In Transition
(as usual..)
When my life gets interesting, my blog suffers. In a perfect world it would be the other way around, but since I like to use this space as a way of making some relaxing writing, I always prefer to get creative rather than descriptive. But I think it’s time to describe.
FilmAid
Wednesday was my last day as Program and Operations Manager for FilmAid. It was extremely bittersweet to leave a company I love, people I love, and a job that has given me so many fond memories (and a steady income in a time when that’s no guarantee for anyone! But ultimately, it became clear to me that I want to make films, and the time to do that is now – as much as my personal career may be aligned with the mission of the organization, my day-to-day work was mostly administrative. I am very hopeful that the future will bring more opportunities to collaborate with FilmAid.
The organization is now gaining legs and a renewed sense of purpose. The famine crisis in Somalia is sending tens of thousands across the border and into the areas where we work, so FilmAid organized an emergency response to this, which I hope will be impactful.
So I travel..
I’m off to Los Angeles today for a week. It’s been a year since my last trip, and am looking forward to seeing friends and family. I’ll be looking closer at the film industry there, re-considering my choice to live in New York and what it’s costing me in terms of career mobility. There are so many opportunities in LA for a young filmmaker, but so. many. people in that rat race. I’m hoping to come to the same conclusions as I did last time, that I don’t need to move out there…but it’s far from certain.
Burning Man
After LA, then SF and Burning Man. This is a yearly opportunity to reset and re-envision my life in the context of Western Society, my goals in the context of existential questions. Then four days of meditating with Mike in Northern California, then diving back into the grind.
Refugee website
I’ve been bandying around the idea to create a kind of tumblr for refugees, where they can post articles and pictures about their lives for the international community. Hush hush. I’ve got the domain name, but haven’t built it yet. I promised it to a few people when I was there over a year ago, and feel terrible that it’s taken so long. I was just speaking with one friend in Dadaab and trying to set him up with a tumblr, and he asked me if I needed his passport…adorable. You can see his new blog here! Very excited for this.
Bohemian Rhapsody
I’m editing the Bohemian Rhapsody film Alejandro and I shot – over a hundred New Yorkers singing Bohemian Rhapsody from all around the city. That will happen as soon as a pocket of time opens up.
Scan The Tee
Scan The Tee has been crying for my attention recently. I’m planning a big publicity push, but probably not until I get back to town on September 12. Anybody know someone looking for a business/publicity internship for the Fall? About 1-2 days per week?
Writing projects
Always got a few of these. My TV pilot is nearing a solid draft stage, but there is much more work to be done on it.
Dreams
I had a dream a few nights ago that I saw a woman get hit by a car. I raced to help her, and when she got up I saw that she was a short, squat woman in a fancy tweed jacket. There were tire marks over her. She said in a meek and frenzied voice, “oh no, my husband will be so mad! I won’t ever again be allowed to lunch!” as in go out to lunch with her lady friends. I thought it was funny.
Personal life
I continue to be in awe of the intelligence and insightfulness of my friends. I feel lucky to know, and be meeting every day, such amazing and beautiful people. I’m also seeing somebody now who makes me very happy, which..well, makes me very happy.
Scheduling, goals
I realized in July that I had so much going on that nothing was getting done, so I followed Maha‘s system and scheduling myself by the hour. What a radical change – I was churning out pages of script and rocketing forward on my other work.
I realize that, looking at this list, I have a lot going on. I’m trying to focus in on priorities while at the same time keeping a breadth of projects in chill, slow development.
Narrowing my goals, though, I know that I want to focus more intently on film now that I have left FilmAid, and I also want to begin to focus on business.
A small bit of a summary update here, expect more later!