Two months away and a film challenge

I really am not in the mood to write, but I had an interesting and revealing day, so I felt compelled to put it into words.

I’ll start by catching up on recent events. I’ve been away from home for about two months now. I forget if I ever mentioned it to anybody except for a few close friends. To most people I say that I was away on vacation, but in truth I was away because I had no home for a while. Unlike previous occasions when I haven’t had a place to call home, this time it wasn’t quite all our own fault. The owner of the house we were living in for the past year just decided to be a jerk and tell us we were no longer welcome to rent his house. It wasn’t all that insulting it was just a bummer to have to leave a home I was just getting used to. For the last four years or so, I haven’t been in the same home for more than a year and I thought this time would be different.

Luckily I have several caring people to take me in. I think I’ve shared time with my grandma and sister the last few times this has happened. This time, it was my sister that took me in for a bit over two months. I am forever grateful that she let me stay that long. I know I can be an imposition sometimes, as is anybody that is living inside of someone else’s home, but she always made me feel welcome in her home.

As much as I am relieved to be home, I can’t help but miss being at my sister’s. Those two months were spent in such an ignorant blissful stupor, that it’s been a bit overwhelming at times to get back to the functional world. During my “vacation” I would wake up whenever I wanted, would watch the cable she paid for, used her computer on the Internet connection she pays for, and played video games on the big screen she bought. There was no pressure or sense of responsibility attached to my usual escapist immersion into entertainment media. Now that I’m home it’s much different. I haven’t been able to set up the Internet, satellite, or even my cell phone, because when I departed I left those accounts unattended. Now that I’ve returned, the balances have accumulated, and I am still without employment (but what’s new there).

So I sit at home sometimes watching fuzzy broadcast TV or a DVD, and for the first time in a long time I feel like all I am doing is wasting time. This was slightly relieved today with an interesting project I worked on.

Every year, there is a competition held by a local filmmaking organization called a 48-hour film challenge. To clarify, it is a team-based contest to see who can come up with the best film with a complete production cycle of two days. In those two days, the short film has to be written, rehearsed, shot, and edited. If you’ve never seen how much work goes into a film production, let me assure you that cramming that much work into a two-day period is quite a feat. From what I have understood, about 30 percent of teams that register for this competition will not have a completed film by the deadline.

I’ve been excited for the opportunity to participate in this challenge for a few months, despite not even knowing if I would be back in town by then. Luckily, I was able to come back last week so I could participate. I joined a group of other ASU students who pooled their resources to put together a production. Originally, I had gathered a group of about five of us to put together a small production, probably shot on a minimal budget with all of us taking on various roles. Instead we became a group of about 20 people, each with specialized titles and responsibilities within the production. The team rented a two ton grip equipment truck, and the film was shot in high definition. It was by far a much larger project than I had first anticipated, but that in itself wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I am in no position to produce or take a lead position on a film right now, so just the opportunity to be a part of a crew was enough for me.

The day started at about 4 in the morning, though I had gotten enough sleep the night before that this wasn’t a factor. I had already met most of the crew a few days before at our first meeting, but I wasn’t sure what to expect. For starters, when I showed up and greeted the crew, one of the writers came up to me and gave me a big hug since she “hadn’t seen me in a long time”. Combined with the time I could swear she called me “Miguel”, I think she had me mistaken for someone else. She was cute so I didn’t care to correct her. Without going into sordid detail about the day I’ll say that I was very fortunate that the people I was working directly with were great fun, professional in their work, and I learned a great deal from them. Apparently I made a good impression with them since at the end of the day, they said next time they have a large project lined up, they’ll give me a call. Who knows, it may even be a paying gig.

That’s not to say the whole day went smoothly. There was tension between crews from the very beginning and in my opinion there were several people in leadership roles that dropped the ball with their responsibilities. I think it severely hurt the project, but I don’t think it was completely lost. We got enough footage to piece together a film, so now I am just curious if the editors will be able to pull it off.

I came home extremely tired so I slept for a few hours before waking up to write this entry. I’ve written quite a bit now but I’ve also tapped into a bank of material that I want to write about. However, in the interest of brevity, I think I’m going to save that for another entry. I think it will be soon because in the time it has taken me to post this, there has been some comments on other posts I need to address in addition to some burning thoughts I want to get out. Until then, goodbye and thanks for reading.