Feel Free to Hate Me, But............

I started watching Lost.  I KNOW, I KNOW, in my last post I said that I was gonna spend my free time learning AutoCAD and retroactively drafting sound system block diagrams.

So far, I'm 7 episodes into the 2nd season, and I'm sort of hooked.  Go ahead and judge me if you want, but so far there are very few things that I don't like about it.
List of Lost Dislikes so far:

• Repeated line: "DON'T TELL ME WHAT I CAN AND CAN'T DO!!!"
• The presence of Michelle Rodriguez.  I hate her so much.
• The WAY throw-back "Previously on Lost" bits before every episode.  Sometimes they go as far as 20 episodes back, and it's just really frustrating to watch.  
• If the characters just came out and said what they meant, so many problems could have been avoided that were caused by lack of communication.  I know this is one of the central themes of the show, but it's still annoying to watch. 

Positive things:

• I don't have the major issue that I thought I would with the number of cliff-hanging endings of episodes.  I thought it would feel like reading The DaVinci Code, where each chapter cliff-hung (is that a word?) the reader to keep them reading onto the next page.  I actually thing that Lost aggressively went against the grain of cliff-hanging endings (at least in the first season).  
• There have only been a few "OH HOLY SHIT" moments *so far*.  I know that more come later in the show, but I thought that I would be bombarded by "OH SHIT" moments from the get-go, and I haven't been, so that's good.
• I also thought I would hate the absurd number of flashbacks and longer back-story scenes.  I know that they are important to the development of the story, and I thought that I would hate them.
• I never thought I would say this, but J.J. Abrams has created really interesting complex characters that play very well off each other.  Through the flashbacks, we see the characters both their best and worst, and we get to know them inside and out.  I'm intrigued
• The acting is at times quite good.  

I am gonna keep watching during my downtime at work, and continue to learn AutoCAD when I have my second monitor at home.

Like I said, go ahead and judge me, but I was really curious to see what all the fuss was about, and it sucked me in.

School is fun, but drafting is more fun.

Okay, so on top of finishing up with school and exercising, I've resolved to take some time to really hammer out my portfolio before the summer comes.  I am going back to the basics with AutoCAD and Vectorworks in order to make sure that I can provide Lake Tahoe Shakes with paperwork that done in the USITT graphics standard.  I also want to back up and provide myself with some more accurate paperwork for shows that I've worked on previously, like stuff from Heritage and my designs from last spring.  I'm already familiar enough with AutoCAD and Vectorworks to make lines and text and arrange them how I want, but the internets have granted me a gift of an AutoCAD 2010 training manual, so I think I'll start with that.

The urgent need for a portfolio with better paperwork has arisen from the idea that I might actually want to apply to grad school in the next few years, and I will need an accurate portfolio.  Also, any bigger jobs that I could be looking at (or higher profile employers) will probably not be too impressed with what I have thrown together at this point.  So, here are the goals for my portfolio:

• Create packages as complete as possible for each production that I've worked on so far, including block diagrams, equipment lists, ground plans w/ speaker placement, and rack diagrams.
• Create a website that will allow me to showcase my work.
• Set a working standard for myself that complies with USITT standards and my own high personal standards in order to further my career.
• Complete Portfolio as far back as last summer by the beginning of June, including audio mix-downs of LSOP performance.  

As someone who works in a theater program where sound is not at the forefront monetarily or artistically (which is not to say it's a poor program, we really do produce great theater), I can fully appreciate (though not first-hand) coming into a new job and getting strong paperwork and information from the previous sound team.  It makes everyone's life easier, and it showcases the engineer's organization and planning skills.

So, that's my plan.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't write this in order to procrastinate doing homework.  Life is hard.  Blah blah blah.

Updatez

So.  I took a job as Sound Engineer for the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival this summer, so I'll finally be able to take my cross-country road trip.  I'm hella excited.  I'll get to visit Kyle in San Francisco several times over the summer, see Phish in Berkeley, and do my drive down the California coast before returning back East in September (still pending future employment chances outside of DE).  I'll be the sound engineer for The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), mixing the show's area mics (it's an outdoor theater), and assisting on their live music series.

After that... who know...?

The ultimate goal is to get a job on a tour, but if I don't get that (or anything else) I'm prepared to move to NYC and start my life and career there.

The job search so far hasn't been a complete failure.  I've established rapport with companies who didn't have the spots for me this season, and I've made some good contacts.  Yay.  I also keep applying for crazy jobs that I'll never get like Franco Dragone Entertainment Group and Cirque du Soleil.  Maybe someday...

Also, as someone who has grown up with video games, works in an artistic field, and has studied film as art academically, I found this article by Roger Ebert very interesting.

Video Games Can Never Be Art

Enjoy.  I'm a relatively large Roger Ebert fan, but I have to disagree with him here.