Hey you all. I’m up early. Gotta pick up my cap and gown. I’m feeling a little better.
I’ve got a degree in film and digital media, with a production concentration and honors in the major (yay!). What that practically means is I am one of the better academic writers out there and I can edit video like mad. Job-wise, I know that doesn’t translate into much. I’m not really too concerned with getting a degree in my own field. I can make movies on my own.
I’ve done the whole take-a-half-assed job thing over the summers, and it doesn’t work here. I spent my summers eating peanut butter on toast twice a day, re-reading old books as a primary form of entertainment and not buying anything more expensive than a pair of thrift store khakis for my work uniform. I still managed to burn through my savings and get in debt. Except, this time I don’t have a financial aid check coming in fall to save me. I worked it out, and I’m not going to be able to live any sort of reasonable lifestyle without making over $9.00 an hour. I live cheap but this place is expensive. If I could find any job in Santa Cruz that pays that much, I’d be all over it. It’d be nice if having a college degree actually meant something, but I’m not too picky.
Living with my mom wouldn’t be completely tragic. But it’d mean going back to Sacramento, land of 110 degree summers. It’d mean living in a suburban house miles away from anything when I don’t have a car. It’d mean being pretty much completely isolated from my friends and all the artisitic and social resources I’ve built up here. It’s a stagnant place. And it is a place where people get stuck. My mom has never lived outside of a ten miles radius of her childhood home. I really don’t want to repeat that, but I’ve seen it happen to people I know. And that is before we get into issues of my mom opening up my mail, making plans for me every weekend, commenting on every meal I eat, every item of clothing I wear, the duration and qualities of my showers and the like.
The Peace Corps is a strong strong lure. The only drawback is that I am finally going to get a video camera for graduation. My dream is to make my own movies, run them on the festival circuit, and maybe get enough attention to start a real career in film. My camera would be too valuable to take with me, and I’d be devastated if it got stolen or damaged. Two years seems like an awefully long time to go without working towards this dream, especially when I know the people right now that I can work with to make it happen.
I do know that unless I’m doing fabulously in a year, I am going back to grad school ASAP. I miss school already! The good news is that I got a lead on a room that won’t be much cheaper than mine, but will be a single (my first room all to myself since high school) with a good friend (her family is helping her buy a condo! oh to have resources!) in a great part of town. I can go back to Sac and live with friends for July (a bunch of friends are house sitting for the month) and try to job search here so I can move in in August. Assuming I get a job I can pay rent with, I’ll be set to make movies on my days off and keep looking for a way to start a real career.
Have you tried Monster.com? I had good luck when I used them…and it was easier. You write a resume, save it on their site, and when you find listings in your area/field, you click “Submit your resume”, and it sends them a copy. They look it over, call to set up an interview, and bam. I was able to apply a lot more reason in my search…I was offered 3 different jobs, but was able to choose the one that best suited me and where I wanted to be in life.
As for your “stuff,” please. Life isn’t about “stuff,” it’s about experiences. So dump your “Precious Moments” collection off with your mom and get out there and live.
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I was just ready to post the above when I read this. I’m not normally given to profanity, but you can’t be fucking serious. You don’t want to join the Peace Corps because you’re afraid something might happen to your video camera?!? Wow! That really puts the crisis you’re dealing with in perspective, doesn’t it?
Read Bruce Campbell’s “If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor” to get the inside scoop from a film school student who struggled to make movies.
Get a job. Get two jobs if need be, if you want to stay in Santa Cruz. That’s life.
You see, there is one resource you have a lot of: Time and effort. You’ve got 168 hours a week. You can convert a lot of those hours into wages and still have time left over to get into film if you’re willing to. If you’re NOT willing to work long hours, film is not the business for you.
I don’t know much about filmmaking, but I’m pretty sure it’s tough to get a job in it in Santa Cruz. Don’t you pretty much have to move to LA if you’re serious about it? If so, now’s the time. Pack up and get on the bus, and sort out living details when you get there. Even if you don’t just walk right into a film job, the market for other jobs there has to be much more diverse.
I’ll second the recommendation that the best way to get started with the next part of your life is to get started. Good luck.
EvenSven you’ve already gotten the dutch uncle speech, so I’m not going to lay that trip on you. I do want you to realize that life is not easy and nobody is going to hand you a dream job. So you may have to take a job as a video store clerk. . so did Quentin Tarantino, who ate his share of rice and beans before he got his break. Right now this is the time in your life when you take the shit jobs and you leanr from them. Watch people, listen to how they talk and act–this will give you material for writing screenplays one day.
The best advice you’ve been given is to find work aborad. Right now it’s easier than it’s been in a while to get a job teaching abroad. All you need to teah in most countries is a bachelor’s degree. If you check out Dave’s Esl Cafe, you’ll find a plethora of job leads for teaching positions.
