Chris Ming, Author at Christopher Ming Blog

Can’t Be Done

“You can’t be an assistant and a writer,” Teddy said.

Why?

“None of the assistants at the agency want to be actors or writers,” Teddy said. “They wouldn’t have time to do both. It’s just not done.”

He forgot. That every day in Los Angeles was another day someone back home said wouldn’t be done. He forgot how many friends wished us good luck (zippo,) how many thought this was a pipe dream we’d never execute (∞.)

Leaving home, leaving behind the foundation of a career, family and friends to live in a city with no home, no job, and no contacts, that’s “not done,” either. But we did it. What we’re doing here – trying to make it in Hollywood – is something most people consider can’t be done. It’s something, for the great majority of people, won’t ever happen.

Yet those people still arrive in droves every year.

Us included. Here we are.

He lost sight of this.

Intern for any company or agency. You see the number of scripts in this game. You realize why it’s so difficult for any good script – any great script – to get noticed. As Eric says, “All the bad scripts are clogging up the system.” The WGA registers tens of thousands of scripts a year – and around 500 films are released a year in the states.

It’s completely improbable for anyone to write one of those 500 movies. That doesn’t stop them from getting up every morning and chugging out word counts, editing, and studying scripts. Relative to this long shot (they’re all long shots) juggling an assistant position and writing doesn’t seem too difficult.

Why can’t it be done? Why can’t you be an assistant and make it as a writer? Not enough time? Means you wouldn’t have enough time. You wouldn’t make the necessary sacrifices.

If it costs a studio $50 million to produce a picture, they’d say it’s impossible to do it for any less. Yet someone like Avi Lerner comes around and makes the same film for $20 film.

Saying something is impossible means they themselves can’t do it. Can and can’t are relative terms.

Teddy said isn’t how it’s done — making it as a creative artist by first being an assistant. That it doesn’t fit the model – what model? There is no model, no guaranteed path, that’s what makes this particular hustle, making it in Hollywood, so hard and so beautiful and so demanding. There are no guarantees, no right or wrong ways.

There are only the people doing it. And the people telling them why they can’t.

Photo Credit: pankie18

career

Internships: Part Three – Scorecard

Line ‘em up. Knock ‘em down.

It’s one method in the madness. Probably not a good one: sawed-off shotgun, Super-C Spread Gun, see-what-sticks spaghetti-style method. Like Terry Rossio wrote in the essay, Breaking the Ice, however: “Breaking into the film business is not a problem that resolves itself through a single answer or path. It’s a problem that succumbs only to a process, a series of efforts taken over time. And the bitch of it is, you never know which is the right strategy until it pays off.
So you do everything. Whether the odds are with you are not. You do everything.”

Get started by subscribing to the UTA Job List. Copy each listing that sparkles, no matter how remote the twinkle. Create an e-mail template that you’ll tweak after spending a few minutes researching individual companies. Then start blasting off those cover letters and attached resumes, knocking them out like Rocky Balboa and his never-ending string of sequels.

Take educated guesses at the names of the people who will read the cover letter (based on the company website, or the e-mail address.) There’s nothing to lose, so take your poke. Maybe you’ll be wrong. Maybe you won’t be. But even the poorest guess won’t sound more awkward than “To whom it may concern,” or “Dear Sir or Madam.”

Attach your resume, but include it in the e-mail copy, too. Don’t give nobody the chance to give you the lick because of outdated antivirus software. More about the resume: screw chronological order. No one looks at dates, not even a peek. They spend ten seconds glazing over your resume to find something that catches their eye, so help them find it quick.

No need for it to be the most immediate job experience, or one where you learned the most. If it’ll seize their attention, raise you out of the pile of resumes on their desk, put it up top. A position related to what you’re applying for. A company of similar function, size, or reputation. Hell, any recognizable company, with brand name stats.

At this stage, they’re looking for credibility. They want talking points. They want you to take the opportunity to prove you’re no crazy. Make it easy.

Pop off the e-mails. Don’t spend too much time on any one company. It’s a numbers game. Send them then forget them.

While you’re waiting for the next batch of openings from the UTA Job List, use your connections to meet with people. Or try foot leather – waltzing through the company doors, seeing if they’re looking for interns or unpaid help.

