American Movie, Sobriety, and Scripts

I watched American Movie. Wow, what a great film. It's definitely now my favorite documentary. Not only was it extremely entertaining, but I could really relate to it. Well first off, it's about a filmmaker, Mark, who's trying to make films for a living, or at least he wants to. He's broke, he's has bills up to his waist, and he just wants to live "the american dream" -to be able to do what he loves (filmmaking) for a living. At one point, he talks about how he can't understand how people take these factory jobs, or in other words "normal" jobs when they're ultimately not taking them anywhere.
"There's no passion in a factory job...screwing bolts into some piece of metal on an assembly line"-or something close to that. While this isn't entirely true, not everyone has a passion for film or the arts. They just want to make a living and find their happiness and passion in something else.
But Mark can't do anything but make films. Its what he's destined to do. That's where I could really relate. I can't see myself doing a desk job or anything like that. I can't just ignore this passion I have for cinema. I mean if it means getting a "normal" job to help me get closer to my goal of making films for a living than that's different. And don't get me wrong, I have nothing against desk-jobs. In fact, I think I'd be good at doing something like marketing, but thats just not where my heart's at.
Watching this film also reinforced my commitment to stay sober all throughtout my life (as well as drug-free, but that's always been set in stone). Mark just spends so much money and time with alcohol. I think that's a big part of why he's in such a bad situation with his money, and family problems. I said I would never drink in honor of my dad staying sober for 25 years and I still keep my word.
I'm not anti-alcohol...I think if its used in moderation its fine, but most of the time, its abused. I just can't accept the idea of giving my body over to a drug (and yes, alcohol is a drug when its abused). Not knowing what I did or said the night before and waking up sick just doesn't seem worth it.

Anyways...

I need to start a script. I mentioned this in my first post, and I still haven't started. I need to just lock myself up somewhere for an hour with a notebook and pen. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow.

More College Crap

Well, Sunday morning before work, the rents and I had another one of our college talks. Wow, a lot of things have changed...just in a span of 45 minutes. It looks like I might not be leaving town to go to film school. We were talking about how it might be smarter to go to NKU where I'm already paid for completely, and just get a Video/TV degree there, get a job a local TV station (or something similar). I can save up money, train myself with those "film school in a box" deals (and many are actually used by film schools in some courses), and build up experience and contacts before I head out to Hollywood. I 've listened to so many testimonies on how ruthless it is out there in LA. I need to jump into Tinseltown prepared. It's the only way to survive. Just the other day I was reading this guys blog. He had gone to Full Sail and then straight onto Hollywood. Something like 6 months later, he was back in Wisconsin or wherever it was he was from because he had run out of money. He had to recuperate back at home and then go back. It just doesn't seem worth it to spend all that money to go to film school in Chicago or NYC if I'm only going to be in some serious debt afterwards. I can learn most of what I would learn in film school by teaching myself at home, saving money and time.
But, I'm still keeping my options open. This is just one of the many scenarios I'm going to have to choose from in about 8 months.
I love movies. That's enough for me to go on. I just know its what I want to do.

Ok well, hopefull I'll have some more diverse posts in here soon. I need to write about life outside of movies. Wait, do I even have a life outside of movies?