Communication in Writing

When I headed home that February, I tried to arrange to get together with P again.  She once again avoided that, in a slightly less indirect way, prompting me to send her a message that directly addressed how I felt and what I was looking for.  It was a much more direct than I had originally intended for our online conversation to become, but we hadn’t had a chance to talk together in person since the previous November, and I didn’t foresee that happening anytime soon.  In certain ways, it is easier to do that type of thing in writing, but must people seem to frown upon that approach as lacking courage.  I just didn’t see any other good options at the time.  And I am one who appreciates the opportunity to choose my words carefully and deliberately.

The fact that we hadn’t been spending any time together in person recently meant that I wasn’t really risking harming those situations.  But it is still hard to find the balance between taking risks to develop a closer relationship, while protecting the existing connection.  Based on our recent interactions, I didn’t necessarily expect a positive response; I just needed to get a clear understanding of her perspective on our relationship.  But taking those kinds of decisive steps are usually hard, because they are guaranteed to change a relationship, one way or another.  And sharing feelings always puts one in a vulnerable position.  I try to act in such a way that stating those things only confirms what should have already been apparent based on my actions.  But verbalizing things make them much more discrete, because actions can be interpreted in many ways.

I spent two long days waiting for a response, wondering if that message had been the right thing to do.  I still believe it was, but I didn’t get the answer I was hoping for.  But in declining me for the time being, P clearly left the door open for the future, and communicated that she valued our existing relationship.  While disappointing, that was not unexpected, and I didn’t think either of us would have been ready for a really serious relationship immediately anyway.  The issue had just needed to be discussed directly, because the ambiguity of the situation had begun to hinder our existing relationship.

We were both openly concerned about avoiding our relationship turning into an awkward mess.  But after a few messages back and forth to sort those things out, and make sure that we understood each other, we were able to continue our online dialog, pretty much the same as it had been.  I hadn’t really anticipated that going so smoothly, but once I got over the initial disappointment, it did make things easier to not be constantly wondering how she might be interpreting the things I was doing.  Instead of being concerned about how frequently I should respond, and deliberately trying to keep the conversation going, I just wrote whenever I had something worth saying.

Among other topics, we had the quite dialog about our similar feelings about, and approaches to, unstructured social situations.  I don’t know if I had ever really talked about that with anyone before, especially someone with such a similar perspective.  One of those C.S. Lewis: “What, you too?” moments.  We had different strengths in dealing with those issues, but I could definitely relate to her position, as usual.

Blind Camp

In telling this story chronologically, there are a number of events I have overlooked, and remembered out of order.  I usually add them to a list that I may address later, if I ever do anything else with the story.  This one was too good to omit, and I only missed it by a few posts, so I am returning to it.  There was one other event at camp that previous summer worth retelling, the week we put on camp for a blind group.

As usual, we didn’t get much warning that something unusual was happening.  But Sunday afternoon, during an all girls week, when the male counselors were expecting a DA week at Wild Oak, we were reassigned to the Frontier Lodge.  There were eight of us assigned to run that group, and knowing that experience would be needed, they picked the right people.  We were sent to a meeting with a character named Sharet, who was supposed to orient us to working with the blind.  It was a strange meeting, and it became apparent that this whole thing wasn’t very well planned.  But it was a source of endless humor that week: “So, why do we need a sign to welcome the blind group?”

I always prefer to have the oldest cabin, but in this case, that was the 50-70 year old demographic.  I did have two other leaders from their group staying in my cabin, so they took care of a lot of the issues.  It turns out blind people have this thing about being unconcerned about nudity, which kind of makes sense, but still.  It’s like a toddler covering his eyes and hoping that you can’t see him.  I should be the one able to go naked, since they are the ones that can’t see.  But not all of them were totally blind, some did have limited vision.  And they were with a Seventh Day Adventist organization, so the meals were vegan, if you can call them meals.

