Tag Archives: film

Almost Ready To Make A Movie! (or Can You Spare A Buck?)

I’m so excited about the short film that my friend Christopher has written for us to star in! It’s a super cute story, I like the character I’m playing, and I think it’s going to be a really fun shoot! I’m so happy that Christopher wrote a film and had me in mind for the other lead. And since he and I are basically the only actors, we haven’t had to do any additional casting.

After meeting with my friend Bryan, he agreed to direct the film (which makes me so happy!) and he connected us with his friend Jaime who is going to be our producer. We’ve been getting things done pretty quickly and we think we will be able to shoot the film at the end of May or beginning of June. But then we found one small roadblock that’s preventing us from scheduling our shoot.

Money.

We are cutting costs where we can (and Christopher and I are going to do deferred pay so we aren’t paying ourselves for the project), but it’s not cheap to make a movie. Even a 10 minute movie like ours will be has costs like sound, camera equipment, lighting, editing, and other post-production costs. We have reached out to all of our friends and I think we have a great crew put together and they have all agreed to work at a reduced rate to help us keep costs down.

We put together a budget that is as limited as possible without putting the quality of the film at risk. Even though everyone is helping us keep things as cheap as possible, after we pooled our money together (I’m taking mine from my new computer fund) we found ourselves a bit short. We need about $2200 to make sure we can afford everything we need to in order to make this film a reality. It’s not a lot of money, but we’ve all stretched our personal budgets as much as we could and that’s how much left we need to find. We thought about ways to raise the money, and we’ve agreed that a Kickstarter campaign is the best way to go.

I hate asking people for money and I don’t expect any of you to donate (although if you want to I’d be so grateful!). But what I’m asking of you all is to please share our Kickstarter campaign with people you know. You might not be able to give anything, but someone you know might want to do it and you are the way to connect them to us. You never know who will want to help a short film get made just because they think it sounds cool.

As with all Kickstarter projects, we have rewards for various levels of donations. We are going to have a link to watch the finished movie online for some donors. Other donors are going to be able to name my pretend kids in the movie (I play a single mom). If you are an actor or know an actor, we also have a limited supply (we only have 5) of headshot shoots with our director Bryan! The donation level for the headshots is a fraction of the cost of what headshots normally cost, so this is a great deal for getting new headshots done! And if you know an actor who might want new headshots soon, you can donate at that level and gift the reward to them. And for the ultimate reward, our highest donation level gives you a producer credit on the film plus you get to be on set while we are shooting!

We have donation levels from $1 to $1000. Even a $1 would be amazing because if enough people each give us $1, we’ll reach our goal! I don’t care if we have 20 donors or 2000 donors. As long as we are able to fund our project, I’m ecstatic! The most important thing to me is that we are able to film what I think will be a wonderful short film and that we get to share it with the world!

If you have the ability to donate, any amount will be such a gift to us and every single dollar will be appreciated more than you probably think. And if you can’t donate (and trust me, I can relate to not being able to donate), please share this post or our Kickstarter campaign online so others can see it and they can either donate or share. We know the only way to make this film happen is with help and we can use as much help as we can getting the word out about this!

Back To Normal (or Catching Up On Life)

Even though I was only gone to Santa Barbara for a couple of days, when I got back to LA it felt like I had been gone for a lot longer. I’ve done other weekend getaways before, but for some reason it felt like this one was different. I’m glad I was out-of-town as long as I was (I had time to relax and see my family), but I’m also happy to be home.

The first thing I had to catch up on was work. I did miss work on Saturday last week (which was fine because I had worked extra hours not too long ago to cover for a co-worker), so I had to see what had happened while I was gone and if there was anything weird that I needed to know about. I ended up logging into my work email on a day off to see what went on while I wasn’t working and I looked at some of the issues that my co-workers had to make sure I was ready for any customers with the same issues. It didn’t take too long, but since my brain was in vacation mode a bit it seemed to take longer.

Also, in my other day job, I’m getting more hours soon. I can’t start the new hours until I have some training (and they might have to set me up with some work computer stuff), but since I know that it’s coming up I want to make sure I’m prepared. I’m trying to do as much as I can now with my current responsibilities because I know that when I get my extra hours my time needs to be split between my current work and the new work that I’m being trained on. I need to figure out a good time management system to split up my hours and I’m trying to look at that now before I have the extra responsibility to deal with.

