Begin to Produce

Image by Janos Feher Via FotoPedia.com

Whether you intend to go to graduate school, or wish dive headfirst into your career most schools and employers will require a work sample.

Listed below are steps to help you get started on your work sample portfolio ifyou don't have one already:

Step 1: Find the Target
The first thing you must do before you begin creating you work sample is decidewhat kind of job you would like to have. For example, I will become ascreenwriter and Director, most employers and graduate school departments willask me for a screenplay script or a short film to view my developed skills.

Step 2: Write
Start creating that work! Make sure that your piece is original, appropriateand professional in regard to your career or graduate school. There are severalbooks that explain how to produce a work. check one out if you haven'tdeveloped you own process:

• How to Write a selling screenplay by Christopher Keane
• How to write a screenplay in 10 weeks by Maroiyn Horowitz
• How Not to Make a Short Film: Secrets from a Sundance Programmer by Roberta Marie Monroe
• Naked Filmmaking: How To Make A Feature-Length Film - Without A Crew - For $10,000 Or Less by Mike Caroll
• Homework: A Parent's Guide To Helping Out Without Freaking Out! by Neil McNerney

There is a book for pretty much everyprocess. Just decide what you want to create and find the correspondig book!

Step 3: Gather Advice and Critique
Once your piece is finished, do not be afraid to have your, friends, mentor,teacher or a relative professinal you trust to examine your new piece.Personally, I handed a work sample to one of my teachers and begged them tomake the pages "bleed".

Step 4: Make sure its YOU

After you have created you have found your target, created your piece and allowedit to be critiqued by several scholars, go over your work again. Make sure thatthe piece is something that you are proud of. Make sure that your work containsYOUR style, YOUR Message, and YOUR Voice. Your name will forever be attached tothat pice of work, so make sure its something you are proud of.

For The Writer

I borrowed this from a Wikispace project that I had to do for a professional writing class this summer. Regardless, I found some great material!

You may have become an English Major because you love to read, write and communicate ideas to others. I know that’s why I became one. Personally, I have dreams of becoming a Screenwriter and eventually becoming a director of screenplays. English majors tend to have a knack for storytelling but it seems we are marketed mostly to become teachers and textbook authors. This being so, there are very few resources that promote the many other attributes of the English major and translate those skills into fulfilling careers outside of education.
We all have ventured to a website that claims to list possible career opportunities that are perfect for English majors, but when you scroll down the options seem way of course. Often listed is a column of stuffy jobs that demand you to play Tetris with your skill-set in order to fulfill the occupational requirements; occupations such as being an Accountant, an Insurance agent or a Traffic Manger –WHAT!?!-- Yep, I said a Traffic Manager. Many of times I’ve found myself asking: what happened to the “A” in “BA”, the “ART” in “Bachelor of Arts”? I am an artist, I create. Where are the jobs that allow me to do so?

Well, I found a few; here is a list of career paths that REALLY utilize skills reverenced by English majors:

Click on the occupation for a quick description

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Author
Book Publisher
Columnist
Creative Director
Creative Writer
Critic
Editor
Filmmaker
Humorist
Journalist
Librarian
Manuscript Reader
Narrator
News Reporter
Newspaper/Magazine Editor
Philosopher
Producer
Production Assistant
Publisher
Researcher
Screenwriter
Songwriter
Speechwriter
Writer

Thus far, Collaborating Sucks...

Copywrites by D Gore, http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2151402

In the past couple of weeks I have had several collaboration projects in my speech and Technical Writing class. At the beginning of the projects everything seemed fine. Everyone was listening to each other, joking around a little, sharing ideas; until the rudeness came. In speech -let’s call him Mr. Short- Mr. short sat down with the group portraying a collaborative spirit and asked “so, does anyone have any ideas?”. Excited about the project I said “yes, Directing!”. Mr. Short returned with “that’s boring, no one wants to hear that, anyone else, any OTHER ideas?” he continued to shoot down everyone else’s ideas until we all gave up and went with his. The obnoxiousness was unrelenting for the rest of the project. In technical writing the project went somewhat the same way, only instead of “Mr. Short” there was “Mr. Farmer”.

How did I handle this you ask? First, I was insulted, then I asserted myself, then I yelled, and then I went on auto-pilot and presented my part of the projects in the way I felt comfortable  most; without taxing anyone else of course, I’m responsible that way!

