Two and a half years ago I moved down to Tempe to finish my degree and I’m happy to say that I have accomplished that. My work is so much better then it was before and I have so many more marketable skills. I’m also up to my eyes in school debt, but that happens I guess.

I signed a lease on a new place on thursday. It’s a nice little two bedroom in a quiet complex of condos, it has cool stained concrete floors and more then enough room for one. I left work about 15 minutes early on friday to go pick the keys and just as I walked down the stairs up walked my boss. He’s a great guy, but a little random. I had sent him a rough cut of a spot two days earlier and guess what he wanted to see as I was walking out. So I ended up 5 minutes late to the rental agency and was met by a locked door. It’s friday and I was late, I understand but I wasn’t a happy camper about not having my new place for the weekend. I wouldn’t have really moved… the electricity and internet weren’t on yet. It’s just that instead of spending my weekend buying rugs and lamps and chilling, I just got to think about doing all that :|
I’ll post pictures and video or something when I get in this week.

I have so much stuff and it’s not nearly enough to fill my new place. When I moved here just about everything I owned could fit in my car… that’s a glorious feeling. Now I get to buy more couches, a new bed, a kitchen table, something to put my TV on and lots of other stuff. It’s the not the cost of all of it that bothers me… most of it will come from craigslist. I just hate knowing that I own all of that, I really have no need for it all, it’s just odd not to have it. I could just sit in a chair to watch TV, which could sit on a box, next to a lamp I already own. I’m not going to eat at the table but it would still just be weird to not have one… that corner of my place would be empty. It’s just a part of getting older I guess… I’m the one that wanted to live alone for a while.

Most of my little website is gone. I no longer have school work to share, so I decided to downsize a bit. My photos will make it over to facebook after a while and my videos are now on vimeo.
My resume and reels have their own domain: david-hildreth.com

Take it easy,
David Hildreth

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Moving on

I finally finished cutting my new motion graphics reel. I’m very proud of it, so I hope you enjoy it. There was a lot of work put into the projects on there. Looking back on my old reel I am excited to see what I’ll have to show a year from now. Now it’s on to cutting a VFX reel, hopefully this one doesn’t take me as long to finish.

I think I’ve found my new apartment. For those of you keeping track I’ve probably said that about 10 times in the last month, but hopefully I mean it this time. It’s a two bedroom one and a half bath in Tempe, on two levels with a nice little patio. The complex is really small, which really I dig, and the rent is cheap. The second bedroom will probably be officially vacant but there are a few people who are already lined up to inhabit it for a few months at a time. I want to live alone, but I’m not going to just turn someone away if they need a place to stay for awhile before moving on.

Everyone at school is ready to graduate, and it’s fun to hear what people are doing after graduation. Some are staying here with work, others are heading off to LA. A couple sound like they are going for more school but too many just don’t know what they are doing. I don’t blame them, it’s mostly the younger ones who don’t really know… I had no real clue at 20.

Take it easy, hopefully I’ll have pictures of a new place to share in a few weeks :D
David Hildreth

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Motion Graphics Reel 09

After what seems like months of work I give you my show reel for 2007. It’s a collection of many, many projects both new and old. The emphasis is on editing and my motion graphics work and I am very happy with how it turned out. I’ve gotten a lot of feedback on it and there are a few small changes that will be made in the coming week, but this is pretty much the finished product.

My reel is also filed under Resume in the Kinetic section of my site, there you will find a download link and an embed code.

Last Thursday Collins had a little event for students to show their work, and while at first I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go, I am so glad that I did. Not only did I get a few job opportunities, I got a ton of feedback on my reel, my resume and how to present myself. I feel I do well in interviews, but there are a lot of things to know about showing your work to people. My resume will also undergo some changes this week thanks to what was said about it on Thursday. After writing my e-mail and website on the bottom of four or five resumes it occurred to me that there is no reason that shouldn’t have been on there in the first place. I’m also in need of a more focused list of skills and a list of software and hardware I’ve used. People would look at my resume and ask me about my TV experience, not my production skills… and I really don’t think I’ll be looking for another TV job any time soon.