I’ve also been busy working on the short film my friend wrote for us to star in. We have our director and our director got us a great producer. We’ve had a couple of phone meetings to work on budget and other things and we are all hopeful that things will be ready to go at the end of May when we are hoping to shoot. Even though I’ve produced a documentary before, working on a narrative (scripted) film is very different and there are things to think about that I didn’t have to worry about with the documentary. Fortunately, everyone else is much more experienced than I am so they can help guide me to what I need to help with. It’s a little overwhelming, but I’m so excited to be working on this project and seeing what ends up happening with it after it is done.

Besides all of that work plus the usual stuff that I have to do every week (errands can get annoying and time-consuming!), I’ve been running around like crazy and I’m finally starting to feel caught up on life. I have some really fun adventures coming up over the next few weeks and I don’t want to have to stress about not having a ton of free time to catch up on other things. It seems like I have weeks where everything is overbooked and crazy and then weeks where I’ve got nothing to do. I wish the weeks would be a bit more mixed up, but I’m dealing with the craziness (and lack of sleep) just fine for now and I know soon enough I’ll be wishing I had more stuff to do.

Being Proactive (or Bringing Acting To Me)

It’s really tough as an actor when you feel l like you aren’t making any momentum in your career. I haven’t had an audition in a while and that’s a bit frustrating. Right now there are no improv classes at a time that works for me, so I can’t enroll in the next level of classes. I’m not really losing weight so I don’t need new headshots or other things like that. And there’s not too much I can do about those things.

I know that so many people say that actors should focus on creating their own roles and projects, but I’m not a writer. I can write on here and on other blogs, but it doesn’t translate to writing a script. I’ve tried writing even little sketches and even those are difficult for me and I get really annoyed I can’t translate what I want to say to paper.

But I’m lucky that I’ve got several friends who are writer types and want to collaborate with me. And over the past week I’ve been able to find time to meet with a couple of them and now I finally feel like I’m moving forward again

I hate that I have to be really discrete on these projects, but they are all in the super early stages so I don’t want to say too much. I’m not trying to be cool by not sharing things.

With one of my friends, she and I are working together on a non-acting idea. We’ve got an idea for an event we want to do that is somewhat entertainment industry related, but it’s not an acting thing. We came up with this idea super randomly and it snowballed from there. We are coming up with plans and logistics and I really think that this could be something really cool and easy to accomplish this year if we get the right people working with us. Even though it’s not acting specific, because it’s something that seems fun to me it still activates the same creativity side of my brain. She and I are also talking about how we should work on an acting project together, but that’s not the first priority right now.

I also met with a writer friend of mine recently. She and I have discussed doing a project with a bunch of friends in the past and I think that we can finally start working on that idea more. We don’t have an idea for a script or characters, but I think this would be the type of project that we need to be inspired to do and not just write it because we want to write something. Hopefully something soon will inspire us and we will have something fun to work on together this year.

And finally I’ve got a friend who is a writer and just wrote us a short film. He and I had talked on the phone and I guess he got inspired to write a 2 person short film and had me in mind for the other character (he wrote it for me so there are aspects of it that fit me perfectly). He sent me the script as soon as he wrote and I read it, loved it, and emailed him back with a couple of notes. He sent me another version and we decided to meet up to work on it together.

We met on Tuesday after work and discussed ideas and plans for the short film (I’m always a “think big” person so I’ve got big ideas for it). There are a couple of things in the script that could be changed to make a bit more sense (they are all minor things) and we came up with some really funny ideas for the beginning and end of the film to make it a more well-rounded script that would be a great showcase piece for both of us as actors and for him as a writer. If he and I could find a crew to help us shoot this short, I think we could have it done and edited by the summer to share with everyone.

It’s so nice that I’ve been able to have so many friends who are self-motivated like I am but are in the parts of the industry that I’m not so great at. If I had to write my own projects, it would never happen. I would be endlessly frustrated and never finish anything. Or I would just make little improv-based movies which can be fun, but they aren’t always that great without a decent outline to keep the plot on track. Having friends who are strong where I am weak and want to collaborate really is awesome.

