I think about Friday as “The Long Run”, the only day I can work a full 7 hours without any classes interrupting me. It’s like the one day I can zone in on work. The site I’m working on is almost done. I sort of stared at the index.html for awhile because I’d worked on the inner-contents first. With my video projects, I tend to work backwards. Think of the end first, then think about how to build up the story to that resolution.

The Blue Springs project was given to me about two weeks into the job. Blue Springs is a tiny furnishings store in Costa Mesa, bordering near Newport Beach. I’ve never been there, but I tried to create something that complemented the brochures that were provided by the people who ran the place. I’ve been pretty happy that I have the creative freedom to work on things there. Everyone at work is young and insane. I think that’s one of the reasons why I am working there as well.

It’s been about one year ago since I left the quality assurance department. During my time there I tested Playstation titles for a year and a half and worked at the company’s E3 booth during 1998 at Atlanta and again in 1999 at Los Angeles.

I’m reflecting because, in the one year since I’ve left, I’ve gone through a lot of ups and downs both personally and professionally. Have I changed in a year? I think so. Good in some ways and bad in others. Since I left, I put myself into another company that was beginning its downward spiral. I was there until the company itself shut down and fired everyone… a week before I could have worked my final week (I had given them a two-week notice that was voided since the company had suddenly canned everyone).

One of the things I never did, though, was return to despite friends telling me to “come back” since I wasn’t happy. I was often unhappy. And I still think I should have gone back. Everything would be different. It might not have been better than where I am now, but at least it would have been different.

The reason I am driven to sketch out future video projects or think about new web narratives stems from experience. It’s all about sublimation… it’s like my way of dealing with things. I channel my subconscious fears / desires / problems through something else.

Look at my “Untitled ( a music video )” project, for example. When I was storyboarding the thing out, shot by shot, and scripting the actions of all the characters, I honestly wasn’t thinking about what was going on with me at the time. I was just very happy to have a video production class where I could start continue to be creative. So I thought to myself, “I want to create this video about people and net chatting… and I want it to end bittersweetly… I don’t want to give people a happy ending, because that’s just sappy and that isn’t real life.”

It’s October now and, looking back from March, the video was in fact a very personal thing. Basically it was my way of telling people visually, “Okay, here’s a story about a girl and her boyfriend, and a total stranger who makes her happier than he does. Only, it doesn’t end with any bells and whistles and no one really ends up happy.” There are probably a lot of things I haven’t thought about that anyone will extract from the video. Also, I never recut the thing (there are shots in there I really, really hate, but can’t go back to with my current hardware setup). For what it’s worth, though, it’s definitely the first video project that was about problems and thoughts stirring inside me. I had to express it somehow.

It’s really nice to know that, in the now, I can pick up my Video8 camcorder, spend 5 bucks on a two hour blank videotape, come back to my computer and tell a story.