getting VJ jobs in NYC

[prismaco]

so all my friends from the west coast think its funny to move to NYC at the same time (within 6 months) of one another, and was thinking of making the move.
I've done the whole portfolio, presentation, gallery show (for paintings) so i know a little about "souping" up ones work for exposure within the presentation architecture (wow, that was way too arty)
does anyone from the area have recommendations on how to get a gig.
do people have regular VJ nights during the week there in NYC?
are there any "guild"/community structures to get jobs (am i mentioning a union?)?
what/where are there resources in NYC for people to get introduced to jobs as VJs?
thanks for any recommendations.
pco:jump2:
Black Eyed Peas then Them make for a good mix:P

[prismaco]

Everyone should have the beatbox album Human Element.
my boy just passed through town and let me copy it to cd.
just an idea...

[prismaco]

everyone should join the Handsome Boy Modeling School
: )

[holly]

Uh oh. It's starting again.... I came across the continent from the West Coast in one of those mass flocking eastward migrations.

Come to remember, I actually went to SF in the first place in a westward migration....

click the link below. We host a VJ party for VJs. We've traded several jobs back and forth. Not a "union" per se, but definitely a close scene.

[Portal]

Hey holly,

Where are you from originally?

[holly]

I was birthed in texas.
:scared:

[disassembler]

Ask VJ Rei about getting jobs in New York.

[Portal]

holly,

Ahh, that would explain your brash and flamboyant personality. Everything's bigger in Texas! ;) :)

[holly]

Originally posted by Portal
your brash and flamboyant personality.
How rude! ...And from my own fianc?! Are you saying I'm bossy?? No amount of smileycons will soften that blow! I'm going home to mother...
:cry:

[Portal]

holly,

Tsk tsk. I was hoping you would be much less high-maintenance than that. ;) :)

Since when is being "brash and flamboyant" an insult? :)

[holly]

High mantenance...?
Me...?
;)

Actually, that is observant of you. I'd definitely say it's the texan-girl part of me that is the most difficult.... All the women in my family are this way.

[Portal]

holly,

I should start a new thread on why Texas and California girls are my favourite American women. :) lol!

[vjrei]

Originally posted by disassembler
Ask VJ Rei about getting jobs in New York.

No, not me, do not ask me nothing! :rolleyes:

There are a lot of things to do in NY but I was used to another thing. Actually there is a new club where Center Fly was and I was applying to work there but I am very used to the tropic and caribbena and moved to Miami, then a friend of mine who was doing the sound design of the club told me that another Venezuelan guy who was part of something called "Funk Taxi" is the resident VJ and he is getting paid $40.000 a year. I told my friend not for $60.000 I would go back to NY, I rather South Beach better:jump:

Any way, my recomendation is to get close to the production companies and make a lot of noise. Most of the time content creation and DVDs is what you are going to create but I was not attracted to that, NY was way too dark and lack of anything organic and stuff and it freaked me out.:scared:

Any way, I'll be there back soon every once in a while to show some Venezuelan footage probably:D

[vjrei]

Well, the intention is not to change the topic of the thread but... I was in Manhattan and when I was looking from my window I could see the next building 3 metters from me. No direct sun light ever came inside and I was in a 5th floor. Organic is not a "frit store" is a mauntain or a beach or blue and green colors, not the over saturated Central Park with executives walking around... ?in a park? In South Beach I live in a third floor, I have alota! windows and I can see the horison over he palm trees, I do not need AC because I have alota! wind coming in and if I am hungry I can go downstaris in sandals and shorts (no t-shirts) tu buy the groceries and everybody is wearing the same thing. 3 block away I have the beach with topless girls :love:

And all for $500 a month + utilities. Yes, Miami is a bit cold but NY :alien: was not for me, I am 29 and I got too used to my colors and stuff. That is what I call "organic".

