Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Breaking Free

I really have this strong urge to travel.

Apparently, the only thing stopping me is ---- you got it, myself, and the circumstances I am swimming in.



Recently, I got myself into trouble - I mean - another show. Something so similar to my mother show that now, I am at odds with it myself.

Two months ago, my senior dragged me to the new show's editing room, and personally asked me to be part of it, if only for one time. At first I was hesitant. Knowing full well the treatment they're gonna apply to it, I was shaking my head vigorously. Doing two things which has the same gravity is nearly impossible for me. Well, I didn't really like the idea of my break time getting compromised. But then she asked sincerely. I am terribly a weak woman to people who trusts me.

So I got involved, despite my other half laying out all the disadvantages it has for me. Soon, I really wanted out. My excuse? If my senior gets out first, I'm following the lead. But no sooner had I thought of it, when the day came my senior resigned. I was about to follow, but series of happenings went by, and I was asked by our head, who is also our head in my mother show, to stay in the show. I complied. This person is the one who planted trust and confidence in me. How can I ever refuse such simple request?

And thus, I am swimming in two rivers. Serving two masters. But it was complicated than it seems to be. Because these masters are not black and white. My masters are either both white or both black. I'm afraid the friction is there too, much eminent than when white and black clash.

I love my mother show, and I know full well what stories will make it more prominent in television. However, the new show comes with the same format, only this time, the stories are forced to two minutes instead of sixteen minutes that I was taught to do.

I came across good stories that are worth more than two minutes of airtime. And I've come across stories which I was forced to expand for the sake of filling sixteen minutes or more of airtime.

I've already been scolded for making two five-minuter stories for this new show, which only required me to squeeze it to two minutes. I have already dried it up to its roots in order to at least show the mainframe of the story. But apparently, it wasn't enough. I have to cut down the unnecessary among the necessary elements of the story.

For me, it was really a pain doing so, as compared to stretching a story.

Doing a novel out of a simple thought is my specialty. Slicing a story to make it fit the program's requirement is doing injustice to it.

So sometimes, when I come across a complaint, I assess it's validity before I give it to which show it would fit.

But the dilemma here is how to introduce myself. When doing shoot on this new show, I still couldn't stop myself from introducing myself from the old show to my interviewees, off cam. Or plugging my mother show. Or trying to get them as informants for my mother show. Sometimes, I feel like I'm cheating this new show. Like, I shouldn't tap the informants to my mother show, since it wasn't our own researchers who found them.

*sigh*

I'm beat. I just wish that these shows would collaborate together so that stories can be appropriated to its rightful show, and not just for the fact that we could air stories....




And thus, my thirst for travel remains strong. Four weeks nonstop took a toll on me, after all. And now, I'm encouraged to take a moment to relax. Though it feels a bit wrong, not working at all alongside my favorite people at work.

This is really bad.

I need a break far far away. And maybe, get a story there.

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