Due to recent circumstances, I've found myself in Los Angeles long term. I initially started to follow my interest in film, hoping to make a career as a video editor and make use of my BFA in Film & Art.

However, the industry is fucked and I foresee it becoming considerably worse due to the economy here and work being outsourced. I want to teach English as a foreign language in a year or so in Japan, but while I'm here, I'd like to get relevant experience before entering a classroom setting in a foreign country. Does anyone have advice for what kinds of jobs or opportunities I might be able to take that actually pay and can replace my fulltime job working at a post production company in an entry level position? Literally, $20/hr would suffice. Any other suggestions would be helpful as well. I am trying to finally get my life together after years of sort of hoping and wishing I would find my path without putting enough effort. After working where I do now, it's so corporate and dull, I think that education and helping others is the only real way for me regardless of pay.

>>33321307 (OP)
In the same situation I would go Kubrick or Gibson or Bowie (I know, the last is a different artistic genre) and take COMPLETE ARTISTIC CONTROL of my work, eking out an existence living on noodles and couch surfing, singing in bars while being pelted with peanuts (Bowie). By complete artistic control I mean, of course, writing one's own script/score/lyrics (as the case may be), mastering the tools, and probably performing in it (whatever "it" happens to be). Considering how appallingly bland, formulaic and exploitative Hollywood's output generally is, there is definitely room for creative integrity. You might have a tiny following at first, increasingly fanatical for more of what you have to offer.

>>33321514
An afterthought:

Some of my favourite movies are really low-budget, and therefore inspirational for a new, starving director. Two that come to mind are:
The Man from Earth (2007)
127 Hours (2010)
You can probably think of others.

>>33321802
Now that I think of it, all of the Twilight Zone episodes were low-budget, almost cardboard sets with a handful of characters.