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Walt Berkman: It's like...we were pals then...we'd do things together...we'd look at the knight armor at the Met. The scary fish at the Natural History Museum. I was always afraid of the squid and whale fighting. I can only look at it with my hands in front of my face.

-The Squid and the Whale

Today I attended an hour and a half long meeting for RTVF week at UNT called "College to Career: Making the Transition". Due to my lack of proactive participation in these kinds of on-campus activities, I figured I'd give it a shot because it did sound interesting. What's scary about my major in film is the indelible fear that comes along with it...knowing (or not knowing ) how much competition there is out there; artistically and career-wise. I've never been much of an aggressor when it comes to opportunity, and I tend to harness a huge insecurity in my capabilities. So why the fuck am I getting into a business that is so emulous? Mostly becuase I cannot imagine doing anything else with my life. I want to make movies.

Our meeting consisted of a panel of about seven professionals in our field discussing interviews, internships, applications, resumes, reels, our futures. The speakers were exactly as I imagined they would be: tenacious, knowledgable, enlightening, and mostly intimidating. They all resembled these incredibly savvy and accomplished intellects you might see walking the streets of New York or sitting outside a trendy, urban coffee shop reading the Times. And I'm pretty sure one of the female speakers wanted me. She must've eyed in my direction about 400 times. I made out with her after the meeting. Older women are naughty like that. Putting my cynicism aside, I can say that I learned a good bit from the meeting. Basically I need to slap myself and become a more passionate and determined individual before I venture out to the mysterious land of Los Angeles. I can only learn.

So another part of RTVF week is this thing called "PA Bootcamp". For those of you who don't know what a PA is -- they're basically a bitch...a gopher...a scapegoat. A Production Assistant is what a private in the army -- the lowest on the chain. Most everybody gets their start here and works their way up the ladder. I'm not exactly sure what this "PA Bootcamp" entails. Are they going to set up booths with different scenarios to test our backbones? Maybe at one booth we'll be timed to see how fast we can bring back starbucks, fill up gas for a crew member, or put quarters in the parking meter for the director's BMW. Perhaps another booth will be a tutorial on how to buy cocaine for an actor, and another booth will be the scenario of an irate actor yelling in your ear. That sounds like fun! Maybe I'll go afterall.

Who knows? Laters for now...