Darwin

Proud daddy, even though she's not doing anything much here. Being a baby. Being cute. This one's mostly for my parents.

Airbox/Darwin

Hey all. Haven't written in a bit; been busy with two big projects.

One is my daughter. I have one now. She's cute. She's loud. She's little. Darwin Jane Guiney. About 3 months old now.



Aint she cute? Big adjustment. I feel like a bona fide grownup now. No more pretending. Whole new deal since Alex quit her job to be a mom and I now have Responsibility.


The other big deal this last year is a new business venture I'm trying. I've invented a lighting device, an inflatable softbox or diffuser that fits on the popular on-camera light, the Litepanel Miniplus. Tried and true on thousands of reality shows and documentaries worldwide. The Litepanel is convenient, but not the most flattering of lights, and my device makes it much softer and more flattering but without adding any weight, being inflatable plastic. Check it out. It's at Airboxlights.com.

I'm picking away at making more different sizes that fit other sizes of Litepanel, such as the popular Micropro and the even more popular 1x1 model.

This is it:


Anyway, that's enough plugging for my new product. Oh wait, one more thing- besides Airboxlights.com, there's also my new twitter feed of lighting tips, opinions, and reviews- @airboxlights.
https://twitter.com/?lang=en&logged_out=1#!/search/airboxlights

Experiencing frustrations with trying to start a business, with the myriad necessary steps that it takes, at the same time as I have to step up my earnings significantly from my regular day job as a gaffer and electrician. This adulthood thing is no joke.

I started this blog when I was going walkabout around southeast asia. I was going walkabout because I knew I was going to get to this point before too long, where I had a wife and a kid and a bunch of responsibility. The concept of going wandering on my own to explore and spending a whole pile of my savings at this point is completely laughable. Even the idea of going to Burning Man again seems far from certain. Have I gotten boring? Is this boring? This is just normal. There does seem to be an idea that the only things that are interesting are stereotypically "young" activities, like "adventures". Maybe that's my preconception.

I'm a little obsessed with PEak Oil/Peak everything/looming economic collapse. More on that later.

Tom

career

The piece of advice I received the other day that stuck with me the most seems obvious in retrospect. Doesn't most good advice?

"As a freelancer, you have to consider hustling up work to be part of your job. Ten hours a week, you should be making phone calls and going to meetings".
A far cry from what we freelance lighting techs have come to consider normal. There's this combination of self-effacement and status-consciousness that riddles the culture of film freelancers. The idea is that you don't want to appear to need the work, it will make you look desperate or not in demand. I'm starting to think that that's a mask for shyness or inertia or complacency

After 13 years in the lighting business in New York, avowedly as a stepping stone to becoming a full-time DP, I sitll only shoot occasionally. Perhaps I could have hustled a little more? Just tell people what you want. The worst that can happen is they say no, which they probably will, but don't take it personally.

Had a chat recently with Peter Chernin who used to run News Corp. Liberal Arts grads, take heart. He was an English major and ending up running News Corp.

The Burn

It's time to put the Burn to bed. It has been a daily project in my life for much of this year. It's finally over. Decompressing. Planting my feet out here in the default world again. So what was it? Why so much?

Burning Man is a liberation festival. It's a fashion show, a different way of thinking, a debauch, a whirlwind, a production, a gathering, a celebration.

Big picture, it's different from other festivals because there's no commerce, no telecommunications, and relatively little litter.

Small picture, my camp was a intense gathering of some of my closest friends and family, in contact most of every day for a week.

Micro picture, the core values radical self-reliance and freedom of expression resonate powerfully with me.

back out to the big picture, it's just one week out of the year, yes, but I still reckon its worth putting the effort into it. I've been to a lot of kind of lame events in the city, and Burning Man does not fail you that way. You know its going promise what it delivers. A sure thing is worth something.

Career

Hm. Seeing a way out makes the walls seem more confining. Up until now, I've never been able to imagine a clear route to doing anything other than the movie biz; it's all I'm skilled at. The thought of jumping ship and starting over completely in another field has always felt abhorrent, so I put a brave face on it and enjoyed the good parts of this career. I've always enjoyed the freedom of being freelance, I love the constant stream of new people, I like periodic travel jobs, I like the occasional rigging problems that I have to solve. But. Overall, much of what I do in the lighting end of the movie and tv business is not challenging, is not interesting, is not socially redeeming, is not all that great. Yesterday an infomercial, today an interview with a goole exec, Friday reality tv, next week the Playboy channel. This is why I bailed out in 2006 and went traveling. The earnings called me back. Keep in mind, it's not as though I'm getting rich. Decent, comfortable, middle class money, but I'm not getting rich.

The source of the sudden new career anxiety is this: I'm in discussion with my mother in law about joining her company and eventually taking it over. She wants to retire, and pass her company to one of her children, or the next best thing. She runs three centers for speech, language, and occupational therapy in California.

It's a little later now, I decided not to do it. Why switch from one thing I'm only halfway interested in to something else I'm only halfway interested, but years back in experience? Would that really be better? I might get restless there too. I toured the operation for a week. It's all female employees and a lot of people with speech problems. Not convinced that' the right environment for me.

Gathering

The maelstrom is over now, but it was pretty good while it lasted. 4 days, lots of people and partying. Sometimes you need a good excuse for everyone to get together. A node. Way back in the fall, Jalal heard about Hot Chip going on tour and bought a bunch of tickets. Katie and Patrick came from Oakland, Kendall, Jalal and Libby came from Boston, Erika drove up from DC. Our house was the hive center. A bit of a slumber party, everything soft we owned spread out on the rugs as bedding. A pretty long weekend. Getting dressed up at our house, then the concert, then a gay bar, then back to our house where we set up lights and did a photo shoot of Katie's new line of hats. It's a nice feeling when everyone makes the effort to get there. We have awesome friends. I have done well by this marriage, friend-wise. There was a point during the concert when I just needed to squat down and rest, and my friends formed a stockade of bodies around me to protect me from the crush of the crowd. They're pretty awesome.

Arm

I'm laid up. Shoulder surgery. Voluntary? I guess so. Not really, when they say, "it's fine now but in three years it'll be complete shit and you won't be able to lift your arm." In so many words. So I'm recovering. Torn Labrum, Superior Labrum anterior- posterior, full tear of rotator cuff, sub-acromial spurring, bursal impingement and tendinitis. Got it all fixed up. PT now, an hour twice a day, still can't lift my right hand as high as my shoulder.

So one of the good things about this enforced long-term downtime is that I've been catching up on my favorite hobbies, and learning a little something: I'm happiest when I'm working with my hands. It's a shame, no one pays anyone o be a craftsman anymore, bu yes, I like Doing. That's how I got into the whole Art world that i later abandoned: I liked drawing when I was a kid, and therefore I ended up studying ARt, which got all complicated, and it has to be so deep, and it means something about society or culture or politics... Wait, find me the 20 year old who has something really insightful to say about the world. Please, do. Ergo: disillusionment. Career in film. But now, I delve deep into my "craft" (not Art) projects, and i love them, and it doesn't matter if they say anything to anyone about anything. I'm just doing them. All week I'veebeen buzzing along on making two space angel helmets for costumes for Alex and me, obviously for burning man, but for whatever costume party in between or after. I've discovered LEDs and soldering. Combining what I know from work with my crafty interests. Put pink LEDs in Alex' helmet so they rake her cheekbones in a flattering way.

A tired dog is a happy dog.

Tom