Moreover, I think that traveling abroad will help you because filmmakers need life experience to come up with the material to tell stories. You definitely need to get some maturity and to toughen up–living and working abroad will help you become more self-reliant and give you the opportunity to meet people and see places that will give you the raw material to help you tell stories through film.
Hey even sven, I’d like to invite you to move out here to Columbia, Missouri!
A nice rathole out here costs about half what it does out there in California.
We’re considered the Berkeley of Missouri, most liberal town in the state, probably the most liberal town between Chicago and Denver, so you’d be right at home here.
The University supposedly has several unfilled positions available, and I happen to know the guy who runs the video editing labs and does the instruction (by virtue of the fact that I used to do alot of editing back when it was all analog, digital lost me though.)
Now, maybe it’s silly to pick a place way out here in the midwest, but the point is that you have basically unlimited horizons. You could live anywhere in the entire country. You have nothing holding you down. What a great position to be in.
And I want to kind of echo gobear’s remarks, getting some worldly experience gives you the material from which you can draw inspiration for your films. Both teaching abroad and the Peace Corps as already mentioned might do well for that. Heck, take the camera with you to the Peace Corps, get some nice footage of the work you do, that’s a film right there.
It’s not a little handycam or anything. Its about six thousand dollars of professional equipment. After about eight years of wanting a camera of my own (and begging, borrowing and sometimes yes, stealing cameras to do my projects), I’m finally getting on as a graduation. It’s the nicest thing I’ve ever own and the nicest thing I forsee owning in the near future. If I don’t make something good with this, it’s also likely to be the last video camera I own. It also represents my family’s belief that I have the talent and skills to suceed and it’s my chance to make a movie and do the festival thing. So yeah. It’s my baby. It’s my ticket to a better life. It’s a really really big deal to someone who hasn’t owned a lot of things worth owning.
For the people that sent links- thanks! I’ve been checking out all of them. Theres lots of good stuff.
I know you don’t want to do this, but seriously – if you can do it at all, move back home. I know you would be stuck without a vehicle in suburbihell, but it’s not the worst thing in the world. (I got stuck many years in suburbihell without a vehicle.) Right now, if you have only $200, how are you going to afford to move? If you get a job making not really enough to pay the rent, how are you going to save up the money just to get to grad school? Applying for grad school and moving to wherever the school is isn’t cheap.
I wish you the best.
PS: If you’re pretty good at typing and using MS Office programs, hone your secretarial/data entry skills. You can probably get at least $9 an hour doing something like that.
Sven, you can teach English in Korea with any ol’ College degree. For some contracts, not only do they pay you a fairly massive amount of money, they pay for your airfare, they fix up your visa for you so you can work, and they give you a free studio apartment. I’ve done it and it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Sometimes you can even do a little modeling on the side. That’s more money.
The director of the school you’d be sent to is a good friend of mine. He’s an awesome guy and he’ll take care of you.
Work abroad, join the Armed Forces/Peace Corps and while self-pity is good when no one else will pity you, DO NOT fall into despair and drinking.
Just be careful with your camera stuff. Hehehe.
Have you considered selling stuff on Ebay? Some people make living selling on Ebay by simply going through garage sales/thrift stores and selling them for higher prices there. It’s something to consider for now.
First, on moving back with your mother in whereever: you define your exit plan and you have a defined period to be there, saving money, etc.
Plans, realistic short term plans are the key to moving from self-indulgent whinging on to where you want to go.
Second, I would not advise Peace Corps for you. I do not get the sense you have the spine to take a real PC experience. Same for the military suggestions which seem to be fairly inapprop. for someone of your background and goals. Perhaps something in East Europe or Asia in teaching would be most appropriate. Less shock and you would likely be able to bring along the camera. Indeed teaching English in Asia or E. Europe might very well be an ideal way for you to gain real life experience and some grit, without overloading the system so to speak.
Bingo! There in one. Right now, sven, you are a mass-produced commodity. I have no doubt that you feel like you have a unique perspective that only you can share with the waiting world. In reality, however, you are a wet-behind-the-ears post-adolescent who has been exposed to way too much bad television programming and way too little of the amazing diversity of real life – and I mean that in the nicest possible way. Any film you make right now will be derivative because, right now, you are derivative. This is not a slam at you. Virtually everyone is in the same boat when they graduate and the vast majority of people stay that way. Ruts are easy to get into and sometimes fiendishly hard to get out of. Most folks have neither the perspective nor the determination it takes to do so.
So travel. Have unique experiences. Become what you choose to be rather than what society and popular culture have made you. If you have real insights to go with the technical skills you learned at uni, that’ll be a film!
