Editing Job, Angelina Jolie and Kate Winslet Movies and "The Secret" To Your Dream Job

Editing Job, Locations for Angelina Jolie and Kate Winslet Movies and “The Secret” To Your Dream Job

Photo: Chris Noth (The Good Wife) and Debra Markowitz at the Nassau County Correctional Center.

Editing Job Available: Long Island area Huntington, E. Northport - they need someone with strong Final Cut Pro skills for ongoing projects. This is an assistant editing position at this time. Please drop an email including a resume to: john@digitalcut.com

Location Needed for “Salt” (Starring Angelina Jolie): Must be in Nassau County.
They are reshooting the end of feature film, "Salt," starring Angelina Jolie and Liev Shriber. They are looking for probably two days. They need a location that can look like the white house lawn (they will green screen in the White House) and then a lawn that looks like it's heading towards the woods. The catch - they need to land a black hawk helicopter. Know of any Nassau County locations with a large pristine expansive lawn (it does not have to be very green since it's winter) and then a lawn leading into the woods?

Location Needed for Kate Winslet film, “Mildred Pierce” Must be in Nassau County. They’re scouting for a neighborhood that has Spanish-style homes - stucco, clay-tiled roofs. Do you know of any other towns that might have whole streets of these homes? Here's a link to some of the homes/towns they’ve shot already. Click on "Mildred Pierce", then "Residential": http://spady.smugmug.com/MILDRED-PIERCE


“The Secret”To Your Dream Job

I’m a believer in a lot of the concepts other people would consider mumbo jumbo. I am a believer in “The Secret,” though I don’t think the book goes deep enough. Yes, you need to know your goals…pretty much anyway. Many of us know our goals, but we only know our goals of the moment. Sometimes where you end up is the best place for you to be, though it may not be where you planned to arrive originally.

I always had visions of myself as a writer since I was six years old. I loved to read and would narrate my life when I was alone. Yes, I actually did that and this was long before reality television. I also wanted to be an actress. I was preparing to do a monologue to audition for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. I chickened out and went to Nassau Community College instead to study theatre/drama. I stayed one semester as a theatre major alongside novelist Ellen Meister who was in my tap and voice classes. We both transferred to other majors. I decided to pursue a career in business believing that I’d never make a living in the entertainment field.

Twenty-four years ago I happened upon a job in the County because it offered me a chance to do some writing. Maybe it wasn’t the novels I thought I’d write, but I got to write speeches, and articles, and literature for County programs. It was a start. Then something else happened. I discovered the Department of Commerce and Industry where, every once in a while, they did a permit for film, commercial or still photography. I jumped on it. Through the Department of C & I, the Nassau County Film Office was born. Maybe it wasn’t the way I thought I’d be part of the entertainment industry, but I was there. I was helping people make movies by facilitating the way for the locations. I started meeting creative people and counting some of them as my friends. In 1998 when I became one of the founders of the Long Island International Film Expo (LIIFE), I’d entered yet another realm of my career. I was getting to meet filmmakers from the world over and learning a lot about the technical process of making a film.

About eight years ago I began writing in earnest. I wrote three novels in a year and started writing commercial scripts and articles for a couple of magazines. So now I was a writer too.

This isn’t exactly the way I thought I’d be doing it, but I am doing it. I began my journey long before I read “The Secret.” I wonder now if I will progress much faster since I do know about the Law of Attraction. And I had another revelation today. While, yes, I’d love to make a very profitable living being a writer – I’d write even if I didn’t make a cent. It is rewarding to create and bring characters to life, but I feel most successful when someone wants to discuss my books and tells me what they mean to them. It really doesn’t get much better than that—to know that you’ve touched someone and made an impact on their lives.

So I guess I was always meant to be a writer and work in the entertainment field or perhaps I designed my life that way. I gave up at one point and never really believed that I could or would. Yet I guess once the goal is set, the vibrations take their course. Could it be “The Secret” is right? Set your goal and the rest follows? Or does destiny merely take you where you need to be? What do you think?