A harsh reality fully realized

A lot of change has been happening in the entertainment industry over the past year and a half. The economy has affected everyone, and even though it seems here and there that things are on the upswing, we still have a long way to go.

Beginning in 2008, the DVD market began to shrink. The back catalog of movies that the studios relied upon for some serious bank have all been exhausted. Consumers are now content with their collections (that's not mine in the photo, BTW), and the once fruitful marketing ploy of releasing multiple 'special editions' has worn thin on the general public. Blu-ray has not exactly taken the market by storm either. Sure, the picture looks amazing. But in a lot of cases, movies appear almost too clear and crisp, like they were shot on 30 frame digital video instead of 24 frame film. The switch to downloading movies to own and streaming movies to rent is coming fast. Since the beginning of the whole HD-DVD / Blu-ray war, I never had any intention of buying my entire DVD collection over again in this format. I too have everything I need (with exception of new titles) and will not buy a Blu-ray player or discs. Many industry experts agree; The not too distant future will see the end of physical media.

In short, I am responsible for the decline of the DVD. Just like millions of other people.

It's not something I am happy or gloat about. Just a fact. Two years ago, Bill and I were talking on the phone when we realized that we kind of have all the back titles we needed. I love my collection, and put a lot of time into compiling it. The next thing I want to see is a stack of drives in my home theater's storage vault that holds all of my movies AND the complete accompanying bonus features. On my laptop, a list containing a sea of box art or 1-sheet thumbnails that represents each film. One click of the mouse would trigger the movie or bonus feature to begin. That's what the future holds for me, and frankly I can't wait.

O.K. I veered off there a bit. The point is, when I arrived here in Los Angeles I began a barrage of reels and resumes aimed at every trailer post house I could find. Along the way I found myself working at several post houses cutting DVD special features. Something I didn't initially target in my career goal plan, but definitely the type of top studio projects I welcomed. I've always loved this content, so working on these has not only been fun, but a very important resume builder.

In the meantime, my continued assault on trailer post houses got me into KO Creative and Happy Hour Creative working on a series of high end projects. Happy Hour still wants to bring me on as a staff editor (which of course I'm very anxious to become), but I'm just not sure when that will happen in this continued economical climate.

Now that the DVD market has dried up to the point of severe drought, I realize that I'll be doing limited, if any work on these types of projects in the near future. Which leads me to the focus of this now very lengthy post. Thirty four reels and resumes have just gone out to thirty two trailer and two DVD houses. Yesterday I came to the stark realization that I must now expand my reach to contacting post houses of ALL kind; commercial, documentary, reality, sports, entertainment news, etc. I MUST find steady work, even if it's cutting something I have little or no interest in or connection with.

Today I went into the post production listings at la411.com where there are links to almost two hundred general post houses in the Los Angeles area, many I've never contacted before. The reel and resume factory will shortly be starting up again. But first I have to contact a lot of these places to verify if they are a creative house, where producers and editors take on client projects, or a 'four wall', industry term for a post house that rents out it's space to production companies who need full service facilities and bring in their own post team. The creative houses will be the ones I apply too.

I have to turn this situation around in some way, shape, or form. Because quite frankly I'm just plain fed up with living this way. The past year has been extremely wearing on me. I'm tired and can sometimes be despondent, but I am NOT giving up!