[holly]

Wait, this is a funny story! It's true everyone here has 3 "day jobs" but these are not necessarily all shit jobs. In SF everyone had 1 shit job and then they went out drinking every night. Here, because networking and connections are SO important, you have 3 very different cool parttime jobs just to keep your connections open (some would say "spread your bet"), but it is not about having any shit jobs, no offices or flourescent lighting....

So the girl that made that docu that we promoted at eyewash THE ART OF VJing, she moved here from Amsterdam and she is very young and very friendly and we thought "Oh no. This girl is way too nice to be here. She is not agressive or self-centered enough to survive...." But when we met her she already had 2 jobs, and one week later at the premiere she already had a 3rd better job at a documentary company! We laughed: she will be fine!

I tend to agree with Rei. Just because there is a scrap of wheatgrass growing in a cup that they offer to shave and put in a frit smoothy, doesn't really count as "organic" (translation: nature).... It was 5 years before I ever left the city and went just 30 minutes upstate to the catskills which is some of the prettiest hiking land and dry-forests I've ever seen: little mountains and lakes everywhere.... It's no Machu Pichu or California coastline, but it is pretty.

Lil'Cat, I think you are like me: a futurist looking for that super Arcology plopped cleanly and self-contained right next door to pristine nature, but Rei's idea of "scenery" is athletic curves in a bikini. Can't beat SouthBeach for THAT!

[holly]

Where da pod pic, boiiiii? Ya know I jive on that shit!

I have a friend who bought a membership at her little neighborhood community park on the lower east side (use to be 3 empty lots in a burnout neib'). She was like: gym membership or park.... Since she rides a bike everywhere she picked the park, and it is sooo cool. As a member you have a key to the gate and responcabilities to do work on it (moving rocks, cleaning the garden house, etc). We were hanging out and it was so nice and really peaceful and flourishing, then some guys came in trying to take a piss and we chased them off. It is such a beautiful garden/park and these guys only see it as a toilet!:grrr:

Meanwhile, florida is one of those states that was on my "SHALL NOT RECEIVE ONE DIME OF MY TOURISM DOLLAR" because cunnilingus is/was illegal..., but traveling thru to Carribean at the Miami airport I was gagging on pink neon squiggles and lime squares on yellow circles. I mean, I know it's just the airport, but barf.

[prismaco]

i lived in portland oregon for seven years, so im not so concerned about "organic".
(not many places can compare to a city that drips water 9 months out of the year, has flowers for ten and a half, and where over half the people are hippies or former hippies)
there was some famous philosos-phizer making the argument that since cities derive from mans creation, and man is natural (unless you take the alien gene splicing to make life stance) cities are what you could consider "natural"
came back from prague and budapest in the spring to my temporary home of Utah, and with all the mountains and nature, it felt dead (scoffing is more than allowed here).
i could still feel the jazz club in prague beneath my feet through earth.
i literally had the urban vibrations travel with me.
that is organic.
collective consciousness is organic (oh you were reading the paper at the exact time i was!)
in paris they have parks where you can only walk on gravel paths and all the lawns are demarcated with 10 inch tiny fences (in fact most parks are like this there).
natural and organic are too often confused as meaning the same thing.
the parks in paris are natural, but not very organic, whereas i find Central park fairly organic if not natural.
just a thought.
like the dialogue on the subject, and thanks for yr responses.
maybe when i check out things in NYC in Jan, ill check out Eyewash.:biggrin:
if i dont get dragged around by my friends too much

[prismaco]

i put this in the wrong place but this goes with the getting jobs in NYC thread.
computers can give you a strobe effect in your eyes
im so confused:confused:

[vjrei]

The problem is that the "new thread" botton and the "reply" are too close and I commit the same mistake oftem, when trying to reply I sometimes create a new thread without meaning it.

[vjrei]

I do not know but I am recording footage like crazy here in Caracas, I got Holly Idea of a "Baraka like" video and I am recording thinsg to send to NY later on. For example today I went to some palce down tone and in the parking lot (just like the ones in NYC) there were about 5 dogs, 10 chickens, a parrot and a TUCAN! of course I started to play with the tucan for about 10 minutes while the parrot was telling me Hola! I mean, that is nor mal for me but is a kind of strange to find that sort of fauna at the entrance of a parking lot in a city.

