Bored Blog 36: Ups, Downs and More Ups and Downs

6/11/2022

What's up?

Sorry, I didn't know what kind of photo to put for this...

Some good news, I finally finished editing my friend's wedding video. I haven't received her permission to post it yet. It was a really fun wedding. What really made it fun were the people there...though the food was pretty good too!

Things have and have not been going on. I guess you would say I have plans for this summer, but who knows how they are going to play out. I'll tell you more about them when the time gets closer or after things happen.

If you're a creative/artist/entertainer you might understand the things I've been going through this past month or so. At the end of every project I feel incredibly lost. It's like going through a midlife crisis over and over again, or like you're being zapped into a completely new world every few months and you have to build up your life over and over again.

What's worse is if you're doing this without an agent, you're not part of a company or an organization that could guide you in any way. You're on your own making all of the decisions. Once you're finished with a project it's up to you to market your project...and then at some point you feel like you need to pump out something else. Such as in film, it's as if you need to keep going from project to project to project.

I was working out with a couple of friends last weekend.

After the gym we had lunch, hung out, blah blah blah, and then it was time to go home. One of my friends left and I was left walking part of the way with my other friend. Anyway! He asked me how I was doing since it's been a while since we last met up. I couldn't lie because all I could think about was how lost I was feeling. I told him that I finished editing the wedding video, I'm waiting on my dad to get investors for the tiny home community project (it's more his project than mine), and I have no idea what to do with my life right now.

Obviously that's just the surface of how I was feeling. I didn't want to dump a lot on my friend. He gave me advice that I'm sure you've heard many times before - he said, "Do what you want to do." He was talking about these designs he's made and he wants to put them on clothes. Hearing him talk about it reminded me that he's also an entrepreneur. Wow, I have an entrepreneur friend! He has some side hustles as well and he's really working hard.

I'm sure he's going to do well. He has some helpful connections and has people to vouch for his work. Plus he's a like-able guy.

It was really nice talking to him. When he said I should do something that I want to do - the comic book story I wrote a few years ago came up in my head. It's 203 pages long. It needs some serious editing and re-formatting because I wrote it in the screenplay format. I'm sure you'd also procrastinate editing 203 pages as well.

I know my dad has told me the same thing, "Do what you want to do," but for some reason hearing it from my friend got me inspired to get back into working on my comic book. Maybe it's because I see my dad every day and he can sometimes be a walking book of inspirational quotes.

So, I got back to my comic book. Im currently editing page 53. I'm on my way guys!

Oh yeah, my "high school reunion" that was set up by a few people from my class (and not by the school) is coming up at the end of the month. Maybe that's why I've been so moody lately. One night I felt like going out for a walk. As I walked past the old streets and parks I played in when I was a kid I thought, "Man, I'm still here. Nothing has changed." I have no idea what I'm going to tell my fellow classmates. I checked out the bar they're holding it in...I don't want to talk about my stand-still life with my classmates at a place with bras hanging down from the ceiling while eating what looks like meh fries.

I don't understand why they chose this place.

Then with socializing, I'm trying to remind myself, "Who cares what these people think. I never talked to most of them anyway." I'll probably stick around with my friends and check out if anyone looks different from when we were in high school lol.

Now, yesterday...I'm only telling you this in case you end up in a dark place as I have - my dad asked me to go walk outside with him. I didn't want to, but I've been spending way too much time in my room these past few months. I decided to go with him. There were way too many people out. I completely forgot it was a Friday evening.

Later at the second half of the walk I thought, "I don't like anything about my life right now." People were laughing around my dad and I, having a good time. I was trying my best not to cry. My dad wanted to sit down for a while, and I wanted to go home. Instead, I sat down with him. I was very frustrated with where I am with my life. My thoughts wondered, "It's like no matter what I do nothing seems to change. What is it that I'm doing wrong? Maybe everything that I've done has been wrong.

No, Tony Robbins said that sometimes all we need to do is change a little something in order to (in the long run) be on the right path. So, what is it that I need to change? Why won't anyone tell me?" I kept asking God for help.

I tried my best not to cry. My dad was taking photos of the sunset. He wanted to take a photo of me. I told him "No," as I tried not to cry. He didn't understand why I was refusing. He said, "This is for memories." Like I wanted to remember this. I had to repeat myself, "No" until he gave up.

