Tag Archives: movies

Life Lessons From A Skiing Legend (or Somehow This Death Hit Me Hard)

Posted on January 26, 2018 | Comments Off on Life Lessons From A Skiing Legend (or Somehow This Death Hit Me Hard)

I’m not the sort of person who usually gets upset over a celebrity death. Of course I’m sad when it’s someone who I admire or who did something incredible, but I’m not the type of person to visit graves or gets too emotional when the news breaks that someone passed away. It’s not that I don’t care, but I just don’t have the connection that some people have to celebrities that makes them feel like they know them.

But a death changed that this week. He may not be a celebrity to everyone, but Warren Miller was an incredible filmmaker that specialized in movies about skiing. He made over 500 films and had skiing films that came out right before ski season for the last 60 years. I grew up going to these movies with my parents. It was a tradition that we all loved and I have the best memories from going to those movies. For the 50th anniversary film, there was a contest where everyone got a fake ski bib with a number on it when they walked in. If you found someone with the same number, you got a free shirt. And I found the person with mine! It was awesome winning that shirt.

Besides seeing the films each year when they screened near where I grew up, we had a bunch of these movies on VHS (now we have a few on DVD). Whenever we were in Tahoe, it seemed like the entertainment for the evening was to watch a Warren Miller movie. We quote things from them from time to time and we still remember some of the funniest moments from the movies. They were a great combination of amazing skiing and ridiculous moments. They were pretty much the perfect movie to watch when you wanted to watch something on skiing.

When I saw that he passed away this week, I was so sad right away. It’s almost like the end of an era even though I hadn’t seen a Warren Miller movie in probably a decade. But it’s still something that was such a huge part of my childhood and now it seems like it is over. Warren Miller wasn’t actually making the films for the last several years, but I know with him gone they can’t even come close to being what they once were.

So I spent some time searching online for various Warren Miller things. I found some clips on YouTube, checked out the prices for digital versions of his movies (I think I’ll probably get one or two because they are pretty cheap), and read a couple of articles. And one of them was titled “Top 10 Warren Miller Quotes” and I think it hit me why this death seemed so bad.

Even though I hadn’t seen one of his movies in a decade, I’m sure that some of the things that he said are still deep in my subconscious. One of his common quotes that he said was “If you don’t do it this year, you will be one year older when you do”. That hit me hard because it is so true for so many aspects of life. I’ve told friends how I feel like my 20’s slipped away without me accomplishing anything. And I’m feeling a bit like that with my 30’s as well. I don’t want to keep waiting for next year to do it and then realize that I’m in my 40’s and still in the same place.

There are some good quotes from that page. I love “Don’t take life too seriously, because you can’t come out of it alive”. And of course since his movies had so much comedy in them there are some comedic quotes too like “If your parents didn’t have children, odds are you won’t either” and “They say it’s always darkest before the dawn. So if you’re going to steal your neighbor’s newspaper…that’s the time to do it”.

I think that some of these quotes were exactly what I needed to hear right now. I’m not necessarily in a rut, but I can feel like one is coming if I don’t change much. And of course whenever someone passes away it’s a reminder that life isn’t for forever and we need to enjoy it while we can. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I can’t go skiing to honor Warren Miller’s legacy, but I can live life to the fullest. I can enjoy the silly and stupid moments of life and make sure that I don’t wait to do things.

And I’ll probably watch some of his movies soon too. Sometimes you just need to have a great laugh at people falling off of a chairlift. Even though this isn’t the original narration with Warren Miller, it still has one of my family’s favorite quotes: “You want your ski? Go get it.”

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Default ThumbnailEnjoying Movie Nights (or Watching My Screeners) Default ThumbnailA Summer Of Movies (or Grateful For Union Membership) Default ThumbnailAwards Season (or I Have No Idea How I Can Watch All The Movies) Default ThumbnailMovies And Christmas Lights (or A Busy Movie Week) Default ThumbnailWrapping Up An Awesome Year Of Movies (or Still Loving SAG-AFTRA Film Society) Default ThumbnailLearning Lessons (or What Being Sick Taught Me)

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A Very Low-Key Christmas (or Not Spending My Day Off Doing My Usual Stuff)

Posted on December 27, 2017 | Comments Off on A Very Low-Key Christmas (or Not Spending My Day Off Doing My Usual Stuff)

I really didn’t do much at all this year on Christmas. It was a bit unfortunate that it fell on my day off of work because it didn’t feel like much of a break. In fact, it was a bit annoying at times because I would think of an errand that I would want to run like I do on a normal day off but couldn’t do it because everything was closed. Since I couldn’t do my normal day off stuff, I tried to not really focus on doing much at all.

