I received this about a minute ago:

July 27, 2007

SDAFF Programming Staff
2007 San Diego Asian Film Festival

This is the second fest that did not accept CM, but the first rejection letter I actually received. We didn’t get in to NYAAFF, but my email was down during the rejection notification period so it never came. San Diego would’ve been nice in September, though. Oh well, maybe I’ll just make a better movie!

Woo hoo! Check out the deets. Unfortunately, my lack of a job is preventing me from being in attendance. I’m honored to be invited though.

So I’ve been in NY just about 2 months now. A good chunk of my day is spent surfing job sites for possible employment opportunities. Most of the time, I find myself in the TV/film/video and crew sections of craigslist.org. On some days, there are multiple entries that apply to me while other days, the entries do not.

Today was a weird day in that I actively looked at the other sections, viewing posts for jobs I am qualified for but don’t necessarily want to do. These are jobs like call center phone support and sales gigs. The main point of moving out here was to transition from a job to a career. But I guess you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Working part-time would be ideal. This way I’d be generating some income while leaving some days open for jumping on sets, interning, etc.

And now after a two weeks of this internship, I am thinking that perhaps it wasn’t the best one to take. I say this for three reasons:

1) There is no possibility of further employment.

Internships are great because it allows for the company to get a “preview” of a candidate’s potential and can then decide if they want to hire you after the internship is complete. My internship – and stupid me for not thinking about this – is very different in that it is project-based. This production company is making one film and there is nothing else in the pipeline. So even if I did do a stellar job with my tasks, there wouldn’t necessarily be a job waiting for me after the movie is completed. They would have to get funding for another movie and then decide if they had enough money to hire me.

2) There seems to be a limit to what I’d learn.

Since all I’m doing is logging, I’ve already learned how to use the application (Final Cut Pro) to perform all the logging tasks. The days are spent learning how to work faster and more efficiently and how to log the footage in a way that the editor can understand. Of course I do get that a project of this magnitude requires a certain process and a lot of my time is spent learning about the guidelines of this specialized process. But with 700+ hours of footage, it’ll likely be months until they start the editing process. By then, my internship would be over and really, the only thing I would’ve learned is how to effectively log footage. And don’t get me wrong, this is certainly valuable stuff. But I would’ve hoped that I’d be learning a bit more in the time I agreed to spend working with them.

3) I want to make narrative films.

I enjoy documentaries, but I’m not passionate about it. I am totally intrigued by the subject matter and very interested in seeing what story the filmmakers will end up telling, but I’m not sure if I’m picking up the right kernels of knowledge for what I eventually want to do. Maybe at some point, I’ll be compelled to tell a story that would best be told with a documentary, but for now, I’ll just have to stow away the information I’m getting until that day.

I don’t want to sound like a spoiled baby. I am always appreciative of the opportunities given to me. But when rent needs to be paid and you know that there isn’t a ever-flowing river of cash to swim from, you really start to evaluate how your time will be spent. And if and when I decide to take that non-production job to ensure rent and bills are paid, I’ll have to ask myself if I took full advantage of the “free” (pun intended) time I had.

GRRRR

I figured I’d put up some pictures of the neighborhood around my work…er, internship. I don’t get paid, I have to walk up 6 flights of stairs, and there’s no A/C in the office…but the view kicks ass.

Check it:

On my way to work…

The park near my work…

The view from the 7th floor of my building…

Several months back, I received a bunch of emails from friends encouraging me to “audition” for what would become the American Idol for aspiring filmmakers. The rules were to submit a 6 minute entry, where 5 of those minutes would be a short film or trailer for a much longer piece and the first minute to describe a little bit about the director. Unfortunately, I had not the time nor the resources to put it one together and I was not about to cut 8 minutes out of Cereal Monogamy. Then I thought, maybe I should see how the show is first before I audition. With anything, first releases aren’t always kosher and you have to wait for service pack 2 to arrive before it improves.

And now that we’re about a month and half into the first season of On the Lot, I find myself underwhelmed more and more every week. Sure, it’s interesting to see what the contestants do week after week. Right now, you are starting to see which genres suit each director and certain styles that stay consistent. But with the exception of Zack (or Zach), who has proven he is more than just a visual effects mastermind, there really isn’t anyone who stands out in the competition for me. And there’s no one currently in contention I would consider remotely close to being an “auteur”.

