Help I went into a fugue state and wrote 1450 words of Ianto trying to get Torchwood to take their right to maximum working hours seriously.

Link is here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51791851

First paragraph under read more 👇

I

The pay is good, as is the pension, but the holidays are non-existent and the pension is unlikely to be used when most Torchwood officers die before they retire.

“Have you ever considered hiring more people?” Ianto suggests at some point, when the team has worked through their third weekend in a row. “Then we could have a night shift.”

“More people means more ears, more ears means we’re easier to exploit. We’re big enough as is.”

“I’m not suggesting a whole office blocking, I’m thinking 5-10 extra bodies.”

“Loose lips sink ships.”

“Well that doesn’t even make sense in that context,” Ianto muttered to himself as he began making some notes on the general work structure. If they weren’t going to hire an HR department, then he may as well make do.

It is true that i need to learn to learn to stand to lose too because i was a 'gifted kid' and i dont think i need to say how scared i am of coming out as 'talentless' lol

I think a big part of it is also that i dont feel very supported? Which i think is partly my fault because i know my family doesnt really understand any artistic medium and none of my friends are in the music field and dont really get why im dping this if im not studying music (which is actually so silly to think because why do i have to stick to only one form of art?)

In lighter terms, ive been writhing a lot lately and felt quite proud of some stuff i came out with, and finished one i cry everytime i play so i was quite happy with how i could capture it out.

Its so scary to let people see how you think but ill try to work on it, thanks halla for taking the time to respond to this, i really really appreciate it 💕

-🤖

Ohhhh babeee. I get that believe me 💗💗 I’m a scholarship kid who got into the Ivy leagues (if you’re not in the US: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, UPenn etc) but then had a mental breakdown and almost got kicked out of the program. Believe me, I know how you feel. the perfectionism is a blessing and a curse lmao. I also come from generations of a STEM family who don’t really get the whole literature thing hahahha. Growing up, I was always told “can’t you just….read books as a hobby? Get a degree that pays money!” (Which is fair enough. Unemployment rates for English PhDs is 60% they’re not wrong lmao).

But that’s where I think Matty’s statement, though dramatic, is serially true. Artists who stop making art would go insane. You did not choose this music thing. It chose you. And if you forced yourself to just not do it anymore and try something “safe” that you can excel at easily to scratch that perfectionist need to do everything in the best possible way, then you might be happy for 5 seconds. But you’ll eventually start to miss the music and do anything you can to get back to it. That’s how I feel now about my abandoned degree in creative writing lol. Keep at it. Life is too short to hold back from things that you love just cuz some dumbass out there who can’t get their head out of their ass doesn’t like what you have to say. Good news!! There is soooo much music out there for all sorts of folks and their tastes. The people who like you will choose you and those who don’t can fuck off and go find some music they do like!

Oh hey no thanks necessary. I’m really glad you’re doing this. We need artists all the time. Can never have enough!

Maybe try this: make a song about being scared to make songs for this project and maybe include it in the project? Could be therapeutic? Haha.

HANDS OF MEN

Film project 1/5!!

I was Max's first AC on this shoot. It was super fun to work with everyone there and help make another one of Hayley's scripts. On the first day we had a DOP, 1st AC, 2nd AC and gaffer as we were doing a dolly zoom and needed a grip while Max operated and I focus pulled.

I felt like the camera crew was all very in tune with each other, especially the second day once the schedule was more concrete as the first day was dedicated entirely to the one scene including the dolly zoom as it was the most complex one.

Max explained what he wanted for the shot of Violet lifting the knife - to follow the movement without going handheld - and I suggested we lift the camera on the tripod which worked pretty well. We had a few practice sessions to get the team in tune - Me and Lewis took most of the weight of the camera, lifting and locking it on its legs, as Max had to pan as we lifted. We had to be in tune with each other as well as the actors, to match each others speed.

I absolutely loved first ACing, especially during this time of the year where all I have on mind is my HOD roles - it's lovely to come to set and have the extent of my worries be whether the battery will die in the next 20 minutes and not what the meaning of the shot we're framing is. I obviously love directing and DPing, but ACing feels like a fun break from all of that. It's nice being in a camera crew and just looking out for what other people need. I would definitely like to AC again in the future.