Originally I was thinking about hanging out with some friends for the day with watching movies and getting Chinese food. I do that a lot and it is always a fun way to spend Christmas. But as it got closer to Christmas, my friends weren’t able to meet up. Some ended up having something to do with relatives that weren’t that far out of town. Others didn’t feel like doing anything that day and didn’t want to get dressed to leave their house (I don’t blame them). And other friends ended up getting the nasty cold bug that has been going around and I was happy that they weren’t going to come over to expose me to getting sick.

But spending Christmas alone isn’t that big of a deal to me. It would have been fun hanging out with friends, but I was able to just be lazy for the entire day and do everything that I wanted to without worrying about anything. It’s award screeners season and I’ve got access to all my digital screeners (the DVDs haven’t started arriving yet). So I spent a bit of my day watching some of the screeners so I don’t feel like there is a crazy rush to watch them all before I vote for the SAG Awards.

I also hadn’t had a chance to catch up on shows that I have been recording on my DVR or streaming so I started to watch some of those. And I love to read and wanted to get through some of my library books so I spent a lot of time doing that. And of course, I got my Chinese food. It was just delivery food since I was on my own, but I made sure not to overdo things. And once I was done eating, I didn’t want to keep the leftovers in my house because I didn’t want to keep eating when I knew I didn’t need to. So all my leftovers went in the trash as soon as I was done. It did feel like a bit of a waste of money for what I spent on food, but the wasted money is fine when it is helping me. Plus, I figure I save a ton of money on other things by having free movie screeners or getting books from the library so I didn’t have to feel too guilty.

I didn’t see anyone besides the food delivery guy the entire time. I spent the day in sweats with no makeup on and my hair up in a top knot. I was kind of a basic white girl for the day, but that worked for me. I didn’t feel like making an effort if I was just going to be home alone for the day and it is nice to not worry about things.

I know I need to do some of my regular errands during this week after work to make up for not getting them done on my day off, but I didn’t have a ton that I had to do anyway. And with my next day off being New Years Day, at least I know that most stores like grocery stores are open so I don’t have to put things off for another day.

I’m sure that for some people reading what I did for Christmas is a bit depressing. But Christmas isn’t really a holiday I’ve ever celebrated. It feels like just another day to me. And yes, I would have loved spending time with friends seeing movies and going out for dinner but I can also do that other nights. I like that I have my traditions on Christmas that can be done on my own or with my friends. But whether or not I’m celebrating the day with others I always seem to have a good time.

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Default ThumbnailA Solitary Christmas (or Just Enjoying Being Alone) Default ThumbnailA Christmas Lunch (or The Levin-Levin-Levine Summit) Default ThumbnailLow Key Labor Day (or Just A Regular Weekend) Default ThumbnailLow Key Halloween (or Costume Flashback) Default ThumbnailLow-Key Halloween (or A Work In Progress) Default ThumbnailHave A Low-Key 4th (or Friends, Fries, and Fireworks)

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

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“Unapologetic” (or Being A Documentary Subject)

Posted on May 9, 2017 | Comments Off on “Unapologetic” (or Being A Documentary Subject)

Sometimes, I feel like fate guides me to go places because I am really meant to be there for some other reason. And this is a story of fate directing me that I’m so proud of.

Not too long ago, I attend a SAG-AFTRA panel on diversity. Originally, there was no way I could attend that panel because I would have either still been in the hospital after surgery or just home from the hospital. And even without having surgery, that was during the time that my parents were in town so I was sure I’d be busy with them that evening. But I ended up having the evening free and was able to attend and I loved it!

Everyone on the panel was incredible and I got to meet many of them at the reception after the panel. And one of the panelists that I got to talk to more than others was Michelle Jubilee Gonzalez, who is a stunt performer. I knew after listening to her on the panel that I wanted to see about getting her on the Inside Acting Podcast, so I pitched her at the reception. After talking to her about the podcast I gave her my card. I only had my personal/acting/blogging card but since that has all my contact information on it I always seem to give it out. And when I did, Michelle noticed the name of this blog on the card.

She immediately told me about an amazing documentary that she’s producing called “Unapologetic”. And as soon as she sent me the synopsis, I knew immediately that I wanted to be a part of this!

“Unapologetic”: Why apologize for a body frame that doesn’t fit in a very narrow measurement of subjective definitions of beauty? In this documentary we will explore the opinions, struggles, and accomplishments of numerous women that not only broke the mold, but also opened the door for other women to feel empowered in their own natural beauty.

I was so honored that Michelle and her producing partner, Sarah, asked me to be interviewed for this project! I would have loved to help out in any way but to be one of the subjects was so much more than I expected. Of course, I immediately said yes and this past weekend I was interviewed for “Unapologetic”.

When I arrived, Michelle was still doing her own interview so I got to listen to her story and get an idea of the questions that were going to be asked of me when I was in front of the camera.

