shipped product takes a lot of vigilance and time. “Optimized out of existence” became a late night catch phrase on the audio team during finaling. Because audio is attached in so many ways to bring animations, physics, visual effects, design scripts and coded events to life, a lot of our work tends to get unintentionally broken by last minute changes in other areas of the game.

As we were leaving EA, the sound team shared wisdom from Erik Kraber, the senior audio director on Medal of Honor, who oversaw all dialogue recording and coordinated its entire musical score. His wisdom: “without a valley, a peak means nothing.” Indeed, in playing Medal of Honor, the level of audio detail is truly a feat to behold. The world is organically punctuated by the warmth and depth of an interactive seven hour movie that can be dynamically played out anyway you’d like it. You can hear the crackle of machine gun fire in the distance, the wind in hollowed out fuselage or prone yourself to the ground and drag your body over the rocky riverbed – whatever the scenario or sound, the Medal of Honor team has got you covered. Now, duck!

1. Desperation looks ugly on you.
There is nothing more noticeable than the stench of desperation in the room. Los Angeles is the city of  “keeping up appearances” and the way you carry yourself is as important as the message you carry. That’s not news, but be very careful not to confuse candor and aspiration for desperation, or the other way around.

This past year, I took what I thought was a mutual meeting with a peer. But as it turned out, he was “meeting with me.” He showed up,  resume in hand and instead of approaching me like a person, he begged me for a job. I had hoped for a meeting of the minds. I was testing the waters for a new collaborative partner. But his demeanor was so needy, he talked about how little money he had, how his old man cut him off.

I’m no job fairy. Whilst we, collectively, are a woefully underemployed bunch at times, this was most definitely the wrong way to approach anyone. And honestly, if I did have a job to give him, I wouldn’t have. Awkward and desperate when cultivating new work partners = see ya later! Everyone can smell fear. Which brings me to my next point…

2. Shut up and listen if you ask for help.
I recently had lunch with an Emmy award winning fellow who was re-evaluating his “legacy.” After the writers’ strike, work dried up, and he, like most others in Los Angeles, is still looking for a new way to make a living. Teaching workshops, he asked, was it viable? Could he do it?  I was enthusiastic and know people on the filmmaking workshop circuit and offered my help.

Much to my chagrin, he shot me down immediately; he gave me a litany of logistical and personal reasons why the solution, I hadn’t even offered, wasn’t viable. Not all who wax poetic about jump-starting their future are actually interested in getting on the bike. He wasn’t interested in networking to get on the workshop circuit or collecting his knowledge into what could be a publication. His impression: Someone would  descend from the heavens, orchestrate and pay him top dollar for workshops based on his body of work. That’s as solid a plan as I had ever heard. I mean sure, that would be ideal and the least amount of work in man-power and time (and awesome!) it is also the least likely to ever happen in any universe, even Dr. Who.

If you really want options and ideas ask for them. If you’d rather be jaded about your success or lack thereof, check it at the door and keep it to yourself. Good advice is not for deaf ears. It’s for the bright-eyed individual who’s willing to take the tools and do the work.

3. Los Angeles: “Fuck Yo steady paycheck. Seriously.”
The sheen of L.A. is the most fabricated and heralded social ecosystem of the entertainment world. Expectations, “Hollywood Bullshit,” and cost of living exist on different planes.

Chances are you aren’t independently wealthy. I’m not. But if you ask me “Merrel how did you make a living in 2010?” I’d respond: “With every bit of love, sweat and pain I had.”

Living in Los Angeles is exciting and tough. But in this current economic climate, but it’s harder making a living solely on one craft. So you want to know the real deal? You got to pay the bills, with more than said skills.

During the week, I might be working at a production sound shop. At night, I do coverage or development clients.  Early morning, it’s a bit of editing or graphic design work. Lunch time, I polish a magazine article for syndication. The scripts I sold last year were animated overseas,  so yes, I am a “paid screenwriter.” But that’s not what brought the bread. In a game of keeping up appearances, this town is hard work. Check your company-man hat at the door, because the only way you will survive is to synthesize all your strong skills.

