Usually when you get good news, your first reaction isn’t: “Awesome! This’ll be the year I explode, but awesome!”
When I got the good news in the summer of 2009 that I was accepted as a Film Independent/Project Involve 2010 Fellow for the year, I was thrilled but knew that the next several months would be grueling. And they have been.
Usually I don’t feel so tapped out until November, when the accumulation of school year excitement, Halloween planning, and then the slam of 6 combined birthday-holidays (including Thanksgiving and Christmas) in the last 8 weeks of the year leaves me feeling completely wrung out.
But 2009′s marathon started in September, when Project Involve 2010 mixers and networking events and workshops started in earnest. Mind you, I loved it all. I NEEDED the nurturing, loved the recognition of being a creative person in the face of the world’s indifference…the “dark tyranny of crickets,” as filmmaker John August calls it. I loved the intense schedule of evening meetings. Weekend-long forums. Getting to know my fellow filmmakers.
So in December, when I got hired to work at doing something that inspired and challenged me, a job in an office 45 minutes away from my home (90 minutes round trip), it was yet another thing to add to my already overflowing plate. I’d get up at 7 am, get my kid off to school, take a shower and get ready to go to work (sometimes sending some emails or posting work-related bits on social media sites) by 9 am or so. I’d work until 7, sometimes 8 pm. I’d get home close to 9 pm, have a few moments with my son and ask my parents or my in-laws how his day was and what he ate and so on, ask him how his day went, then put him to bed. Have dinner. Sometimes I’d be so tired I too fell asleep next to him on his bed. Even though I had more work to do that evening.
While working I still went to mandatory evening events–film screenings, panels, intimate roundtables that were arranged just for us with Oscar-nominated or otherwise esteemed directors, writers, producers, and other film industry creatives. On these nights, I’d get home at midnight and not have seen my son awake for 24 hours.
That job wasn’t really well suited to me, so it was with relief that I stopped the lengthy commutes and weekend work. (Much of that job could’ve been done from home and saved me the 2 hours of my day I spent in my car. Had we all been different people.) Which was GREAT–
Because the script I submitted to the Project Involve filmmaking lab was chosen from out of 40+ or more to be made. I pitched myself to direct, and was greenlit.
[Skip over inevitably painful period of actually making the film. I love pre-production but production? In retrospect, we could've used a good 1st AD.]
Regardless, I got to make a film, I was awarded credit by NBCU and a cash grant by Project Involve, and I successfully won a grant from the Durfee Foundation which allowed me to add extras to the film in post-production that I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. We have a finished, beautifully polished 3:30 short film that’s a new take on the Japanese American internment story: Alien Abduction. I joke we had to cut out so much, including a cool sci-fi special effect, that what we have left is the art film version.
It’s dark and impressionistic and powerful (I hope), filled with dreams and nightmares. And maybe a little bit of the supernatural.
I want to add back in the sci-fi special effect and redo the sound design and score. I’ll definitely be sending the short to film festivals. And I’ve been working on a treatment for the narrative feature version of the story.
But all of this has meant little progress on other fronts. And since our Project Involve 2010 time just sort of dribbled away into thin air after we all finished production, it’s been up to us to organize a farewell for ourselves. (I understand we wouldn’t have had the support from Project Involve/FIND LA forever, but it was too bad the year ended on such an unresolved note.)
I guess what I’m saying is that I’m worn so thin you can see daylight through me. And while the year was exhilarating, challenging, and fun, I literally have nothing left to give anyone or anything.
Yet there’s still the fall to survive: my son starts first grade, the beginning of school always involves chaos and entropy. Halloween is a big deal in our house. The fall slam of birthday-holidays. I dread it knowing I’m running on fumes already.
My instinct as an introvert is to hole up. You know, do some gentle fetal-curled rocking in the corner on the floor, in a quiet darkened room.
But actually what I’ve been doing instead is getting out. Seeing friends. Doing some half-assed shoe shopping. It’s been good for the soul. My poor friends. I’m glad I still have some after all that neglect.
And tending to my poor, poor cobwebby blog. My blog I started 7 years ago when I was pregnant with my son, right after my cat died, and just as we were about to start Operation Iraqi Bush Debacle.
Sorry I’ve neglected you for months, blog. I used to feel like I had no voice if I didn’t scratch out a few thoughts on here every so often. It was worse feeling the same way and literally having no time to update.
But now I’m back. Patched and not exactly well-rested but somewhat ready for whatever’s next.
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