The problem is that I can not take my Sony VX-2100 camera every where, I can get killed for that, too much crime. Then we had a riot downtown but I couldn't go there.

I will see if I can upload something when I get back to Miami in january.

[DFUNC]

Its like the Reply and Reply-All button in our eMail program. What did we laugh about the funny mistakes some people make here in the agency. Some joker nerd must have put them that close together. :D :D :D

[Kyle]

That riot footage is perfect for that NOW project. You could become famous! lol Won?t do you too much good if you die trying though. How bad is it there with the riot?

[holly]

I merged the Organic thread into the finding jobs in NYC thread. Please pardon the confusion....

Central Park is so well designed, it was really 80 or 100 years ahead of its time.... Not all of it of course, but there is a part at the northern end that is so dense with trees you can't see any buildings at all and suddenly waterfalls, organic looking caves/underpasses. I thought it was left from nature, but this isn't true. The whole park is manufactured. Very organic, but not natural.

[prismaco]

the collective consciousness thing was a bit of a tangent.
i guess i made the connection in the "not planned" sense of organic.
the way we pattern ourselves around the earths rotation (day and night), then how other things fall into a pattern that people follow.
reading the paper at 730 in the morning, rush hour, lunch hour, the peak hour of house parties.
even though most business is conducted during certain hours, if youve ever had to be at work at 4 or 5 in the morning, or at 11/12 at night, your sense of time is slightly distorted from those that work at 7 am or 4/5 pm.
(those moments when i went to work at 630 am while my housemate walked in from the graveyard shift; sort of like the changing of the guard)
whatever pattern you're a part of you create a collective conscious with those that live within those same patterned movements.
its just a wandering thought that could go about anywhere at this moment, so ill stop.
but yr right about the commercialization of organic food.
its great!
all the hippy vegans who buy soy products as some sort of political stance (not all, but if you argue with why you eat meat with them long enough, the politics come out) have been duped by the system.
over 65% of all soy beans are genetically modified.
so there goes yr "im against the man" diet.
(sorry for any offense to vegans or hippies, but after being around too many hippies that are vegans that speak of love and good will but only take beer, pot, food with nothing to give you but some crappy song on their guitar the mystique of the culture loses its social and politcal appeal.
give me an ex navy seal gone politcal activist any day)
beats,rhythm, and life
thats about as organic as it can get.

[Portal]

Topless women in tiny bikinis in a natural beach environment is an absolute must. Rei has got that one figured out. :)

Add culture, history, architecture, and sexy accents to complete the mix, and oh boy, I think it's time to head back to Eastern Europe. ;)

[prismaco]

oh eastern europe...
i must concur...
nothing beats the bump of a beautiful woman...
:nod:

[Kyle]

Originally posted by Portal
Topless women in tiny bikinis in a natural beach environment is an absolute must. Rei has got that one figured out. :)

Add culture, history, architecture, and sexy accents to complete the mix, and oh boy, I think it's time to head back to Eastern Europe. ;)

Sounds like your talking about Valencia, Spain :D

[Portal]

The Spaniards definitely have something going on too. I'm just showing my Latvian bias. :)

prismaco,

I'm heading to Ukraine next June to chase women. You should join me. :)

[prismaco]

Portal
i will strongly consider.

ever since i was friends with this girl in junior high who was from russia, i must admit my fascination with the eastern european woman.
put on top of that that my great gradnparents were straight from minsk belarus, my desire to explore the region has greatly increased.
my trip through czech republic, slovakia, and hungary is hopefully just the beginning
:P
(portland also had a huge russian influx in the seven years i was there, plus there was this hot jewish russian in my college french class)
but to dream...
to have a fetish...
to say too much...