I’m hoping that by the end of 2016, whether or not I have another audition, that I’ll have at least 2 projects that I’ve been in this year. It’s totally possible, but I need to just focus on who I know who can work with me and not the fact that I can’t write. If I focus on the positives and work on creating work with others, there’s no reason why I can’t have new credits to my name this year.

Helping Out A Friend (or Getting To Act)

I didn’t get to do as much acting as I would have liked in 2015. I had some really great auditions and got to take class, but there weren’t any bookings. And as much as I love the brief moments that I get to act in the audition room or in my classes, I missed working on a fun project. There’s something special about working on a project that you don’t get in auditions or in class. It’s like how being on a studio lot feels magical somehow. I don’t know how to explain it, but it just is that way for me.

I had been really excited about an audition that I got the first week of January, but right after I got the audition notice I got an email from my agents that the audition was now for a non-union project. And as a union actor I agree to not work any non-union things. I was so excited for a second and then felt really sad that the audition wasn’t something I could go to. I don’t blame my agents at all because they don’t always find out something is non-union until the audition is scheduled. I’ve even had to leave auditions in the past because they lied about the union status. But that’s just the way it is sometimes.

So I was feeling like my year wasn’t getting off to a great start for my acting career. But then a friend of mine asked me if I’d like to play a small part in a new media project that he was doing. And of course I said yes! He sent me the script right away and I got prepared to work with him.

We shot the project this past Monday (I’m so glad that it was on my day off from my day job!) and it was really fun. My part wasn’t too big so it was a pretty easy shoot for me. I got to where we were all meeting at 8am and it was my turn to film at about 8:30, so I didn’t have to wait that long (sometimes you are on set for hours before it’s time for your scene).

My scene took place in my car and my character had been pulled over by a cop. It was really funny and I had a great time performing. We did each setup maybe 2 or 3 times and there were a couple of different shots that they needed to get. But after it was all said and done, I maybe only worked for an hour. Easy peasy.

It was so wonderful to be in front of a camera again. I love getting direction from the director and knowing that my work is being captured and others will be able to see it (in auditions, the directors might get to see it but it’s not seen by that many people). I got some really great feedback from everyone working on the project and that was a nice little confidence boost for me.

This wasn’t a paying project, but that doesn’t matter to me. It was a union project (my friend made sure of that so I could be a part of it), I got to act, and eventually once it’s edited it will be out in the world for people to see. That’s all I really need (getting paid occasionally would be great too). And that hour of acting made me crave acting even more.

That’s how I know that this is the right career path for me. I love getting to audition, I love ever second I get to act, and I love anything I get to do that feels like I’m furthering my career. Nothing feels like a chore or a task. It always feels like a reward and a benefit.

Hopefully this project will be the start of an amazing year for my acting career. I haven’t had my first audition of the year yet, but the regular start of pilot season is coming up quickly and hopefully I’ll have at least one pilot audition. And of course now that tv is back there are all those co-star and guest star parts I could potentially audition for. While there aren’t as many opportunities for someone of my type as there might be for a super skinny hot blonde girl, I know those opportunities are out there and it’s my job to be prepared for when they come my way.

Another Festival Done! (or My Weekend With The Beverly Hills Shorts Festival)

This past weekend was the Beverly Hills Shorts Festival. It was my second year as co-director of the festival. It’s still a little scary to me that I’m in charge of running a film festival, but I know that I can do it.

Our festival was going to be held at the same location as last year. That made me happy because I know the venue well and at the last festival we didn’t really have any technical issues.

On Friday, we had our opening night party. That is a good way to ease into the festival. It’s a fun party and everyone seems to have a good and relaxing time. I tried to figure out what to wear as a film festival director, and I think I came up with a good outfit.

Opening Night Party Outfit

My job at the party is really to be the hostess for the event. I tried to have fun while I had some amazing volunteers who helped to put together programs and check in our filmmakers. And as I went around the room, it seemed like everyone was having a great time.

Opening Night Party

The next day was the first day of screenings. When I got to the venue, I had to take a picture of their sign promoting our festival.

