Road Trip Nation Assignment

Hannah Thrasher
Thurs, July 7, 2011
Careers and Lifestyles

Road Trip Nation Interviews

    I find the interviews to be so interesting that I ended up watching about 10 of them, and I plan to watch more.

    The interview with Cirque de Soleil artistic director Rob Bollinger wasn't particularly eye opening, but he did have many interesting things to say. He said that "If what you do is your passion, it never feels like a job…. but that doesn't mean every day is a cakewalk", which reminded me of my work in theatre, whatever position. It's always a struggle, but even though it's difficult and exhausting and frustrating, I just love to do it. I love working with the people, even if you want to knock them over the head sometimes. And I love the art of it, and bringing a show to life.

    I also enjoyed the interview with filmmaker Craig Brewer, who spoke often of his father, and how his father would inspire him to go after his passion of filmmaking. Craig's father would say, "If you can't do it with the simplest of tools, what makes you think that you can do with the most expensive of tools?". That really spoke to me, because something that I've used as an excuse for not doing sound in my free time is that my equipment isn't good enough. But honestly, the equipment I have is more than good enough to at least learn with. And people have done more with less and been successful. So what's holding me back?

    Two interviews that I found especially interesting were with Walter Murch who helped pioneered 5.1 surround sound, and with Gary Rydstrom, both multiple Academy Award winners in sound design. I would love to end up like these two, working on fantastic films with lots of awards on their mantels.

    Walter Murch said that he loved playing with tape recorders when he was 11, but then he "outgrew" that interest during his adolescent years. But after watching a movie when he was 22, he thought, "Somebody made that film. I am a somebody. I can make a film", and so he reopened his childhood passion of playing with sound. He says, "If you can tap into that thing that were really interested in when you were 11 years old, it gives you as good a shot as you're ever gonna get to be happy with what you do later". Which sounds great, but for me that would mean leaving sound and getting back into zoology.

    Jeff Johnson, a host on BET and activist, gave the most inspiring interview. Near the end of the interview, someone asked what the difference is between giving up and deciding that you want to do something else. And he said,

              "You ever wanted to do something so much, that you tell everybody that you wanna do it, that you share with everybody that this is what you wanna do? But now what you're trying to live up to is the expectations that you created for everybody else. … But the bottom line is, you created that cell. Nobody else created it for you. Which means you got the keys, to say, 'You know what, ya'll? I changed my mind. I don't want to do this no more.' And if people agree or disagree, so what? They don't have to live your life."

    Which really encourages me because I changed my mind as a kid, that I no longer wanted to be a zoologist even though that's what I had been saying for years. And it means that even now, I can change my mind again and say that I don't want to do recording arts if I feel that I'm being pulled somewhere else. And that's a nice freedom to have.

    In the interview with Gary Rydstrom, someone asked how does a person identify their passion. And Gary said, "I think it all comes down to curiosity. Everything, to me, is not about the answers you find, but about the questions that come up. If it's something that you have endless questions about…the questions keep popping into your head. If you're curious than you're probably passionate."

    The problem with that is that I'm so curious about so many different things. Whit Alexander, the co-founder of Cranium Games, spoke about how he went from one job that fulfilled one aspect of his interests, and then to another job the fulfilled another aspect of his interests, and then to another. He says that he encourages people to try to find a job that fulfills all or at least several of your interests, but his story shows me that I don't have to fulfill every interest at once to be happy. I can focus on one interest at a time and just go where life takes me and hopefully I'll come across more opportunities that allow me to explore my other interests.