Dear VFX Worker

You deserve more than this.

You deserve more than the 80-120 hour work weeks. You deserve more than the dark rooms where you labor away with your cold lunch on your desk for 16 hours a day. You deserve credit for the work you’ve done, acknowledgement for your artistry and better treatment across the board.

I’ve worked for 10 years in film – 7 of those in VFX and I marvel at the fact that of all the workers who labor passionately to bring a film project to life, the VFX workers are the only ones in the film industry without a union or guild protecting our rights. We don’t have health care, paid time off or any sort of job security. I’ve seen hundreds of employees laid off at the end of a project so a company can struggle to keep afloat and while most of those people have overtime pay, not all of them do.

I recently found out from a friend of mine in nursing that if her shift is changed within 10 days of the date it was scheduled for, she’s entitled to doubletime pay for the entire shift. Shoot – I’ve had my own shifts moved, extended or appear out of thin air with less than 10 minutes notice. I was once expressly told to take the day off because of the amount of hours I’d worked the past 13 days (no weekend) only to get called in at 10am to be there ASAP. I’ve been forced to text VFX crew members at 11pm, 1am and even 6am to tell them to be there the next day as early as 7am.

The problem with out industry is not subsidies and foreign governments with lower wages. Those are symptoms of the problem. The problem is that the VFX market is not being treated as an ART form by Hollywood. The studios hiring the VFX houses that hire you are not looking for the talented crew that did X – they’re looking for what they can get cheap and fast.

No self respecting movie studio would go to an Oscar wining actor and say they really liked working with them and want them to do the work, but unknown Joe-Bob over here will do it for half the rate so can Mr. Big Wig Oscar Winner match the rate? But that’s exactly what they’re doing to VFX houses. So VFX houses are forced to squeeze the employees with short term contracts, no medical coverage and increasingly poor working conditions.

Why wont Hollywood recognize the talent and skill in VFX? Why did Rhythm and Hues file bankruptcy a mere 11 days before winning the Oscar for best VFX? An Oscar that the academy clearly cut the winners off before even mentioning R&H. I’ll tell you why – because those talented artist were not being treated as artists, but as commodities.

I worked on the set side – I’ve worked union gigs. Hell, I was a member of IATSE when I was on set. They’re for standard pay rates, healthcare and safe working conditions. You better believe there’s fees too for not giving crew enough time off between shifts and the like.

When I’ve been in VFX the only person looking out for the crew was the production team and maybe one or two studio folks. But that was more of a manage the pain than actually doing something about it.

I have experience going to the studio HR with a formal complaint and being told it wasn’t real – never mind the fact that people were suffering. I have seen people being worked so many hours that their doctor actually tells them they need to stop working for their health. I have killed myself in VFX working to make a project come to life only to have my name removed from the credits because the producer didn’t like me.

I was put through the wringer on a project with absurd amounts of overtime and then asked to roll straight on to another project because the studio had too much work and not enough people – I’ve seen dozens of people do the same. We’re wrung out for everything we have to give, wrung one more time for good measure and then tossed aside for another newcomer to take up the work. It only seems to be getting worse in recent years as Studios give VFX less and less time, direction or money.

Right now, I’m fighting the VFX house that has wronged me, the one that caused my health to deteriorate so deeply that it’s taken me the better part of 2 years to be a functional human again. I’m doing that because what the VFX industry does to people shouldn’t be allowed – we don’t need to put up with this.

We deserve to be treated like artists. We deserve to be treated like humans. I encourage you to express your interest in IATSE there’s literally no reason not to but every reason to do it. I don’t want to see more people crushed by this industry. We’re making movies this should be fun, not torture!

Sign Up Now!

 

Writing and the Prevention of – SQUIRREL!

So I’ve been sick all week and used up 3 of my 5 sick days for the year and it’s only January. I’ve spent much of the time wishing I could sleep, staring aimlessly at various television/youtube shows and reading with some scattered attempts at writing.

