As of this coming Friday (Jan 23, 2009) I will be officially unemployed. The recession finally caught up with me, coincidentally right after Obama was sworn in just yesterday and spoke of economic tough times ahead. Ah foreshadowing…she is an evil bitch.

It’s been noticeably slower at the studio this month, which under normal circumstances causes me slight trepidation, but it really got ominous at about 6pm this afternoon when Raffi (my boss / director at Nau) called me into Areg’s office (the producer) to talk to me. I think at that moment, even before he said anything, I kind of knew what was going down. The quick and dirty of it all is that companies are tightening up their budgets, and expenditures such as show packages, tv commercials, and music videos usually are the first round of cuts. And thus the domino effect began, and the work in the industry has become more sparse for the smaller/startup studios, which in turn limits the amount of work coming through the door, which in turn puts a strain on budgets. I’m the collateral damage to that effect. So this Friday my tenure at Nau ends.

This might just be a blessing in disguise though. Freelancing is something I knew I was going to get into eventually. It’s a destination on the road to me reaching my goal of becoming a director. I just didn’t anticipate I’d be taking the next step quite so soon. This weekend I’ll be freshening up my demo reel and start pimping myself out (check out my portfolio site next week for all new work I did in 2008). Growth only comes through overcoming hardship, and I’m more than confident I’ll land on my feet just fine and continue on to great things.

Like my father told me this afternoon after I let him know what was going on: Calm seas make for a poor sailor.

Wiser words have never been spoken.