The first event on the schedule was ropes course.  I had taken the lead in general, but that position was solidified at the ropes course.  I had the staff arrive an hour early for setup, and then made them each climb some of the elements blindfolded.  That way they would know what it was like, before they belayed blind climbers.  Things actually went quite well, and probably twenty of them climbed and completed elements.  It is interesting to see how different their struggles were, illustrating how much of the challenge is all in one’s head.  Looking at the height of an element can intimidate some climbers, but that is less of an issue for blind people.  And they can’t see how high they are.  I belayed the Leap myself, having done that blindfolded repeatedly in the past.  Five climbers attempted it, and the only one who caught the bar, was the one who was totally blind.

We did climbing wall the next day, in a similar fashion.  They spent an afternoon with the horses, but that was one area where I did not take the lead, we just helped out where we could.  Blind archery is actually a real sport, shooting at audible beepers in the target.  We didn’t have beepers, so it was more of a shot in the dark.  We had balloons to give them audible feedback if they hit something, but we didn’t have to replace the balloons much.  I once again made the staff try it blindfolded ahead of time, which was helpful for them to learn how to assist each other, and then the campers.  But they enjoyed it, so I guess that is the point, even though I wouldn’t have hesitated to let them shoot at me at 15 paces, it was that bad.  It was a unique experience, and gave me a better appreciation for the challenges other people face.  And the blind group jokes made the week.

Whatever You Want

About the same time, McCoy was shooting his own BMW car commercial.  So I got a call from Hana one Sunday night, after spending all afternoon making a large pot of seafood gumbo.  She was on set down in the Port of Long Beach, and they wanted a piece of gear from the office, and wanted me to get it for them.  Supposedly they needed it immediately, and it would take them too long to send someone up for it and back.  Based on what gear they were asking for, I knew it was not mission critical, so I declined, and sat back down in front of my soup.  I got called back a few minutes later, from McCoy’s wife, saying that he really wanted it, and I was their only option.  McCoy had said to “give him whatever he wants” in return for my assistance.  She assured me that she would make sure he followed through.

So I hurriedly polished off the bowl of soup in front of me, but the pot on low, and headed to the office.  It took me a few minutes to find the device that they wanted, and I headed down to Long Beach with it.  It took me a little while to find them in the shipping yards, since I had never actually been in the port complex before.  When I arrived, I was not amused to find ten people sitting outside the production truck, just waiting around.  I was told the main team was out driving around shooting, and the support crew was just waiting until they came back to reload.  Clearly the sense of urgency they felt earlier had been lost.  They had tons of people they were paying to be there, just standing around, who could have easily made the half hour drive to the office.

I stuck around to see how long it would be before the crew came back to pickup the gear I had brought, but gave up after a half hour, and headed home.  I was not happy to have had my evening wasted for no good reason.  On the drive back, I pondered what exactly I should ask for, should they be ready to follow through on that promise.  I didn’t necessarily want to ask for something expensive, that is not my style.  I preferred something unique, that I would be unable to get anywhere else.

Finally the perfect thing occurred to me.  They were getting started on the planning for the Navy Seal movie, and one of the first shoots planned was on a Nuclear Ballistic Missile Submarine.  Rarely are civilians ever let on to one of those, and due to the cramped conditions, we were only going to be able to take a small crew.  But that would be a uniquely Bandito experience that I wouldn’t be able to get anywhere else.

I was a bit surprised that anyone even remembered that promise the next morning, but it was the talk of the office on Monday.  The crew had known when I left the set that I wasn’t happy that my “important mission” had been totally unnecessary.  So at lunch time everyone wanted to know what I was going to ask for.  When McCoy showed up, Hana brought up the issue, to make sure he was going to follow through.  He acknowledged the promise, and asked what I wanted.  I told him: “you guys set me up with a ride on a nuclear submarine, and we will call it square.”  “Alright, I will talk to the line producer, and see what we can do.”