Busbys Sign

We screening in the ballroom again. The employees there were able to set up the chairs, couches, and bar stools in a way that it was almost like stadium seating.

Empty Theater

On the first day of screenings, it went pretty smoothly. We had some issues with sound because of the noise in the other areas of the venue, but nothing too horrible.

Sunday was our second day of screenings we had our biggest glitch. One of the movies playing was sticking and freezing. While inside I was freaking out, I had to remain calm and handle the situation. I had the employees pause the DVD and I walked in front of the audience to apologize for the technical issues. Then I let them know that we had a backup DVD for that particular film (many of our films didn’t send us a backup so I’m glad this one did) and that we could start the movie over from the backup or to just go back to where we paused it.

Once we got the backup DVD in, things seemed to work better. While I probably looked fine on the outside, I was holding in tears inside. I just want the festival to run smoothly and have all the filmmakers happy. But when I talked to some of the audience later, they all said that they appreciated me coming out to speak about the technical issues and that it was fine. The filmmakers for that particular film didn’t attend, so that probably made things a little easier for me.

We have 7 screenings over the weekend (4 on Saturday and 3 on Sunday). And it pretty much all ran the way that I wanted it to. We also had our awards ceremony on Sunday. And while I don’t love speaking on a microphone in front of a crowd, I love giving out awards!

Before I knew it, the weekend was done and all the filmmakers were thanking me for putting on such a fun festival! I’m still coming down from the adrenaline rush of the festival (and lack of sleep over the weekend). But I had so much fun being co-director again!

I am hoping that the other co-directors can come out to the festival next year because it is way more fun being there with them. But now with 2 festivals under my belt, I feel pretty confident that I can do it again!

And now, I’m going to work on catching up on my sleep!

Post Festival

Supporting A Friend (or Another Story I Haven’t Talked About Before)

This past Saturday evening, I drove into Hollywood (which I hate to do on weekends) because a friend of mine was screening his film.

The film is “The Sublime And Beautiful” and it is written by/directed by/starring Blake Robbins. I have gotten to know Blake a bit. He was a guest on the podcast I work for so I know a lot about his story. It was awesome to get to see him again and to watch his film on the big screen.

IMG_3837

I’ve also seen the film before. Without giving much away, the film deals with the aftermath of a drunk driving accident (not caused by the main character).

This film is truly incredible to watch. I highly recommend everyone sees it. It is currently screening through this week in LA, but you can see future screening dates on their website.

But for me, this film has another meaning.

When I was 6, I was involved in a drunk driving accident. My brother and I were being driven by our babysitter. My parents had been on a vacation and we were going to surprise them at the airport. We made a quick stop at Taco Bell for dinner (this was the first and last time I ate at Taco Bell). And then we were off to the airport.

I was sitting in the back with my brother and our babysitter’s dog Pierre. We were trying to make Pierre sit in the middle seat and wear a seatbelt when a drunk driver ran a red light and slammed into our car.

I know that some people might not think that you can remember something really well from when you were 6, but I remember so much from the accident. I remember the sound that the car made as it was hit. I remember screaming to my brother to duck and cover because I was so sure that this was an earthquake (the 1989 San Francisco quake was the year before and clearly that stuck out in my head). I remember how it felt like forever before the car stopped moving.

Another car stopped and came to help us. They got my brother and I out of the car and someone waited with our babysitter who was up in the front. I don’t remember how they found Pierre, but I learned later that by my brother and I trying to make him wear a seatbelt, we probably saved the dog’s life. If his foot hadn’t gotten caught in it (and made him hit the door of the car), he probably would have gone through the windshield.

The paramedics came quickly (or at least it felt quickly to me). Our babysitter was on one backboard and my brother and I shared another. As the paramedics were taping our heads to the backboard, I remember screaming at them that they had to take us to Kaiser because that’s where my dad worked and that’s what our insurance was.

At the hospital, my brother and were checked out and we were both fine. My brother had a cut lip and I don’t remember any injuries for myself besides bruises. Our babysitter was hurt a bit more, but she was fine.

It seems like in most car accidents, the drunk driver lives and the victims in the other car die. In our accident, the drunk driver died.