Long shots for sure. But everything seems like a long shot, and “you never know which is the right strategy until it pays off.”

Scorecard

Companies applied to: 20

Companies applied on UTA Job List: 18

Interviews through personal contacts: 1

Physical resumes dropped: 3

Days spent looking: 25

Internship position offered: 1

Return to Internships: Part Two – First Interview

Photo Credit: Marc Dennert

career

Internships – Part Two: First Interview

He glanced at the resume. Read it aloud, a clear as Ever indication this was time primero he laid eyeball to C.V. ink.

“Shogun Sushi,” mumble mumble, “Rutgers University,” mumble mumble, then stopped. Where they always stopped. Asked what they always asked. “What’d you do for Maxim Magazine?”

Eric offered one takeaway, other than his narrative on the crapshoot that is procuring an internship: “Be clear about what you want to do. The last guy they passed on because he said he didn’t know what he wanted.”

So when he posed his question – what do you want to do in this industry? – he got the straight.

Be a screenwriter. No if’s, and’s, or um’s.

At which point Matt concluded the interview, and offered two-penny thoughts on the best path to becoming a screenwriter, none which involved his internship program.

“I see this internship as a stepping stone for people,” he said. “I don’t want someone who’s going to do this, then take a position for $38,000 a year at Chase Bank or something.” He followed this back-handed back hand with suggestions how a Chase bank teller should go about it.

“Spend a year just focused on your writing, and reading great scripts. You don’t have to be a part of this program to do that.”

Or –

“Take a class on screenwriting at UCLA extension. Learn about the structure – that’s the best way for you to become a screenwriter.”

Or –

“Spend a year working desk at an agency. Learn from the movers and shakers. You’ll spend 80 hours a week there your first year. Probably won’t write much. But you’ll come out with contacts, and with luck, get somebody to represent you.” At which point he realized how contradictory his advice was, and tried fobbing it off with – “you’re well-spoken, you dress well, and you’re a sharp guy. You look like an agency kid to me.”

Mad-Libs are more specific.

Twenty minutes of this. Followed with some standing, a warm smile, and hand shaking hand. All formalities – the interview finished 18 minutes ago. But not nobody wastes your time unless you let him; if the crash ‘n burn looks top gun, best aim for great balls of fire.

Matt, I respect your opinion. I respect everything you just said. But I want to leave no doubt in your mind that I want to be in contention for this internship.

Finally. A genuine smile to replace the smirk. “Then you are.”

Never heard from him again.

Continue to Internships – Part Three: Scorecard

Return to Internships – Part One: Getting an Interview

Photo Credit: Enri Endrian

career

Internships – Part One: Getting an Interview

“It’s rolling the dice,” Eric said, “trying to get an interview for one of these internships.”

On the second day of his internship, his boss presented him a stack of resumes. “He told me, ‘go through these, find five candidates to interview for the last internship spot.’”

“When you’re given 50 resumes and cover letters, and told to get it down to five, you look for any reason to discount someone. That’s how I eliminated the first half: I looked for any reason to not consider them. Typo – gone. Poor formatting – gone.

“One guy, trying to be funny in his cover letter, wrote he was looking for ‘slave labor employment.’ It was cute – he was eliminated. Another girl put a suggestive picture of herself as the background to her resume – gone.

“That got me down to 25 resumes, at which point it’s even more of a crap shoot, not less.” All of the obvious rejects were already sitting in the trash, he explained. With those that remained, how many were likely to jump out as the “right” person for the position?

Very few.

“It came down to my mood, or the little details I noticed in the resumes. ‘Oh, you went to a Big 10 School? Okay, you’re in.’ Or, ‘You went to Texas State? I like your football team, you’ll get interviewed.’ Any insignificant detail can make the candidate stand out, and it’s completely subjective to the person going through the resumes.” Eric shook his head. “Not to mention any subconscious biases or prejudices.

“I chose three resumes and realized they were all girls. And I’m not going to hand my boss five female candidates, so I eliminated the remaining girls from the stack of resumes. Which isn’t fair to them; anyone of them could have been more qualified than the three already picked, but that’s just the way it goes.

