In a New York Decade
A Newsletter Post
In October of 2023, I walked into my shift as an editor for Reelz and got laid off along with 2/3rds of the staff. Shortly after, my roommates broke up and the one that held the lease decided to exit the house we were renting. I looked at the local post-production opportunities, thought about the competition against some of the very best editors in Albuquerque for editing jobs that weren’t there, and decided I had to move to a larger market.
I should have moved to Los Angeles. I knew film people who lived there; LA has more narrative and commercial filmmaking work; I even had family there at the time. However, I had spent two years driving in the Middle East, and my truck in New Mexico had recently been stolen, so I was soured on the whole concept of driving and car ownership. And while I was in the Middle East, I had had a crush on a woman from Syracuse, which had seeded my first conceptions of possibly looking toward the East Coast rather than the West Coast as a place to live.
In November 2023 I travelled to New York City to determine two things: 1) could I stand it? The city and the noise and the crowds and the vibes and such; 2) could I find work contacts and an apartment?
Both worked out. I enjoyed my time in the city and I found a cheap starter apartment whose landlord was dating a cinematographer (they later married). I had a few meetings, from Reelz contacts and otherwise, with post production supervisors in a few television places. I met up with some people I had known online. My former crush from the Middle East introduced me to her friend, who as it turned out was dating a woman from New Mexico (they later married). Within three weeks I had friends, job leads, and an apartment
I signed a lease and moved to Bushwick on December 9th, 2013.
The goal was two years. I had been in the United Arab Emirates for two years, and then I had worked in New Mexico for almost two years. I figured, if I get two years of work out of New York, I can go anywhere. I had seen first hand that “I’ve worked a while in New York” was a useful hiring interview tactic. I had also gotten a lot of work from talking up the Dubai experience. I figured if I was the type of guy who could show up anywhere and get work, I would in fact be able to go everywhere and get work.
I had no New York Dream. I repeat: I had no interest in “being a New Yorker,” “living in New York,” being a “New York-based filmmaker,” or any similar conception. I never gleaned a ton of information about what New York was like or supposed to be like from movies, I knew nothing about the history or the art scenes, I had no expectations of what I was supposed to achieve other than to find work and make it work.