I know that I should feel horrible that someone died, but I just remember hearing from someone (I’m not sure who said this to me) that we were lucky that that is how the outcome was. Not only did we live, we did not have to go through a trial with the drunk driver. Now that I’m older, I occasionally think about the drunk driver (whose name I don’t even know) and what their family must have gone through. Even though they did something wrong, their family still lost a loved one.

If you haven’t been personally affected by drunk driving, you are so incredibly lucky. To this day, I will almost never drink if I have to drive. And if I do drink, I usually make sure that I only drink one and that I have at least 2 or 3 hours before I have to drive. I’d rather be over-cautious than to have a horrible accident happen.

The story in “The Sublime and Beautiful” is heartbreaking to watch, but I feel like it is something that everyone should see. Maybe if more people saw how doing something so stupid could affect so many people, they would think twice about drinking and driving.

Audition Fairy (or The Tale Of Two Auditions)

Even though my auditions have seemed to hit a slump recently, this week I had 2 auditions! One was for a music video (which I know I didn’t book because it would have shot yesterday) and one for a short film (which I won’t know if I booked for at least another week or so).

In the room for both auditions, I felt great about the work I did. In fact, in the short film audition the casting director and her team were laughing so hard at my audition and said that I did exactly what they wanted. Even if I don’t book this job, I know that they will remember that I do good work in the room.

At the music video audition, they were bringing people back in groups of 5. I think that was because they were getting backed up and wanted to try to get through everyone as quickly as possible. After I signed in, I stood off to the side (it was very crowded in the waiting room plus I was so sore from my workout that I was scared that I would sit down and not be able to get back up). There was another woman standing right next to me so we started to chat.

If the audition requires a lot of lines, I’m usually not chatty in the waiting room. I spend that time working on my lines. But for this audition, we had to lip-sync to a song. I practiced the night before as well as in my car driving over so I felt comfortable not working on it while waiting. The woman I was talking with ended up being super cool. She and I chatted about random stuff and she told me how she only found out about the audition about an hour before (I on the other hand found out the afternoon before). I told her that if she wanted to look at my printout of the lyrics she could borrow them.

We waited about 30 minutes and then I was called into a group. The woman I was talking with ended up being in the same group as me. We all went into the audition room and I went first. We only had to lip-sync to the first verse and chorus and then my audition was over. I was dismissed but before I left I gave my new buddy my print out of the lyrics so she could practice before it was her turn (there were 3 people in our group ahead of her). And when I walked through the waiting room, I let other women know that they didn’t have to worry about the entire song, just the first verse and chorus.

Everyone thanked me and I headed back to my car. I felt like the audition fairy for helping out. I like to help out my fellow actors. I don’t feel like my chances are any worse if I help someone else out. Either they want me or they don’t want me.

After that audition I posted on social media that I felt good for being able to help people and some friends said that it will come back around to me soon since that’s how karma works.

At my second audition this week I ended up standing up again in the waiting room (for the same reasons again) and there was a woman standing next to me. She asked me if I was part of a particular actor group and I told her I wasn’t. Then she realized that she knew me through my friend Ace. More specifically, she saw the blog post that Ace had shared on Facebook and twitter.

We both laughed about how it was such a small world that we had a mutual friend. And we also thought it was funny that we hadn’t met before because she and I are very similar types.

This audition ran long. There must have been too many actors scheduled too close together plus the casting assistant was letting people who crashed the audition cut the wait and go in before people who had audition appointments and had been waiting. The wait ended up being a little over 45 minutes, but that’s ok. I had a new friend to talk with in the waiting area.

Her audition was before mine and when she was done, she walked over to me to give me a heads up about what happened in the room. When we signed in, we were all told that there were no sides for us to read. We didn’t have to worry about any lines. But in the room, she was handed a page of the script and had a few lines to read.

I’m so grateful that I was given a heads up about this! While I wished I had time to feel comfortable with the lines before going in the room, at least I walked into the room knowing that I was going to have to read the page and memorize the lines super quickly.

It turns out that my friends were right about karma coming back to me. On Tuesday I was the audition fairy for someone and on Thursday someone was the audition fairy for me.

This just reminds me that doing good things for other people is important. It doesn’t matter that technically I’m helping my competition because I know that if I’m who they want, it won’t matter what anyone else does in the room.