Times are tough. Though it's nearly impossible to deny that there is a recession going on, it is not impossible to find a job. Believe it or not, there are some people that actually find jobs that they like. I don't want to be among those that dread the days that they have to work. I think it's a cop out when someone says that most people don't like their job. There is a lot of fear behind that true statement. If someone says that to you, just ask them what they always wanted to do before settling with their current position. They may tell you something so amazing. If they tell you what they always wanted to be, I think the best thing to say is, "It's never too late." It's also never too early.

Some people are happy working a job they hate because it pays the bills, has benefits, and they may even have enough money to plan a vacation. That lifestyle doesn't suit me because I want to look forward to everyday. I'd love to plan a vacation soon but I'd rather wait until I've got a decent job. To each his own.

When I hear someone talk about how satisfying their job is, I get inspired even if their job isn't related to what I'm looking for. I don't discount the importance of being surrounded by other people trying to get a job or already working in the Film and TV industry. It is of equal importance for me to receive input on my work as it is for me to give others input on what their working on. We build each other up. Several teachers have told us that if we get hired somewhere, we may not be able to be as artistic as we'd like to be. That doesn't discourage me one bit because I'd be happy to be utilizing my skills as an editor. As long as I'm working in this industry, I know that I'll learning something new each day. Being aware that nothing stays the same in this business is enough to get me motivated.

Last semester we were lucky enough to host a Q & A with documentary filmmaker Michael Moore at George Washington University with the help of the school's College Democrats. Today Moore's film, "Capitalism: A Love Story", releases on DVD, so I thought it would be a good time to revisit our interview with him.

Here's a short synopsis of the film, in case you haven't seen it yet:

In presenting a “fireball of a movie that might change your life” (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone), Moore “skewers both major political parties” (Claudia Puig, USA Today) for selling out the millions of people devastated by loss of homes and jobs to the interests of fat cat capitalists. Moore has “dug up some astonishing dirt” (Brian D. Johnson, Macleans), stories told in the faces of the foreclosed and evicted, in the food stamps received by hungry airline pilots, and in the courage of fired factory workers who refuse to go quietly. But more than a cry of despair, Moore’s film raises the possibility of hope. Capitalism: A Love Story is “The most American of films since the populist cinema of Frank Capra (It’s a Wonderful Life)” (Dan Siegel, Huffington Post ), “a movie that manages shrewdly, even brilliantly, to capitalize on the populist anger that has been sweeping the nation” (Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal ). Capitalism: A Love Story is loaded with over 80 minutes of bonus features and extended scenes, written and directed by Michael Moore!

And here is our Q & A session with the controversial director, in case you missed it the first time (or want to watch it again).

Hey ThinkTalk fans! This is Christian Tintle. I'm a production intern, a senior Media Studies major at Catholic University and a huge Redskins Fan. When I started college I thought I wanted to be a writer, maybe an investigative journalist. But it didn't take long to figure out that I'd rather be behind the lens of a camera or messing around with editing software. I'm in my last semester of school and have to figure out how to turn my fascination with filmmaking into a career.

In the last Indiana Jones film, Indy yelled to a group of students, "If you want to be an archeologist, you have to get out of the library!" Though that was just a line from a movie that had mixed reviews, I think that statement certainly applies to anyone studying to become a professional in any given field. Many students often wonder why they should even bother taking on an internship or even just an extracurricular activity. In my opinion, if a student can't handle the classwork load, then it may not be a good idea. However, if a student is getting decent grades, then going beyond the classroom is a wise decision if they want to put their skills to work. There's only so much a class can teach you.

This is my second go at college. In 2002, I graduated from Clarion University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Speech Communication & Theatre. My decision to move to Washington was motivated after I did a radio broadcasting internship in the summer of 2001. I moved to the Washington area in 2002 but upon arrival, there weren't any radio jobs available for a 22 year old. I stuck around and ended up getting jobs that didn't require a college degree in fields such as market research, childcare, and tourism. The skills I obtained from those jobs were useful but I wanted something more.

In 2008, video editing was nothing more than a hobby but members of my family and a couple of friends encouraged me to try to get a job in that field. That's when I shopped around for schools in the area and ended up enrolling at the Art Institute of Washington. In my opinion, the instructors act like employers by treating their students like employees. The coursework and project deadlines are often a wake up call for students that think show business is all glitz and glamor.

I ended up getting involved in the Visually Wired Film Festival, an annual film festival that showcases the most creative films made by students that attend the Art Institute. After one professor showed us films from previous Visually Wired festivals, I decided to pitch my idea before the faculty. After they accepted my pitch, I felt like a million bucks but had no idea what I had gotten myself into.

