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Cybel Martin Blog February 27th 2007
Thank God the winter is easing up and I can resume my social life. I get most of my jobs from people I meet at parties. Pardon me if I have said that ad nauseum, but its true. So anyway, last Saturday’s party was great. A few days later, I got a call from someone I met there about a possible job. This Saturday I went to this woman’s birthday party. In November 2005, I had an “Art Open House” in my apartment. I sold about 20 paintings that weekend, but on opening night I invited a bunch of friends for art, food and cocktails. One man who attended was an art scholar. It was his friend’s birthday party. It was a bunch of art scholar, Ph D types and me, the filmmaker. Most of them specialized in fin-de-siecle / French art. My friend thought I’d fit in because of my art background. I know a good amount about painting but not nearly as much as they did about art history. It’s been awhile since I’ve been around academia. It was nice to cerebral. I had intended to stay an hour or two, but it lasted much longer. Lots of deep discussions, wine and baklava (yum!). We made plans for a dinner party in March. Cybel Martin: Setting Up Meetings The REEL (cue music) was finally done Tuesday evening, just in time for my meeting at HBO on Wednesday. Everyone who works there seems so happy. I wanted some of that happy. I have two on-going aspirations, the Oscar of course and to shoot for HBO. So anyway, the producer I met was very cool. I am trying to gauge who is it more important for me to impress to get a job. She said that usually their directors bring in their own DPs. I was thinking if I befriend and connect with producers, they’d bring me in. It was actually after being fired from a feature by the producer (who came on after me), that I decided to focus my effort on “courting” producers. I guess there are no hard rules to follow. Being freelance is so random, that having a rule or two about how to get work would be nice. Appreciated. Cybel Martin: Meeting Number 2 The producer at HBO asked for references and I gave her a whole list. Whatever it takes to help me shoot something there (fingers crossed, “The Wire” “The Wire” “The Wire”). After I emailed her my list of references, I emailed all of my contacts to let them know. Give them a heads up to say glorious things about me. On that list was a producer from Showtime, who produced one of my favorite projects ever, “The Gilded Six Bits.” She seemed happy to hear from me and suggest we meet for lunch and to discuss her upcoming three film projects. I think we talked for over 2 hours when she asked “wanna go see a movie?” We went to see “Pan’s Labyrinth”. I needed to see it because it had won Best Cinematography the night before, and I was really rooting for “Children of Men”. It is beautiful. Incredible film. I still preferred the cinematography of COM, but life goes on. “The Departed” was not this year’s best film, but eh – I am happy for Scorsese. Isn’t every New Yorker?
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