While I was attending UC Irvine, I began making short documentary videos for action film companies in Los Angeles. On this journey, I met a couple of interesting filmmakers who were documentarians who helped me to realize at the beginning of my film career that I was a documentary filmmaker. This realization created a passion within me that burned so fiercely within me that I did not know how I would survive. As I filmed different action film directors, I kept stumbling into documentary directors and found this much more fascinating, intellectually challenging, and fulfilling. One day, as I sat in my studio, a thought occurred to me; if I went to New York and filmed some of the great documentary film directors, I could get a better understanding of the world of documentary and I may learn some clues on how to survive. The more filmmakers I interviewed, the more I learned. One day, director Schani Krug, of the documentary Union Square, told me I should try to get an interview with the master of Direct Cinema Documentary as we know it today, Albert Maysles of Gimme Shelter. Taking his advice, I wrote an email to Mr. Maysles from his website and told him about my film “Respect the Doc”, a documentary about documentary filmmakers and how they had the power to shift the culture. He wrote back the next day and agreed to meet with me. I couldn’t believe it- I was awe-struck. The man who was such a force in the field I so desired to be a prt of had reached back out to me, and he was wanting to meet with me. After we met and I was able to explain my methodology and the plan for "Respect the Doc", he told me he knew this was a very important and timely documentary that he wanted to support. I later found out he declined an interview with the Rolling Stones to do this interview. It was at that moment that I began to understand that the universe wanted me to give a voice to the voiceless and use my talents in a very large and powerfully positive way. I will never forget what it was like to meet Albert. He had a magical aura about him. He was a visionary and a very egoless kind of documentarian. In the interview, he told me how important it was for the next generation of documentary filmmakers to tell the truth, much like I was, and to take the time to understand the people we were filming. He iterated that is was crucial to be ethical and different than how the current news and other media were treating the information on television with events such as the war overseas in America. He talked about how he and his brother traveled to Russia to film what was really going on in mental institutes, and then later filmed the Rolling Stones in the documentary Gimme Shelter. He talked about the magic in those films and what he had learned, and I realized my world had just opened up. From his words of wisdom I realized I could travel anywhere and not only learn from the experiences of any people, but also take that footage and share it with the world. After traveling around the United States and interviewing different kinds of documentary filmmakers, I began to edit the feature film together back in California. Taking the advice of many of the documentary directors, I persuaded a couple of theaters in California to show my film “Respect the Doc” (trailer https://youtu.be/-m4Mt8ZA8e8) for 50% of ticket sales. I managed to talk Kinko’s into printing my documentary posters for free and fliers and got the local TV Stations to interview me on their morning shows. I was so excited to take the wisdom and knowledge from these great filmmakers to the silver screen. Opening night about 35 people showed out of 2,000 but I didn’t care. For the premier, we had artists to paint on donated white clothing from the Thrift Stores who created a line of purchasable of tee shirts commemorate the event, copies of the documentary for purchase, and a great DJ playing. I wanted the theatre to sell out but documentaries were not that big in 2000 and Michael Moore was not a great person to use for marketing in Fresno and Visalia. I was so excited that this huge, unbelievable dream come true. This achievement made me feel like I was living in Heaven on Earth. With this done, the passion within me was renewed. I had such a big dream, and yet I had accomplished it. What was next? Already, ideas were flowing from me, and I was ready to use this first accomplishment as a stepping stone to achieving anything and everything I could get to. Unfortunately, like Icarus, I had disregarded reality and flown too close to the sun. My father sat me down after the premiere and said, “Your mother wants to know when you are going to get a real job Amber.” I couldn’t believe it. A real job? This was an amazing feat that most 21 year olds could never pull off. It was during this time that my massage instructor at college asked if I could help him make a documentary about the healing and transformative properties of touch. Before the filming started, he said I needed to "experience a reiki massage" to understand what I was talking about. During the massage, my instructor delved into my demanding childhood and managed to remove the pressures that had been put on my shoulders both physically and mentally; the physical pressures of working myself to exhaustion day in and day out... and the mental pressure from years of conforming to the systems of the US suppressing my creative callings. I believe that massage saved my creativity. I had borne the