Scout

The other day, my friend Joy nicknamed me Scout. I kind of like it. I've never had a nickname that didn't already have some part of my name it. Not that I can remember anyway. We'll see if it sticks.

Of course, she is referring to my current internship. I'm on week three of location scouting for a small independent film. How crazy is that? Does that happen? You go to work on a film as a PA or assistant and end up being THE location scout by the end of day 1? Yeah, I'm not getting paid but so what. I'm getting to know the city, meeting really great people and learning invaluable research methods. Ok, not really on that last part. After all, I've always been the one to research restaurants, bars and the like. This is just expanding the subjects really. It's not an easy job. Or at least not as easy as I thought it was going to be. People don't want their business interrupted, homes invaded and often don't call you back, not to mention the amount of driving I'm doing in a walking city. At times it's tough to visualize what others envision. We all read books (or scripts) and imagine the room, the person, the scene we are reading about; usually in a very particular way. In this job, I have to imagine how the guy who wrote it sees it. So far, I think I've been on track, which is amazing and fulfilling. Maybe that means I have the chops to be a director someday? Of my own stuff?? I've never felt that my imagination was strong enough to bring things to life visually, the way filmmakers do... or to even dream them up for that matter. I think I'm finding that is not the case, even if on a very small scale. I just never had or took the opportunity to test drive this part of my brain before now.

Someone once said to me, "you will be a better artist when you learn how to play." It pissed me off at the time. Art is so subjective. As an aspiring artist I judge myself constantly and little comments like that can send me into a cave. Last year, my writing teacher said (as she raised her hand into the air way above her head) "when I read your writing, I feel like I'm way up here." What she was trying to tell me was that I was not inside what I was writing so how could she be. Whatever. Whether she was right or not, I stopped writing for months until I started this blog. I believed what she said and somehow twisted it into a very resounding "you suck."

I came to Oregon, to start over on many fronts. Creativity is not the least of those. Wintertime will provide me with a dark hole to crawl in and create. I'm very excited about it. In October, I am hopefully going to be showing in Joy's show "Art from the Ashes," in support of the Santa Barbara botanical gardens. A film internship, another art show, I'm writing again... things feel like they are moving and moving in the right direction. I have chosen to learn from the statements I previously let stop me in my tracks. Not sure if it's the fresh start, fresh surroundings or excellently sweet strawberries giving me this new perspective. What I do know is that I feel like playing, I am engaged and I am going to make it happen. While I am still iffy on the what "it" might be exactly, I do not doubt "it" will be found.

Thank you for reading ~ Renee/Scout/Nelita/Nay Nay/Anay/Nunay/Nay/Nay Bird