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Bah. No video camera is your ticket to a better life. You are your ticket to a better life. The only thing holding you back is your timidity. You are young, healthy, intelligent, highly educated and a member of the most affluent, privileged society in all of human history. You think your biggest asset is a video camera?
If you wreck your camera while filming stampeding water buffalo in the Zambezi, it can be replaced. The experience you get – and the story you now have to tell – cannot.
Anyway, you will find that in the greater scheme of your life, 6,000 USD is not that big a deal.
So what’s it going to be? Which future do you choose? Film making in Pakistan? Teaching in Asia? Community development in Africa? Or hanging on by your teeth in Santa Cruz in your very own room! I’ll give you a hint – which experience or experiences will you remember vividly twenty years from now?
As I was filling out my Peace Corps application (!) I got an email saying I won a $1500 scholarship. Essentially they are just going to send me a check. I told them I needed help with my loans and to buy lights. Now I can! I can’t believe it!! Yay!!!
You know, when I was in college, I decided to go out on a limb and do my final internship in the U.S. All my other classmates stayed at home, because the internship was often a ticket to employment. Everyone said I was stupid for going abroad and not doing the safe thing.
Since I came home, I’ve been unemployed for a grand total of 1,5 months. In 18 years. In media. My experience abroad changed me profoundly, and for the better, I like to think. Jeepers, but I was scared when I started my internship as a producer for WGN in Chicago. But you know, nothing in the media business has scared me ever since.
I find, in my life, that it’s only when you decide to take that big leap out into the unknown, that opportunities come your way. Don’t let the $1500 tie you down - go the peacecorps way, anyway.
Do you have a demo reel? I’m not in film production, but industrial design. I’ve been to a few job fairs (as a recruiter) at colleges looking at students from similar areas to yours. TV stations, production houses…etc will be there and usually the video/ animation grads have a demo reel to show.
It’s the same as a portfolio in my line of work. A resume tells you very little about a person’s skills. Their work tells you everything you want to know.
I agree with the travel advice. I went from the UK to Arizona to Philly by way of South America. I’m wary of the peace corps angle though. I personally don’t like the idea of having such a large chunk of time commited. It’s nice to have an out/ ability to modify what you’re up to.
Congratualtions, sven! Your situation has certainly improved over the course of this thread.
Are there any strings attached to the check (do you need to stay in Santa Cruz?), or is it just free money?
This only buys you a little time, of course. You still need to come up with a Plan. I have to say that of the several people that I know who have done the Peace Corps (and anecdotes I’ve heard about others), the volunteers who have been most likely to have a miserable time – and/or drop out before their two years is up – have been people who joined somewhat capriciously, rather than it having been something they’d been thinking about for a while.
Teaching English abroad sounds like it might be a really good idea for you. I know many who have done it, for periods ranging from a couple of months to the rest of their lives. Some relatives of mine – a couple with a combined age of 140 – came back not long ago from two years ESL teaching in a part of China where very few foreigners are seen. They had a blast! It would be even easier and more rewarding for you, due to your age and future career interests. You may even be able to leverage an ESL job into some film-related work once you’re abroad - a Degree in Film from the University of California would probably be held in some awe!
Let us all know how things pan out for you.
Hello?? Surely you’re qualified for more than 10 jobs! I mean, McDonald’s is always hiring. Better yet, register with a temp agency. I’m guessing you are at least qualified to answer a phone if you’re computer literate. It might not be the greatest job, but at least it will keep in you beans and rice until you can find one in your field (i.e. - one of those 10 jobs you’re qualified for).
Ok, enough smarmy talk. First of all, you need some antidepressants. Obviously. Second of all, living with your mother (while marginally better than death) is certainly better than living out of a box under the nearest bridge. (plus, you might be able to take your cat).
When I graduated from college, I didn’t even HAVE $200 or money coming from a deposit on a house. I moved with all of my belongings (which fit in 5 suitcases) to a new town, new state, with no family and one friend, whom I crashed with for 2 months while fretting over not working yet. (He told me to enjoy the summer as it was likely the LAST summer vacation I would have. Very good point, by the way.) My first job, as a college graduate mind you, was for $4.82 an hour. I got an apartment close to the job because I didn’t have a car and had to walk to work.
The point is, your life is not as bad as it seems. All it takes is a little get up and go. So get up off your whiny butt and do something about it!! You think some employer is going to hunt you down, knock on your door and offer you a six figure salary with all the perks? Every college graduate has to start out in the working world as, go figure, a new college graduate! Its like being a freshman all over again, except this time you get paid.
Good luck. I think you might need it.
(by the way, I heard the Coast Guard is hiring like crazy. Of course, you probably wouldn’t be able to take the cat.)
