Next Stop- Unemployment

I am sitting at my desk at BVG, during my last week here. This job has been good to me. Sure, I’ve had plenty of reasons to complain- we haven’t always been able to convince the executives that ideas we love were as great as we thought they were. The purpose of the Think Tank has changed a few times since I started. We were often forced to make changes to concepts that we passionately disagreed with. As I wrote in a recent post, my boss was unceremoniously fired in our last full week in the Tank. We often sat in the room, frustrated by the way the company lumbered ever-so-slowly towards making any decisions, and you know, making some freaking video games. There were certainly personality clashes in the Tank once in awhile, and a co-worker even had to be let go after failing to produce much of anything after a whole month.

But those are the pitfalls of working for any big company. These are the things that happen when creativity is mixed with commerce. Such opposing forces will inevitably clash, and the executives will always have the final say, much to the frustration of the creatives.

But overall, this job totally kicked ass.

I was paid to write. I was a professional writer. No matter what happens in the future- if my wildest dreams come true, and I get to write screenplays that I love and get to see made (less likely,) or I just end up failing miserably, sitting unemployed in my underwear, playing video games until I finally give up on trying to break in as a writer and go back to school as a business major (hopefully not any more likely than the first scenario,) one thing about this job will always be true: this will always and forever be the first time I was employed as a writer. It was my first job after graduation, and it was a creative job. How many people get to go straight to being a creative out of college? I may end up behind a desk for a few years, but for eight months, I got to come to work every day and dream for a living.

That’s pretty cool.

I also met a few people over my time here who I hope will be in my life for years to come, both professionally and socially. I’ve clicked with a few of people here creatively, who I feel are on my same wavelength and will be fun people to collaborate with in the future. Out tenure at BVG is ending, but for these people, I hope it’s only the beginning of us being creative together.

For me, the best times at BVG were just hanging out with a diverse group of talented and creative people. I won’t forget the endless hours spent yelling about “Snakes on a Plane,” endlessly debating “Lost,” playing too many matches of “Mario Kart,” getting my ass handed to me in “Quake,” loudly debating politics, movies, video games, and music (with an audience who hasn’t heard all my opinions yet!) and just getting to know a bunch of really cool people. The very best part about the last eight months is that hanging out led to some of our most creative ideas. When a group of us would sit around in “The War Room,” which had all four walls were made up of whiteboards (and always smelled of erasable marker, probably getting us all a little bit giddy,) where we’d sit around and rap about ideas and stories and characters and game play for our many ideas. Whether these ideas all got a green-light is irrelevant- the process we went through to come up with those ideas was worth it, and I’m proud of a lot of what we came up with. We came up with worlds to play in, had a blast doing it, and got paid.

I have just about an hour left today, and then tomorrow is our big send off. The whole Think Tank is going out to lunch together, and my probably only very temporarily unemployed boss will be joining us to say goodbye. Everyone is wrapping their affairs here, putting up photos of themselves and personal quotes so we can all leave our permanent mark on the room. I am ready to go, but that’s not to say I won’t miss this place. I spent eight fun, creative, frustrating, upsetting, exhausting, and never boring months here, and I wouldn’t trade a minute of it for the world (okay, that’s probably just the nostalgia talking- there are a few moments I could live without- but they make the experience “well rounded,” don’t they?)

So in a couple days I face down unemployment, and I face it fearlessly (well, not exactly.) I am going to take this time between jobs to rededicate myself to a few projects- I’ve started some spec TV scripts that I want to finish up, and I need to finish editing the film I shot just about a year ago. If all goes well, it’s going to be a really productive month that will refresh me and get me ready for whatever my next job is. Maybe one of these projects will get me an agent. If not, I’ll move to the next job and just keep trying to get wherever it is I’m going to end up.

I don’t know what comes next, but BVG was a great start.