This is an addendum to a post The Bitter Script Reader put up today about what to expect when working as an assistant in Hollywood. I’m happy to say that of all the sets I’ve worked on, there was only one person who came off as a complete pompous jackass. He was a director for a feature film that Reader’s Digest was producing to help teach English. Yes, it was actually a script written to teach people conversational English, yet this guy thought he was hot shit. During a setup, he actually left to go get a haircut. What a douche.

So if a director’s head could get inflated over a stupid ESL movie, imagine what a REAL director/producer/executive would be like. Reading a post like this really annoys me. I get the sense that this type of behavior is passed down from generation to generation. Interns and assistants get treated like shit and then when it’s their turn to call the shots, they perpetuate the behavior because that’s how it was when they came up.

I’m back at square one now that I’m here in LA. Suppose I have aspirations of development, chances are I’d have to get one of these no/low-paying assistant jobs. Look, I’ve been around the block a few times and I know that yelling or being a dick to someone is NOT the best way to motivate those who work for you. Perhaps when I was young and impressionable, I would tolerate it. Now that I’m 31 years old, please…gimme a break.

Surely, my own pride factors in, but I have no respect for people who do not reciprocate theirs.

Yes, I’m sure there are some exceptions out there – honest and gracious folks in this town, but I’m sure there’s a reason the reputation exists in the first place.

Seriously, is this REALLY the right industry for me??

Per Merriam-Webster:

skill: a learned power of doing something competently : a developed aptitude or ability

talent: a special often athletic, creative, or artistic aptitude

In recent months, I’ve been following a lot of industry blogs – both creative and on the business side. Some sites offer reviews of recent films and the latest episode of whatever TV show, some cover breaking production news, and some are blogs geared toward aspiring screenwriters who are trying to break in. And as posts pile up in my Google Reader feed, it’s hard not to get discouraged when I read about the dire state of the industry. And when I think about the stasis in my own creative endeavors over the last few months, I can’t help but wonder whether or not I have the chops.

It got me thinking about skill and talent. I suppose to be really successful at something, you will need a combination of both – and a good dose of each, probably. Luck probably can’t hurt either. So let’s say a cup represents success. You take 1/2 cup of skill and another 1/2 of talent and there you go. You’re on your way. Say you only have 1/4 cup of skill and 3/4 talent, you’re probably all good too. 7/8 talent, 1/8 skill – you get the deal.

What happens when you can’t even fill a whole cup? I’d like to think I’m marginally talented – I’ve received some good feedback from the projects I’ve done and they’ve generally been well-received. But that’s small-time stuff. I don’t know how I’d fare if I’m bumped up to the next level.

My buddy Jon asked me a little while back when I would direct another film. I spouted off some excuses about not having a budget and waiting for the timing to be right – you know, the usual stuff. But I also admitted I was scared. Having 2 years of below-the-line production work, I realize everything I had done was small potatoes. And while the stuff I worked on in NY wasn’t quite The Show, (Forgive the baseball references – I’ve been balls deep in SF Giants baseball this season) the knowledge I acquired about film production was invaluable. And knowing this, it’s hard to take on a project without a certain level of “production value” (which many times means money).

So now, if you’re gonna do something, do it the right way. This is all fine and good, except sometimes doing it the right way means the timing needs to be right. And really, when is the timing ever right? How will you know, even? You just gotta do it.

Being creative is a journey. With every project, you want there to be growth. But what if there isn’t any? What if you go all in on a project and it doesn’t turn out the way you want. You’re stuck there saying, “well, you’ll know better for next time.” The point of the debate was to avoid that very result in the first place.

What does this have to do with skill and talent? To become a skilled craftsman, I need practice. No one will ever know if I’m talented or skilled if I don’t have something to show.

Before we left NY, Tess and I agreed that we would look into getting a dog when we arrived at our next destination. After about 8 months, we finally felt we were prepared for one. She has been viewing a couple of Pet Rescue sites over the past few months, carefully evaluating the adoptee’s personality traits to see if it would be a good fit for newbie dog owners like Tess and I.

What I’ve learned is that these non-profit pet rescue organizations are very thorough when they take an animal in. They take the time to get to know the dog and offer a description of his/her personality on the website. This didn’t seem to be the case with the animal shelter we visited in Downey last month.

Tess saw a Yorkie on their site and we decided to give him a visit. Walking through a shelter is possibly the most heart-breaking experience EVER. Anywhere between 6-12 dogs are lumped together in cages and they all seem to vie for your affection when potential owners come in to see them. There are very little details about the dogs there and for noobs like us, we had no idea what to look for. We only had “internet” knowledge, really.

So Tess found Thatcher on one of the pet rescue site. He was a 10-month old, good-looking Yorkie who was described to love people and other dogs. He had a pink cast on his right front leg. We went to go see him yesterday. He was a firecracker – hopping around everywhere, eager to approach anything and everything that came near him. He wasn’t aggressive or anything, just…excited. The volunteers for the organization must’ve seen our discomfort around such an active dog. So they introduced us to a shy Yorkie mix named Luna.

Luna had arrived that day. A family that had adopted with the organization before found her a week ago and gave her a place to stay for a week. And come Saturday, they dropped her off at the site. They gave us the opportunity to spend some time with the dog, take her for a walk. Comparing Thatcher and Luna was night and day. Luna was super sweet and walked on a leash real well. Everyone there kept saying how she liked us. I realize that it’s their job to say that stuff to “sell” us on the idea of adopting right there and then, but it seemed genuine.

She’s going to get “fixed” on Monday and the adoption fee covers all those costs. We were given the option to pick her up on Monday after all the vet stuff or take her home that day. There was apprehension about taking her home – after all, we didn’t really have a lot of stuff for her yet. (we bought some stuff last week but only had about half of the stuff we really needed) But then I thought about it – she spent some time with us and it would be kind of mean to break that bond only to have to rebuild it again on Monday. So we just did it – took her home yesterday.

And now that it’s been 24 hours or so, she responds to her new name, Noodle – which isn’t that far from Luna phoenetically. We’ve discovered that she was probably previously house-trained. We feel like we lucked out – we were VERY nervous about owning a dog because neither of us had ever grown up with one. So far, it seems like Noodle is the perfect dog for us.

We had planned on heading up to the Bay for Labor Day weekend this year, but decided to save some money. I would’ve loved be up with friends and family to celebrate Gelo’s 28th birthday. It also would’ve been nice  to play the final Newark Hoops game of the season since the weather cheated me out of one back in March.

Hopefully, we’ll be able to take a trip up there one more time before the holidays. Taqueria La Bamba is calling my name.