Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Film Shooting and Couch Surfing

So this past week was spent diligently shooting, interning, home working, class attending and, when time allowed for it, crashing on couches that did not belong to me.

Three weeks ago I spent 11 days with 17 to 20 other people cramped in a small house in rural Connecticut shooting a film for my good friend Matthew Troy. I distinctly remember the creation of the idea for this film; it started in Sophomore year and finally came to fruition this summer. For more information, although the site is outdated, please click here , I was sound mixing for that shoot. Anyway, It was a great shoot with many great stories but I'm going to go ahead and steer us away from that story because this post isn't about that shoot. This post is about the shoot that I was contacted to be on while I was on that shoot.

Andrew Roehm is a friend of mine whom I've known since high school. No, I did not go to the same high school or live in the same town, quite the contrary, Andy is a native Californian who spent his time playing Baseball as well as many other sports. I, on the other hand, have spent my life up until now... or college... living in New Jersey. Also, I've only been to California once, and no, I did not meet Andy there.

Andy and I were part of a decently large group of kids in my year that attended NYU's Tisch's Summer High School program and actually got into NYU afterwards. At any rate, while we were in the summer high school program, Andy was in my group two of the three times we formed/reformed groups and we worked on each other's projects in that program. Fast forward 3-ish years and we're Juniors in NYU. Once again we're in the same class and same group making films for our Color Sync class. For Andy's film I took on the role of Cinematographer, which I'm told looks pretty good, despite the fact that I still haven't seen the final film, but that's fine.

This all comes up because while I was in Connecticut I was called to work on Andy's senior film, this time wearing the hat of an AD. I was in, without a question. Andy had stepped in and helped me out on my film this past spring; the least I could do was help him out with his.

At any rate, what I found myself doing was working on this film, which, in all fairness, was not bad at all (with the exception of everyone being too distracted by the Hispanic tranny porn used in one of the scenes of the film, which wasn't even that bad either.) What got bad was doing this film while doing my internship while taking a class in a 3-D animation program I am barely getting a grasp of the basics for all while I no longer have a place of residency in Manhattan.

I graduated about a month ago, meaning I had to pack all my things and hold tight to my possessions as NYU housing gave me the boot. This left me rather homeless for the duration of the shoot, the late night shoots making it quite impossible for me to return to Jersey because my particular NJ Transit line stops running after 12:30AM, so I was reduced to couch surfing, which, all in all, isn't really too bad.

I spent the first night on Andy's couch after drying off from the torrential downpour we got nailed with half way through packing up all our equipment. Once I was all changed I lay down for what was going to be a surprisingly chilly night without a blanket.

The next night I spent at Nick's place. For those of you who don't know him, Nick is my curly red-headed Jewish friend whom I've known since Freshmen year and have collaborated with since. Many people are put off by his brutally honest personality, but his heart is in the right place a good 95% of the time.

At any rate, I spent the second night at Nick's, which is a small (very small) street-level studio apartment in SoHo. I spent a comfortable night on his futon with his sleeping bag as a blanket. As a side note, I'm not sure how many people know this about me, but I find it a little more difficult/ less comfortable sleeping without a blanket or something like a blanket, be it a jacket or what have you, even when it's 80 degrees out.

The third night I was going to return to Nick's apartment, but I got there too late and he was already asleep so I went to Tisch and crashed on my favorite couch in the place, the green sofa in the back of the 8th floor's Animation Department. Again, I was without a blanket or blanket substitute, but I can't complain, my journey from Sullivan and Prince brought me past several homeless people sleeping on steps and I couldn't help but think of how fortunate I was to have even a place like Tisch to spend the night.

The rest of the shoot I spent comfortably at Nick's, but the night I spent at Tisch as well as another night I almost spent at Tisch made me realize how lucky I am to be able to have a place to go in case of emergencies and how it's going to be sad once I have to let it go. I'll worry about that when the time comes, right now I'm glad to be home, where there's an actual bed for me to sleep on.

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