4. “Yes” Means “No”, “No” means “No”
So,  you meet a  “big producer” for lunch. Maybe you are looking to compare notes, test the waters, partner with him, pitch to him. You had a wonderful lunch, great conversation. You gave him your card, some materials, everyone smiles, “we’ll be in touch!” he says.

On the surface, that seems like a pretty great interaction. But the reality of the passive-aggressive, hyper-polite “yes” is aggressively aggravating! The producer said “yes” outloud to interest, but  in his view, it’s the least confrontational way to pass on material or you. Xandy over at covermyscript.com calls it “aggressive obsequiousness” or when everyone is so hyper-polite because no one wants to accidentally tell off the next Scorsese.

The passive aggressive “yes” is like a sneak attack, especially if you have East-coast sensibilities. A meeting like that in NYC may have ended with a “thanks, no thanks” hand shake. At least you know where you stand. But, know that “yes” means “no” all the way to the bank. Be receptive and in the back of your mind know, most people will say “yes” but likely mean “no.”

5. Nepotism / Favoritism thy name is the studio system. Don’t take it personally.
In another life, I worked in the Washington D.C. corridor. The amount of inbreeding between government contractors and various agencies there is astounding (and makes for terrible oversight.) Every single person is somebody’s brother or cousin, close family friend. I once worked at a sixty person contractor — where all the team leads and middle management were cousins.  Interns? Forget about it, we’ve got middle management’s children for that.

I asked Xandy if she could elucidate this phenomenon:

When I first moved out here, my uncle (a prominent and important television producer) made a call on my behalf to a production company and “asked” them to hire me. I put the “ask” in quotes, because when you come recommended from someone like my uncle, you fall into the “must hire” category; like being a legacy at a college. So, I went to the prod co for my, what I was lead to believe was  just a perfunctory meeting, prior to an offer, but what I walked into was an ambush. The hiring manager was so annoyed that I was a “must hire” that she made me jump through a series of unnecessary hoops. I played along, knowing my uncle’s reputation was on the line. Over the course of the next six weeks, I was called back in to interview four more times. By our last meeting, I had lost interest in the hiring manager’s games and flat out asked her what the deal was. She laid it out for me. She didn’t like “must-hires” and she would never hire me. But she had to make it look like she was doing her job. She had already staffed the position with someone more qualified. And by “more qualified” of course I mean, her friend from Cornell. Ah the nepotism trump card; nepotism!  The bottom line, being someone’s relative doesn’t always pave the way for your advancement, it usually opens the door for somebody else’s friend.

You  must constantly navigate people. They all have their own motivations, and most people are acting to elevate, not your interest, but their own. Don’t take it personally.

6. The Dunning Kruger effect
I’d always been aware of this principal in sort of a storied sense, but it wasn’t until this past year that someone shared that there is a formal way to categorize “Dumb people are succeeding at an alarming rate, and smart people are languishing.”

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled people make poor decisions and reach erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to realize their mistakes. This leads to the situation in which less competent people rate their own ability higher than more competent people. It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence.^{(Courtesy Wikipedia.com)}

When you see dumb people succeeding, don’t let it get you down. It’s not because they’re better than you, it’s because scientifically, they are so dumb they fail upwards.  Remember this on every production on set, during every pre-production, during development meetings and when you park your car at Target. Trust me.

7. No one has scruples. Protect yourself.
Story time, again: For over a year and a half now, I’ve hosted Screenwriter Karaoke, a fun filmmakers network event that puts people together in a room with just a little bit of booze, a microphone and tambourine. I’m grateful, this past year was a boon for my baby event. It went from small bars in NYC, to regular dives in LA, to two major screenwriting conferences the Great American Pitchfest and the Creative Screenwriting Expo 2010. These were amazing opportunities to reach to a whole new crowd about my mantra of connecting to peers with a bit of song and drink.