Link:

What are you dping on your break?

Except for getting sick and feeling like a blob? A lot of things, but still writing. If you want details...

Mainly, I’m planning a pretty big garden for next year. I’ve been wanting one since I moved here. I got my hands on pallets, so I’m stripping them apart and getting them ready for the spring. I’ve made notes on 30 plants that will survive in my yard. Now I just need to find a nursery that doesn’t source their seeds outside of zone 6. Second, I got my hands on old computer parts. I’m going to try to see what I can build before donating them to a ma&pa shop. Do I know anything about computers? Not a whole lot, but somehow I ended up with a lot of free time *gestures outside* so I’ll find a way to learn.  Lastly, I’m not taking a break from writing (I did while I was sick. words hurt my eyes). I’m just writing at a more leisurely pace.

I’m not doing big holidays with family. We all agree that times are lean and getting together too often is risky. I had to take time off last year to make stuff, but I won’t be making presents this time around (I made everyone dragon egg candles with a ceramic dragon inside. Before that, I made my niece a doll-house out of a bookshelf). I think I’ll still make Christmas cards. So there’s that project on the list. 

Also, I’m just chilling out and playing games. There’s a new update to Stardew Valley I’m looking forward to. The wonderful modders for Skyrim put out new and updated content so I’ve been enjoying that. Got a few new games from Steam, caught up on Critical Role, and have been trying (and failing) to get back into drawing. 

So, THATS what I’m doing/been doing on my break. 

Notes on the Art of Cinema

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants,” said Isaac Newton. “The dwarf sees farther than the giant, when he has the giant's shoulder to mount on,” wrote Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I began my journey into filmmaking just as I was finishing my Masters in French Literature. Though I enjoyed playing with the idea of going to film school, I chose to take a page from my early artistic endeavors. I had wanted to go to college for poetry but since that did not sound appealable to my parents and due to my go-with-the-flow nature I found myself pursuing a double major in International Political Economy and French Language & Literature. During that time, however, I made my own voyage into poetry and of course studying French Literature and some of my favorite poets in their native tongue was a bonus. I also became the editor of my school’s literary magazine. The point: when it comes to art-making, there is certainly a benefit in receiving a formal education but it is not necessary.

As for filmmaking, in the same spirit as Bruce Lee’s famous words “Be like water,” a poet of words took the shape of a poet of images. That for sure is a reason why when I discovered Andrei Tarkovsky, I found “pleasant company” and have often wished I could have been the first to express these words that he has imprinted in my mind: When I speak of poetry I am not thinking of it as a genre. Poetry is an awareness of the world, a particular way of relating to reality. So poetry becomes a philosophy to guide a man throughout his life. I also discovered another filmmaker who immediately became pleasant company, Robert Bresson. From those beginnings to where I am now, from shooting and cutting short pieces to DPing and editing nationally televised commercials, one thing for sure has remained constant. I am always a student, and I firmly believe that is essential for all creatives. As Martin Scorsese puts it: The more pictures I’ve made in the past twenty years the more I realize I really don’t know. And I’m always looking for something to, something or someone that I could learn from. I tell them, I tell the younger filmmakers and the young students that I do it like painters used to do, or painters do: study the old masters, enrich your palette, expand your canvas. There’s always so much more to learn.

In studying the old masters, you definitely pick up certain habits and ideas. Along with Tarkovsky’s Sculpting in Time, a fundamental piece of film literature for me is Bresson’s Notes on Cinematography. I even carried it with me during my early filmmaking projects. It was such an influence that I also began noting my own observations on filmmaking. This set of Notes on the Art of Cinema are a few examples of a collection of notes that I have gathered over the course of years and that I hope to one day publish. When you stand on the shoulders of giants, not only do you see further, perhaps one day you become a giant yourself.