:o
peace
pco
PS this post has nothing to do with working in NYC anymore, but is slowly turning into a porn page, and i am going to stop it right away.:nono:

[vjrei]

Originally posted by prismaco
oh eastern europe...
i must concur...
nothing beats the bump of a beautiful woman...
:nod:

Oh yeah... I was dating this girl from the old east germany and what a shaped body! the problem started when she asked me if in a "marriage" she could have sex with some one else if I didn't feel like it:scared:

She was lucky she asked that to a Venezuelan guy and no to a mexican because she would be set on fire in the middle of the square for a comment like that. But what ever, old story just another experience:(

[prismaco]

mustve been a tru commie
to want to spread the love
:eek: :mad:
i so missed the mexican machisimo in portland.
plenty o' cubans though (figure that?)
they got a little more of that italian machisimo though...
but they sure can salsa
:nod:
my friend David spent 16 months on Guantanumo trying to get to the US
crazy mother f***ER:pirate:

[skyvat]

Littlecat - How'd you know i was lurking this thread? ;) ooooh I will look forward to trying that porter, though I haven't seen it on the shelves yet.

Didn't realize you had left, Rei. I have to say that Brooklyn is really the perfect blend of density and intensity for me. I'm on a sometimes quiet block with a small backyard and few minutes walk from another Vaux/Olmstead designed park, actually Olmstead considered Prospect Park to be superior to Central Park because he had learned from his mistakes. I don't have the urge many people feel to live on the Island of Manhattan (aka "the City" by locals). Most of what I need is right here, and when I have to, I can get anywhere south of 14th street in under 25 mins either by subway or by bike, which I'm trying to use as much as possible even with the onset of winter weather.

But as for this sidetracked thread, keep an eye on Holly's postings, show up to the Eyewash and introduce yourself. There's a few bi-weeklys and monthlys for video to check out and meet other players (share, {r}ake, psychasthenia). VJ jobs in NYC that can actually support you are few and far between, so the best thing is to play and network so if/when that opportunity comes up you are in the right place with the right experience to nab it.

[skyvat]

Share continues to survive, it's a weekly Sunday eve jam session for audio and video http://share.dj for more info. It varies week to week, it's an organism with its own mind - sometimes amazing and sometimes really slow.

Most freelance I'm doing has asked for an SS#, and I haven't had much impetus to get around that at this point. Sorry i don't know more details about it for you.

Funny enough I was actually reading "The Ethical Slut" the other night. Nice use of icons to simulate group lovin' by the way LC.

:love2:

[holly]

(ponders convincing Skyvat and Lil'Cat to go at it....)

Isn't "polyamorism" just another word for being single? Playing the field? Does it really deserve latin-nomenclature to legitemize it as an "orientation"?

Let me tell you about this gay couple I knew: been married for years, looked up to as the greatest relationship by their friends. Then after 7 years of perfectness, one admits he'd had an affair. Surprisingly the other admitted he'd had an affair too. They celibrated their honesty and felt assured this was the start of a new open relationship. Three months later they divorced.

I miss my sexperimental California days, but it's hard enough to find ONE guy who is really good at sex. Of course I'm lazy and bossy and one-sided: not ethical at all....

Besides, all guys say they want a 3-way but what they really mean is boy-girl-girl.

[holly]

who's to say that it isn't possible to live in the california way? even on the east coast..
Heheh. Having been a notorious klub kid in sanfran and deep DEEP in the pansexual S/M scene there (and hooo the scene there is tops) I moved back to NYC and figured I'd just go and insert myself in the (micheal alig/peter gatien) club scene. Showed up my first night half-naked during a blizzard in February -- typical outfit by Cali standards, but it was obvious that NYC is on the Purtain Coast and the costumes would need to be adjusted. Incidently, the club was empty (because of the blizzard -- what amatures!) and I was immediately endeared by the promoters.... Kids, if you ever wanted to know how to get drink tickets...!

Of course that was 10 years ago. If I did that today I don't think it would have quite the same happy impression.