Then he was uploading the photos to Facebook, while I sat there waiting to go back home. There was an annoying small dog barking non-stop, a mom taking too many photos of her tween posing with her really cute/classy looking bike, and another mom taking photos of her kid who was also doing a bunch of cringy poses. I tried to turn my attention to the sunset as the sky got redder and redder. It was very vibrant. Finally I said, "Can we go?" My dad said, "Wait, my post isn't done loading." We both stared at his phone as his post slowly loaded. When it did he tilted his phone to me, "Look, aren't they [his photos] beautiful?" I didn't understand why he wanted to go through the photos he just took and saw. I was trying not to cry as I stood up and said, "I want to go." He got up after me. For the rest of the time I think he wanted to give me some space because we didn't talk at all. I probably seemed like a brat. It makes me feel kind of bad the way I acted.

As we walked home there were so many people. I wanted to explain what was going on in my head to my dad but I was afraid I'd start crying. I didn't want to be a sobbing side show for a bunch of strangers, and I don't think my dad would have been able to understand a word I said.

We got home, I watched a One Piece movie that had some pretty funny moments and felt like my old self again. And today I did some volunteer gardening with nice people and I've been feeling pretty good. That sliver of hope is back and I need to go seize it. Why the sudden change?

Two things!

One: Do things that get you out of your head. Such as do something new! Get out of your house!

Two: Interact with people. (New people if you've been spending too much time with the same people. Even if it's to ask where the bathroom is).

Oh, maybe a third thing would be to do something for others/not for yourself. It helps you get outside yourself.

Will I be feeling this good for long? Well, do people get a cold and continue having a cold? Do people laugh forever or feel angry forever? Nah.

I forgot the name of the guy, but he said people are like the weather. They're always changing.

Let's hope we're always changing for bigger and better things.

Until next time!

Best,

Emel

Bored Blog 35: Some Things You Didn't Know about Film Fests

5/21/2022

It's starting to feel like summer!

Let's get into this. For anyone looking into film festivals or screenplay competitions, there are some things you need to know.

Before 2020 there were some film festival scams out there, but a lot of them on FilmFreeway are pretty legit (besides this one in Hollywood and one in Turkey). If you got accepted you could go to the festival and have a great time. Now, once 2020 happened the excitement for a majority of film festivals is gone. More and more festivals are online. They can screen your film online, where (let's be honest) most people rather not watch your film on their computer when they could go to Netflix to watch something whenever they want. It's not as real as going in person and seeing your film with a bunch of other people. You can't even hear people clapping. That's the best part as an entertainer, to hear the crowd clapping!

I'm getting emails for film festivals saying it's their first year, they're doing their festival online, it's around $30-$60 to enter, aaaaand the winner gets a digital laurel.

That's it! Anyone could make up a film festival and make their own laurel for FREEEE. It's pretty much a scam. They get your money while they do the least amount of work.

I'm also getting emails from bigger festivals where they say, "Your film will do great at our festival. Here is 10% off if you submit today." I click on the links and it's the late deadline (which is when submissions are the most expensive). And the organizers have probably already chose all the films they want to show at the festival.

Here's a story for you.

At the end of April I applied to this screenwriter competition where they give you a prompt on the day of the event, and the writers have to write a 3 page scene for an hour online LIVE, as people watch them work. After that there would be 3 finalists where real actors would do a table reading. I thought this sounded cool, and it was $5. So I applied.

In my head I imagined a few 100 writers writing at once on zoom. I had to submit a script I already wrote so they could see I was serious. The genre they picked for this round was Drama. I never wrote anything that focused on drama, so I thought I needed to practice writing some scenes within an hour. I did it almost every day for two weeks with random prompts I found online (that were mostly focused for novels). At first I went over time, but by the end I ended up having 10-15 minutes left by the time I finished writing.

I then got an email saying I was accepted.

I then had to meet with one of the organizers on their platform to hear the rules and be familiar with their zoom like platform.

After meeting with her, I started clicking on all the virtual rooms they had. They had February's writers up with their photos and their bios. I then noticed there were only 8 of them. It took me a solid 2-3 minutes for things to click that they're only choosing 8 people! Wow!

I continued to practice writing once a day for an hour. The woman asked me for a headshot and for a short bio.

