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Master of Two Worlds
Nomadicus Jessicus: This is dog Latin for “I just put all my LA possessions in storage.”
Let”s do that obnoxious thing that audiences tolerate wherein I show you the present, and now we go back in time to show you how we got here. Subtitle: “Thirty days earlier.”
I know, I know usually it is “one day ago” or whatever but come on I am not practiced in this type of playschool script trick.
THIRTY DAYS EARLIER”¦
That would put me at Comic-Con San Diego”¦
It”s strange how you become something to someone and, if you don”t do something drastic about matters like shaving your head or robbing a bank, you remain that way to them forever. Or how you know that different people view you in different ways, whether it is an individual or a group of people. The way you were in high school, for instance.
Or, here”s one: I always think of Navy as viewing me as this little scrawny teenager, because that”s who I was when we first met during our Cambridge studies. Maybe it”s because physically I am small compared to him, or because I”m younger and was very green when we first met, or because in England he was like a big brother or that, in my mind, he will always be better traveled than me and worldly in separate ways because he is a SEAL. I don”t know if this viewpoint is true, we haven”t discussed anything so dreadfully self-analytical, but this is always how I have viewed our dynamic.
I worked as a lifeguard on the beach for four days this week. While we were picking up our assignments in the morning, the director scheduled me out for deep water. One of the staff guards, Gidget, generously offered to let me, “Get back into things by taking shallow water, if it”s more comfortable for you.” Before I could decline her offer the director established, “No, she”s one of our strongest swimmers.”
Allow me to point out that this is not true, nor has it ever been true. I am one of the most comfortable of the staff in the ocean, especially among the girls. That is true. And I got caught in some big water a few times and managed somehow to swim a few kids back in and straggle back onto the beach without dying, so there”s that. My small-ish stature probably makes 8-10 foot waves and such look more menacing as opposed to one of the guys who are 6”3. I”m a good athlete to boot.
But I have never been one of the strongest swimmers, not even during that first summer wherein I worked there part time, which is what allows me to list as a sub. I”m good enough, sure, and have had formal swim training all my life of course, and the certification necessary, but I wasn”t on swim team or things like that, or water polo and whatever else all these dudes did constantly growing up. When I got caught in that rip I realized my breath control had weakened. It”s a couple years later so hey guess what I”m not even as good as I was then, and even then I scolded myself for not having been better.
Alas, I remain one of the strongest swimmers in his mind: That is the role I play in his world. Anyway Gidget didn”t like that too much. I flashed her an apologetic look and took my shift in deep water. Then I taught a bodysurfing clinic. Completed a shift from the beach in the afternoon, drove home and barely made it through a shower before passing out for three hours.
Sometimes it”s the opposite and we lose the perception of our best qualities despite still having said abilities. I”m sure my sister thought I was cooler when I could take her to New York City for dinner just to celebrate our good grades and had the support of a studio company, prior to facing up to the realities of the entertainment vertical and taking the Independent route. I.e.: The route of most resistance and least pay. I'm wildly more enlightened and rad now, although regrettably unable to express my affection for my friends and family with lavish dinners.
Sometimes you have to lose a little face in order to maintain your ethics and purpose long term.
The last time I was in Virginia, I flipped through my Cambridge files and found a photo of Navy and I from the end-of-term feast. I look the same--I always look the same!--but he looks different. I think it”s that he had a goatee then, which I did not remember as I don”t see that as suiting his current personality. There I am, scrawny teenager and him this Navy guy finishing up his master”s degree.
My Cambridge friends have always seen me as a different person from the one my hometown friends see. Most of my going to LA and England was due to the training and opportunities in those places that a professional artist and performer cannot access elsewhere. A small part, however, had to do with a need to shake off that hometown social typecasting so that I could explore my talents without the social restrictions of others.
I was an athlete, a sister, a daughter, a girlfriend, a student, a lot of fun, but a dramatic stage actor? A multimedia professional? Published author? Screenwriter? I was working professionally and it didn't seem to register with my posse. Through moving, traveling, publishing this site and my work in Los Angeles, my friends have become reacquainted with me, who I was when I got here. Who I was becoming. Who I am now. They got to know what had changed while I was in England and LA and matched that to the parts of me they knew so well which hadn”t changed. And Cambridge did change me hugely: The shift in my perception”¦ I came back: evolved. Los Angeles has done as well, but in different ways and via many negative lessons.
Day to day we go on with it: Typecasting folks. We can”t help it, or can we? People are both fixed and fluid. To require of someone that they stay the same is to suffocate their growth or expect they die on the spot so that we may always remember them as they are right now.
Here's the part where I cite THE BREAKFAST CLUB:
“Saturday, March 24,1984. Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois, 60062. Dear Mr. Vernon, We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did was wrong, but we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us: In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct? That's the way we saw each other at 7:00 this morning. We were brainwashed.”
 Detention?!
