March 15, 2010

Donner pic @ DGA
Originally uploaded by mrbosslady

My younger brother Jonathon is a religious studies major at CSUF and this semester I was able to convince him to take religion in film. Saturday night we ended up at the City of Angels Film Festival as a field trip for his class as he was required to see at least one film at the festival. What I didn’t know until I bought the tickets was that the festival was at the DGA, so I ended up with my first trip to the Director’s Guild of America.

This made my heart hurt in a good and bad way. I want so badly to be a working director, to make movies that matter, for an audience that needs to be stimulated. So being in the DGA building was awesome because it’s like making a piece of the fairy tale tangible; I was in the building that great American directors have been in, that helps regulate their work and unify them, I saw Taylor Hackford’s parking space!

I only saw the parking garage, lobby and theatre, but I was hooked. The lobby is encircled with images of it’s members on set doing what they do – Zumeckis directing Back to the Future, Spielberg directing Jurassic Park, Jackson directing Lord of the Rings, and even Donner directing Superman. The theatre itself was one of several on the premises and while I was totally spoiled by the theatre at Paramount when I worked there, the DGA theatre is pretty dang amazing too. I am a fan of comfortable seats and leg room!

The downside to all of this was the fact that as I explored the DGA building and passed the Editors Guild and Cinematographers Guild, and went through LA it made my heart sad. Not only do I want to be taken out of my desk job and into directing, but for some reason I have always had a heart for the industry and Hollywood and I am not there. I visit, but I live behind the “Orange Curtain” and work in a glorified customer service job…the only way I get stimulated to use my passion is by blogging, watching films and trying to push my own, but when no festival wants a film as small as mine it becomes insanely difficult to keep the faith and continue full steam ahead.

I completely trust God to control my life and I know the best way to live is to let Him direct my path instead of trying to swim upstream. I’ve been praying a lot lately that God would adjust my heart to what He wants but what I think now is that I not only need that but I need the discernment to know what it is He wants versus what it is I want. I don’t know if this heaviness on my heart and this drive are from me or Him; I lean towards it being from God but I have no idea what to do about this or how to proceed so it becomes difficult.

I want to go back to the DGA again and this time without wondering if I will ever be in one of the photos that graces the lobby walls.