Once they had everyone's photo and bio they told us to spread the word on social media while they would tag us on their social media. Now, a lot of contests do this.

For the not so well known competitions they rely on the selected people to do all the advertising for them. I noticed that on instagram they put the most impressive bios first and the not so impressive ones last within their post. I was like 3rd to last...and the people shown before me have done a lot. I told the organizer a bit about the tiny home stuff that I've done, but they kept that out.

Now, they said that the audience will choose who's script they like the most, while the judges chose the other two writers as the finalist. Whenever you see "audience choice," this means "The amount of friends you bring in to vote for you, the more likely you will be chosen." So if you see that in competitions it's pretty much rigged. It's not based off of talent, it's based on the amount of people you know who will be there for you. Judges look at this because this is the marketing side of filmmaking. If you can "market" yourself to people to come see you, you're doing a good job (and helping the event be promoted).

So, I already knew I had a low chance of winning. I've been selected to festivals based on my work, but when it comes to audience choice I don't have a big following to back me up. If you're also one of the little guys, don't waste your money on these types of things.

I did this because writing on a time limit live sounded like an opportunity to push myself as a writer.

Also, I saw some of the people's bios where they're into politics...so I figured I'm defiantly not going to win. Lately in film fests all they want are stories with forced politics in the work, not so much a good story.

Anyway, on Thursday I was still nervous. We got our prompt three hours ahead of actually writing our scene. It was, "You're protagonist receives news that changes their life." Then the audience will vote on a word we would have to put in our script.

When we got the prompt I wrote down whatever ideas that came into my head. I then got worried and went to my Father for some advice. I told him some of my ideas and he said, "You need to think bigger. Something extremely dramatic." I told him the next idea I had. "What about an orphan who learns they're not actually an orphan?" He liked the idea and started coming up with this complicated Turkish Drama set up where this girl was lied to as a kid by her aunt and uncle because they want the kid's inheritance. So the aunt and uncle kill the parents and bribe the Wills and Trusts Attorney into helping them steal the money. The kid, Ally, now 25 at her parents funeral over hears the aunt and uncle's conversation and realizes she was cold to her parents until their death because she hated that they lied to her all these years. Only to find out her aunt and uncle lied to her....yeah in three pages.

I felt like I could do it without spelling everything out. The audience picked the word "Queen," as the word we had to use in our script. So the clock started.

Oh, here's everyone's bio in order to most impressive to least. Not to sound mean, but in a film business marketing kind of way. When in film you sometimes got to tell your personal feelings to shut-it and see things for how they are.

After 10 minutes of writing I thought I'd be calm, but I wasn't. Knowing people were watching you make spelling mistakes and quickly being lazy by right clicking and clicking the correct spelling, and I made some dumb grammar mistakes...it was like my worst nightmare.

I could see the people in the room with me, I could see myself writing and I was trying to fit this complicated story into three pages without making it sound corny. All of a sudden every 2-3 minutes I was getting kicked out of my room and into a random writers' room. I had to go back to my room and re-share my screen so that my friends and other people could see my work. I didn't want to let my friends down. They were excited to see me write.

I was getting in the zone and then being brought out of it every time I had to get back into my room. I went to the room for tech support but I couldn't wait long for a response because I was on a time limit to write my scene. I used another tab window to cover my face and the other people in my room so I could have more focus. Now, when I write I like to get into the characters' head, and read out loud what I wrote. So I can be really expressive and look a little crazy. And I was also stressing whenever I had to race back into my room.

By the time there were 20 minutes left to write the judges came into my room. They said, "Hi, were' going into everyone's room to talk to them for three minutes." I wanted to scream. I had no time for this! They wanted me to tell them what my scene was about. I told them as fast as I could what it was about. I slipped in that I'm still fitting in as much of the story as I can. I could tell they didn't like that for some reason. They also could have been confused on what was going on in my scene. They didn't say anything about my story, I didn't care because I wanted to fix this tech problem so I could finish writing.

I told them what was going on, and they sent the CEO to help me fix the problem. I waved to the judges and said "Thanks," as my way of politely kicking them out. The clock was ticking. They probably thought it was rude of me, but I did what I had to do.