burden of the physical and mental stress for so long that I had started losing myself. I had bottled up my wants and desires since the time my father had asked when I would conform to the life of unhappiness and forsaken dreams that my peers had resigned theirselves to, and that massage helped me to take the cork out and let my dreams guide me. I decided I wanted to travel overseas. I had always wanted to do this and was never allowed because my parents thought my public education was the most important course for me, even though much of the information I received in those formative years was just the same few pieces repeated over and over, and I later learned the rest was not even correct! Unrestrained by the shackles of expectations and self-doubt, I bought a one way ticket to Sydney Australia. My parents asked how long I planned on vacationing, and was surprised that I was not going on vacation; I was bringing my feature film there, and I would screen it and continue my career by moving on to other countries that could challenge not only my ethnocentric thoughts and acts, but countries that pushed the challenge even further by language barriers and the like. I landed in Sydney, and that very night I was set to do a Q & A about my film. My editor found a group of people that were screening films and uploaded the video to them circa 2000, which was pretty advanced stuff at that time. Of course, being a first time traveller, I had to make a mistake somewhere... and that just so manifested itself in meleaving my wallet with my credit cards and money on my dresser at home due to my rush to make it to my flight (I misread my ticket and got the times and days of departure wrong). Luckily, as I was leaving for the airport, my dad gave me $80 of "just in case" money. That money saved my ass. I used most of it to get a taxi to the film night where I gave a Q & A for and hour and a half (most of the directors only spoke for 5 minutes so it was funny to everyone there). At the end of the event, I was asked where I would be staying, and I said "Funny you asked! Someone stole my wallet and I only have $20 left." I have no idea why I was not that freaked out, I guess I just knew I was supposed to be in Australia and figured "come what may", because I was pursuing my dream, and not even being out of money with no place to stay could hold me down. Shockingly, one of the people I was talking to offered to put me up until my money could be sent to me. I couldn’t believe it; this was during the Bush era where, in America, no one would have offered a stranger to stay at their place while they waited for money to be sent. But here I was, being allowed to stay with the organizers of the event! I couldn’t believe the luck. Chapter 2 After the film night, I landed a job teaching a course called SOLODOCO- a class about how to make documentaries solo. I ended up teaching some of the writers from Rolling Stone Magazine how to make documentaries right out of college. It was amazing what an American accent could do in Australia. It was during this time that I discovered deep house and electronic music. I was pretty naive when I first moved to Sydney. Mistakes like bringing a jar of quarters to AU thinking I could do laundry with USD quarters were not even the bottom of the barrel, but mistakes are just another chance to learn. Mistake after simple mistake gave me a crash course on how to properly adapt to a new country and culture, and I have been able to apply it to each new project from then on. Another misstep was originally attributing the thought that "Australians are really ambitious people" to the common occurrence of seeing so many of them coming out of restaurants and cafes dressed very well at 6am when I would go jogging on the weekends. Not to say that Australians aren't hard working and ambitious people... I just had no idea I was living in Darlinghurst ,a gay dance capital of Australia, and that the people I was seeing come out had not gone to bed since Friday. It's funny how instances like that that helped me to realize just how far I had to go to cast off the preconceptions I had arrived with and to be attentive and receptive to the ongoings around me. All-in-all, the Australians taught me many great lessons in life like the meaning of a work- life balance. I remembered coming from almost free slave labor in action film companies in Los Angeles to Sydney where one of my film students, later to be my first client, asked me “Amber, are you working to live or living to work?” I was really confused by the question because our occupations were such a part of who we were, and our very work is in our DNA... or maybe it was just in my Armenian-American DNA, who knows. Either way, it was an important piece of wisdom to learn. Another interesting lesson I learned was the meaning of the ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’. After working at the Sydney film and the first Apple Academy in Australia secretively, one of the workers told me about this strange syndrome. It was basically the idea that when someone in Australia got very successful or influential and the ego and big head took over, his or her mates would chop it down to keep even the most successful people humble. Having a huge ego was not "sexy" in Australia during the 2000 era, and that was a great thing to learn after living in the strange ego soup of polluted Hollywood LA. Chapter 11 After a six month stint in Sydney