Between fits of coughs and drastic ploys to attempt to fall asleep I’ve gotten barely any work done on my current writing projects. Everytime I pop one open I think to myself that I really need to see what that Facebook notification is, or refresh the forum to check for a comment or maybe instead I should read one of the many reference books piled up on the floor.

Needless to say, I haven’t gotten much done. I’ve been sick and lacked motivation and focus. I shouldn’t blame my illness, but it’s usually easier that way. Truth is I always find I write better when I have a specific deadline that isn’t 100% self imposed. Although even with deadlines I tend to leave things to the last minute – I like the pressure.

So this year I joined 12×12. I’m hoping that will give me some drive since there’s a clear target. I’m also going to try working on one of my other two longer books – although I haven’t sorted which one. And I’m going to get back on the blog train.

Yeah, it’s a lot. I’m not sure why I think this is a good idea – oh look, a Facebook notification!

That of course is the point. I can do all these things if I can get the distractions gone/diminished. I’ve already cancelled cable – which I did for financial reasons, but I feel like it’s added some time to my life. Hopefully I can find some new and creative ways to keep myself on track.

So here’s to getting things done and words on paper/screen in 2019.

Blog Split

As I sort out my life and my blog I wanted to let folks know that I’m splitting my blog into two.

My Sunday School Curriculum and all Preschool lessons I’ve written will now be posted under my blog: Preschool Gospel

I will keep all Sunday School teacher specific information over there.

This blog: The Story Block will continue to focus on my writing – of ALL kinds. Creative writing, writing updates etc. This may or may not include Christian specific content.

As far as old posts that are not writing focused – I may or may not clear all those off. That remains to be seen.

My Nephew’s Vacuum – The Story of Victor Vacuum

At the time of writing this, I have 1 nephew whom I love to pieces. Needless to say when he was born I was very excited to be an auntie and this kiddo is beyond amazing. Even though I live in another country and don’t get to see him everyday, I try to spend as much time as I can visiting.

When he was around 18 months old, he started becoming obsessed with vacuum cleaners. Granted I wasn’t present at this time as I was in another country but I heard the stories every time I spoke with my family. When I visited at Christmas he received his first vacuum – a battery powered toy Dyson with noises and actual (albeit limited) suction.

He loved it.

The next time I visited was a few months later and we played vacuum for hours. He’d go around the house with his vacuum – stopping at the closet to check on his grandma’s vacuum – and we invented a game I called “watch your feet” wherein you had to move your feet out of the way of the vacuum so we could clean underneath.

The nephew loved that game. Grandma not so much.

We built a cardboard box fort and since I couldn’t fit in there with him and the vacuum I drew a vacuum on the wall of the fort. He immediately reached over, put his finger on the handle and started making vacuum noises as if he’d turned it on.

As you can see, this kid loves vacuums.

Now wanting to be a good auntie (and given that it was about 2 months to his birthday) I decided I wanted to get him a vacuum book as a gift. All kids should read books and why not have the option to read about something you love?

The options I found online were disappointing and not one of them was a toddler durable board book. But I’m stubborn and my love for my nephew dictated that he needed a vacuum board book. So I put my writing degree to work and with the help of an amazingly talented artist friend – created my own book just for him.

Before deciding to write my own vacuum themed board book, I searched high and low for books with vacuums for kids – there are some, but all of them had comments that said something to the extent of “my child loves vacuums” and “we read this every night”.

So I knew that my nephew was not alone in his love for vacuums. All of those kids (and parents) deserved to have more book options on their favorite topic.

That is why I knew Victor Vacuum couldn’t be limited to my Nephew’s bookshelf. This is why Katie and I have worked tirelessly to make this book a self published reality. We’re currently on Kickstarter with the hopes that we’ll get enough support to print this book for kids worldwide.

This book was born out of love. My love for my nephew. My nephew’s love for vacuums.

And I would love to make it available to more kids.

My First Book – A Kickstarter Project

I’m just a few days away from launching my first book on kickstarter – a crowdfunding platform for projects. We created a board book: Victor Vacuum that we need help self publishing.