Home for the Holidays

I got together with P again when I went home for Thanksgiving a month later, and that hike went much better from my perspective.  We discussed all sorts of things, and I felt like she really understood me, as demonstrated by her observations of exceptions in my life that didn’t really fit who I was at heart.  We had a really good talk, but still didn’t approach the topic of our actual relationship.  I considered it, but had trouble leading the conversation around that direction, which in hindsight was probably a fortunate thing.  I suspect I would have been totally unprepared for the results at that point.

Back in LA, work was pretty focused on preparing for a big event.  My company threw a huge Christmas party as a PR and popularity stunt, to show off our new warehouse office.  There were hundreds of people there, with lots of alcohol, and I hear it got even crazier after I left around midnight.  Not much actual video work got done between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I was soon headed home again for Christmas.

I tried to connect up with P when I returned home, but she didn’t want to get together.  That was the first setback in that process in quite a while, but it was a discouraging one.  It always causes one to wonder if they should have done something differently.  I saw her at the camp reunion, but didn’t get a chance to have much of a real talk.  I was rooming with MC5, so I got a bit of a look at the steps that led up to him being named the next summer program director during that reunion.  And we did ropes course and paintball in pouring rain, which is a bit tough with the masks fogging up.  But it was always good to be out at camp, and with the people there.

I was soon headed back down to work, and things were getting real busy at the office.  We had a big test shoot that happened to fall on my birthday.  We took all of our cameras, as well as gear we had rented, and tested it all at night, in the dark.  We had night vision goggles from the military, radioactive ultra-scope light intensifiers for certain cameras, and other with really fast lenses.  We played all night in a steep valley north of LA, testing different settings and combinations.  I had my laptop there to analyze the results immediately, and was highly involved in the process.  We concluded that the newest DSLR cameras were the best option for shooting in the dark, which we anticipated doing a lot of with our various projects with the military.

At the end of that month, we did a large shoot with the crew from Terminator Salvation, creating a prequel scene for a marketing campaign.  It was shot entirely on DSLR, using a process and workflow that I had played a large part in developing, so I was on set the whole time to support the process.  I was at one point offered the part of the voice of SkyNet, which I declined at 4am, afraid that I would screw it up.  That fear seemed to be well founded, when the guy who accepted the part botched it repeatedly, which does not win points with the crew when we are still working at 4am.  This experience may have unduly discouraged me from lending my voice to other roles on subsequent projects, which were probably a mistake to decline in hindsight.  But I am used to being valued for my mind, not my voice, and I accept that fact as part of my identity.

Moving Forward

When I returned to LA in November, I moved into a new apartment down in Culver City, much closer to work.  It was also much closer to the church I had begun attending, Shoreline West.  Interestingly that church had been started by Scott Mehl, my old peer advisor from back in college.  He lived within walking distance from my new apartment, and I started attending a Bible study at his house.  Even though my roommate worked at our new office location, he decided to stay in Hollywood, so unable to find a roommate in my new location, I was now living alone.

At work, we started experimenting with using DSLR cameras to shoot video, which was the first step in a process that steered the course of our company for years to come. Once again, my role in playing with the newest technology further secured my position as an innovator in my industry.  And my company continued to strengthen the relationships we had with hardware and software manufacturers, in part due to the level of technical feedback I was able to provide.

In preparation for our upcoming feature with the SEALS, we began to research new approaches and workflows.  The systems that I had put in place up to that point were very economical, and had served us well on our shorter commercial projects.  But we recognized that they wouldn’t scale well for the larger projects on the horizon.  So we began to invest in much more expensive solutions, which were more in line with the traditional approach taken by most companies in our industry.  So I put together Bandito’s first Avid system, and we hired someone new to help us use it, since that would require a complete overhaul to how we usually worked.

