Broad Horizons

Quote: "Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you were meant to be." – George Sheehan

I’m doing things, making moves and looking in the right direction.

I’m taking a class called Documentary Workshop. The class’s only main goal is to film a documentary about the Film Forum hosted on my college’s campus. We are to set up interviews asking them about their work and just the industry in general. I don’t think I realized just how hand’s on the class would be until last week. We were supposed to be interviewing a casting director. We’d done the research and come up with the questions and I’d even volunteered to conduct the interview. Only, 24 hours before she was to arrive, she cancelled. And suddenly an Emmy award winning documentary film maker was coming in her place.

I emailed my class an outline of the new interview within an hour of finding out the casting director had been replaced. By 11:00 that night I’d come up with 10 lengthy questions and had watched clips of many of his films. At 6:00 the next day I was sitting across from a man who had produced groundbreaking documentaries in Iraq, who had only returned from Egypt a few days before. He’d seen the world and won awards and there I was, asking him about it. Just me, a regular college kid who has only completed Television Production 1 and was not even half way through Television Production 2. Before this, my experience had come from mock interviews with class mates in which we acted like celebrities in front of a camera for a grade. 

My mouth went dry just before he entered the studio. I chugged water and tried to look natural. It took a few questions before we really began to mold into a steady flow, just a conversation between college student and film maker.

After I thanked him in front of the class, I took him aside. I thanked him for taking the time. Letting him know just how honored I was that he had taken the time to talk to me. Then confessed, I’d never interviewed anyone with credentials that matched his before. He laughed and shook my hand, telling me I’d done great.

And he wasn’t the only one who said it. Classmates clapped their hands and have already asked that I conduct the interview the writer/producer of The Simpson’s we have coming March 8th. My professor confessed that she was proud and informed me she had talked to other professor’s in the Broadcasting department about getting me involved in the local television program produced in our studio.

It’s like I’m walking around in a dream.

I’m good at what I do. I don’t know why it seems to shock me more than those around me, but Jesus, it’s a great feeling. 

I’m updating a resume so that I can hopefully intern this summer. Come May, I’ll only have 18 credits left until I graduate. 8 of which will go away should I get an internship. It’s what I want, more than anything I’ve wanted since I applied to Montclair and became a Broadcasting major. I might even have what it takes to succeed.

It’s a great feeling.