It seems every time I enter into a collaborative project I leave with bitterness. I’ve asked several people how I could change this pattern, but when I implement the advice I still end-up feeling over-worked, underappreciated and subjected to tyranny. How do I resolve this? Is it my approach to collaboration? Do I come to the group table feeling too arrogant or self-entitled? What is it? I honestly don’t know. Does anyone have any advice?

Branding

“Identifying your goals, defining your purpose, andunderstanding who you are trying to reach. It’s in that second one, definingyour purpose, where branding is born.”

-         Joanne Penn

This past spring I took a Digital Productions class and aScreenwriting class with Professor Safiya Songhai. The first day in classProfessor Songhai stressed the importance of a “Brand”. While going over theclass rules Songhai explain that whatever you do, no matter what it is, is areflection of your brand: every decision that you make is a representation ofyour brand. Though she was referring to class attendance, participation and beingin class on time, her statement spans to every aspect of life, whether it is academic,occupational or recreational. I understood what she was saying but did not considerthe weight of her nugget of wisdom until recently. Now that I am trying to gainsponsorship for conferences and film production, my “branding” objective has becomea very important concern. I asked myself: What is my brand? – I don’t Know –How do I find out? – look to the internet. So, I did: I looked on the internetand found an article by Joanne Penn, entitled Brandingfor Writers: An Essential Step to Building Your Author Platform. In thisarticle Joanne Penn breaks down what is a brand, and how to develop it. I foundit very helpful. Because of her article I have found that my goal is to conveyreality in a spiritual or INspirational way; I found that my purpose it to makepeople realize what they have forgotten or have overlooked (kinda like SpikeLee!), and that my audience consists of those who have been forgotten oroverlooked, the “little” people who do not realize that they are powerful, forby GOD, they are.

Picture provided by DonkeyHotey via Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/5666071828/sizes/z/, edited by Shei'Tia Benson

Tears in the Details

I was sitting in the car listening to the radio - 'cause music always sounds best in the car - and saw a woman step out of her house in a long sleeve hoodie and a pair of jeans. As it was over 90 degrees, I thought " how peculiar. I wonder where she's going. Hopefully its very cold in the arena." I don't know why I thought "arena", it just made sense at the time. Thinking about the woman's hoodie reminded me of the Trayvon Martin Case in which a "neighborhood watch volunteer" followed, shot and killed a 17yr old "baby-faced" black boy, Trayvon, with unjustified reasons supposedly stemming from Trayvon's grey hoodie: A tragic case centered in racial profiling.


The whole story is heart wrenching but what really brought tears to my eyes was the report proclaiming what Trayvon was carrying on his person that rainy night he was fatally shot down. Amongst other things Trayvon Martin had a bag of skittles in his pocket. How perfect. What other way can you capsulate childhood and innocence than with a bag of fruity, colorful, chewy candy. Skittles. That detail reminds you that a CHILD is dead; a promise filled with dreams, prodigious Will, youth and sugar. P.E.R.F.E.C.T.

 by way of Google Images

Click on Trayvon Martin Case to read more details concerning the case

I'm not a desensitized psychopath making light of the murder but this detail, in relation to the entire story, -the irony, the tragedy, all the framework and trappings of the case,- the skittles, captivated me. It's what film makers and novelists spend their whole career trying to capture. It's a romantic detail: it makes a beautiful story.

My Professional Goals

No!! No. NO! N.O. No. I'm not going to be a teacher. I refuse to be a teacher...well for right now. I'm sold, determined, convinced that I should be a storyteller. Whether I be a novelist or screenwriter, director or editor, I'm going to tell stories of truth. Not chronological truth or facts but a human truth, a universal truth. A soul speaker, a human connector, I want to tell a story that is "real": a sensuous real. I want to make you happy. I want to make you sad. I want to make you blush or cry. I want to make you angry, jealous, greedy, or hostile. I want to be a body snatcher, making you feel the stress of my characters; love with them ,die with them; if only for a moment. I aspire to be a grand artist, and remind humanity what it is capable of.


To do this, to BE this, I must learn how to create stories effectively. Two of my short term goal are to learn how to digitally produce video and write with discipline; the worst being discipline . I'm very lazy, a procrastinator and air headed. I lack focus but conquering myself is part of my journey as a new adult. Another one of my goals is to get into grad school. I have to apply to either University of Texas at Austin and University of Texas at Arlington by December. Currently I'm working on a digital production and written portfolio to submit to both and need major help. Any advise will be appreciated.

Go Longhorns! Image via google images