Why a book about a vacuum? A kid’s board book nonetheless.

Well, I’ll tell you.

My nephew has been in love with vacuums since he was about 18 months old. He got a toy toddler sized vacuum for Christmas and he just loved it. When I went to visit, I watched him vacuum the living room and the rug and basically everywhere. We visited my mom’s vacuum cleaner and I drew a vacuum on the wall inside our cardboard box fort.

I decided I wanted to get him a book about vacuums for his 2nd birthday.

Now maybe you’re surprised to learn that there are not really any books out there. There’s a few – but none of them are board books, and the general options didn’t seem like what I was looking for. So I contacted my friend Katie and asked if she would be willing to do the artwork and I wrote one.

Thus Victor Vacuum was created. Katie and I were so proud of the book, and got some amazing feedback from other (not vacuum enthused kids/families) that we started our own company to bring Victor to the world and continue collaborating on additional books and similar projects.

We’re super proud of this finished product and we can’t wait to have it out there in the world – be it in the hands of other vacuum enthused toddlers, parents who want to encourage their little ones to clean, or even as a tool to help those kids who might be afraid of this common household item.

I’m learning a lot about book publishing, crowd funding, packing materials and shipping. Kickstarter is only a few days away and I’m both nervous and excited.

You can follow our company for updates on this and other projects  on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or our website.

Sunday School Teacher

The blog has floundered a bit lately as I deal with some life stuff. But writing is coming back to the top of my game and I’m here to stay.

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For some who don’t know, I am a Christian, and a Sunday School Teacher to toddlers. Specifically the 2 year old and 3 year old members of my church. I’ve been teaching in that age range for…16 years and I’m not stopping anytime soon.

That’s 16 years across 3 churches, 2 of which had limited to no program or curriculum for teaching these young preschoolers. But the first church I taught at, the one I myself grew up at from age 5 – that is where I learned the majority of my teaching skills and just how capable the toddlers in our church family are to hear and receive the Word.

At the time I started teaching, my childhood/family church (North Coast Church) was buying and using a developed curriculum – complete with flannelgraphs, take home sheets and occasionally the bonus items for the lesson. It was (and is) a large church and took a great deal of organization to equip all the various classroom leaders for several services, as well as the classrooms themselves. I’m grateful for that behind the scenes work that I never really understood until I moved out of the area and started at another church.

The 2nd church I attended, just had a glorified babysitting for their childcare. No lessons, no coloring time – not for kids so young. But I had years of experience and a stockpile of old teacher books, so I told them we should make it happen. This same event more or less repeated itself when I moved again.

Now this isn’t about my implementing of lessons for toddlers at 2 different churches. This is about the fact that your church and your toddlers are also capable of having lessons. Maybe you like others I’ve known, don’t see how kids of that age could have a lesson – but the Bible is for everyone.

True, these lessons are usually 5-10 minutes tops. Kids of that age have shorter attention spans after all. But they get the lesson and more importantly, their parents get some take home sheet to know what their child learned that they might review with them.

A couple of years ago, I realized that the stack of teacher books I’d moved with was more limited than I thought possible to teach to this age and so I started creating my own curriculum which I want to share with you. Curriculum geared for the classes of those little ones, something practical that is already at their age.

Over the course of developing the curriculum I spent extensive hours on Google in an attempt to find ideas and other ways to reinforce a lesson – most lessons are not available to younger than kindergarten. Which is why I want to make them free for the Internet. In hopes and prayers that the children in your church can get the Word into their lives.

Coming soon – Lessons for ages 2-5.

What I learned doing the 100 days of Happiness Challenge

It’s been a long, long, long time since I blogged. We’re back with a doozy of a post – so buckle in.

 

I recently completed the 100 days of Happiness Challenge.

