making it all count

Should all the work of our lives have social importance?

Should everything we do be in service to something bigger than ourselves? 

Is it senseless to do meaningless work or work for money? But, it's necessary sometimes, right?

So is it possible to live a life of principle or is compromise necessary?

So if you bend your principles and make a little money, it was worth it, right? 

So if you don't make any money but never compromise your principles you are better off?

When your passion, your hobby is your job, what do you do for fun?

When do you have fun?

How much fun should you have?

If you have fun doing your work, doesn't that count as fun? 

How do you not just establish balance, but keep it without having to work at it?

How do you lead a life of principle and commit yourself to work that you love while feeling like you are contributing to an overall good and without feeling like you are being selfish?

The Unborn

Don't see it. Unless you are in need of a good laugh.

Actually, see it and take it as seriously as possible and see how long you can't make it before laughing. The most enjoyable COMEDY of the year.

Do see "Street Fight." Available on Netflix instant play. It's a doc about the Newark 2002 mayoral race. Enthralling. 

...and if you need something to do on January 19 before celebrating the inauguration of President Obama the next day, check out www.usaservice.org

All the smart, filmically talented, good looking, NYC residing, Towson grad people are doing it.

ABC: Lunch on Mickey's dime

So it's been a long time since I've written but something worth remembering happened today so I'm back!

I'm making a documentary for school about Protest Easy Guns and its founder Abby Spangler. Protest Easy Guns is an organization located in Northern Virginia that was created after the shooting at Virginia Tech and works to get the gunshot loophole closed, which allows private vendors to sell weapons to people they don't know at gunshows without a background check. I came across the organization a while back while doing some research online and bookmarked the website knowing I would want to do a project about it one day. When I started working on my documentary for school I contacted Abby and she agreed to participate in the project.

I filmed for three days in the PEG office in Old Town Alexandria last week. Abby is wonderful and I had a chance to meet a couple survivors of the Virginia Tech shooting and a few of the family members who either lost children or their children were injured at Virginia Tech. It was an amazing experience to work on the project and to be around all of those people. But here is how all this ties into today: about 5 minutes after meeting Abby the first day she gets a phone call and writes down on a piece of paper that it is Abc. She answers a bunch of questions and then asks me if I would be willing to share some of my footage from my project with Abc because they are working on a related news piece. Abby said it would be helpful for her organization and the cause so I agreed. I thought "well, that's cool" but didn't think much more about it.

Abby connected me with the lady from Abc, her name is Naria, through facebook and she contacted me on Monday about getting lunch this week. I was surprised, because I thought I would be just dropping off some tapes and that was it. So I went to the upper West Side today and met her at the Abc building. There was a large "Grey's Anatomy" poster in the lobby and everyone walking in and out had Abc badges. Naria came down and we went to a nearby sushi place where she told me all about the piece she is working on. She was very nice and easy to talk to and peppered in curse words--she was great. This is where it got cool: she told me she could pay me for the footage I would be shooting for her (basically I'm shooting for my doc and then she might use some of it, so I'm not even doing any extra work) and that she would give me tape stock. She went on to say that if me or my fellow students have any ideas for a nonfiction piece about an interesting person that we could pitch them to her. She said she rejects the ideas 99% of the time, which is just the nature of the business, but she would love to hear our ideas. That's really cool, even though it's for a news station, it's a direct in. Then she paid for lunch with her The Walt Disney Company commercial credit card. That's right, I had lunch on Mickey's dime.

So after lunch she took me back to the Abc building and I got to go up to her office with her. The floor was pretty barren and she talked a lot about how you would never think a major news organization worked out of the building because there was a lot of outdated equipment and few people (the building she works in does the news magazine shows like 20/20 and Primetime). She took me down to the floor with the editing suites were to get some tape stock and I saw Patrick Swayze's face on a TV monitor in one of the suites. She said Barbara Walters has a one hour interview airing with him tonight. We walked through ESPN. It wasn't the production part, but I think just the marketing part and then she showed me the studio where they film World News Tonight with Charles Gibson. One of the walls of the hallway we were in was all glass so you could look down on the studio. A tech guy was sitting in the main chair doing something. It was pretty cool.