as a documentary instructor and a creative consultant/editor for one of my students and his business, I was told I needed to renew my VISA by leaving the country for a week, so I decided to embark on a short trip to New Zealand. One of my favorite friends at the time, Brad, told me I would love his country because the people were "even more kind than the Aussies". I fell in love with New Zealand during my 2 week "renew trip". New Zealand seemed like a strange place from the movies to me. People were really friendly. One night, I met a girl in a cafe who befriended me and told me to check out of my hostel and stay at her place so I could save money. I couldn't believe that she did not want anything from me. It was quite a strange experience to have some much kindness from strangers for no other reason than that they wanted to help and be my friend. I guess being from the "exotic land of California" probably helped a bit. It was one of the first places I met people that boasted about how beautiful the nature was in their country instead of how sexy their cars or jobs were. I vowed to come back as soon as possible to see my new friends again and live in this mystical land. After finishing my documentary work in Sydney, I packed my bags and moved to New Zealand to try to find a place to live and a new job that would give me more than the minimum wages I was making from teaching and documentary hustling. My search started in Christchurch with a guy I really fell for, but in hindsight I am sure I was much too intense and over-achieving for his laid back New Zealand managing a night club style. Thankfully my friend Brad came to the rescue and followed my move to his homeland. The moment I broke things off with this guy, he came to my rescue and said he was picking me up to stay with him and his lovely grandparents until I found a job in the retired village of Omaru or the college town of Dunedin. It was really a pretty hilarious month to be living at Brad’s grandparents house were no one in town accepted homosexuals and to have him pretend to be straight and eat biscuits and drink coffee at his grandparents house as we creating our world domination plans. I remember spending hours in front of my computer sending emails to production companies asking if they wanted to meet to discuss a collaboration and/or job opportunities, until, one day, I got an email back from the CEO of Tailor-Made Media, a huge media company in Dunedin, stating that they had watched my documentary trailer for "Respect the Doc" and wanted to have a chat. That week we rehearsed the meeting at Brad’s grandma's house and then ventured into Dunedin where I met some professional skateboarders at the park while attempting to skate and shoot a little skate video. They said they were moving into a huge old white mansion on the hill and they had a room I could rent if I got a job with this company. I decided to move into the house with the little money I had left and prepared for the interview. I remember confidently walking down the hill to their office getting a flat white coffee and owning the interview. It was quite interesting to have the meeting with the CEO as I pitched a couple show ideas on topics ranging from Russian skaters living in Sydney to documentary films like Respect the Doc. After my pitches and our conversation ended he said he didn’t have budget to create new shows at the moment, but he did have an opening as senior editor for one of his shows on TVNZ (the equivalent of the ABC network in America). He said the salary would be $34,000NZ for a 6 month show season. I was ecstatic I couldn’t believe it I had never been offered this kind of money in my entire life, but for some reason, maybe it was the negotiating Armenian in me, I said normally I would make about $60,000NZ for something like that in America. He said he would look through the budget and let me know if I could have the job or another editor from down the road. I came back the next day for the followup and they said that was the locked budget. They were afraid I would balk at the "lower" salary, but I said that was fine and gave them my passport to get the special work visa. The CEO laughed he explained I hadn’t gotten the job yet he had to run it by his secretary and then I would get a formal invitation. To this day I have no idea what made me negotiate for a higher rate I was about to go broke and get kicked out of the New Zealand, but the universe opened up to me that day and I got the position. I was editing the video with the director and the shooting from day one on the first floor, and then they moved me gradually to the basement. It was very strange the way it all happened. I later found out from the sound engineer that they all told everyone "not to take any shit from the American" and they sort of did a great deal of things to exclude me from the cool part of the business. Another amazing thing that happened was I had never actually edited television for broadcast and had no idea about the details like how to do bars and tones and a slate in the beginning of the video, so I had to read the final cut pro manual with the audio engineer in the basement. He couldn't believe I had no idea how to do this and I just told him my interns and assistants had done this for me when I edited the other shows in LA (completely untrue I pretty much had just graduated UCI with a degree in documentary studio art and was still learning the ropes from