Matt Jaku

Creative Struggles

A few weeks ago, I went on a small vacation. I wasn’t able to take a full vacation this year because of work. I was promoted to a full-time employee in May and I don’t get vacation time for at least 6 months. I do only work 4 10 hour days most of the time, so I was able to stack my days off to the end of the week so I could a least spend some time away. After everything with COVID and working a lot, a small break was nice.

I love my job. I really do. It isn’t too difficult and it’s pretty relaxed. Most of the people that come here don’t cause issues. While I do love what I do, I know I don’t want to do it forever. It’s a good job for now, and it’s really the only thing I’ve ever done. But in 10 years, I hope to be doing something else. Something different. I hope to be doing the job I truly want to have.

I want to create stories. I want to tell stories. I want to make movies. All of that is fun and all, but there are times where I hit a creative block. I get to a point in my story where I don’t know where to go next, even after plotting it out. I have some amazing story ideas…ideas that could turn into something. But sometimes I just don’t know where to go with them. And sometimes, I go one way with it and then change it when I go back to edit it.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that my biggest struggle is linking the beginning to the end while still keeping interest up. It’s so easy to just not care about characters, but I want to make sure that my characters are relatable. I want people to see themselves in my characters. If not that, then I want people to say, “I know someone like that.” Characters are the true stars of my stories. If I don’t have exciting or relatable characters, I feel like I’ve failed in telling my story.

I know I’ll get better at it the more I do it, I just wish I was better at it now. I know these things take time. I just get impatient at times. I think most people are like that in some aspect. They don’t want to spend the time working on a skill. They just want the perfected result. Funny thing is, a lot of times, the journey was way more exciting that just getting to the end.

Sometimes, I do wish I could fast forward. But I also know that if I did, I’d probably regret it. Watching Click taught me that lesson. Being almost 30 reinforced that lesson. As a kid, I couldn’t wait to grow up. Well, I grew up and sometimes, I wish I could just be a kid again. It’s been a long journey for me, and I know in the end, it’ll all be worth it.

Babylon Filming: Week 1

The first week of filming for my short film called Babylon has come to a close. We got several scenes done and a few I might decide to re-shoot later. I want to see how everything else goes first. I just have a few thoughts and observations about it that I’d like to share.

This is essentially the first film I’m directing. I had directed a skit that can be seen at this link (What the F!@# Am I Doing?). It was a small comedy sketch I came up with. It’s about two minutes long. I highly recommend it. Side note: I will be referring to “What the F!@# Am I Doing?” as WTFAID. It’s faster than typing the whole title out.

With Babylon things are different. I filmed WTFAID in a couple of hours. It was simple and there wasn’t too many complicated shots. I remember coming up with a few variations of shots on the spot, but nothing too crazy. I also remember filming WTFAID in order…from the start of the script, to the end of the script.

Babylon we are filming out of order. We are filming it by location. So for any scene that takes place in say a park, we’ll film all the scenes at the park at once. This proves to be easy and complicated at the same time. It’s easy because we don’t have to worry about it after we finish. It’s complicated because some scenes might be at the start of the film while others are towards the end.

For continuity, we need to look somewhat similar. I’m not expecting exactly the same. This is an extremely low budget film, but I want it to be close. That also means some characters change appearance as time goes on and it’s hard showing that without a makeup department.

Realistically, these are all minor issues and I don’t think most people will have an issue with them especially when they realize it’s a low budget film. My goal is to put out the best film I can with the resources I have. I know that when all is said and done, I will be proud of the film and what we did with it.

Directing it has been an absolute joy. Seeing my vision come to life is something I never dreamed of. Directing is also something I can see myself doing in the future as a career. It’s challenging, but fun and rewarding at the same time.

So, what’s next after we finish Babylon and release it? Well…I have another short film in the works. I’ve started writing it and hopefully we can do that one as well. I’m excited for the things I have planned and I plan on posting updates here when I can so everyone can follow this journey with me. This applies to Babylon and any other future projects as well.

Random 2 a.m. Thoughts – Part 1

It’s roughly 2 a.m. and I’m getting ready for bed. I may actually make this an ongoing series where I write about things that cross my mind at before I go to bed for the night.

I just got finished playing Apex Legends with a couple of friends. Tonight’s games weren’t as good as other nights. Everything about my game was off. I would get killed super quick, I couldn’t knock anyone down, I couldn’t hit my shots…it happens though.

I was playing ranked and it was a train wreck. They did a soft reset on ranked so it felt like people that were ranked way above me are now playing in my ranked level. It was NOT fun. I was always getting knocked down before I could even see where the shots were coming from. It takes all the fun out of the game.

The best game of the night was the last one we played. We played in unranked and we placed third. We didn’t get a third player for our trio, so it was essentially 2 vs 3 the whole game. To finish in 3rd that game was pretty impressive.

Sometimes I miss the days of old. Last year at this time the world was vastly different. Covid was in full force. Things were shut down. I wasn’t allowed to go to work because it was shut down. And if I’m being completely honest, as much as I hated being home all the time, I did actually enjoy it. I did whatever I wanted all day, every day. It was a very unique time.