“It just makes me realize more that if you want to get somewhere in this industry, you have to know people. Submitting your resume to a database of resumes – like I did before – is fruitless. The people in charge want recommended people; they’re aware what a shot in the dark the hiring process is. If they pick a random, they could wind up with a psycho nobody likes. If they hire based on your recommendation, at least they’re removing the ‘random’ element. Everyone benefits when you hire based on a recommendation.”

Continue to Internships – Part Two: First Interview

Photo Credit: MindField Group

los angeles

Restaurant Work in Los Angeles

“Sounds like a no-brainer,” Teddy said. He reclined deeper into the sofa, sunlight splashing off the cigarette drooped from his fingertips. “What did you come out to Los Angeles for? You didn’t come out to serve, or to learn more about the restaurant business. You came to write. So take whichever job will help you do that.”

finances

Transition Year: Health Insurance Guide

*Author’s note – this health insurance guide was started early 2010, and completed in May 2010. It was never published, due to the assumption that President Obama’s Healthcare Reform would render most of the information redundant or null. According to the CNN New Network, by the end of 2010, “children up to 26 can stay on their parent’s plan.”

However, different employers interpreted the bill differently.

For example, the “Young Adult Option,mmmm” provided by NYSHIP (New York State Health Insurance Program) “permits young adults to continue or obtain coverage through a parent’s policy until the young adult’s 30th birthday.” However:

“NYSHIP has elected to provide the Young Adult Option under the new law, and will not be extending the age of dependency for coverage as a dependent under family coverage nor contributing to the cost of coverage for a young adult. Instead, a young adult who meets the eligibility criteria will be able to enroll for individual NYSHIP coverage by paying the full individual premium for the coverage they elect.”

In essence, the Young Adult Option plays very similarly to COBRA.

Taking this into consideration – that not everyone would reap the benefits of the Healthcare Reform – it seemed irresponsible not to share the information below, especially if someone could possibly benefit from it.

The transition year is fraught with challenges. Look at learning and obtaining health insurance as one more to overcome – and a crucial one. Not taking the time to do the work, become informed, and obtain suitable coverage, is a decision with disastrous consequences. Especially since all the information is out there; you just have to be willing to go find it.

Below is a brief look at some health insurance options. It primarily addresses the concerns of post-University graduates who are either unemployed or don’t qualify for their employer’s health insurance.

Disclosures:

The author isn’t an expert on the subject of health insurance, health care providers, or HMO’s. All information provided is based on personal experiences. Thus, use this guide to supplement your own research. You are responsible for your own decisions.
The crux of information pertain to residents of New York and New Jersey.
This guide assumes you live a fairly healthy lifestyle, without the need for many prescriptions or checkups. Plan according to your needs.

While Still Covered by Your Parent’s Health Insurance

Use it or lose it.

Actually, you’re going to lose it regardless. Milk it before you do.

Get your doctor visits in – every single one covered by your current plan: your primary care physician, dentist, orthodontist, dermatologist, optometrist, podiatrist, chiropractor. Been putting off getting orthotics for your shoes? Back hurting, but too lazy to check it out? Do so while you’re covered.

Getting that clean bill of health is important, especially if you’re going to be paying the next time you see the doctor. There’s no price tag on your peace of mind, either. The next stage of your life will be tumultuous. Attack it with a sound body and sound mind.

Some employers may require shots (a Tetnus shot, a Tuberculosis Screening, etc.) so look into getting those, too. Not sure if or what kind of shots an employer might ask for? Ask friends who work in a similar industry/company. Check a potential employer’s website, or call their HR department.

If you’re thinking of doing extended travel, see if your provider covers immunizations. They’re expensive: one Twinrix shot (immunization against Hep A and Hep B) costs $68 – and three are required for complete treatment.

Typhoid Fever shot? After consultation fees – over $100.

They aren’t cheap. Your parents paid their premiums every month for a reason, so make use of what they bought.

While in School/a Minor

Can you extend your parent’s health insurance?

This puts off the headache of researching new plans and finding new doctors, for a little while, at least.

If you want to extend their health insurance, research this option early. Do it yesterday. Once you’re booted off their plan, the option might disappear.

Another option is to extend your university’s health insurance. These rates are often much lower than private insurance companies. Consult with your university’s health services for more details.