Of course, that’s just me being a film snob. I understand that this show is supposed to find the next “Hollywood” director. Me? I’m an independent/film as an artform kind of guy. I enjoy foreign and arthouse flicks, so my criticism of the show is extremely skewed. At first this was supposed to be a manifesto of sorts for how to improve On the Lot, but I realize that there has to be a place for this kind of show. After all, if America can vote for its next pop star, why can’t it vote for its next popcorn movie maker? And really, there are lots of filmmakers out there who do want to crack Hollywood and make movies with multi-million dollar budgets (Michael Bay). But what I’m proposing is an idea for a different type of filmmaker competition – for the artists. (I know that sounds super snobby to say that there should be a show just for artists and a show for everyone else, but hear me out.)

So here are my thoughts for On the Lot v2.0.

What stays:

Guest judges – This is good for both contestants and audiences. Not only would filmmakers get “honest” criticism of their work, but having guest judges let the audience know a bit about them. I always thought Eli Roth was just some spoiled Jewish kid who got lucky. I watched the Hostel Behind the Scenes featurette and thought he was not taking his movie-making seriously. Then as a guest judge on this week’s show, he probably had the most honest criticism out there…and he knew what he was talking about. It definitely changed my outlook on him.

Rate of film production – The contestants should definitely be making movies every week. If this is a dream, then they have to live it until the very end. It should not be like a marathon, nor should it be a sprint. You should just be running real fast until the end…kind of like the 800m race in Track (2 laps around the track).

And that’s about it. Now onto…

What goes:

Audience voting – The first thing that my screenwriting teacher told us in class – “audiences are stupid”. When America votes, you have absolutely no idea what their reasoning is – is it because they really made a cinematic masterpiece or is it because the director is hot? Granted, the audience has been right in most of the episodes, but then again, there’s not much quality out there either.

I feel contestants should be judged the way the Bravo competition shows do it – Project Runway and Top Chef. There is the host/moderator, knowledgeable film people (filmmakers, critics, and/film theorists) and finally – like I mentioned above – a guest judge. The judges can provide insight as to what goes into their decision-making process when a contestant wins or loses a challenge, eventually getting eliminated.

Also, this method ensures that contestants really listen to critiques. In On the Lot, the critiques don’t mean much because they don’t decide who wins anyway. This is the case on American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance?(SYTYCD) Everyone just loves to hear what the judges have to say.

Live results – This ties in to audience voting. If audience voting is gone, then there’s no real need for a live results show. You’ll notice they don’t kick off losers on live television anymore. They just show the host revealing the results and it ends up being a bit anti-climactic. At least with Project Runway and Top Chef, you will know that someone is getting assed-out before the show wends. That’s instant climax and denouement right there.

Eliminating live results also gives you flexibility with the length of each challenge. With Top Chef, they have small challenges where filmmakers gain immunity. This is SUPER cool because you see how contestants act and react to knowing that they will stay for one more day or week or whatever length of time.

Vague challenges – Now it might not be fair to say this right now as we’re right in the middle of the contest, but some of these challenges are V-A-G-U-E. I mean c’mon…”you six make a comedy, while the rest of you make horror flicks”. It is an uneven playing field, especially since the groups were picked randomly. It was interesting this week how certain directors interpreted the “horror” genre. Instead of making a film that met the guidelines of the genre (remember Jamie Kennedy’s rant in Scream?), they took what was scary to them and made a movie about that. Mateen shot himself in the foot because I don’t think America dug it. Is it his fault for interpreting it that way? Perhaps. But if the challenge wasn’t so vague, he might’ve had a shot at it.

Number of contestants – I feel the audience was subjected to too many filmmakers in the beginning. I believe they started with the final 20 filmmakers after a few shows of eliminations. This seems to work fine with American Idol and SYTYCD but didn’t work for me on this show. So the producers are really asking me which 1 minute short was my favorite after seeing all 20? I could probably tell you which one I disliked least. The show should start with no more than 13 contestants (1 for however many episodes). Any more and you’re left with having to watch a lot of crap. It wastes the audience’s time, especially when you’re listening to poor critiques by…

Carrie Fisher and Garry Marshall – I wish Carrie would be more honest and she seems to be pampering them too much. She probably doesn’t like to get booed. Garry Marshall just wants to crack wise all episode and oogle at Adriana Costa. Which reminds me…

Adrianna Costa – She has to go, too. She’s hot but kind of sounds like Rachael Ray. The host just needs to be someone who can contribute to the judge’s decision. Heidi Klum and Padma Lakshmi (barely) can do it.

So it looks like it would be a totally different show, right? I will pitch my idea in Part 2 which will be posted tomorrow.