Ham Trailer!!

I finally finished my Ham Radio documentary and cut a trailer today. Here it is.

Ham Trailer from Matthew Chao on Vimeo.

Personally I think it can be about 5 seconds shorter but I can't figure out where I should take stuff out.

Ramblings 2

I saw Confidence Man again, this time I actually got to see Nick's scenes, which were rather good and quite enjoyable. I want to go see it again but it might be overkill if I go again in such a short time so maybe in a week I'll try to go again and see another show.


On another note, today was Joyeux Noel's last day at PBS. She was the associate producer of Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound, which will be premiering in October, so congrats to her for finally getting off the project!

This, of course, meant that I went into PBS today, a day that I usually don't go in, but it was a good decision to do so.

Part of me worries that if I continue too far along this path that I'll get stuck in documentary film making, which, although it is something I want to do, it's not what I solely want to do. However, even saying that I immediately remember something a professor of mine, Sharon Bedal (head of programming for the Tribeca Film Festival I believe) told the class and it goes somewhere the lines of this: "No one really keeps you from doing what you want to do, only you keep yourself from doing what you want to do,". So that's that and I shouldn't worry about it and just stop procrastination on developing my 150 ideas and just develop them. (Essentially I should just stop bitching and do the damn work)


Lastly, on my way home, while waiting for my train to begin boarding in Hoboken, I wandered around the train station and noticed, from across the water, the two pillars of light that stand now where the twin towers used to stand. I then came to the realization that 9/11 was 9 years ago and thought of my high school kids, who spoke about Hurricane Katrina with limited knowledge (which confused us until we realized it was 5 years ago and they were 12/13 at the time of the hurricane). I realized that these kids were 7/8 years old the day the towers fell, and that kind of scares me. 9/ll babies will be turning 9 in 6 days (happy birthday?) and 9 years after the fall of the towers, ground zero is STILL just a giant whole in the ground. Am I the only one who thinks there's something wrong with that?

Speaking of 9/11, I need to go finish titles and etc on my Doc. I guess I'll be working on that Tuesday evening.

Helping Others as a Means of Procrastination

Today, despite it being one of the few prescious days of the week where I can grab a few hours to edit my long-overdue films, I skipped out on any work of that sort and helped my curly red-haired jewish long-time collaborator since freshmen year friend move from his apartment on Sullivan between Prince and Spring St.'s around the corner (or rather, through a playground) to an apartment probably in the same place as his old apartment, just on a parallel street (Thompson Street between Prince and Spring.)

Of course, this is a very good friend of mine, one who I've collaborated with... well, I guess I said that already... but anyway, I think I tend to find myself in these kinds of situations a lot (although, this one, more than any others, NEEDED to be done, I swear!) where I use opportunities to help my friends as a means of procrastination, but the kind of procrastination where I don't feel guilty. Basically, I think it goes something like this: When I procrastinate by playing games or watching something useless I eventually feel bad and beat myself up about not having done any work and in a sense, even if it's only momentarily, motivate myself to do some sort of work. However, in situations like this, I can procrastinate and not feel guilty because, well, I'm working, and it's not like I can argue with that.

This kind of thing doesn't just happen with helping someone move but comes down to working on too many productions too, or volunteering my time for too many things. I remember being told by my screenwriting teacher that I need to be selfish about my time, to reserve time for writing (and this applies to other things such as editing too) and to hold onto it tightly. I don't think I'm very good at being greedy, but I guess I should start to work on that in these areas if I ever want to complete something of my own.

In other news, I think my attention span is quickly becoming shorter and it's getting annoying. I really need to find some sort of solution to that problem.

Motivation

One thing that tends to be extremely difficult in the film industry, at least on the creative end, is finding motivation. I think that that search, or rather, that struggle is what seperates those who stay in the industry with those who quit; the ability to keep ourselves motivated.

I know, for myself, it is extremely difficult to keep myself motivated. I have 3 projects that have yet to be completely finished, although they're always 2 or 3 steps from completion, I have 2 scripts which are stuck at around page 30 and I have quite a few other ideas on the back burner just waiting for the other ideas to finish so I can start on them and yet I find it so hard to pull it together, to do what I am supposed to do.

Today we looked at the music videos of the high school kids, and while they weren't perfect, they were done. I think it's been a while since I have seen a project all the way through to the end, which is a feeling that I really miss. It's good that I saw all those music videos today, because I think they got me motivated to finish my own projects. I hope this motivation stays. Links and vids when I get them done.