On Your Own

Option 1 – Go back to school

If your intent is to delay the real world and all its trappings: health insurance, paying back loans, and dinners that don’t consist of happy hour specials, graduate school is an option. Not a great one, especially if you’re not sure what you want to do with yourself, but at the very least you can put off these concerns for another couple of years.

Option 2 – Start at Ehealth Insurance

Ehealth Insurance is a good starting point.

Enter your information and get your quote. It’ll give you a ball park of how much you can expect to pay, and provides a few options.

Option 3 – Blue Cross Blue Shield

Many freelancers (designers, writers, servers) living in NY and NJ use BCBS. Anecdotal research shows that premium for basic major-medical coverage is around $350, which is usually a cheaper rate than COBRA.

Option 4 – COBRA

COBRA gives you the option to continue receiving your group’s health benefits under certain circumstances: loss of a job, graduated from college, reduced hours worked, etc. It’s a temporary extension of coverage, but you pay the entire premium (your employer doesn’t cover any of it.)

Read the fine print so you know exactly what’s covered with COBRA.

Option 5 – Healthy NY

Healthy NY was an initiative started to guarantee all New York residents received affordable health care. There is a list of requirements, so go through it carefully. Here’s a brief outline:

Must be a NY state resident
You (or your spouse) must be currently employed or been employed in the last 12 months
You didn’t have health insurance for the last 12 months, or lost it due to a specific event, like loss of a job, loss of other coverage, graduated from university, etc.
You aren’t eligible for Medicare
Your current monthly gross income must be less than $2,257.* The monthly gross income is measured back three months. What this means is if you apply on June 1^st, your monthly income for the months of March, April, and May should not exceed $2,257.*

If you choose a plan with a high deductible, your monthly premiums will cost approximately $175.* Most doctor visits will include a co-pay.

Option 6 – Family Health Plus

Family Health Plus follows the same requirements for Healthy NY, except:

Your currently monthly gross income must be less than $903* – again, this gets dated back three months.
Your resource level (basically, your net worth) cannot exceed $13,800.*

With Family Health Plus, there are no premiums, and most doctor visits won’t require a co-pay.

Option 7 – Travel Health Insurance

Footprints Recruiting provides down-and-dirty information on travel health insurance for globe-trotters, along with a few potential providers. Do your research.

What About Dental Plans?

If you feel you should really have dental insurance, do a search for quotes. It’s surprisingly affordable, and probably worth the money if your gnashers are a concern. A routine cleaning (no x-rays) costs approximately $70, and dentists recommend two cleanings per year.

Health Care Reform

If the Senate passes President Obama’s Health Care Reform, the primary change for those recent graduates is young adults will be able to stay under their parent’s insurance until their 26^th birthday.

Conclusion

Do your research, and please share what you learn with others. Paying out-of-pocket for a hospital bill could financially cripple anyone, and put them in debt for years. That’s something – under no circumstances – anyone should go through.

*exact number subject to change. See Health NY or Family Health Plus for current exact figures.

Photo Credit: Hefty Insurance Services Inc

los angeles

One Month in Los Angeles

We followed the GPS’ purple arrows into Culver City, our modern, corrupted version of Yellow Brick not even Gregory Maguire could dream up.

Teddy pointed out the window at the formidable white building, fortified behind a tall, black fence. It’d only be less inviting if the wrought-iron was composed of ivory tusks, pillaged from a majestic, prehistoric creature, and curved outwards.

career

Wait

He didn’t bring it up. Not until one month before I said I was leaving.

“So what’s your plan for this going out to Los Angeles-thing?” That’s what my father called it. The “going out to Los Angeles-thing.” He thought it more a pipe dream, one of my big-talk plans where I laced a fat juicy finger around the trigger but never succeeded in popping off a shot. Can’t blame him for it – it’s happened before. Not so often to call it a habit, exactly, but enough to half-anticipate it. Or to dub it a “-thing,” hyphen required.

career

Expectation: Zero

Okay Dee, thoughts: how is this year thus far comparing to last?

In the background, the din of Social Time peters in and out. Directly across from us, tiny Jeremy serenades swooning CTY girls on his violin. Around the waterless fountain – there is a drought going on – a score of students meander; laughing and talking and flirting, all within various degrees of social grace, from adroit to yammering.