The idea behind the challenge is simple. For 100 days, take and post a picture of something that made you happy that day. I love a good challenge (if anyone recalls many moons ago when I challenged myself to blog every day for a year). A challenge that requires me to post things publicly is even better as there’s a sort of accountability with the entire internet when your completion (or lack thereof) is public. The reason behind the challenge is to help focus on the little things in life that make us happy, to think positive thoughts and to generally become a happier person.

I think.

I probably should have researched more about the point of the challenge before doing it. My main takeaway was: if you’re sad it will help you be happier. Not by making you a happy go lucky all the time person. Instead by allowing you to see not everything is awful on account of the moments of joy scattered like seeds on a sesame seed bagel (albeit some bagels are seedier than others).

So here’s what I learned – no it’s not 100 things.

1. It doesn’t actually make you happy.
   • Sure you acknowledge moments of joy and happiness. But on the whole are you a happier person because you took a picture of something that made you smile every day? I don’t think so, it more just helps you not focus so much on things that are sad. Maybe you think that pulling your attention away from whatever is dragging you down makes you happy – I disagree but more on that later.
2. It’s really hard to take pictures of everything that makes you smile.
   • Partially because I feel like I turned into one of those cliche Instagram girls who has to have perfect lighting and stop constantly to capture something rather than enjoying it. At some point I gave up on the lighting thing and accepted that no matter how many different filters I tried, some of the pictures still looked like garbage. But garbage that made me happy. So what do I care if you think I’m a stinky photographer? Leave me alone with my smelly garbage photo. :p
3. Some things that make you smile can’t be captured in photography – or shouldn’t be.
   • There were moments that made me smile these past 100 days that were comments, jokes and other life experiences that can’t be captured in a single photo. They were fleeting, they were verbal or it would have ruined the moment to get the camera out and try to take a picture of it. Nothing ruins a moment more than stopping everyone while you pull out the camera and force everyone to hold a pose. There’s a line between enjoying a moment and documenting it. One of my pet peeves includes people who spend too much time documenting events that they don’t get to enjoy them. I opt more often than not to experience rather than document, so this challenge went a bit against my normal inclinations.
4. You suddenly find yourself putting more of your life online than you might have otherwise.
   • I don’t usually post a TON to social media, but I do post. With 100 days of happy challenge I had to post more often than I would have otherwise. I don’t post meals that I eat or every time I take pictures of my snoring dog, but with this challenge, I sort of had to. This additionally opened up a lot of unsuspected conversations with people who took notice of my posts that previously haven’t commented/liked my posts.
5. Sometimes, nothing made you happy that day.
   • There were a couple of hard days in the 100 days. Some where I would get to the end of the day and realize – wow, this was not a good day. I didn’t take any pictures, I could barely think of anything that brought a genuine smile to my face and yet I still had to do the challenge. Maybe not everyone does 100 consecutive days and thus skips those sorts of days, but I wanted 100 consecutive days and so I had to find something at the end of the day that would make me happy. Thank goodness I have pets.

 

So why did I do the challenge?

This is where the blog gets a little heavy. You don’t have to read further, this is mostly for me and my healing.

For just over a year now I’ve been dealing with depression – something I’ve never experienced before in my life. The why behind it I’m not going to get into. Generally things were pretty bad and I felt like no matter where I turned there wasn’t much in the way of help. A strong feeling of isolation, a general lethargy and lack of drive for basically every aspect of my life. I tried a lot of things to get better: books, counseling, medication, meditation, travel, food, exercise, Netflix marathons…nada.

A lot of “help” would include things like “look on the bright side”, “don’t let it get to you”, “think positive” etc etc. Well I’m positive that didn’t solve the problem. Thinking positive doesn’t take away what’s causing pain in your life. Yes, it can help you stop dwelling on it. It can help you to not feel sorry for yourself all the time; but it doesn’t necessarily solve the issue. I think there’s a line between depression and feeling sorry for yourself in a rough situation and sometimes those lines cross or line up for a bit and even influence each other.

