Sunday, June 28, 2009

Is "Career" a Myth?

My father's father was a farmer. My father grew up on farm but his father did other jobs to provide for the family.

My dad went into the Army for a year and the Air Force for four years. He studied electronics in the Air Force and earned an Associates degree.

It was a different era, but he started a temporary job that turned into contract extension and full time employment. It can still work that way, but it was in a day when companies rewarded people for a life of service. Pension was not just a government term.

I grew up expecting to go to college. I scored a high school level on an achievement test in sixth grade so that didn't seem to be out of reach. Around the same time we got a computer that connected to the TV and I knew what I was going to be when I grew up.

Sure it wavered some with wondering if something else would have more meaning or purpose. But it always came back to computers. Naive think that anyone can do programming, depends on what level, and they don't realize how number systems and theory are a huge part of it.

I got some college credit for computer science and math for high school classes and went to college for a double major in those subjects. Math minor was required so I used my electives in upper level math classes to meet major requirements for both.

I rushed through with the original plan of graduating in three years. It was a bit much and grades suffered so I slowed down and added two terms, still graduating early.

I had friends who co-oped undergrad and I considered it but stuck with my goal. The economy was slow and everyone wanted experience so after a year I started grad school. By the end of the first year I took a co-op position which would pay less than the bachelors degree should but allow me to get experience and possibly a place to work full time.

Each graduation and before we were lectured on how the average person will have 10 jobs to make up their career. So anyone like my dad who stayed with a large computer company for 30+ years means that some people must have 15 or more jobs to average out.

Anyway I wasn't too worried about it then, which is unlike me in general and how I was raised. Besides I guess I figured if my dad could have an Associates degree and work for the same company so long with some changes along the way that surely with a graduate degree I could manage to have at least few job changes.

Enter life I suppose. Some hereditary issues and some environment issues all came into the perfect storm of a health problem. Long story short the "career" ended quite a bit early.

I took an opportunity to help charity and be on the set of a TV show. I was addicted right away, did various volunteer jobs and oddly enough my first paid job on set was in north Alabama.

I moved to California and chased a dream though not fully enough. I guess I wanted an excuse for if/when it ended that it was because I didn't give it my all. Easier said than done but that's the only way to do anything.

I know I did a lot of just what I needed to to get through the subjects or classes I didn't like, but it's totally different in career. Of course you can give it too much and cause problems in personal life, like letting relationships suffer and over-stress yourself. The art is in striking a balance.

I haven't learned quite how the balance is achieved, and maybe never will.

Only a few got to see me perform and stir emotion which is what I had hoped to do on a much larger scale. Health and finance got in the way of just trying to be seen on a small scale.

I needed the unraveling and winding down of so many things and have met some people online who have been encouraging, that I likely would not have met otherwise.

I keep thinking of what I could do related to the old career on my own and run into hurdles that seem to point me into a more creative direction.

Working in Hollywood almost every job was a day at a time, so I've technically had well over 100 jobs. So I don't need to worry about changing jobs. I've balanced out my dads single career job in the quoted average.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Will the Real Requirements Please Stand Up

I got a used PowerMac for hopes of using it to try my hand at iPhone development. I waited too long to get into it.

So when I get ramped up, it turns out that I need OS X.5.6. So I buy that OS which requires an Intel Mac 867MHz or greater. Turns out the dual 512MHz that I had will not load that OS. If used parallel at all, the total 1GHz would be faster as two parallel processors. Nonetheless it would not install.

I bought another used mac. This one is over 1GHz on a single processor. So it will load the OS. I connect it via ethernet to the internet and there is an update to OS 10.5.7 which is thankfully free.

So I had to buy the SDK for OS 3.0 which all apps are required to work on even before OS 3.0 released. Once you have paid for it, the new SDK now requires 10.5.7 so luckily I already had it. Then running the install in the package, the SDK option is not enabled.

There are packages that will install separately but where to put them and how many hoops to jump through to use them from somewhere other than where they are expected to be. Will Apple actually let them be used if not installed from their failure of an install program.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

SAG and AMPTP

The Screen Actors Guild voted unanimously to ratify yet another contract with the AMPTP for TV/theater pretending that AMPTP will look at giving a fair share of profit sometime in the future. Unlike baseball's "player to be named later" which has been the same player, this profit sharing never is revisited.

Media is evolving at such a pace that internet and TV are already combining and soon will be one and the same. You will surf YouTube or its latest incarnation or replacement on your TV/computer.

Small gain was made in this upper class SAG railroaded contract for MADE-FOR new media projects, but no change was made for profits made by production companies from content produced for TV or theaters.

The members of the SAG board, who were elected to represent the membership (much like Congress) ignore the needs of the membership and set up deals for themselves (much like Congress). They also would have you believe that the background (or "extra") actors are the problem blocking the contract and negotiation.

A producer to remain nameless claims are not WORKING actors (I'd like to see the films where they don't work), regurgitates this, not knowing anything about the union nor actors, stating that they should not be allowed to vote. The TRUTH is that background talent does not make enough money for other benefits and their only hope is the 3% raise, barely cost of living. They wanted this last July when the contract ran out.

The million + upfront for film actors do not want to lose a bargaining chip that they aren't getting backend profit sharing. This would cut their upfront rate, some might lose a million or more. If the film or project does very well then they would receive money from DVD sales, ticket sales, etc. and might actually make more money. If the movie flops, they wouldn't make much more than their upfront contract amount. Letting the market decide, hmm sounds like capitalism.

SAG *censored* opposing view where many people will lose their health and pension benefits under the new contract and spewed propaganda largely from producer/actors. Hmm sounds like North Korea and all the countries censoring internet access to keep out opposing idealogies.

The WGA had the cajones to strike for a fair contract. I picketed with them in support for their contract. They only wanted a small percentage and that percentage would be $0 if no money was made. SAG did not have the cajones to demand the same thing.

The AMPTP will not take SAG seriously as they join AFTRA in putting BOARD members first. They left out "board" when trying to get members' votes to place them on the board.

I was skeptical about SAG president Alan Rosenberg until sitting in a meeting with him. He knows the union from top to bottom, the rich and middle-class and background and struggling actors. He sought to UNITE and address issues at all levels. He was railroaded by [Board] members first who had barely a majority of the board, about 52%. They stalled until they could get organized and have enough members bother to show up to a meeting and fire the chief negotiator, making a joke of the union.

Then they concede to AMPTP and wink at the "we'll look at that later" clause as if the big production companies were bankrupt like the car industry. % of zero is 0 never gets revisited, not with VHS, DVD, now new media. Besides allowing multiple airings within a week and 3 weeks for cable, which might play twice a day for those 3 weeks, or more. Besides that, the networks brag to shareholders how much money they are making on the internet. NONE of the multi-airing in the time period and internet streaming revenue is shared. Reruns are covered, however, and residuals from the additional advertising profits are shared.

If the union isn't going to stand up for anything, they might as well concede to a 20 year contract with the current rates and a fixed percentage bump. Leave a clause open for change for all the things that are never revisited.

So the totally ignorant may think that SAG got its act together. But in reality the AMPTP will not take SAG seriously and the disarray and fallout could be much worse than any strike ever could have been.