I thought it a loaded question. How difficult could it be to surmount the year previous? It was the year of The Swine Flu, when we sent nearly half the student body packing for coughs and toasty foreheads. Entire halls, decimated as H1N1 floated from room to room, ruining the three weeks these students spend an entire year looking forward to.

Last year we lost Trench Dodgeball. The same year leadership changed to incapable and inexperienced hands, and relations between administrators were – to say the least – venomous. In my mind, the more appropriate question was, Is this year worse in any way–

“I had so much more fun last year than I’m having now,” Dee said, cutting my thread like Sister Fate.

A literal double-take.

I thought it sarcasm, but the response was so immediate, so filled with absolute, unwavering conviction, that it couldn’t be anything but.

I didn’t respond right away. I couldn’t, and Dee took my silence as prompting:

“Last year, I felt like I found my best friends right away, you know? I got comfortable with our crew so quick. There was always someone to talk to. I expected to find it again this year, but I don’t feel like I connected with anyone.

“I only came back this year because my first session last year was so great. If this session was my first ever, I don’t think I would have returned.” Dee shrugged. “But, I really like my girls this session, at least.”

That’s weird, I joked.

She laughed. “Right? I actually enjoy spending time with them, and they want to hang out with me. So there’s that…”

We talked more, but I’m distracted by this pitfall, which seemed as obvious as a Warner Brothers cartoon: loaded with ACME product placement and talking animals, and the disguised sand trap set by the foolhardy yet indestructible coyote for our hero, the rabbit. I thought it went without saying: if you return to the CTY program, leave your expectations of the summer back home. There is no room for them, not this summer, this site, with this set of staff members. Even if you find yourself surrounded by fellow returners, don’t expect to recreate the experiences of yore. It won’t take.

Dynamics change – even the relationship between you and your bestest bosom buddy will be different. You will not pick up right where you left off, because neither of you are there. Not anymore; sometime during the 315 days of Normalcy, you both walked away, without a backwards glance. That’s the way it is, the way it must be.

Preserve those memories like butterflies, tacked behind glass. They’re nice to display, nice to look at, but you don’t take them out, urging them to beat their wings to admire their flight. It won’t happen, and to try is torturous. Memory is fickle and unreliable. It plays tricks, it dulls, it softens around the edges with every turn in your fingers. It can transform a mediocre evening into an idyllic day dream, or a flailing relationship into the one-that-got-away.

Do not return with expectation. And contrary to the verbiage, not doing is an active activity.

Remind yourself the session will not be the same.

Demand yourself to return with fresh eyes, untainted by what you loved or hated the year before.

Treat each student, each dance, each activity like an island, existing only unto itself, free of past connotations, and no promise of the future.

Attack the summer with a blank canvas, and let the new relationships color you as they will. It won’t be the same picture, but that’s not to say it won’t be beautiful or special or wonderful. It’ll just be different.

I told Dee, I wish we talked about this earlier. I wish we had this conversation before CTY started.

She said she does too.

If I did, though, who’s to say she would follow the advice? Forgetting how wonderful something is isn’t like flipping a switch, ON/OFF, ON/OFF. It takes a degree of coldness to write off the past, to lock it behind glass. It’s so much easier to hope I’m wrong, that things can be as they were, nearly perfect in that CTY bubble.

Even as I write this, I still hope. That someday, any day, a returner will seek me out, and tell me I was wrong about everything here. That you can recreate, and things can be as you imagined them before.

I hope it happens.

Photo Credit: cjacky2221

notes

The “U” Rock Tradition

Cobie, in his old-soul, understated-fashion, raised his hand.

“I’d like to say something,” he announced. He had thick curly hair and the gaze of Julio Aparcio. He turned his matador eyes to his hall mates.

“I think we all need to give Chris a hand for laying down the law on some European kids at breakfast.” He started clapping. A quick “Yeah!” sounded, followed by hearty applause. Until that moment, sitting amongst my 13 charges for this session, a circle of cheering 13- to 15-year-olds, I did not realize how badly I wanted the recognition.