Honestly I don’t think this challenge was the answer. I probably knew that going in but somehow felt like I needed to try based on the number of “think positive to be positive” type comments. I’m still glad I did the challenge; but posting pictures of small things like a sunset or a good meal doesn’t change your entire demeanor. I knew about halfway through the challenge that I would likely write this blog and if nothing else the challenge opened me up to blog about the much taboo topic of mental health. So that I’ll count as a general win.

I can almost guarantee 95% of the people who read this blog after following my 100 days of happy challenge had no idea why I was doing the challenge and what I was going through. Most people don’t talk about mental health whether they suffer from it or not. There are movements trying to bring awareness, and yet those suffering don’t talk about it. Why would we? Being told to “get over it” isn’t going to help you when you’re drowning after all and that seems to be a lot of the so called help when people do cry out.

When we’re physically injured people rally to help, send well wishes and check in on you. When you’re mentally injured we hide it and as a result are largely left to deal with the problems on our own. Some people may have a cry for help, others might not. Most people don’t know how to help whether they know what’s going on or not. Frankly those who need help might not even know what that help looks like to even ask for it.

 

So what helped me?

God.

I know I just turned half the readers who made it this far off. I don’t care. Like I said this blog is for me and there’s no way I’m ignoring the presence God has had in my depression.

Prior to my suffering that lead to depression I wasn’t great at reading my Bible or communing with God on the daily. Sure there would be periods that were strong and periods that were really bad but overall I wasn’t great. I’m still not amazing at it and because we’re all broken individuals and I don’t expect to ever be truly great at it. As my suffering increased I found myself driven back to the Word more and more regularly. Sometimes in tears. Sometimes as I ran out into the rain listening to my audio Bible to get away from whatever was going on.

Despite this frequency of reading the Word, the suffering did not lift and eventually spiraled into full fledged depression. At this point I couldn’t read anything. Focusing on any book was too much work – even the Bible. So I turned to podcasts and online church sermons in between bouts of depressive Netflix binges. Recently I listened to a sermon that pointed out that God can use bad situations in our lives to draw us back to him.

Maybe I was in danger of falling away – my job gets crazy hours and sometimes I justify not having devotional time by being too tired or because I just worked a 18 hour day etc. Similar to how a gardener prunes a plant to help it grow better, so too does God sometimes use trials to help us grow closer to him. That is I think the biggest thing I’ve learned over this past years even beyond the 100 days of happiness challenge. Instead of thinking a small photo of the day may make me happier, I can realize that I’m in the hands of someone bigger than I am who ultimately has my best interests at heart.

 

So the 100 days challenge is over. What now?

Well I continue forward with my life – just without documenting it as much. Regardless of ups and downs; I am still fighting. I’ll probably still post some happy photos to social media and I’ll definitely be reading my Bible more.

I move forward in full knowledge that God has His hand in what I’m doing and where I’m going. Yes going through this has majorly sucked and yes I’m still technically dealing with depression. I’ve gone through much I would never have chosen to experience. I’m still healing. But God uses the broken not the strong – because He is strong. God has placed me where I am and He knows what I need. He knows where I’m going and He knows that experiences like this in my life will be of benefit down the line; maybe to me, maybe to someone else, maybe both.

I’ve had experiences in the past that I wasn’t fond of at the time. Ultimately they helped me to help others through similar situations or put me in a place to talk to those I might not have spoken with or even took me somewhere I never imagined I would end up. There’s a reason and a plan in the midst of darkness and no amount of thinking positive will change what God has planned for your life. God is of course looking at the big picture and as evidenced over and over in the Bible, He knows what he’s doing even when the present is less than desirable.

It’s not that we can’t be happy – but in our broken world and separation from God it is not a constant state. Through the Bible God’s people were constantly crying out to God. The Israelites cried out over and over again. David did as evidenced in many of the Psalms. Even Jesus wept. Actually, going through my own difficult times led me to many such passages and one thing that came up over and over again through the cries of the people – God heard. God always hears us. It’s just that what we want may not be what is best for us in the long run. As a child cries for a candy but their parent instead forces them to eat their vegetables, so too does God know what we need to grow.

