I grew up with the movies. My earliest memory is going to see "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" as a child. I also remember seeing "West Side Story" but I'd swear it was a black & white film. My folks took us to see all the Disney films from "Absent Minded Professor" to "Sleeping Beauty." My first Bond film in the theaters was "Goldfinger" when I was 7, I was able to see re-releases of the previous ones the following year due to it's popularity and the impending release of the next film in the series. And I saw the original "The Pink Panther" with Peter Sellars at the theaters.
I think an added benefit was what we now call "appointment tv" which made watching television at home an event. If you missed a program, you missed it. No reruns until the summer or in the case of showings of "The Wizard of Oz," next year. TV in the 60s offered movies on television as well. We just about always watched NBC's Saturday Night At the Movies, getting to watch Hitchcock classics like "The Birds" and "Vertigo." Growing up outside of New York City, some of the local stations also offered late night movies, featuring usually 50s B horror movies or science fiction. My first exposure to movies like "Forbidden Planet," "The War of the Worlds," or "It Came from Beneath the Sea." Well, who could blame a guy for getting into films at that early age, right?
Flash forward. It's 2013, and I'm still deciding what to do when I grow up. Wait a minute!! Aren't you 58, Rod?? Um, well, yes, I am. What happened?
Well, what had happened was..... Nah, you don't want to hear that. Making a long story short. I was a broadcast journalist in the Navy. I enlisted AFTER I got my BA in Speech & Dramatic Arts: Radio, TV & Film (mostly tv production classes) because I couldn't get a job in television and after a 3 month stint as a disc jockey at a country & western radio station where my salary was $450/month plus commission (I made a whole $7 commission in that period). I enjoyed my 11 years in the Navy, but when I was retired, I realized that news was not the Walter Cronkite, Huntley/Brinkley reporting that so inspired me anymore, but had become so totally corporate that I just didn't want anything to do with it anymore.
So, I explored other areas of work: data-entry, sales. Eventually stumbled onto acting in community theater. I did pretty good with that. Got a nomination for Best in a Major Supporting Role in a Comedy for the season on my first outing! And then went into extra work for film & tv. Got my SAG card but as work started slowing down, wanted to find something else to do. That's when film making and editing hit me. So here I am, enrolled in El Camino Community College to update my skills in editing and to finally, learn film making!!.
Actually, I'm in the 2nd semester already. My first semester was good. The Creative Writing - Screenplays was a challenging class as I'd never done any real creative writing before. I ended up with 63 pages of a script passed on the short time I had my cockatoo, Fred. I liked the idea and apparently so did Kim Krizan, the instructor because she gave me an A. This semester the big class for me is my Editing class where I am learning Final Cut 6.
Another class I'm in is Production Planning taught by professor Aaron Dowell. He's an interesting guy and the class has been informative as to how they go about planning for a feature production. This past week we talked about blogs and blogging, as well as other uses for the internet to build up interest in a production. Today, we also touched on the cost of productions, but mostly the runaway productions and the tax breaks that production companies get for filming in other cities like Atlanta or Detroit. This is nothing new as they've been discussing this for years in SAG-AFTRA meetings.
So, anyway, here's the assignment...write a blog and make an entry at least every other week. Oh, boy! Just what I wanted to do. I have always hated writing to begin with while I was in school. So it makes sense that I end up doing writing and being pretty damn good at it, I guess.
Please leave questions or comments. Thank you.