all my internships.) But I was determined to make these wild visions come true, so I persevered and survived the basement and 6 months of tv documentary show seasons and learned a lot about the industry, being alone and looked down upon as an American. Dunedin was a very interesting place for me. It was also the first time I had a nice amount of money and not many friends, but it was a start, and I still value the experience to this day. One night, I heard some really nice drum and base music coming from the lounge next door to my office and I went inside to see the DJ and his beautiful turntables. They were technic 1200 cdjs in a beautiful silver, and I decided right then and there I would use some of my money to buy these turnable and get lessons from him and another dj in town and learning the art of dj- ing, and taking people on a musical journey would be my new friend. It was quite hard in the beginning to learn how to mix tracks how to choose the right ones to properly convey the emotional trip I wanted to show people with my mixed music. I made friends with a student one day who let me borrow her library card to watch the documentaries on the history and art of dj- ing. I learned much wisdom from the great pioneering djs from the era of deep house until the librarian caught on and took away the card and suspended me from the library. Now I spent my days editing the tv shows in the basement, and my night at the local small lounges and clubs, just watching the djs and dancing to the music, studying how the djs did their thing and enjoying myself in the process. I eventually befriended some of them and set to learning as much as I could from them. I showed them my own turntables and eventually offered to record mixes for them if they would let me play with them and teach me how to be a better dj. One day one of my teachers let me dj on his show and talk we talked about my life as a documentary filmmaker and up and coming dj. As my TV editor contract came to a close, I got to spin out publicly at a few different locations. Likewise, as the end of my contract approached, I started to reach out to film companies in my motherland, Armenia, to get a chance to live, work, and understand the land where my ancestors had come from. Finally, 3 weeks before my contract finished, I landed a job at a media house called Bars Media editing and assisting in a documentary about the Nagorno Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan. I was ecstatic. I packed everything including my dj turntables with 4 channel mixer in my flight/coffin case, later to be referred to as my life-sized anchor, for my new adventure in Armenia. I will never forget landing in Armenia. I was coming from nearly three years of a never ending summer into the winter snow of Armenia. I got off the plane looking like no one in the airport (since I am not full blooded Armenian) while holding a coffin case. Everyone at the airport were asking what it was and saying that I had to do something like pay to bring it in. I was pretty confused, so I just took my turntables and luggage, gave them some American dollars, and pushed out in search of my non-english speaking driver who, I later found out, was so exhausted that he forgot to hold up the sign. So I just started talking to people until we somehow found each other and he drove me to my new apartment to go to my new job. It was a very interesting experience to live in a place were most of the people spoke Armenian and Russian. After working in Armenia’s capital Yerevan for about 5 weeks, I started to dj publicly. The first night club was called STOP. STOP was a rock club, and the owners agreed to let me dj if DJ Grengo djed with me (I later learned that it was mainly because they were a little scared to let a female dj since during that time it was pretty much normal for the women to get married and have children, but that was about it). My audience did not really know how to take me. They had never seen a female dj with the shiny turntables in Yerevan before. I remember paying a smooth deep house set and everyone asked me to scratch. I started laughing and thought "why not? I’m in a new land where the rules of traditional dj-ing does not really apply, so why not be innovative with the set!" That was the my second show in Armenia. The first was about a week after I landed. I had previously talked online with the owner of a club in Yerevan called Cheers about letting me dj. They sort of did not translate my dj name correctly. When I got to the bar and looked at the marketing fliers and signs I realized my Armenian dj name had became DJ AMBEK, that translated to mean something along the lines of "DJ of the clouds". A very interesting and beautiful mistake. It was not until this moment that I had ever truly understood the old adage about perfection not being just about control and discipline, but also about letting go and embracing mistakes. It just... fit, and I rolled with it. In the art world, I was taught that people pay money for mistakes. “Mistakes” many times lead to innovations like cubism. So as I go deeper into the documentary and music world of Armenia, I began to learn that I could make more of a living as a dj because I had the best turntables in the country, so I could rent them out, not to mention that I could also use them to play as Armenia’s first female dj. Realizing that this source of income freed up my filming, I sat down with the founder of