 

It’s not that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It’s what doesn’t kill you drives you to Him who is not only stronger, but the strongest.

The Perils of Parallel Parking

So I love watching people try to parallel park. I think it’s a riot sometimes.

You see, I like to say that the one thing I learned in High School was how to parallel park. This is of course a lie as I learned many other things in High School, but whatever it’s a thing that I say sometimes.

I’m damn good at parallel parking. I know the edges of my car to a “T” and can get her in a space with only a handful of inches of room on each end. This is a fact. Okay so I haven’t like, entered any parallel parking competitions…but that’s not the point.

The point is, where I live there is a lot of parking around that is only parallel. Now my being pretty handy at parallel parking means I sometimes have to bite my tongue and walk the other way so I don’t go over and pound on a stranger’s window to say “DUDE WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” and try to tell them how to do it correctly. There are obviously some instances (see: friends) when I will go over and help a person out…but that’s about it since I know I’d freak a person out if I banged on the window to help them.

But I can’t help watching people try to parallel park. And I feel a little sad everytime I see someone whose car will clearly fit in the space they’re after give up because they can’t get the angle and they keep hitting the curb. Those are the people I really want to help out..only I’m usually too far away and they’re driving off in a huff looking for another space to park.

Really they’re not perils of parking at all. Just my own inner turmoil when I see other people trying.

The story of my lucky earring

So I have this set of earrings that I adore. Like, they’re my favourite and I don’t even know where I got them from.

But one of the earrings is on a mission to run away.

You see the backs don’t click in to the earrings or anything and so they are pretty easily separated from the backing. This has happened to me multiple times when the front catches on my sweater whilst changing and is pulled free from the backing. It sounds like it ought to be painful, but trust me I don’t even notice it until I discover the earring gone.

This has happened two times now where I swore the earring was lost forever. Once when at a restaurant when I took of my scarf and it apparently caught. I didn’t realize it was missing until many blocks and half a concert later. I swore it would never be seen again but maybe I’d call the restaurant just in case.

I found it that evening in my shirt. What?!

This morning it happened again. I had accidentally slept in them. I discovered the one missing after I had changed and walked the dog. I dug through all my clothes. My laundry. Swept the bedroom floor. Nothing.

Because I knew these to be boomerang earrings, I figured it might turn up when I went to bed as under my pillow or something (that has happened). So I went ahead and went out.

I walked probably a total 40 blocks. Went to a 3 hour play, went for dinner and them came home and took the dog out. It was windy (but my hair was up).

I just lounged on the couch and took my hair down only to find the earring in my hair. Now how did this not get pulled out by the hairbrush or the 40 blocks of walking? I’ll never know. But it has reinforced my belief in the lucky boomerangesque earrings.

Unpopular Opinions

Unpopular Opinions are still very much opinions.

Everyone is entitled to think, everyone is entitled to like things and not like other things. The problem I have is when people start hating on each other when said opinions and likes don’t coincide with those around them.

I don’t like to eat fish. That’s a preference that I express ad nauseum to my friends and coworkers. But I have never, ever once told them it was not okay for them to eat fish.

But tonight the issue was in regards to abortion. Which deals with more than one person including an unborn, unable to make decisions for themselves person. I am in a distinct minority against abortion, despite being a woman myself and I realize this. But I’m entitled to my beliefs same as you are and no amount of screaming, name calling, beating or otherwise cyber bullying is going to change your opinions or mine. So I don’t know why people bother with that. If you want to have a sensible, mature discourse, I’m more than happy to oblige.

At this point in the evening, my opinions on abortion aren’t the issue.

The issue now becomes about the legality of Government actions. About changing rules and modifying time stamps to push your opinions on other people and tell them that their opinions aren’t warranted. This is what the government has resigned itself to?

I’m not sticking all night with this. I don’t even live in the USA anymore. But I will be interested to see how this pans out, but more importantly how it’s covered/not covered by the media.