Siobhan was our first legitimate editorial assistant, and came from a very different background.  She was quite an interesting character for me to work with.  You would be hard pressed to find two people who were more opposite.  She was very confrontational and vocal about her perspective.  I was pretty startled by how little she knew about video work, and she was probably startled by how little I knew about traditional film work.  So we each had a lot to learn.  And while we butted heads frequently in our approaches to various problems, that usually eventually led to finding good solutions, since we would have to satisfy both of our objections.  After a few weeks of constant debates and arguments, we eventually came up with a reasonable initial plan for the movie.

Even with her differences, she was soon a closer friend than anyone else in the office.  We would never socialize outside of work, because I had never done most of the things she did for recreation, and still have no intention to do so.  But we had very good talks, because she wouldn’t hesitate to ask very personal questions, and I would end my answers with “how about you?”  She was probably the first person I really became friends with, who had a totally different world view.  We had very different beliefs and values, but still respected one another.

One Week a Month

That fall we had a discussion about my compensation at work, and while the company couldn’t afford to give me a raise, I instead asked for one week off per month, so I could go home to NorCal regularly.  That was a satisfactory conclusion for everyone, and I scheduled my trips home on weeks that the company was less busy.  At home I was able to stay in better contact with my friends from camp, and host big BBQs at my parent’s house on a regular basis.

I also maintained a consistent online conversation with P once camp was finished for the summer.  That relationship played a fairly significant role in my life at that point.  Among other things, it kept my focus on NorCal, and planning to move back up there.  I think that was a good thing, since that eventually did happen, and has been a positive change in my life.  The relationship itself was interesting, because we were two people who were on the introverted side of the spectrum, slowly building a connection and getting to know each other.  I was pretty elated at that point at the positive progress in that regard, and maybe more so at the lack of negative setbacks, which I was more accustomed to.

At that point I was operating under the assumption that P wasn’t ready for any closer relationship.  I had previously dated someone, and had close friends of the opposite gender, so it was a bit less of a foreign idea to me.  But that had been the result of much effort and growth on my part over the last few years, and I could still clearly recall what it had been like to be in her position myself, not so long ago.  I was well aware that even being friends with people of the opposite gender can be stressful if you are not used to it.

While I was deliberately pursuing a relationship with her, I avoided pushing things in a specifically romantic direction.  Instead I kept things focused on developing a stronger friendship, and becoming more open with one another.  I figured that would be a healthy growing process for both of us, regardless of whether or not it ultimately led to the destination I was hoping for.

I just maintained a constant line of communication with her online, and tried to be as open as possible, to get to know each other better.  And when opportunities to get together presented themselves, I definitely tried to help make that happen.  When I took my monthly trip home in October, I asked to get together with her.  She agreed to go hiking together before I left, and we didn’t let a light rain stop us from meeting up.  It was definitely nice to see her again after a few months of online dialog, but I don’t think either of us was quite comfortable enough with that type of social situation to really relax and enjoy it.  And her dog definitely kept us on the move, but we did get to spend some time together, and that seemed like a positive step.

And as soon as we got back to our cars and left, I was on my way back down to LA. The contrast between my time in NorCal and my time down South was pretty dramatic.  And while I valued each in its own way, I knew where I wanted to be spending my time.  And I recognized that my time in LA was starting to take a toll on me, both from working too hard, and just in little traits that I noticed myself picking up from being in that culture.

The Vision to See Things Clearly

One weekend that October, I arranged to go see H, who was now attending the college she had checked out during her previous visit.  The day before I was planning to go visit her, she called to cancel.  Her excuse was that she couldn’t see; she had run out of contacts, and was still waiting for her next set to arrive in the mail.  She was just secluding herself in her dorm room until they showed up.  I was a little surprised, and pointed out that she should be able to get by with just glasses, to which she responded that she didn’t have any.  I told her that was a problem I would help her solve the next day if her contacts still hadn’t been delivered.  As it turns out, they did arrive and we connected up and headed out to lunch the next day.  On the way there I pointed out that since she was headed to Africa the next semester, she would be in trouble if she couldn’t find clean water to take care of her contacts.  She agreed, but pointed out that as a broke college student with parents who were out of work, she couldn’t afford glasses, especially since her vision was bad enough to require expensive ones.  Being someone who doesn’t let himself be limited in that way, I pointed out that while I couldn’t fix her vision, I could rectify the financial limitation.

