Meltdown in G Building

You can only hold things in for so long before you lose control and blow up. It is a simple fact of life. At school I have been spending the past month keeping a project together more or less by myself. I pushed for a group project because that is what film is. It's a team effort. My problem has always been that I like to work fast and I need everything to be perfect. So if my team isn't moving at a speed that I need them to or doing the job to my satisfaction I tend to step in and do it for them. This has lead to people assuming that I will do everything for them.

This project has had more than it's share of problems from the start but I have tried and tried to keep it on track. To fix everything as we have gone along. It hasn't gone well. I could have done more. I knew going in that I was going to have to step in for the director a great deal of the time, but I thought it would mostly to pick up her slack. Instead she pretty much told me day one that she couldn't do it. I was doing my job and hers and she wouldn't do anything without other people telling her that what she was doing was correct. It was pushing my stress to an all time high to the point where I haven't slept. I've been physically ill but I pushed through. I believe that you should always finish what you start.

That brings us to what is now yesterday, when I didn't finish. North Lake College, in the last week before finals decides to change the police on TA's. We can no longer have the TA's help us after hours or we will have to pay them. Out of our pockets. The reason is, from what the TA's tell me, that the school works them 40 hours a week but only pays them for 14. They have started to complain, as they should. So the teachers take it out on the students. Gotta love that.  Now our actor could only film after 7 yesterday and today and thanks to the new policy we can't film past 8. Do you see the problem?

I spoke with the director to try and figure out what we can do, she knocked over a plant on accident and I cracked a joke. She snapped at me and I lost it. I told her as calmly as I could not to speak to me like that and she called me an asshole. I walked away and checked with another of our teammates. I decided to tell the teacher about the director putting all of the work on me while she did nothing but first I wanted to give our other team member a heads up that the teacher might get mad at our group. The director followed me out to the hallway and I lost it. Before I knew what I was doing I was screaming all the things that have been building up in me since last semester when she threw me and my friend under the table for a mistake that she made. We talked it out and made peace and went to Andy to see what can be done. We told him what was going on and he said that it was too late for us to finish now.

He was upset that we didn't already finish filming. The reason being our actress kept showing up late and changing her schedule on us last minute. When trying to get a lot of people together for anything the hardest thing in the world is someone changing their availability at the last second over and over again. Andy told us that I wasn't allowed to use my actors on this project. That real directors don't use the same actors over and over again. I was surprised to learn that Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, George Lucas, Robert Rodriguez, Joss Whedon, Sylvester Stallone, Sam Raimi and countless others aren't real directors. That was a real eye opener for me. My actors who show up on time with their lines memorized and ready to work are not professionals but the actors he wants us to use who show up late, if at all and wait till on set to learn their lines are. The things we learn in college right?

We tried to see what else we could do if we couldn't pass. I had planned an emergency project for this weekend but Andy said no. He said it had to be this project or he will fail us. He said it had to be perfect to the script or he will fail us. So no cutting scenes! He did everything in his power to tie our hands. Why? That is the million dollar question. He said we needed to be able to do professional level work. I pointed out the Four Points Film that I made with my people in a weekend but he said it doesn't count. It's better quality than anyone turned in the previous semester minus Davis's film, which should be released soon and is amazing! Be sure to check out Final Frame! Anyways, my film fit everything he asks for but he turned it down because it wasn't done over a long period of time.

The man who puts his own public access TV show over his students education is telling me that I don't work hard enough. I spent a big part of this semester trying to get over my ego. I have never been the type of person who can go to an authority figure for help. That isn't me but this semester I have tried. I've gone to him time and again and all I get is well that sucks or a you will figure it out. He even told me don't try so hard. Do something easy. I took that advice told him what I had in mind for my easy project he said it sounded good and then in front of the whole class told me that it was bullshit and he was surprised he thought I could turn that in. Uh what?

To be fair this is the same guy who sabotaged my project last semester by telling the TA's we can't use equipment on the only day we had our location because we didn't have a producer to talk to him about the project. A little back story he fired our producer a hour before and wouldn't let anyone else take the job. You see the problem? He also refused to answer our emails but emailed our DP about working on his public access show.

But what else do you expect from a man who calls himself a teacher and yet uses an artistic kids last name as an insult to mean fuck up? That sounds like a good teacher right? I'm so tired of dealing with all this bullshit. I just want to be around like minded people and create something, is that so much to ask? I've spent this past semester as president of the video club and I've tried to turn it into what the students said they wanted but when I presented them with opportunities they all passed them by. It sometimes feels like no one there wants what I want. That these people believe that life will just give them everything they want if they wish for it hard enough. Where is the work ethic? Where is the passion?

I'm sorry for this rant and if you guys read all the way through it than you have my thanks and love. You're continued support means the world to me and I'd be lost without all of you. Just remember that everything is nothing more than moments in time and the bad will pass along with the good. You just have to get through it and keep going.