Whatever your “it” may be, whether it”s related to the above idea, or something else: It”s one thing to know and recognize it, it”s another to do something about it: to master it.
When I saw Navy 30 days ago in July, I was inspired. Now that he”s back in San Diego, when he ships out for six months or more-ish (yes, we are still at war), he chucks his stuff into storage. When Brad and I crashed with him overnight for the Con, he was subletting a great place right behind the Padres” stadium, fully furnished, for three months. This made a lot of sense to me.
While in London a few weeks prior, I stayed in Kensington with a friend & Wingman who is also renting a flat fully furnished. Everything he needs is literally right outside his front door on his block: two groceries, post office, tube, drug store”¦ even a Starbucks. He doesn”t have a car. I got an incredible lot of work accomplished by not having to drive or plan driving or deal with LA time. It jarred me right out of my Hollywood coma: I had”¦ time. I had time to go to Kensington Palace and take reference photos of statues and fabric all day long. I had time to write. This lifestyle made a lot of sense to me. Basically, you get more done in all major cities, except Los Angeles, which I find unacceptable. In other cities people are out and about, and you can meet them. You may not even have to own or maintain a car.
 Yes, this is Stonehenge
LA does not make sense to me. No one is out and about here: you cannot meet them. Time is wasted here, everyday looks the same, soon blending into a five-year fog of traffic, smog and hours spent trying to coordinate driving plans in order to meet up with friends you only see twice a year all while suffering under the tyranny and slow movement of the studio system. If not for all of the in-town production resources and stellar crew, I would label LA one of the worst places to do film and media business.
I will now lean in close, lower my voice and tell you a secret that apparently is not obvious: Those production resources can be built up in other places. New Zealand, Northern California, Texas, New York City”¦ . Oh, if you work professionally in film, you will always be required to check in with LA. I find this reality acceptable: There are things I like about Los Angeles. I like my friends in Los Angeles. I reserve the right to visit or live in or partially live in the universe of Los Angeles. But it doesn”t have to own me. And certainly other places are more interesting to the filmmaker and audience, and allow for a different kind of agility in business and production.
I tossed my possessions into temporary storage. I consider myself shipping out, like Navy. It”s the perfect, smart choice, really, and doesn”t feel like a huge deal or unnatural to me at all. Which is why I was surprised when, in two different, recent press interviews about ARTEMIS ETERNAL, the journalists interviewing me treated the idea so”¦ heavily. For example:
“You are leaving Los Angeles soon, is that true?”
I paused because, was it just me or did that question sound like an accusation?
“You are leaving Los Angeles soon, IS THAT TRUE?”
Let me be clear that I am not the mayor of Los Angeles, so beyond losing the cache of living in Hollywood (which has nothing to do with accomplishing film, I”ve learned) I am not really sure why this warrants an investigative, accusative sort of, “IS THAT TRUE?”
Here is what I need: I need the freedom to go lifeguard on the beach for four days because I feel like it without fearing that somehow this is interpreted as whatever kind of failure or departure to commitment in my film career. I usually put in as a substitute at the beginning of summer. If they call me and I”m available, I go in. Since I mostly deal with kids there, it”s a nice relief from some of the people I deal with on a daily basis. If I went to the beach for four days on vacation it would be fine for perceptions, but because I go there to make sure no one drowns and I get paid”¦? Oh the pay sucks compared with production, make no mistake: I do it because I want to and hey earning some money for hard, physical work feels good. I suppose it would have more cache if I weren”t getting paid. But guess what there”s no such thing as a volunteer lifeguard and hell I deserve and need that pay. Anyway it was like getting a paid vacation! I just adore the ocean is all. And I hadn”t seen it all summer.
The beach is essentially a different universe and I reserve the right to visit different universes as much as I like. This makes me a better person and therefore a better writer, director and performer. And being around that many kids is, quite frankly, hilarious and good for the soul. I can”t Twitter while I”m working there (another benefit?) but if I could have, then you would have been treated to some amazing OHs.
In what has recently become a popular piece of web writing, Neil Gaiman used the “paint your house” example to explain that creatives need time to live. I don”t want to paint my house. Ever. I want to go work on the beach for four days. It gives me access to gear and training and a purpose for being there. I miss being constantly active in team sports. I like the people; they don”t work in movies or marketing or title themselves using words like "Executive" and "SEO". Well except for when I end up in a conversation with Christian Slater or Pam Anderson or someone who obviously works in movies, but I assure you we are talking about skim boarding and water conditions and nothing to do with things published in faux-news entertainment magazines. No, I”m not going to paint my house or even my room, but maybe sometimes I want to go get paid to do a physical job that puts me up against the elements if only in a minor regard. I also want to position my production in the way to best serve the film. That might mean chucking my stuff in storage for a while. But I won”t stop there:
You know what else I need? For journalists to quit with the being egregiously judgmental and/or basing their editorial evaluations on the multi-billion dollar mythology the studio system has crafted.
