Christmas Comes Early or Be Careful What You Wish For
Tuesday, December 23, 2008 at 2:38PM
Bob Redpath

Bob editing in the Paramount Studios parking lot while waiting for Christian Slater to loop.No, I haven't quit my job yet. That shot of me holding up the "I Quit" sign in the Home Page video represents some Future Bob. I have been on "vacation" since December 16 and don't know for sure when I'll go back to work after the new year. I'm enjoying the time off and have been making great use of it, I'm just not too fond of the no paycheck thing. It's not uncommon to have a little break around December or January, and it's certainly more convenient to have the time off now rather than working seven days a week through Christmas, and then having January off.  The difference this year is that I have no real idea when I'll be going back to work. There isn't anything waiting for me to go back to right now.

Plan A was to continue doing my job at Warner Bros. until the end of the television season, which in TV post production, is sometime in May. If more work came I'd take it and we'd plan our departure around running out of work.

This season started out incredibly busy.  I was working on three shows at one time, Privileged, My Own Worst Enemy and ER.  It was an embarassment of riches -- not ACTUAL riches, since I don't get paid per show, but I did have a lot of work -- which is good thing. Then, through fate and scheduling conflicts, I could no longer continue to work on Priveleged. It was a tough choice.  I was giving up working for clients that I've worked with for years. Then I'll be damned if the universe didn't listen to my request to quit my job and see the world once again.  Nine episodes into the series, My Own Worst Enemy was cancelled. Now I'm down to one day per week on ER. Brenna advocated leaving early which scared the hell out of me -- we don't even have our passports, never-mind the fact that the European Travel Fairy hasn't left our trunk of golden Euros under my pillow yet.

From riches to rags.  That's how it is in this business -- which is one of the reasons we've decided for the relatively more stable life of vagabonding around Europe with two kids and no real means of supporting ourselves.

Article originally appeared on fromheretouncertainty.com (http://fromheretouncertainty.com/).
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