Most everything I’ve ever written has .been done to ‘assignment.’
Nowadays, there are seven music directors in one film. I had never heard of such a thing before. If one of our old music directors was told to share a score with others, he would have left the assignment.
Be serious. You’ve got to do the job you were hired to do well, but there’s always more you can do. When I was an assistant, I would say to myself, ‘You may not be an executive, but act like one.’ I would volunteer for any creative assignment – read scripts, do ‘coverage,’ write notes.
By far my most perilous assignment was covering a tank car explosion.
My assignment was exclusively in the research field, and my first published paper, On the Optimal Use of Winds for Flight Planning, was the outgrowth of that work.
When I switched to screenplays – ’cause I had done musicals and plays – the first assignment in film school was, you have to write a silent film. And it’s tremendously helpful to learn how to do that because dialogue can be a crutch. If you can master a silent film, you’re golden.
I admire politicians. It is a really tough assignment, and I would fall at the first fence.
I saw an advertisement to work for a Swedish institute in Karachi in Pakistan. I had just been offered a permanent assignment, teaching in Oulu. But I felt, ‘My God, I am not going to stay here forever.’ You know why? Because I was following international events.
I always liked creativity, whether it was to draw or sew – any creative assignment I was getting from school, or just on my own.
I loved science, and when I discovered Buddhist meditative practices and martial arts, I was able to bridge those ways of knowing the world into my own unique way. From that grew the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, which became my karmic assignment.
It was so much fun to have the freedom to wander America, with no assignments. For 25 or 30 years I never had an assignment. These were all stories I wanted to do myself.
While F.D.R. once told Americans that we have nothing to fear but fear itself, Mr. Ashcroft is delighted to play the part of Fear Itself, an assignment in which he lets his imagination run riot.
We flirted with popularity in high school, which was when people realized that our videos, if used for a class assignment, would get you an automatic A. It took me a few months to realize I was just being used. They would only hang out with us while we were making the film for them.
The Bahamas has mangrove nurseries, coral reefs, shallow sea grass beds, and deep oceanic trenches – all perfect ecosystems for sharks. Photographing multiple shark species in exquisite water was the assignment I had dreamed about from the start.
I have never asked anyone for an assignment; never asked a producer or a director for a role.
All these things that enter your head are assignments. You write them up and then throw them out there and if someone wants to do it, your assignment is done.
I always think that my assignment is to seek out stories that are experienced by people who don’t get the ticket for Easy Street.
Running a magazine is a journalistic assignment, and part of the fun of being a journalist is that you get to change jobs every so often. Though there’s no stated term limit, four or five years should be plenty of time to put your stamp on a publication.
Whatever job you’re asked to do, whether you think it’s mundane, boring, or beneath you, do the best job you can. No assignment should be treated as a task. Before you can climb the ladder, you need to build a good foundation.
Whether you are planning a safari, doing a homework assignment on Botswana, or promoting your local business, Street View will allow you to experience a slice of the country.
If it’s necessary to join a caucus and get a committee assignment, I’ll do it.
Seat assignment didn’t matter if you’re flying Dallas to Houston and you did it 38 times a day. People just got on, you didn’t sit next to your wife, and it was a 45-minute flight. It didn’t matter.
My assignment was in the communications office, where I typed out dispatches.
It’s all about controlling the huddle one play at a time and knowing my assignment, knowing my progression and where I’ve got to go with the ball.
When I was a general assignment reporter early in my career, I was the one knocking on their door after a tragedy.
With each assignment, I weigh the looming possibility of being killed, and I chastise myself for allowing fear to hinder me. War photographers aren’t supposed to get scared.
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