- Edwin

im still not over how good HOME is like bts DID THAT and then they played it live only once and i feel like itllnever be performed again sgoigsgos

also jamais vu came on after that and i started sobbing while delivering mail bc i kept thinking of how i wasted away time fpr p much my entire life and dont draw much anymore even though its my only talent, nd how i dont male comics or storyboards or animations nd whatnot which all are so easy to create, aside from just issues w buggy technology or how much time it costs, but its so few effort but i still dont fo it anymore, im too stressed nd i feel so useless, like im doing my masters degree but for what? to get a year longer to rhink abt what i want to ir can do and i syill dont know. i have no talents besides drawing nd knowing how to make sequences or transitions in an animation or storyboard or comic nice, but i dont even think abt dping any big create projects anymore, i alwaus tell myself i have no time but then i do spend all day on the internet ugh i am a mess

GOD i’m working on this project w/ people from school and like. im DPing and also helping write and the kid who’s directing is. just. anyway like the person who did the script originally didnt format it at all so i offered to format it correctly and the director was like “:///” like ok i didnt need to offer to do this lmao.......but then he asked for it and i said i’d do it tonight but i forgot which is on me and he’s texting me asking for it and im just being bitter honestly

Wait, so in return for me showing up and doing all the things that a Director of Photography does, I’ll get to actually reveal to the world that I was the actual “Director of Photographer”? Because I’ve done a lot of “ghost DPing” and while it pays much better than $250 a day, not being able to reveal the truth about my involvement in a project leaves me feeling really hollow inside.

Also “Director of Photographer or someone who owns a red”? You think people who aren’t Directors of Photographers just casually own $30k cameras?

I never really thought I would feel as legitimized in my future as I have in the past two days. Yesterday was the first day of classes and I have never felt so good about a semester in my entire life. I really like my classes and I really like what's going for me right now. I'm still doing 3/4 of the work in my senior project and I quit my caffè job, but I don't know. Things have been so positive since I got back. Yesterday after my field production class, which was after a satire class, both of which I loved, Nicole asked me if I wanted to join the TV Club. She recruited me. I didn't ask to be included. But she likes my writing and asked if I wanted to be on the writing team. Which is awesome because before two semesters ago I had never written a script before. It was TV screenwriting and she was in that class, and my professor had told me she thought I could skip the other screenwriting class and go straight to advanced screenwriting. She would write me a reference letter and everything. Unfortunately they weren't offering it the next semester. And then Nicole searches ME out two semesters later asking ME?? That's awesome??? And today I had a hands on workshop for lighting and for focus pulling. I had always kind of liked that professor and now she supports me completely, asks how I am, updates on the freelancing sports games and I don't know. For some reason I just told her I quit my job so I could focus on my last semester and I don't know why? All except for two of us left after the workshop and we did the focus pulling, and they all praised me for how I did, even though I wasn't completely sure what I was doing. She also asked me if I was DPing for anyone else in the class, and I told her that was up in the air and she said, their loss. Because she likes me and she believes in me and another one of her students came in and she bragged about me. I think she has done that a few times before too. And I love it. It gives me so much more confidence in myself I don't even know what to do with it. At the end of the workshop the next class was coming in to the room and she also hooked us up with a potential crew or actor, which I need for my senior project. So maybe, just maybe that is starting to come together too. Then, in my last class, he gave out surveys just to see what we're interested in and what we want to do and how we got into film. And he looked at everyone's as they handed them in at the end and looked at mine while I turned and left. Halfway out he says, "You want to operate camera?" And I twist around really fast and just go. "Yeah.." and he says " That is fantastic." And I'm just so not used to that. Everyone I know in this major wants to be a director. Or a writer. Or an actor. Or something big. Something they can put their name on. Movies or on screen or some big job. And all I've wanted to do is videography. Follow a band, follow a traveler, follow a mystery. I just want to jot down adventure, reaction, emotion. I want it to be real, unscripted, it doesn't even have to be moving. I just want to do camera. Real life camera. I don't even care what it's about or about editing it afterwards, I just want to make sure the camera is rolling. And my professor sparked a conversation with five of us about camera adventures and helicopters and drones from me wanting to just hold a camera. It made me feel so good. So legitimized. So confident. So happy. That someone gets it. That someone is happy for me. That they support me so fully and selflessly. I love it. So far 2017 has started out really really good.