I produced, wrote, and directed a documentary about swing dancing titled Swing Night. I'm glad I got to work with a reliable crew of student colleagues. The challenges we faced included having to pay a permit and location fee to the National Park Service to shoot the Spanish Ballroom in Glen Echo Park. One of the group members took a money order out to cover the location fee and I paid the permit fee. Good man. This documentary was going to be made.

An instructor told me it was a good thing that we were facing such challenges because it was giving us valuable experience. We still had to get additional footage and gather archival footage of swing dancing in the '30s and '40s but post production was still a down to the last minute success. Our DVD was handed in on time and now we await the verdict from the faculty jury. If our entry is accepted, Swing Night will be screened at the Visually Wired Festival, on May 5th at the E Street Cinema in DC.

Considering this is a ThinkTalk blog, it would be crazy to think that I wouldn't mention how much I enjoying interning here. I found out about ThinkTalk when they came to the Art Institute to gather questions for Kevin Heffernan that aired on Directors Cut. Internships are beneficial but only if the intern is willing to light their own lamp. In my experiences, I found that if I do the footwork and maintain a willingness to learn, I will gain the necessary experience and more. The bare minimum is never enough.

I few months back we posted an entry on legendary director Werner Herzog's Rogue Film School. The weekend event looked pretty interesting and featured the great director opining on his approach to film making. It took a special sort of filmmaker, the website said, to participate in a rogue film school:

The Rogue Film School is not for the faint-hearted; it is for those who have traveled on foot, who have worked as bouncers in sex clubs or as wardens in a lunatic asylum, for those who are willing to learn about lock-picking or forging shooting permits in countries not favoring their projects. In short: it is for those who have a sense for poetry. For those who are pilgrims. For those who can tell a story to four-year-old children and hold their attention. For those who have a fire burning within. For those who have a dream.

Well, it appears that both the attendees and Herzog himself, got just what they were looking for. One intrepid (dare we say roguish) potential participant decided that he just couldn't afford the $1,450 price tag ... but he didn't let that stop him:

I showed up at the Wilshire Plaza Hotel’s lobby bar to find forty or fifty young filmmakers milling about, with Werner Herzog himself at the center. He was engaging his students, actively trying to meet each one individually. Ages ranged from eighteen to forty, and each bright-eyed apprentice had a grey lanyard around his or her neck with a rectangular badge hanging from it. These were the credentials that would get each student into the seminar.

I needed a closer look. I perched myself near the bar as a pair of credentialed young ladies eagerly introduced themselves to me, assuming I was in the program and worth meeting. When they saw my missing badge, they excused themselves, and then hesitated for fear of rudeness. I seized the opportunity.

[...]

I felt like a secret agent. I used my fingers to measure the border design, using my pinky finger to approximate the width of the top margin and my thumb for the left. When we were done, I walked back to a booth and jotted down my notes on a napkin.

On my way home, I stopped at my cellist friend’s apartment to peruse her collection of backstage passes, and found a white lanyard and accompanying plastic ID holder that were the approximate size and shape. I spent two hours coloring the lanyard grey with marker and manufacturing the ID in Photoshop.

Touche, my young filmmaking friend, touche. His entire account is worth the read, so be sure to check it out. I'm sure I'm not alone when I suspect that the great filmmaker himself, what with his own experience as a rogue filmmaker, would appreciate the effort.

Last year, I enrolled in The Art Institute of Washington to get a Video Skills Diploma, which I will have by the end of March of this year.  Post Production is what I'm primarily interested in.  One of my professors at the school compared editing to cooking because when someone cooks, they are combining ingredients to create a delicious entree. It may sound cheesy but I could definitely see how the shots, sequences, and audio tracks function as ingredients editors selectively combine, making the production delicious.  Believe it or not, the teacher was en editor for the food network.

Editing technology continues to become more innovative and user friendly.   The roots of film editing trace back to 1903 when Edwin Porter made "The Great Train Robbery". The few films that came before that had no storytelling, no edits, and one continuous shot. "The Great Train Robbery" was the first movie that viewers could see a variety of different shots in a sequence, closeups, and even a plot to go along with it.  Porter obviously wasn't using Final Cut or Avid to make this happen.  Before non-linear editing systems existed, editors had to actually cut and paste film together.  As this technology improved, experiments were being done by people including director Lev Kuleshov.  Kuleshov took a series of shots, including a shot of a man and one of a bowl of soup.  These shots were not done at the same place or the same time.  When the shots were spliced together, the viewers were blown away because they couldn't believe how real the man's hunger was when he was looking at the bowl of soup.