So, after I shoot next week I'll be contacting her again to let her know how it went. I'll probably be getting paid, which is great, and I now I have a direct contact. I got to see the World News Tonight studio and was on Peter Jennings Way and had lunch on Mickey. And I wasn't even really nervous, I just accepted it as the next step of what's to come. 

It was a pretty cool day.

Election Day is my new favorite holiday

some other stuff to say but who really cares right now because 

YES WE DID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

you are always in my heart and on my mind

I am starting to do research for the documentary I will be shooting in December. I am going to make a documentary about the Protest Easy Guns (protesteasyguns.com) movement that was started by a concerned citizen in Northern Virginia after the Virginia Tech shootings.

Reading the stories and watching the videos, I have to say---this is going to be a tough project to get through, but I'm doing it for the right reasons.

It feels good to care about someone so much that it makes you care about some thing so much.

The difference between great people and everyone else 
is that great people create their lives actively, 
while everyone else is created by their lives, 
passively waiting to see where life takes them next. 
The difference between the two 
is the difference between living fully and just existing.
-Michael Gerber

the soul searching has begun

i think i put it off for a long time, inadvertently or accidentally, but it was put off and now it has begun. maybe because i am alone in more ways than one, i am in a new city, in a place i have always wanted to be and feels like the right place to me. maybe because i am doing what i want to do all the time, there are no more distractions. maybe because everything i want is so close, so graspable, becoming more plausible in reality and in my mind every day. in any case, i am changing or trying to change or thinking about how i have changed but haven't quite noticed it yet.

i'm remembering how to have fun again. i'm learning how to slow down and relax. i'm trying to fight off this shaking leg i've had my whole life, or at least understand what it means. i'm trying to eat better, sleep more, and interact with people. i'm trying to be balanced and healthy. being busy is not fun and not fulfilling, even if you are accomplishing and achieving a lot. being at the top is great but it gets lonely fast, as does the climb to the top. it feels great to find something you are decent at but know you can get better at with time and to know that you will be happy just working towards getting better at this one thing. i am learning that not reading every book, seeing every movie, or traveling to every place is not going to make my life poorer, but not taking the time to enjoy the one book, the one movie, or the one location will. it is the quality of the moments, not the quantity.

i am learning not to do things i don't want to. i am friendly and giving and kind but am learning to speak up when i feel taken advantage of. i am growing as an artist and a citizen. i am opening up and acknowledging that i am not quite as honest with how i feel as i used to be. walls were erected for protection, and now they need to be taken down. i need to write more, because i feel like i'm getting stupid. emails and text messages don't count. i am learning to hate computers and email. i have always hated talking on the phone. it's a love-hate relationship with each of them. i desire human contact, shared experiences, close friendship and companionship. past transgressions are slipping away and being replaced by a blank slate, a freshness and innocence. a forgiveness, possibly, or just a willingness to live again.

i try to walk slow. i try to look up at the sky and buildings. i try to not sit down at my computer to check my email every day when i wake up and every time i come home. my problem is my stomach aches with creativity and ambition and they are hard things to shoulder sometimes, especially when you are alone. but i have a love for life, a zest for everything and anything. an energy and appreciation for every moment, even the bad ones. this can lead me to feeling overwhelmed, to wanting to experience everything, wanting to write down every day's proceedings and photograph all my trips to create works of art that will outlive me and explain me. i want to learn things to tell my kids. i don't want to become a person who watches tv every night or be a bad father. i want to be in love again. and i want to win an oscar. but that can wait. and is negotiable. 

wow, all that just came out of me because i took a couple minutes to slow down and read a book in the park. i should probably do that more often...