Backstory : Art Graduate to Developer

My first position outside of college, I moved to Hollywood to circumvent the inevitable. If I was to become a writer-director I saw myself to be, I needed to just jump right in.

I landed a job at Media Company, where I navigated media spot sales. It was outdated equipment, DOS type screens with dotted printer paper you could tear at the sides. The tasks were very manual, precise data entry, wherein if you made a mistake, you could cost the television network tens of thousands of dollars. Lucky for me, I have a knack for methodical type preciseness. A few months into this position, the economic downturn officially swan dived, and our staff was downsized. Multiple times. And you’d gain more work, from your colleagues who were let go with the same pay — but grateful to have the job in the first place. It was incredibly stressful to wonder if you’d have a tripled workload or lose your job on Friday. I found exercise and writing to be a healthy alternative to well, just being stressed, and started a regular gym routine to include. If there was a bright side to the instability, it would be this… And the shakiness of me trying to balance on one leg.

I was spending my evenings sifting through Craigslist in search of film projects I could work on. After all, I didn’t move to L.A. to just work, I was here to further my dreams. Then it happened, I had my first editing gig — and it was a straight to video mass produced title. I found I loved editing, the thought involved in seeing two images side by side, how just a slight shave of…