It never ceases to amaze me how older films are very well edited even though they didn't have Final Cut to work with.  The creativity of editors has always been there since day one.  As I learn more about editing, I'm not so much concerned with how cool the effects are as I am with how effective they are.  What the viewer ends up seeing is mostly up to the editor.  The director still has to put the final stamp on it.  I'm also a writer and one of the perks of writing is how autonomous it can be.  To some degree, editing is very similar.

I want people to enjoy what they are watching.  The fact that I enjoy making cross dissolves, adding cheesy or cool music, adding titles is very important.  You got to love what you do.  I look forward to embarking on a career in editing.  So far, ThinkTalk has been very good to me in that aspect.  I'm learning a lot from Tsekwi, the editor at ThinkTalk.  I'm learning a lot of things that I haven't had the time to learn while in school.  Internships are the way to go if you want to really learn what it's like to work in the professional world.  This is a great opportunity.

"Film Projector" courtesy of pedrosimoes7 via Flickr Creative Commons

Nominations for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences awards were announced this morning and ThinkTalk would like to offer congratulations to two recent guests. Jason Reitman was nominated for best director and best adapted screenplay for his film "Up In the Air" - which also received nods for best film, best actor (George Clooney) and two best supporing actresses (Anna Kendrick and Vira Farmiga).

A lot of the director's who appear on the Director's Cut discuss the role of relationships in their career. Hollywood can be a bit of a game, and there are certain rules that a directors have to play by if they want to be successful. Point in case is documentary director Errol Morris. Morris is the critically acclaimed and award winning director of documentaries such as The Fog of War and Standard Operating Procedure. But early in his career, even a talent like Morris had to play the game. In 1988 this letter from Miramax head Harvey Weinstein - who produced Morris' 1988 film The Thin Blue Line - Morris is chided for being, of all things, boring:

Heard your NPR interview and you were boring. You couldn't have dragged me to see THE THIN BLUE LINE if my life depended on it.

It's time you start being a performer and understand the media.

[...]

Speak in short one sentence answers and don't go on with all the legalese. Talk about the movie as a movie and the effect it will have on the audience from an emotional point of view.

If you continue to be boring, I will hire an actor in New York to pretend that he's Errol Morris. If you have any casting suggestions, I'd appreciate that.

Keep it short and keep selling it because that's what's going to work for you, your career and the film.

So just remember, as you embark on your career in film, even greats like Errol Morris have to deal with producers. There's always going to be somebody standing around to give you their 2 cents, whether you want it or not.

Well, another semester of ThinkTalk is winding down. Our last show is shot and chopped and there won't be any more for a month. But don't fret, we'll still be here everyday, blogging and keeping you up to date on the career info you need. Also, you're going to be out of school anyway, so really, it's not like you'll miss us.

Anyway, as I said, this will be our final show posting of the semester. Jason Reitman is a talented director, who seems to be maturing with each movie. And Up in the Air is no exception. So after you move past finals and settle down for bit, be sure to check it out. For now, enjoy our interview with Jason

The Director's Cut attempts to give film majors, and those interested in pursuing a career in film, insight into what it takes to become an accomplished director. In that very same vein, I was very interested by a recent post at Brazen Careerist by a producer named Jamie Schutz.

I'm not particularly familiar with any of Schutz's work (I mean, of course I've heard of Survivor, but I've never seen an episode and I wouldn't immediatedly identify it as Schutz's work), but I was impressed with his passion and the career path he outlines in his post. Schutz's piece gives an excellent Point-A to Point-B to Point-F description of how, exactly, to get the career you want in the film industry.

It's certainly worth reading the whole thing, but Schutz leaves us with his best advice and words of wisdom that any film student should take to heart:

First, you don’t have to go to film school or major in film or have a cousin in the business. Remember, I couldn’t even get out of freshman year Economics! Second, you don’t have to have a lot of money. Third, you don’t have to move to Los Angeles. Trust me, the traffic is horrible there!

Here’s what you do have to do.

Read as many books and trade magazines as you can get your hands on about the business. Think of the film and television business as a new language that you are learning.

Take a course from your local college, university, or continuing education schools. It will help you become more fluent and you will meet peers that share the same passion.

Intern for a production company, studio, network, or any company, that needs a helping hand. Even if it’s one day a week, you’ll receive hands on training and meet all kinds of smart people.

Join a club or professional organization. Many of the trade unions and guilds have programs designed especially for aspiring individuals! If you live in an area that doesn’t have representation, join a local club.

Practice by yourself. Are you a writer? Write. Are you a director? Direct. Are you a producer? Produce. The resources are there. Grab a pen or a camera and just do it.

Practice with a team. The best part about this business is that you get to collaborate with smart, creative individuals. Take advantage of the power of teamwork.

Finally, be passionate and have a great attitude. People like to work alongside of others that they respect creatively and that they can tolerate!