I wasn’t sure exactly how that would work, and it seemed like a strangely personal problem to be helping with, but I wasn’t going to leave my friend stuck in a foreign country unable to see properly, if I could have prevented it.  There happened to be an optical shop next to the restaurant we ate at, and she still had her prescription on her, from her recent contact order, so we headed there after lunch.  There wasn’t much of a selection of frame options, but we looked through all of them before she decided on a pair she liked.  It turned out that she was right about having an expensive prescription.  There were two options available, and after a short discussion, we decided to go with the more expensive choice that should provide the best result for both vision and appearance.  I figured there was no reason to go halfway.  If I was going to the trouble of giving her something, we should make sure it was something she was going to actually use.  Being unfamiliar with the process, it was a surprise to be told they would be ready in two weeks.  What if she hadn’t already gotten her contacts that day?  How would waiting two weeks have been useful?  I later learned that we should have gone to Lenscrafters if we wanted an immediate solution.

Their arrival date happened to be on her birthday, so I told her to consider them a birthday present.  It definitely ended up costing much more than I had originally anticipated, but that was fine.  At the time it was probably the most valuable gift I had ever given anyone, but it became the first of a growing series, and probably now doesn’t even make the top ten list.  Ironically I think she hardly used those glasses in Africa, or for the next couple of years, but I much later learned that they became important in dealing with a separate issue.

Need More Power

Eventually we had things working, just barely, on occasion.  Both the power and the phones would cut out at least once a week.  But we were moved in, and work was getting done.  I was still building out the facility over the next few months.  We ended up bringing Ben back during that time, a year after his rough summer, and he helped me with a lot of the installation work.  I bought lots of new gear during that time, primarily from eBay and NewEgg deals.  I figure that I was buying enough gear and finding enough good deals to save the company an average of a thousand bucks a day for six months.  Once we got it all setup, I could control everything from my desk, operating the systems and routing them to any room, and send their video output to any screen in the facility.

About a month in, I was starting a screening in our new theater for the president of IMAX, and the moment I hit play, the power went out.  The room was dark, so no one else even knew right away, just expecting the picture to start any moment.  My workstation was on battery, but the projector, speakers, and lights were all off.  I had to go open the door just to give them enough light to get outside.  It was not the proudest moment for my bosses.  There was also a large event planned to take place at the office that night, a script reading like the one in Argo.  So we checked the circuit breakers all the way up the system, and everything was still on.  It eventually took the power company eight hours to restore the electrical service to our feed.  It was technically back on before the event, but in the meantime, unable to risk it not being repaired in time, we had rented a generator, and gotten it all hooked up.

That prompted us to look into a more permanent generator solution.  We eventually got a large generator, which we ran every day, allowing us to use all of our equipment at once, which had not been possible with the construction power.  And then every night as work was winding down, we would shut it off, and using a system I designed, switch the whole building onto the construction power for the night, with a large physical transfer switch.  So the power would go out for about two seconds, twice a day, which rebooted any systems not on battery backups, and reeked havoc on our UPS systems in the long term, but we were able to keep everything going.  Having more power available also allowed us to install an air conditioning system in the edit rooms.  We hadn’t had anything like that until then.

It was about this time that the post side of the facility got another nickname, the Millennium Falcon.  “She may not look like much, but she's the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy.”  We were using cutting edge technology, held together with duck tape and twist ties, but every once in a while it would just fail to start.  At which point Scott would come out of his edit room, imitate a Star Wars sound effect, and cry out, “Mayday, the Falcon has crashed.”  My boss even had Bandito Post Team t-shirts made, with the Millennium Falcon silhouetted in the background.