Mark's Blog

I can’t believe it’s been three weeks already. In a way it seems that time has past by really quickly but again it feels like I’ve been gone for a lot longer. This week wasn’t all too exciting. I went outside to the country of Belize and bought a t-shirt. Unfortunately, it started pouring rain and I had to head back to the ship. There wasn’t much by the port any ways.

I also went to my 1st disco party which was pretty awesome. Lots of energy inside the club. The whole place was packed with staff and crew members. I had a few drinks and soon found myself making a fool of myself on the dance floor. But hey, I had a good time. At least I wasn’t the only one embarrassing myself on floor. Overall it was a positive experience. Other than that, I’ve been locked up on the ship for pretty much that whole week. Hopefully the following week will open me up to new adventures.

Another week has gone by. I’m slowly starting to make adjustments. Its funny how much you realize you miss land when you are out on sea. On the very beginning of the week. I had the chance to go off land and relax in downtown Miami. Even though Miami is not my home it sure felt like it. It felt good to be back in the states where life is normal. In a way, downtown Miami reminded me of downtown Los Angeles except for the tremendous humidity. I was sweating my ass off in the city. I decided to take a break and relax at a Star Bucks which felt really nice. One difficult thing being American is finding people to relate too. Many times people are talking their own language when they are with their people. Or in ships lingo “pizano.” The only thing I can do is just sit there and do nothing. Also, sometimes I get vibes from certain people and can tell they don’t like Americans that much. Other than that I’ve been hit once again this week with different kinds of ship training.

It’s a funny thing, after being on ship for awhile and not really buying anything or worrying about bills I kind of got antsy about spending money. I remember coming back to Miami after the end of the 1st week, I had this urge to spend money. However, when I was working back at home I didn’t want to spend my money at all. Weird feeling I must say.

The other day, I had the chance to experience my 1st crew party. I just have word to describe it…CRAZY. Everyone was having a good time, even the Captain and many of the Officers showed up for the fun. What was funny was that everyone was throwing each other in the pool. People would be getting off of work in their uniforms to check out the party and they would be mobbed by a group of people and thrown into the pool. This must have gone on for about a good hour or so. Even the Captain and the Officers got thrown into the pool. One lesson learned, if you are going to a party that takes place by the pool, don’t wear jeans. I learned that lesson the hard way.

The second week is now done, and it already feels like I’ve been out to sea for about a month now. Time has a different quality when you’re living on a ship, most of the time I don’t even know what day it is anymore. The days begin to blur together almost like a photo that’s out of focus. Well that’s it for now. We’ll see what happens next week.

My first day on ship was a bit disorienting. I was pretty much thrown on the ship like a piece of cattle. Everyone else around me seemed to know where they were going except for me. After a spending a few hours on board I had a general idea of where everything was located.

I’m still trying to get used to the time difference. My biological clock has yet to make the proper adjustments. To make matters worse, my cabin mate has a big snoring problem. I thought my dad was bad, but wait to you hear this guy. He’s from St. Martin, a little country in the Caribbean. I’ll be staying with him for about two weeks and then I’ll move into a new cabin.

One thing I did notice, whenever I would ask a question to anyone they would usually end with; “don’t worry you will see.” I think I’ve heard that phrase three or four times already. I have to say that I’m disappointed in the fact that we no longer film the tours. I was really looking forward to doing that. Hopefully they’ll restart doing them since I arrived and we have an extra person aboard the ship.

I’m still trying to get used to living the ship life. I had lunch with my manager and he was telling me that one year on sea feels like three years living on land. It’s funny that he said that, because I totally had the opposite problem. One year for me on land, felt like just a few months. I think the slower lifestyle will be a good change for me. Working in L.A., made it feel like my life was going by in a blink of an eye. Over here things slow down to a much slower pace. Living and working on a ship, there really isn’t any place to escape. For some I know that can be a bad thing. But for me, seeing that I can be really shy around people it forces me to interact and open up with people. A crazy coincidence, one day as I was in the elevator I ran into a guy that worked in the spa. I noticed on this guy’s nametag it said California. So we started to talk a little bit and I found out he was from Venice Beach, California.