“You”re leaving LA soon, IS THAT TRUE?”
“Yes, for a season. Or whatever is required.”
(closing his notebook) “Mmmhmm.”
Oh, I see your Rita Skeeter+Dolores Umbridge, and I find it contrary to what art and film is at its best. Challenge and confront me on my work and ideas as you like. In fact I encourage you to be that caliber of journalist (for a change), but I suggest that passively aggressively judging my answers as though an unrelated fact is going to make or break a story about the film is ridiculous. It also proves a premise of our project that I never want to be right about, and that”s the entertainment press is almost hopelessly hypnotized by the studio system and all its thin, flashy tricks. If a reporter is a part of the panem et circenses, they are probably going to be resistant against publishing an article about the artist, production, community and movement that is blatantly challenging the panem et circenses model. Faux-rebellion is embraced and elevated. A true challenge?
That particular interview remains unpublished.
 Sorry, I can't hear you, I'm on a horse scouting locations so that I can make something while you rebroadcast studio movie releases all day long for profit.
I clarified the strategy involved and that ARTEMIS will mostly be lensed out east. I”m also getting ready to head to Portland to kickoff work on the intensive ARTEMIS ETERNAL web experience redesign. In addition, the concept artist that I plan to work with, well it turns out he lives in the Midwest and will be on location in Europe, so we will not be working locally from Los Angeles.
 Sorry, I can't hear you. Look what I found while you were changing your Twitter bio to read
"Social Media Expert"
Since I am ARTEMIS ETERNAL, the project and I are increasingly inseparable, and since you, reader, are involved in ARTEMIS ETERNAL, I figure you might be curious about the particular strategies of my whereabouts.
I will of course be here in Los Angeles for a month when we prep and shoot CRIMSON and for anything else requiring for me to be here before that point. Post-production will most likely be in Los Angeles as well, at which time I would consider myself moved back, most likely. It”s not difficult for me to come back as a local when I need and I can sublet if I need a longer spell. In short I”m multi-basing a little and it doesn”t concern me in the slightest as I will be saving heaps of money/overhead from chucking my stuff in storage and unloading my flat. I will guest and quest and work all over the place with one mission still at the forefront of all my action: ARTEMIS. This will be good: Neither Wingmen nor ARTEMIS ETERNAL are tied to LA. We”re larger than that, now, and in this way the world, our world, is a small world. It”s what planes are for. And guess how valuable this flexibility is? Wicked valuable. So back off, Mr. Rita Skeeter-Umbridge guy. Also there is no reason for you to ask me the same question twice in one interview.
“IS THAT TRUE?”
Dear entertainment professionals, give up your attachments to LA. This is the reason all movies look the same, and most of you are out of work. And, if you”re in work, you probably aren”t on a project with much of a soul and, at the same time, aren't being paid what you should be paid. Over educated and underemployed: Why are you here? Why are you perpetuating this worldview?
 Sorry, I can't hear you. I'm too busy reenacting The Lion King "Circle of Life" on this rock.
Multi-basing or technomading or living out of a suitcase”¦ that”s what I want my production story to be. That's where I want my story to be: In the field. It”s nothing I”ve been relegated to: I am actively pursuing my life in this way and sculpting my productions to be not here but OUT THERE.
YES, THAT IS TRUE.
OUT THERE!
Out there where life happens. I do have a center to my universe and that”s my family home out east. I do hold that there is a center for the film universe and that is LA. For all of my time in Los Angeles I have considered myself somewhat bi-coastal. Although, if you told me I”d be living this way when I was a teen I”d have replied with sarcasm, noting that this idea is counter-intuitive to everything I am. I was afraid then. I didn”t have Wingmen or a college degree or world experience or mastery in multiple crafts and I hadn”t yet read this story.
If being the master of multiple worlds is a weakness, then how do you reporters define strength? Mastering multiple worlds is only the result of every major hero monomyth journey, is all. Embrace the wisdom: I object to being subjected to your limited view of what film and a filmmaker should be. I”m pretty sure there are other locations aside from Los Angeles or sound stages just like there are other places to hang out other than your shoebox apartment or exoskeleton of a car jammed in traffic on a freeway.
It”s strange to turn a corner, to suddenly notice that evolution and triumph, and then to have someone else judge your step forward, the chess move that makes the most sense, as a step back.
Los Angeles is currently one of the worst cities for economic stability, recession recovery and unemployment. Perhaps it is a wise filmmaker who seeks to, for a spell, operate with increased freedom out of the top, most-stable metropolitan areas.
Here is my advice, and challenge, to directors of film:
Get to LA
And then GET THE HELL OUT OF LA.
Come back whenever you feel like it or find it necessary, because once you know this world exists and can be survived, you can do film anywhere. Including Los Angeles.
Master of two worlds.
Owner of a well-earned master key.
You win.
Now if the wimps are done with the judging, permit me, along with The WINGMEN, to continue unlocking some doors. I've got a flight to catch.
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