Friday, April 18, 2014

Age, Ambition, and Acceptance

I've been working in the TV business for over 30 years now.  I mostly came up through lighting, first as an electrician, then lighting director, then lighting designer, ld/business owner, and finally as a dp, with a little detour through directing and producing.

I always considered myself pretty ambitious.  I wanted to be able to keep moving up and do better and bigger shows, and open new doors along the way.  

To some extent that has happened.  I spent time early on doing lighting and camera on corporate videos and have wound up as a dp mostly on sitcoms.  Along the way, I've done some crap, but also got to work on some shows that had real entertainment and even social value.

I haven't gotten to do much in the way of big entertainment shows or, as much as I wanted to, really break through as a single camera DP.  

Now, well into my 50's I know that achieving those goals is pretty unlikely, and getting even less so with every passing day .  But, what's interesting - at least to me - is that I've become okay with that.  I'm pretty happy to keep chugging along doing what I'm doing.  The commitment to do my craft as well as I can hasn't diminished at all, but the real hunger for advancement has.

My father in law used to say there's always someone richer, thinner, and better looking.  I guess I'm lucky that I'm relatively content with my bank account, looks, and weight.  Well, maybe not my weight.

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