the Armenian media company, and we decided the money I was making and the work I was doing wasn’t really "working", and the lack of “collaboration” did not make sense. I wasn’t used to the Stalin-like dictatorship of the company, and we parted ways peacefully. One night I was at STOP club and met some Georgian rockstars and their manager. After hanging out and adventuring in the snow with these crazy artists the manager came to my flat to see my turntables. He knew I was professional when he saw them and my first major booking began. Before moving forward in this story I need to inform you at this point I had a very strong New Zealand accent because I edited so much New Zealand television and I got sick of the prejudices attached to my American accent. Strangely it stuck and took about 4 years to rub off. After sending mixes I was officially booked to play my first large and serious gig in Tblisi, Georgia. I was traveling by ways of one of the old soviet trains, turntables in tow, when the train stopped at the border. The army came onboard to do an inspection check, and they were really confused about my black coffin case. I showed them photos of me djing to explain the case and its contents. The guard, confused, left and brought back about 7 other men in uniform to inspect the turntables and everyone ended up wanting pictures and autographs. Very funny, strange and interesting. Along the journey was a women from the Netherlands who worked from the British consulate who thought it was so interesting that I was on my way to DJ that night in Georgia. When I arrived in Georgia and made my way to the club, I was surprised by signs in front of the club with a picture of me, featuring the headlines “From the land down under of Kangaroos, come see DJ Amber from New Zealand." Very funny indeed, since there are no kangaroos in New Zealand. Nonetheless, it was very interesting to be in this strange land eating dinner with the owners of the club the night of my performance. The event sold out, but during the show I had a little malfunction with my turntables because the cds I was using with Serato needed to be updated, so it was a bit of a tough set. Thankfully, the crowd didn't care, and the event was a success, signaling the largest launch of my DJ. It was very addictive to make history and to be a pioneering women in a far off land. Not only that, but I was able to see firsthand the influence this had on the women in these communities, making my accomplishments feel even more vindicated. Unfortunately, I was pretty stressed during this journey and did not get to fully experience everything the country had to offer, and honestly not even as much as I would have liked, but many people have reached out since these events to let me know the positive influence they had on their worlds. So, while I might not have been able to experience the country, the country was able to experience me. I cannot explain the feeling of doing what most people fear of doing, but I am writing this memoir to let you all know that it is always worth the pain, the stress , and the frustration when your vision comes true. No matter what people tell you in this world, try as hard as you can to listen to that inner voice the tells you to reach for the impossible, because that is why we are all here. We live in an incredible world in an incredible time where it is easier and easier to make beautiful dreams come true and bring millions along this journey with you. But in the novel, I am also going to share the dark side of this natural bliss state of innovation, creation, and flow because I did not understand that every element of this story was natural, normal, and okay. When I started this seemingly impossible journey I read a lot of books about the new territory I was about to embark in, and the new things I was about to do. Many were insightful and positive and talked about the author's successes, but there was very little about the dark and lonely elements, and I would like to be honest about that for the next generation. I cannot tell you how many times I struck out, felt like a loser, or thought no one understood what I was doing. I cannot write enough about how many times I was alone in a room in Armenia or in California, learning and visualizing the future alone, almost broke, blocking out the influence of television and the mainstream culture around me, but knowing that I could not let the light of my passions and dreams die out and leave me in that darkness. After DJ-ing in Georgia and Armenia, I had another dream. I have no idea where this dream came from, but I was determined to travel to Spain and DJ in cities like Barcelona. I saved for a bit of time, and finally saved enough to take a bus from Tblisi, Georgia, to Istanbul, Turkey, DJ- ing there for a bit) and then finally took one last bus into Spain. It was a very difficult landscape to play in because there were already so many DJs, and, surprisingly, even a good amount of female DJs. Be that as it may, I was Armenia’s first female DJ so I was able to use that "exotic" element to get booked at the Chiliangito lounges on the sands in Barcelona Spain. Post- booking, I was only making about $80 euro a set, which was practically nothing. Broke yet again, I had to live in St. Rocie across the Rio de Pesos. My lodging was a bunk bed in the ghetto- it wasn't much, but it was what I could afford, and I was still able to live out my newest objective, helping