I then had to spend another few minutes figuring out the tech problem while being kicked out of my room over and over. It turned out that my adblocker was causing this. The platform probably had ads that were trying to fight through my settings. Once that was done I had maybe 10 minutes left. I tried my best to get back into the zone. I wrote what I could and finished the scene on an awkward note.

The time was up and the announcer said, "Please export your scripts to a PDF. Make sure you label it with your name. We will all meet in the next room." I then remembered I didn't use the word "Queen." I quickly made the uncle call the aunt "Queen," in one of his lines while no one was looking, and then submitted my script.

The judges and everyone read over everyone's script.

Reading the scripts I felt like I should have gone with my gut to do something simpler. My Father came into my room upset, "You didn't put everything in there. It made no sense!" I wasn't in the mood to explain myself so I said flatly, "Okay, I did what I did." He caught on to my mood, and said, "Okay," and left shutting my door behind him.

I continued to read the other scrips. I liked maybe two of them. The others I didn't get much out of. But they were well written for the time limit we had.

Then it was time for the judges.

Excuse the shaky camera lol.

I wasn't sure if they were saying "everyone, everyone" did a good job. In film there's this "don't say 'no' to someone ever. You never know if you'll work with them in the future or change your mind to work with them in the future." So you say things like, "Yeah, send me your script," when they're actually not going to look at it. It's like when people say, "Let's keep in touch," but then they didn't give you their contact info to do that.

So, when the judges said that everyone's script was great, I wondered, "Are they just talking about 3-4 scripts out of the 8? Are they really being genuine?" They said they've never seen the votes so close before.

Here is the audiences' votes.

Then one of the judges was saying that in the film business this is how it's going to be. If you want to get hired you have to pump out pages, write what they're asking for, and do it in a certain amount of time.

While they spoke I didn't realize that this was their intent. I'm an INDIE filmmaker. I'm not looking to be hired by someone in Hollywood. I want to write what I want and turn it into a film without needing someone else's permission. If I find someone I want to work with on a film, then I'll work with them.

Relying on someone to hire you in the film business is tough. It's as tough as today's dating. People are 10x more picky. If they don't like you for one little thing, they can say, "Next!" and there will be another person in your place. The only way they'll be less likely to replace you is by you already knowing them personally.

While they were announcing the finalists, I already knew I wasn't one of them. It was still kind of sad not to hear my name being called. But I felt calm again because it was over. Then it was time for the table read.

The people on the right with the microphones are the actors. It was pretty cool to hear them read the scrips for the first time.

The judges chose Koura as the winner. Personally I didn't agree with them, but another thing about film contests/writing contests is that it's like judging art. Everyone has a different opinion on art. So, if you're lucky to write a script that resonates with the judges, you're likely to be chosen. And there was probably the business side to this contest that the judges were mostly focusing on.

If you find yourself entering in a film contest, know that there are elements that are out of your control. It's not like in sports or dance, where you practice and practice then on the day you have to go out there and preform it's easy to see a clear winner.

Filmmaking is like judging one painting to another. I rather do my own thing than ask people to hire me. From this experience I learned to write faster and to go with my gut. I actually like the other scripts I wrote while I was preparing for this contest. It has also been a while since I've been stretched out of my comfort zone. I can also see more writing contests doing something like this in the future. It's more fun than gathering people to announce the winner for screenwriting and then boom, done. The event is over.

I hope this was helpful to you! Good luck out there ^_^

Until next time!

Best,

Emel

Bored Blog 34: Are You Grounded?

4/15/2022

How's it going?

I know I don't post once a week. Instead I post when something happens, when I have a story to share with you. Quality over quantity right here. If you want to read the earlier blogs you are welcome to do so.

So, today's story/stories is about being more grounded.

Most people would say, "you should be yourself," but yourself could be way off. Say, someone who believes "Me before thee 24/7." Would you want to tell that person, "Just be yourself?" No, they could use some growing up. When you tell someone to be "grounded," you're telling them to have a healthy balance of listening to people while also not being blindly swayed. You take responsibility, you have a sense of who you are, what your weaknesses are and how to deal with them or use your weakness to your advantage. I picture someone planted firmly on earthy soil with a whole bunch of balancing scales around them. Each scale representing a different aspect of their life.

Yes, it's tough to keep everything balanced in your life, but things wouldn't be interesting if it was easy.