Living on a ship, one has to find ways to the kill time. There will be free blocks of time where there is nothing to do. Just the other day, the guys in my department had a two on two basketball game. One of the guy’s I worked with wanted me to play with him against these young Indian kids. I felt kind of sorry for them. I could tell they didn’t want to play with us because once we finished they scurried off the court like little rats. Unfortunately I was way out of shape and got tired very easily, which reminds me, I need to start working out again.

As far as my department goes, I am the only American. I’ll be working with a man from Nepal and two guys from Romania. These guys love to joke hard and bust each others balls all the time. I’m already learning bad words in Romanian from the Nepalese guy. The work that goes on in my department is pretty laid back. The atmosphere I have to admit is a little different. In a way it feels like I’m working out of home. I do a few hours of work in the morning then relax a bit in the afternoon. Later in the evening I’ll usually film an event followed up with some editing work. It feels nothing like a 9-5 job.

Once I get settled down, I need to start staying focused on my main goal. Finish one screenplay per contract. So far I haven’t done any writing but as soon as I start getting a routine down, I will start working on my screenplays again. Well that’s pretty much it for the 1st week. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to go to port soon.

After about six hours of flying and being in airports, I finally made it to Miami. I can’t believe American Airlines could not even give me a free bag of peanuts. Cheap bastards. I guess that’s what you get when you want to fly cheap. I met a mother and daughter who were flying to Tennessee to partake in this Irish dancing competition. I also met this lady who was traveling from Canada to visit a friend. I arrived in Miami around 5pm, which kind of reminded me of a cross-breed of San Diego and Los Angeles put together. The weather was fairly decent. A little humid but overall not to bad. As I checked in at the counter, the lady at the front desk told me that I would have a roomate. I was little upset, seeing that no one told me that I would have to share a room, but it turned out alright. The guy I met was from China and a veteran with Carnival Cruise. He was able to share a lot of information about life on ship. Its been a pretty tiring day. I’ll be heading off to my ship, the Carnival Valor tomorrow morning.

So its my last day in San Diego before I head out to Miami in a few hours. I’ve been working on the site the whole day. I’m pretty tired right now, and its painful to think I’ll be waking up in less than four hours. Oh well. Did some last minute packing and hung out with my sister later in the night.

Officially was my last day in L.A. before I head off to Miami. Pretty interesting day. After hearing Joe Rogen mentioning a thing or two about isolation tanks, I decided to head down to Venice Beach and give it a try. For those who don’t know, an isolation tank is this big tank you lie in that cuts you off from all your senses. You go in this tank and its pitch dark, no sound, no smell, and you float in about a foot of water that is the same temperature as your skin, so basically you can’t really feel where the water ends and where the air begins. Overall it was a pretty trippy experience. I lost total sense of time. I was in there for two hours but it literally felt like thirty minutes. After that I played in the first and last game for my company softball team. Unfortunately we lost. But hell, you can’t win them all i guess. So tomorrow will be my last day in San Diego before I head out to Miami this Saturday morning. Hopefully once I figure out how to upload photos I will get them up on this blog. But for now, I will have to use my words to paint the picture.

Hello everyone. Just a little info about myself. I am a twenty-five year old film school graduate. For the past year year I’ve been working a typical 9-5 job since graudating college. To make matters worse, I was doing nothing associated with what I studied for in school. Even though I was semi working in the industry, I was basically a driver making deliveries day in and day out. Don’t get me wrong the people I worked with were awesome, but after doing five years of college, I didn’t expect to be driver, and after working a year with the company I was still making deliveries….something had to change.

After unsuccessfully trying to find production jobs in the industry, I turned to a totally different avenue. Remembering my father told me something last year about working on a cruise ship, I submitted my resume and demo reel to Carnival Cruise and to my surprise they wanted to hire me as an audio/visual technician.  In a nutshell I will be working as a videographer and editor on ship, as well as taken care of everything audio and visually related on the ship.

With that said, this blog will be about my journey as a filmmaker. I will be heading out to Miami this 4th of July to start my new job. And if things go according to plan, I will be moving back to Los Angeles in a few years to continue my filmmaking career. But for now, I will set sail on the Carnival Valor and head towards the Western Caribbean.