Anyway, despite what goes on in your personal recyclable space dome, sexual attitudes are regional. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the sexual "openness" of women is in direct relation to the sexual "closedness" of the men -- although those terms are really too stunted to acurately describe it. I dated some macho East Coast mafia-type catholics for a while but the sex was only hot when they thought it was wrong. Then they felt guilty afterwards. Ugh, what effort.
:rolleyes:

edited to add:
openness of women vs closedness of men... Just wanted to comment that it goes both ways and isn't meant to imply that one is oppressed by the other. If anything, they both oppress one another. blah blah. Peecee me.

[Portal]

What the heck happened to this thread? We start with polite banter about topless women and Eastern Euro girls, and all of a sudden, we are discussing the politics of threesomes and what makes kinky sex exciting?! :scared: lol!

I'm going to Ukraine to meet a woman who could become a serious romantic partner, not to discover the ins and outs of open relationships. There are already too many women in North America who have slept with too many people (both boys and girls :rolleyes: ) for me.

BTW - Sorry, I'm not interested in getting into a debate about which women I would consider for a serious relationship and who I consider just a "playpal". :):

[skyvat]

Originally posted by Portal


I'm going to Ukraine to meet a woman who could become a serious romantic partner, not to discover the ins and outs of open relationships. There are already too many women in North America who have slept with too many people (both boys and girls :rolleyes: ) for me.


Check out this film (http://imdb.com/title/tt0235198/) before your trip.

Knowing exactly what you want gets you more than you bargained for...:eek:

[Portal]

LOL!

That type of storyline could happen to any dude anywhere. It doesn't have to be Eastern Europe. :)

[holly]

Oh Dan, you're such a hopeless romantic. **Swoooon** If I were 5 years younger and didn't need you to play at the MoMA undamaged.... *sigh*

Originally posted by Portal
I'm going to Ukraine to meet a woman who could become a serious romantic partner, not to discover the ins and outs of open relationships. There are already too many women in North America who have slept with too many people (both boys and girls :rolleyes: ) for me.
Well, being one of those women who've slept with too many people, I can't marry you afterall Portal. I'll try to let you down easy, but New Yorkers you know, not really known for their Southern pacing. In other words: klunk.;)

Now this woman in Ukraine. I'm just curious. Is she a real woman you've been chatting with via email, or just a figurative "someone special who is out there for me" kind of woman? I only ask because I must warn you all here and now that Internet Romance Syndrome is a dangerous thing akin to life-in-prison marriages and wartime letters back home. Best of luck of course. Hope she gets a greencard out of it.

[Portal]

holly,

You and I both know our engagement was simply one of convenience. After all, I know your current partner would not be all the pleased about it. Or would he? :scared: lol! :P

Is she a real woman you've been chatting with via email, or just a figurative "someone special who is out there for me" kind of woman?

It's a "I met her online" kind of thing. The only reason I take this on any kind of serious level is that I've been to this part of the world before. I know what the personality of these women is like in-person, and I have very realistic expectations. This isn't stepping into the cosmos for me. :) This time. ;)

BTW - The cards are only green if you're going back to Bush country. ;) :)

[brain]

Originally posted by skyvat
Check out this film (http://imdb.com/title/tt0235198/) before your trip.

Originally posted by Portal

That type of storyline could happen to any dude anywhere. It doesn't have to be Eastern Europe. :)

just for the record: japan is NOT in eastern europe.

...yea, we know, geographics get a bit complicated once you leave NAFTA :)

[murph]

wow, so reading all about the sexual politics of the coasts is incredibly exciting. I think here we're more conditioned to hunkering down for the winter. =] Find a nice girl, bang her brains out, and don't leave the house. Go camping when it thaws. We like to think about it, we like to talk about it, but getting too crazy just isn't in the cards for most of the reserved midwesterners.

Places like Miami and Vegas and to a certain extent Denver or SF seem like lala lands to me. Places where you can go for a couple years if you're young and have money, or you're involved enough in the entertainment industry of some sort. they're fun, they're exciting, lots of beautiful people, lots of money, lots of coke, but not a lot of reality. Not a lot of sustainability. And really high bar tabs. Not for me.