me towards the elusive future I had been pursuing from country to country. When I first moved to Spain, I didn’t really have a lot of money, and I did not want to pay the outrageous prices for rooms so I decided to face my fears of losing everything for this dream and made myself life as a homeless person would for a time. It was terrifying. I walked a lot at nights just trying to find secret, safe places I could rest like- places like community gardens or parks that looked safe and were located away from everything. During this time, I met a lot of interesting immigrants that worked very early in the morning. I had to learn how to act like I knew where I was going and how to appear as if I was supposed to be outside when, in reality, I was scared as shit and more out of place than I cared to admit. My time spent homeless was eye opening. I had learned a lot about the homeless lifestyle from this experience, and it helped me to, yet again, strip away some of the ethnocentric, secluded life "lessons" that I had been taught throughout my earlier life, and I vowed I would never look down on homeless people, because there is always more to the story that we can see, and they already faced enough obstacles every day without the added vitriol that I was taught to feel towards those individuals who lived as I had been living. I lived in Spain for about a year, DJing on the beach and learning about myself, my fears my sexuality. Spending so much time on the beach, it was hard not to notice certain cultural mores that I was not accustomed to. For instance, the women in Spain rarely wore a swimsuit top at the beach. Of course, despite my American upbringing and aversion to nudity, I realized that if I did not do the same, the Moroccans would know I was a tourist and try to take advantage of that by targeting me as a target for petty theft crimes or whatever else they could get away with. It sounds like I was jumping the gun with that conclusion, but I had already encountered that exact scenario before. I was on the beach once with a really interesting Italian guy and the Moraccan stole my bag and he was able to chase the guy down and take it back pretty amazing. It's okay to now know what will happen by not adopting certain cultural aspects of day to day life, but it's not okay to experience the repercussions and not act to correct them. I woke up from my naivety and adapted. I could live homeless, I could surely do something as simple as be topless on the beach. Learn, adapt, and move on. It was seeming this was a reoccurring theme on my journey, and I was beginning to realize how important it was. In the middle of my second time living in Spain, I met some interesting skater Spaniards. I befriended one of them, and we actually started dating. I moved in with him, and that was a n absolute godsend, since it was so expensive for me as a dj. At the end of my last time in Spain, I remembered meeting a girl from New Zealand in Turkey who told amazing stories of working on luxury yachts. Her stories sounded way to good to be true, so I did a little investigation after my VISA expired in Spain and flew back home to my parents for Christmas. During this time, I ventured down to San Diego to say hi to my brother and interview at the yacht crew agencies to get a job on these luxury yachts. DJ-ing, as much as I love it, was really not paying the bills. I remember being in the interviews and the interviewer telling me that the only complaint the crews normally have is how hard it was to go back into the real world once they have become accustomed to the high end foods on the yachts (these are yachts owned by the most powerful and richest people in the world). Again such stories seems crazy but I kept pushing forward to shift into this mystical world of mega yachts. I was at my parents house working on DJ-ing and submitting CVs on different yacht sites when, one night, I received a call at 3 in the morning. I was confused because it was so late. Maybe it was the Spainish guy I was seeing in Barcelona or something, since the time difference would explain the late call. Instead, it was the captain of a vessel named “Bravado”, a mega yacht docked in Italy. Before this interview call I had met a delivery captain by the name of John Wampler who had a delivery and had coached me on how to get into the yacht world, so thankfully I was actually prepared for the call from the captain. In closing, I agreed to come work on the yacht if they bought the ticket and flew me in. I later found out they chose me because I was Armenian-American and they thought I could communicate with the owner and would bond better since he to was Armenian-Argentinian, and also just so happened to own about 23 airports. So, I packed up my things, sold the huge turntables to a marine, and embarked on a new journey to Italy. I was picked up at the airport and taken to the yacht. The first time I saw the yacht is an experience I will never be able to forget. We drove around this huge, four-story, mega yacht that was bigger than three of my parents' houses on the water. I was a little anxious that I would not be able to keep up in this new magical world of luxury slavery. Instead of cowing to my fears, I just humbled myself and just focused on staying positive and working as hard as I could. I told the crew to teach me exactly how they wanted me to clean the rooms of the yacht. Then they gave me the novel in a huge plastic binder.