A few things have happened since we last talked. I have taken some driving lessons for the first time in my life. I purposely chose the toughest instructor because it's those kinds of teachers that teach you the most. So, my teacher is very strong on having good hand-over-hand form. If it's not good you're more likely to get yourself into an accident.

During one of my lessons my hand-over-hand was off. He kept pointing to exactly where my hands are supposed to be while counting how many times I need to turn the wheel and then turn the wheel back to it's upright position. Each time I messed up he raised his voice a little more. I kept telling myself, "It's all good. I'm learning. He's stating what I need to work on." But as the intensity of his voice continued, my tears wanted to come out.

In the end I started crying and we had to pull over because I was in no state to drive. Now, I've been in situations like this with teachers in the past. It made no sense to me why something like this would bother me to the brink of tears. I've failed a lot in life (and will continue to do so). This type of situation should not have bothered me. I ended up having the same talk that I've had with previous teachers. He said, "I'm doing this because this is important," "If I was soft on students they won't learn anything," and on and on. As lame as it might sound, I didn't want to hear this whole spiel again. I'm past that. I told him it wasn't him, I was annoyed with myself for not being able to get the hand-over-hand right.

On my way home I was crying. It didn't make sense why I was crying. Maybe it was memories from the past that triggered these tears. But I don't care about the past anymore. I was doing well (wasn't fazed about his stern tone) for the first half of the lesson. What happened?

It's stupid, but it took a while for me to come up with, "I should have asked him for a break." If I did that I don't think I would have cried.

Next,

YouTube suggested to me this channel called, Julien Himself. He is another successful guy teaching about the things he changed in his life to get where he is now. I got into his channel because he talks a lot about how he - a really shy guy - got out of his shell. He talks more about how to be yourself with people. And when you're yourself you become more attractive. Sure, in a romantic way, but also attractive to possible business partners, people you meet at a party or people in general.

I really like this video of his.

Julian is the guy on the right. Yeah, he dresses like a rich hobo, but you really get sucked into what he says. And from what I've learned from personal experience and from what I've heard from Julian and a few other people, if someone is grounded and comfortable in their own skin, then you're going to pay more attention to their character and not so much to what they're wearing.

I don't want to spend too much time talking about the video. You should definitely check it out yourself.

I used a few tips from Julian, such as opening up more to people (not in the sense you tell your whole life story, but just holding back a little less). There are times I hold back from asking someone questions thinking maybe they wouldn't want to tell a stranger about their personal life, or I would compliment someone in my head and think it would be weird for me to say it out loud (close friends would compliment each other or an extrovert would do that to random people).

I was getting my hair cut yesterday by a friend of a friend whom I didn't know that well. I decided to ask questions I had for her and didn't hold back on saying compliments. We ended up having some interesting conversations and having some things in common. I was talking so much I started stumbling on my words because my mouth was dry. Once she was done cutting my hair she invited me to get coffee sometime. Yay! I made a new friend!

And here's what my hair looked like after she was done!

One last thing,

my bro got this awesome job to be an editor for an online magazine for Bitcoin. He's been really focused on Bitcoin and crypto currency and he's getting a lot out of his hard work. I'm really happy for him! Though at the same time it makes me question what I'm doing. I haven't been focusing on film too much lately. I've been keeping up with Bored Blog, writing To be a Straw Hat, and posting stuff on Rizzle (like TikTok and Youtube but different). Oh, I will also be filming a wedding tomorrow for a friend. It's going to be fun! But back on topic, I wish I was as focused as my bro is on one thing. In the back of my head I'm hoping one of the projects I'm working on will shoot me strait up into the stars. I will then be financially independent and continue to work on the projects I want to work on. ＼(≧▽≦)／

But I need to remind myself again that my life is mine. I can't compare it to yours, my bro's, my friends' or anyone else's life. I shouldn't compare, but I don't think it hurts to look at other people's lives and use them as a way to learn from them and to check yourself of where you want to go in life. "Am I happy with what I'm doing now?" "Should I look back at my goals?" "Maybe I should fix my goals." "My friend was able to use this method, maybe that could help me with what I'm trying to do." "Wow, I got off track of where I'm trying to go." "I didn't realize it but I was actually having fun." "Maybe I am going the right way."

Maybe we are going the right way and we just don't know it yet.

Keep working hard! Talk to you next time.

Best,

Emel