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My Florida Plans

I have moved to Florida. Why, you ask? Well, as most of you know, I am a film student. My dream is to become a director of photography. My immediate goal is to direct music videos, however I would also like to try working with feature length films. So, in order to become a cinematographer, I need to learn more about film and the film industry, as well as lighting, scenic art, and camera work. This leaves me 2 options: 1) Work my way into the film industry; and 2) Go to film school. My personal preference is to attend school.

So, the next choice I have to make is, which school? In choosing my school, I have to take into account tuition, cost of living for the area, and available salary in the area. UCLA is in LA (duh) and I don't particularly care for that city or the surrounding cities/towns. Plus, the cost of living and tuition is almost as high as it is in my area, so I can't afford it. Same goes for New York and San Francisco. Plus, the competition for those schools is astounding! So, with the three biggest schools ruled out, I had to do many hours of searching for an acceptable school. Florida State University has a seperate film school that promises to be very good, very challenging, and the tuition and cost of living are a fraction of what they are here! Plus, I can make a similar salary, and that coupled with the low cost of living and low tuition makes it actually possible for me to pay rent and attend school.

The Journal of My Trip is now uploaded. You can read my thoughts as I travel across country and find out what happened with my bus! It has pictures of my trip too.

UPDATE - I have dropped out of school. While being forced to attend basic intro classes without the option of "testing out" of them or otherwise proving I don't need a class in how to identify tools, I started freelancing as a local stagehand to pay my rent. Unlike most of my fellow students, I don't have parents to pay for a dorm or scholarships to cover tuition. I became in enough demand (and I had enough bills to pay) that I started missing class to go to work. Eventually my teachers decided that that my absenteeism was grounds for lowering my grade, even though I turned in all my assignments on time and passed all my tests with A grades, and even though I had discussed with them on the first day of class that I expected to miss quite a few days and they said there would be no problem. I also got tired of correcting the professors when they had outdated information or tried to insist on procedures that the "real world" didn't do or failed to prepare the students for what a real employer would expect out of an employee. Apparently you don't need a degree in this business, and in fact, education can sometimes work against you. So I quit school and have been working as a local stagehand and A/V technician full time. My new goal is to earn enough money to move out of this hellhole and get back to California, although I wouldn't mind stopping in Las Vegas or some other big city on the way. I am still avoiding Los Angeles and New York because of the cost of living and over-saturation of the business in those areas.

The Inn Between © 2002