Last Saturday I joined Tim, Emily, & their friend who was in town for a night at Castro Theatre. The theme for their current run of films was “Hollywood Does Hollywood”. Our evening feature was William Holden & Gloria Swanson in “Sunset Boulevard”, one of my favorite film noirs. It’s all about the manic obsession that can arise from holding on too tightly to another time or an idea of what you think you should be, rather than embracing the present around you. It took on an entirely new presence in a theater with Gloria Swanson’s intense stare and outreached hand hovering up above us. I think it’s been a few months since I mentioned how much I love Castro Theatre for screening films like this one. And where else can you get live organ music before and after the show? It was a great evening and we ended the night at a thai place across the street, with the lights of the theatre marquee glowing outside the window. (I need to learn how to make thai food, so if you have a tried & true recipe for yellow curry, I’d love to have it. Otherwise, I found this one which seems legit.)

On a related subject, I finally decided to see how many Cary Grant films I haven’t seen. Of his 73 film credits, I’ve seen 39. Barely half! I’ve compiled a list of the remaining 34 and shall be working through it best I can. I’m hesitant to place a deadline on the quest, as I have mixed feelings about exhausting his list this early in my life, but at least I can accurately track progress now. There are quite a few which aren’t on Netflix so if you have any from the list below, please loan them to me!

• Enter Madame (1935)
• Ladies Should Listen (1934)
• Blonde Venus (1932)
• Devil and the Deep (1932)
• Singapore Sue (1932)
• Sinners in the Sun (1932)
• This Is the Night (1932)
• Dream Wife (1953)
• Room for One More (1952)
• Crisis (1950)
• Every Girl Should Be Married (1948)
• Mr. Lucky (1943)
• Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942)
• When You’re in Love (1937)
• Alice in Wonderland (1933)
• Gambling Ship (1933)
• The Eagle and the Hawk (1933)
• The Woman Accused (1933)
• Madame Butterfly (1932)
• In Name Only (1939)
• The Toast of New York (1937)
• Suzy (1936)
• The Last Outpost (1935)

In work news, which you should expect to hear a lot about since I’m so happy now, I’m starting in on my fourth video! The lead editor returned from his trip at the end of last week, so it was great to finally work with him directly. I’ve learned so much! He suggests shortcuts and explains technique but also encourages me to find my own way of working. It’s so easy to be the student when you have the right teacher. He worked a decade in documentaries before moving to broadcast and then on to advertising. With his background, I feel like he can help me become a great storyteller.

I took a photo of my new little home, “Edit 3” aka the phone booth, for Adam so I thought I’d share it here. It’s cozy and gets a little toasty if I shut the door but it’s like my own little oasis and I love it. The Nike room, which people often call the library, feels loud and chaotic in comparison. It’s hard jumping back & forth.

I’d be lying if I said I weren’t convinced I was going to fail my first day in the editing booth. I mentioned the hours staring blankly at the screen, wondering “what the heck have I gotten myself into?”. I still have bouts of anxiety, especially when Final Cut does something I don’t understand (and didn’t ask it to do), but all in all, I’m a bit amazed at how comfortable I feel in this role. I’m reading Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project and there’s a line:

To be happy, I need to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.

Perfect. With your job, you try/hope it makes you feel good more often than bad, but at the end of the day, does it feel right? At my 3-week mark, I can confidently answer: “Absolutely”. Everyday gives me new challenges and something else to think about, which I demand to keep from getting bored. On my current project, I’m taking interviews and trying to weave them in to some kind of narrative. Making something out of nothing, the ultimate challenge.

I was initially only slated to do two videos for this project. The producer asked me to do one of the others because she’d heard I dabbled in stand-up comedy and felt like I could give this video the comedic twist it called for. I got the assignment at 3 PM the day before it was due to the client, not due to lack of planning but because the current editor had done what he could with the challenging subject and she hoped fresh eyes might be able to bring more to it. “I’ll stop by in an hour & a half,” she said, “and we’ll see what you have.” I sat down at my machine and panic struck. All the voices rose up against me: “It’s your first week! There’s probably an hour & a half of raw footage just to look through! Can I be funny? What if she hates it…am I about to fail a test??” And I had to tell myself to shut the hell up and get to it. I had a pretty solid 30-second cut ready when she stopped by. She watched it expressionless and then said, “I like this much better! Finish it up so we can send it off tomorrow.” YES!

I feel like an idiot for taking so long to acknowledge this career option. As I read through the author’s quest in the The Happiness Project to identify things that brought her happiness, I started thinking through my own list. I fucking loved giving speeches all through school, which amazed everyone since I never spoke in class. Stand-up comedy was just a branch of the same tree with a higher expectation for humor. By most standards, I was completely average at both writing and giving speeches and they certainly stressed me out to the point of near nausea, so why did they make me so happy? Well, as I worked in haste on that aforementioned comedic twist video, trying to gauge what I thought was funny versus what was actually funny, it all clicked. Psychology of an audience. In every angle where I gained recognition AND enjoyed the work, there was an audience involved. Whether it’s drafting a speech, writing a joke, editing footage, or even writing in this blog, I’m constantly trying to measure, “How will people respond to this word or this sequence of the content?” And I like to think I’m pretty good at gauging that reaction. The pay-off that speeches & stand-up provide (and my blog doesn’t, so I decided I don’t care how any of you feel :) is seeing how close I was to getting it right. And, if it weren’t accurate, I took note of where I lost my audience and how I got them back. It’s a constant analysis of reading people and learning how they tick. So duh, I’m going to love video editing. Not only words but audio & visuals, which all work together to elicit a reaction. I’m not saying I have it perfected, but merely realizing the details of why it makes me happy gives me faith I can stick with it long enough to become great. Isn’t there a quote about two parts passion, one part perseverance or something?

With the forward progress on my goal to change careers, it seemed like the perfect time to renew my commitment to general life happiness. As the Buddhist proverb says, “When the student is ready, the master appears.” And so came an email from Amy with a recommendation to read The Happiness Project. I’m halfway through it and though it’s not really telling me anything new, per se, it’s been a great refresher to get my mind back in the habit of thinking “happy”. I feel full of inspiration in several aspects of my life, so I just have to trust I can navigate carefully from here and continue moving forward. I think my upcoming trip to NY will be the perfect catalyst to keep everything on track. (Yes, it’s all set! Andrew Bird & I have a date at the Guggenheim and I’m staying at a posh hi-rise on the Upper East Side. Excited but I hope the heatwave goes away!)

PS

I’d recommend downloading the “Just Like You Imagined” fan-produced NIN torrent. It’s content over quality, featuring interviews with Reznor from 1990-2004. Whether or not you’re a fan of the music, it was inspiring for me to watch his evolution and at the same time, note the consistency in what he says, over all those years. He seems to possess a special self-awareness and when his life got bad, he cleaned up sooner and faster than most in his position. Having always felt I was a bit of a lost soul, I enjoy seeing someone with such vision and commitment.

If you haven’t already purchased Beach House’s new record, Teen Dream, do so now. I’d suggest stand-out tracks, but gosh, all of them? I love all of them. I really love 7 of the them. I really, really love “Used to Be” & “Take Care”. The whole album seemed to align perfectly with all the random things in my brain about how I’m feeling in life right now.

Oh yeah, and lastly, you may have noticed my blog looks completely different. I’ve also introduced new commenting using Disqus. Importing the old comments over was a pain and not exactly what I hoped for, but I hope the new functionality encourages more people to leave their thoughts! If you have any issues, email me because I was too lazy to test much: thiscellardoor at gmail dot com. I also reworked the archive section, so it makes a bit more sense and has an actual annual archive.