I was 24-years-old. I had seen the world, jumped out of a plane, bungee jumped, moved from one American coast to the other with an idyllic dream and little else. I achieved many of the things liked-minded men set out to do, and it mattered very little to me if these students hated me, admired me, or were completely indifferent.

But to say right then – my butt sore from dorm-style, barely-there carpeting and olfactory senses offended by this gaggle of unshowered teenagers – to say their looks of admiration didn’t leave warm and fuzzies, would be a lie. It was my reward for standing up to half-a-dozen European language students who tried butting ahead of my meeker students at the breakfast line, and I welcomed it.

Just like that I was an addict, hooked after my first taste. I knew I’d do anything to keep that respect. I knew I never wanted to let them down.

The event brought to mind the tradition of the “U Rock.” At the start of the daily RA staff meetings at the Center for Talented Youth in Los Angeles, one staff member presents the U Rock to another staff member. The rock appears as follows: a rock, about the size of a grapefruit. With a “U” painted on one face, in green. It is awarded to someone who displays extraordinary action the day previous, or who deserves recognition for their devotion in their roles as RA’s. The next day, the current wielder of the U Rock recognizes a new RA, and the rock makes its way around the staff.

By second session, the “U Rule” is introduced, which follows the same guidelines. It appears as follows: a wooden ruler. Scribed hastily on the back, in a blue Bic pen: “U rule.”

When the U Rock is first introduced, considerable thought is usually put into who its newest heir will be. The newest member of the club should prominently stand out from the rest of the plebes, the Balto of the pack, so to speak. Perhaps they dealt with a particularly unruly student in a constructive way. Or their Daily Activity from the day previous was extremely creative, executed with razor precision. Whatever the reason, the point is, there was meaning in the U Rock. You felt pride, even if it was just a twinge or a tickle. It felt good to be recognized, and consciously or unconsciously, it reinforced the behavior that earned you the recognition in the first place.

No one admits as much, of course (and as long as the tradition of the U Rock continues, it’s doubtful anyone will.) After all, the U Rock really is nothing more than a pat on the head, albeit, a heavy handed pat, that you have to schlep four flights of stairs to the meeting room the next day.

By the time the U Rule got introduced to the game, however, the U Rock had lost its momentum, a stalled car at the bottom of a trough. There were several reasons for this:

The Introduction of the U Rule – with two mementos recognizing good behavior, the value was reduced by half. It was the first law of economics: supply up, demand down.
Lowering of the Standard – the bar previously set for the U Rock was dramatically lowered, for a variety of reasons: tiredness in the staff, laziness in reflecting on who really deserved the recognition, or the desire to recognize friends over the deserving. E.g., “I want to give it to Stacy, for taking care of my hall while I was at weekend duty,” (a duty everyone performs, and required by the job) or “I want to give this to James, because he’s a good friend.”
“Who hasn’t gotten it yet?” – the desire to give the U Rock to a member of the staff not because they earned it, but because they haven’t received it yet, pervades the tradition every year. This is likely the guiltiest culprit behind nerfing the value of the U Rock.

The U Rock becomes worthless in the face of these culminated reasons. Its intended effect – to recognize good behavior, to reinforce the behavior, and to inspire others to follow suit – is null. What started out as a subtle yet powerful reward starts tip-toeing along the “everyone’s a winner, everyone get a medal” line, a perpetuation of the sort of emotional coddling that leaves young adults unprepared for the challenges yet to come.

It begs the question: does the U Rock serve its function? Is it still a worthy tradition to uphold at CTY LOS when its value is slowly but inevitably reduced to nil?

Before Cobie raised his hand, I thought not. Since then, I’ve realized this: if the U Rock only sincerely recognized one person in six weeks of CTY, it’d be worth it. If it acknowledged one stellar act of courage or kindness in six weeks that otherwise would have gone unnoticed, then the practice should carry on. Qualities like courage and kindness aren’t necessarily inherent – they can be encouraged and cultivated, and genuine respect is a powerful agent for this growth. It sets the stage for that next act of courage or kindness, when it’s more difficult, when the stakes are higher. For the sake of building this foundation in even one individual’s life, yes, more than ever, the U Rock is a tradition worth upholding.

Photo Credit: all2gethernow