So, you’d might imagine my out right anger when a script doctor that was attending one of these conferences, falsely represented himself as part of my organization. He created a slew of false and misleading website postings / pages, all claiming to be a premiere sponsor of my event while never once speaking to me. One page with an “official website” link lead to his own website and services page! All this, while I do have real  premiere sponsors.

Standing up for yourself by protecting your blood and sweat equity from vultures is the only way you’ll set yourself apart. How do you respond to an astroturfer who unabashedly pretends to be part of your hard work? I sought him out, called him at 10:30 on a Sunday morning and laid out just how unacceptable his behavior was. Don’t let random people encroach on your success. Who the hell is he to come in, swoop up all my hard work and pretend he was there from square one in a lame attempt to drive sales in his own business?

I made it very clear who I was, and even introduced myself when I saw him at Screenwriter Karaoke. For the record, he stayed for one song before he bailed. But my mark is made, I protected myself and he will never pull this shit with me again.

8. Don’t write checks your ass can’t cash / Let people assume.
The two sided coin of entertainment work: you must at once not over promise, whilst still leaving an air of wonder in the room. You may have heard the adage “talk the talk, until you walk the walk” and while there is certainly some truth to presenting yourself well, don’t overstate who you are. We’ll know you’re lying. We always do.

People assume lots of things. Let them. There was a time in my early twenties where I felt the need to correct the real or perceived assumptions people made about me or my work. The correction never yielded more work. Usually, I’d just make more of an ass of of myself in the process.

If you talk a big game you better have the goods. For example, if you are pitching scripts, you should probably have it written. Sure, we all know the stories of pitches on napkins for millions, but what happens when you pitch, and they like it? Will you run home and do your vomit pass and hope for the best? That’s what I call a pay-day loan with strings attached versus writing your own checks.

Maybe the perception others have of you will be flattering, and perhaps not factual. People love to fill in the gaps, so let them. And just like a writer and mental spackle, people spackle their assumptions and personal experience over their view of you. If you find this happening, let it flow, people are going to think what they are going to think regardless if you correct them.

9. Being #2 on the list is like being an understudy. You never know when you have your opening night, so be prepared.
Building a support system of friends and peers is a slow process. It begins with letting people know who you are and what your about. There are ways to be well positioned. For example, seek out professionals you admire and cultivate a relationship with them. Exultation or demands for work won’t get you very far, but an earnest interest might.

In my travels this year I met a great fellow with a boutique production company. I made a good impression and we hit it off. We traded emails and then months later I got a call: “So and so dropped out, you were the first person who came to mind.” Ah, yes, music to my ears! I had an opportunity to meet with a great crew and DP on a top TV show in it’s seventh season and teach a workshop. Things lined up. It’s because I wasn’t bashful in letting him know who I am or what I do.

I was prepared and delighted to be able to try my hand at a new gig. The workshop went well, but I really did feel like an understudy. I knew all the lines, I’m just amazed I’d have a chance to recite them.

10. Opportunities aren’t presented, they are created.
Last story, I promise: I was staffed on a NAT GEO TV series. To get on, I contacted the executive producers, through a friend of a friend. The production company told me outright they weren’t hiring, they didn’t know the next series they were doing either. Basically, “go fly a kite, thanks.”

Most people would have stopped there. I was persistent. I landed a different gig in the interim, then called the following month and asked if I could come in to see the production offices. They obliged me, I went in and met the whole team. It was “Thanks for stopping by and seeing our digs!” and they sent me on my way.

By this point, I had made my intentions clear. It was a little discouraging to repeatedly hear “sorry, we got nothing for you.” But I kept in contact. Never overbearing, just a “hey this is what I’m doing now.” When the NAT GEO show came through, I was high on the list, and they staffed me for six months.

Even though I knew somebody personally who had done work for this production company and they referred me, I made this opportunity myself. Getting in front of somebody is the easy part, creating the opportunity for yourself is only way you’ll ever see success.