As a matter of fact the more I think about it, the more I think I am done with TV. A job doing actual production is my next challenge.

I’m still trying to work out a quick trip to Boise at the beginning of November. Bender will be home and I want to see the kid before he gets stationed. He is writing on his site again, and I am interested to hear more about his experience in basic training.

Dave

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Reel 07

I saw Across The Universe last night. I can honestly say that it was just as enjoyable as it was confusing. I swear, no one actually directed the movie, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t very creative. We drove out to Scottsdale to see it at the Cine Capri. Which I’m sorry to saw was in it self was a letdown. The more theaters I goto the more I realize how spoiled I am by the Egyptian. The Cine Capri was a popular theatre in Phoenix, as a matter of fact it was host to many hollywood premiers, but it was torn down a few years back and replaced by multiple “Cine Capris” (which is French for $.50 more profit per ticket) at different theaters, Phoenix now has two of them. I figured it was a huge theater, with a balcony and cool architecture. Nope, it was just a bigger theater with stadium seating and ugly gold curtains. So I drove to north Scottsdale and payed extra for nothing, but I still don’t regret seeing the movie.
Across The Universe was fun to watch, but it’s first and fatal flaw is that it’s too long. 90 minutes people, unless you’re David Lean it’s all you get! The music however is amazing, all the Beatles covers are well done and while the visuals do at times get too weird (the Eddy Izzard scene is un-watchable). The majority of the musical scenes are a lot of fun and that is why everyone should go see it. Don’t expect much from the plot, and don’t be surprised when characters just randomly disappear and appear. There is one in particular that shouldn’t have been in the movie in the first place, but just randomly pops in and out of scenes throughout the movie. It’s a directoral nightmare, but like I said, if you at least sort of like the Beatles you should go check it out.

I’m hard at work on my demo reel (you know that thing I’ve been working on for months now) I think I finally have a grasp on how to do this. I basically started over two weeks ago after watching a bunch of other people’s reels. I’m doing a sort of montage now, and while I don’t really like the concept of it, it supposedly helps you get a job. So I’m jumping on the bandwagon and hoping for the best. I get to show my resume to a bunch of potential employers at a job fair next thursday. So while I have to get the stupid thing done in the next few days I’m excited about showing it off. Even if my current boss might be there… it could get a bit weird… oh well.

On wednesday Wes Anderson released a short film onto iTunes. It’s called Hotel Chevalier and it’s excellent. It gives a bit of background to one of the characters in his upcoming film The Darjeeling Limited. It’s short and doesn’t have much of a plot but it’s full of Anderson’s usual charm. It’s free, only on iTunes and also rated R for a reason.

David

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Across The Valley

And because I live for nerdy excess it’s also available in High Definition 720p

Tomorrow I get to move on to my last class for this part of the program I’m in. After that I’ll get my Associate’s Degree (who knows what the hell you could do with that) and will then get to start on my Bachelor’s. I’m already counting down the days until I am done with school. It’s been a fun 17 years but I now have a good grasp on what I want to do, at least for the next decade or so, and I am quite anxious to be able to start doing that.
The class I just finished was on PSA production and my spot turned out pretty good. I’ll probably tweak it in the coming weeks, especially the titles at the end. It’s now in the resume section of my page, feel free to check it out.

A trailer for Juno hit the net last week. It’s a film by the guy who directed Thank You For Smoking and I think it looks awesome. It did well at the Toronto Film Festival and has a really high rating on IMDB, although the US release isn’t until December so I guess It’l be a while before I get to see it myself. I hate waiting for movies, especially indie flicks, because even if you wait 3 months for it to be released there is no guarantee (especially in this silly city) that you’ll be able to see it when it’s out. I still haven’t seen Once, it played in Phoenix for like a few weeks, yet it’s still playing in Tucson, months after it got it’s “wide” release.

I’m out for now
DMH

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And then it was monday