I’m currently working full-time at the same job as before the pandemic. I really do enjoy it. I have excellent healthcare and all of the other benefits that come with being a full-time employee. Technically speaking, this is my first ever full-time job. I’ve worked 40+ hours a week before, but I was classified as part-time.

Since going back to work things have slowly improved. As of this post, things are just about back to normal. We still have to wear masks, but that’s not all that bad. In fact, I feel so weird when I don’t have a mask on. I’ve gotten so used to it, that it feels odd to walk around in public without one.

Friday night I’ll be going to the Cubs game. It’ll actually be my second game in 2021. The first one I went to masks were required and the stadium was at about 25% capacity. When I go Friday, masks aren’t required if you’re fully vaccinated (which I am) and the stadium is at 100% capacity. I am excited to go. I love baseball and I love watching the pros play. There’s just a certain feeling you get from being at the game that you don’t really get from watching on TV.

While the future is still uncertain, it is nice seeing things go back to how they used to be. Businesses running as normal, people being able to hang out, concerts returning. I did miss being able to go anywhere I wanted when I wanted. Being stuck at home made it feel like house arrest. The only places I went was the park and the store. Now, I can go anywhere I want.

This pandemic is something that should be remembered. It was a time of chaos and uncertainty, but we’re going to make it though it. And once we do, we’ll be grateful for all the things we do have. Because it wasn’t that long ago that the entire world shut down and our lives changed forever.

Battlefield 2042: The Excitement is Real!

It’s finally coming! A new Battlefield game has been long overdue, but will it be just as good, if not better than previous games? Only time will tell.

From the trailer (which can be seen here) we can see that the graphics look amazing! This is definitely a “next gen” game…or a high end computer game.

What I like, is that while it does take place in the future, it’s the near future. Most of what we see in the trailer we already have in the modern age. This excites me for a couple reasons.

First of all, I loved Battlefield 1 and Battlefield V. They were fun to play and I liked that all the guns and attachments weren’t that overpowered. The guns were from WWI and WWII. That meant no fancy thermal scopes for once. I always managed to find a way to get sniped by a guy with a thermal scope.

Secondly, the only place they could go was the future. The past had been done and the modern day had also been done. But they were smart about it. Unlike Call of Duty, it doesn’t seem like they went so far into the future, that things are unreasonable. The worst part about futuristic Call of Duty was the Exo Suits. I HATED when people would bounce around, land behind me, and kill me. MASSIVE RAGE QUIT.

From this trailer, I don’t see anything like that and I hope it doesn’t become a thing. That would ruin the game for me. It also appears that there will be plenty of map destruction available. One of the big things I loved about Battlefield games was the ability to destroy the map as you played. It added a fun dynamic to the game. And we can’t forget about the ability to jump out of a plane, shoot a rocket at another plane, and then land back in the plane. Classic Battlefield!

Overall, the trailer shows a lot of promise. I’m very curious to see if changes in the weather on the map play a role in how the game is played. In past games, sandstorms made it hard to see. They might amp it up for this game and make the weather devastating.

Nonetheless, I’m definitely excited for Battlefield 2042 and you can bet I’ll play it the day it comes out (work permitting of course). The first Battlefield game I ever played was Battlefield 4, many, many years ago on my PS3. I fell in love with it from the moment I played it. I just hope that Battlefield 2042 is as good as it looks.

Living Without Regret

Everyone has some sort of regret in life. The car you never bought. The video game you didn’t play which turned out to be the next best thing. The date you never went on. The 14 beers you drank last night at a party even though you have to work the next day. But is it possible to live a life regret free?

I would say yes it is. There isn’t a day that goes by where I regret a decision I made. I’ve learned to accept my past for what it was. And more importantly I’ve learned to see how past events shaped my future. I learned how they made me a better person.

My biggest regret for a long time was being a screw up in school. I went to a university straight out of high school and screwed around. I didn’t focus on school work and my grades tanked. I didn’t get kicked out, but I was close. I really only did just enough to get by. I left the university after my freshman year of college and went to community college.

There I focused more on my schooling. I actually tried and I did well. The following year I went back to the same university. I was determined to do it right this time. And while I did better, it still didn’t matter in the end. My screw up from before meant I wasn’t able to get financial aid. No financial aid meant I couldn’t pay the tuition from the previous semester to be able to register for the next one. And that meant I was to return home again. This time for good.

It was a hard lesson to learn. One that took several years to finally understand. I don’t consider it a screw up anymore. I consider it a stepping stone. As an 18 year old I didn’t know what I wanted to do anyway. I went into college undecided. After that, I changed my major about 5 times. I wanted to do everything from psychology to journalism. But nothing seemed right. It just didn’t feel right for me.

I finally landed on movie and TV production and it’s something I have a huge passion for. I love telling stories and I love acting. This is something where I can tell stories and act. And more importantly I can create characters. Characters that reflect who I am and who I was. Characters that feel. Characters that can almost be real. And best of all, I can have these characters be the things I could never be.

To me, movie and TV production allows me to be the person I was always meant to be. I don’t have any regrets about the path I’ve taken. Because years later, I can see that without it, I don’t think I’d be where I am now.