When it was my turn, I got miked up and ready to go. Most of the questions were pretty easy for me to answer and are things that I talk about on here (body image, my eating disorder, my fitness journey, acting) but there were plenty of questions that made me stop and think really hard about how I wanted to answer it. In answering some of the questions, I learned a lot about myself and realized new things that I never thought about before. It was really an amazing self-discovery journey that happened in front of the camera.

I do think that I am pretty unapologetic for myself. I am who I am and I know that I’m not going to make everyone happy at all times. But all I can do is to make myself happy and make sure I’m not hurting others in that process. But another part of being unapologetic is to not be apologizing for yourself or saying sorry all the time. I’m totally guilty of saying “sorry” when I don’t need to and it’s a bad habit that I’ve been working on stopping. There are so many articles on why women say sorry so often, and I know that I totally fit into that stereotype.

I even apologized after my interview for the documentary was done. I was saying that I was sorry for rambling and talking too much. It’s so ironic that I finished being interviewed for a project called “Unapologetic” by apologizing! But I know that fixing this constant apologizing habit takes a lot of time and I haven’t been working on it as hard as I should be.

I was interviewed on the first day of interviews, so this film may not be coming out for a while. Of course I will keep you all posted on any updates I have on the film because I want you to be able to check it out! I only know 2 of the stories in it (mine and Michelle’s) and I really want to hear what everyone else had to say. It’s such a powerful topic and I know that I will learn so much from everyone else!

Thank you again to Michelle, Sarah, and the entire crew of “Unapologetic” for asking me to participate! I had the best time on set and you were all awesome! It’s still crazy to me that people want to hear my story because I feel like I’m not that unique. But maybe by speaking openly about my experience that is what is unique about me. I’m not scared to share the good, bad, and the ugly about my life and I hope that others will be able to relate and feel understood or not alone.

Now I’m just going to have to be patient to find out when this is done and ready to share with the world!

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Default ThumbnailFiguring Out The Next Step (or I Need To Keep Acting) Default ThumbnailSAG-AFTRA Conservatory (or Feeling Like I’m Back In College) Default Thumbnail#140Characters (or How To See The Documentary That I Produced) Default ThumbnailWorking On A New Plan (or Self-Producing) Default ThumbnailAlmost Ready To Make A Movie! (or Can You Spare A Buck?) Default ThumbnailBeing Proactive (or Bringing Acting To Me)

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Watching The Oscars (or Costumes and Twitter)

Posted on March 2, 2017 | 2 comments

I’m sure by now you have all seen and read about what happened at the Oscars. If you haven’t here’s a great article about how the wrong film was announced as best picture, how it happened, and what was done to try to correct it. While that is a huge part of what happened at the Oscars, that was only a small time at the party I was at.

I went to Chris and Marie’s house for the Oscars as I have every year for a long time. It’s a great party every year and I’m always looking forward to it. The group of people who go to the party are a mix of those of us who take the Oscars very seriously and those who aren’t super into the awards but love any opportunity to dress up and hang out.

I had an idea for a costume around New Year’s Eve, but it seemed too complicated for me to figure out how to make and I gave up on it. I had another idea for a costume and even went out and bought things for it, but I decided that I wouldn’t be comfortable in the costume. I started researching what movies came out in 2016 (since the only rule for costumes is that it needs to be related to a movie that came out in the past year), and finally found the perfect idea for me!

I went as Anthony Weiner’s twitter account (inspired by the documentary “Weiner”). I had a dry erase board with his twitter profile picture where people could write tweets and I wrote on tape on my body a couple of statements Anthony Weiner had made after his scandals were in the news. It was another easy/lazy costume, but fortunately people at the party found it really clever and fun.

As always, Chris and Marie decorated their house and yard for the party. This year, the theme was Arrival and they did an amazing job making decorations that were exactly like the movie. I especially loved the photo set up they made with the aliens from the movie!

Since there is a mix of people at the party, the viewing areas are split up. There is the quiet room and the regular viewing area. The quiet room used to be much more quiet, but over the years we’ve gotten a bit chattier. We are still very quiet during all the speeches, but we will occasionally talk or say a comment during the show. And of course we are super chatty during the commercials. But my favorite party of the quiet room is that the video is projected onto the wall of a room so we have a giant screen to watch on!

We have ballots to use for the guess the winners contest at the party, but pretty quickly I knew I wasn’t going to do so well with that. While “La La Land” wasn’t my favorite movie of the year, I knew so many critics loved it and I assumed it was going to win more awards than it did. I also hadn’t seen all of the animated, documentary, or short films so for many of those I had to guess. But so many people and films that I wanted to win did and I was really enjoying the show.

Then there was the moment when the wrong movie was announced as Best Picture. I don’t think I’ve heard so much screaming before during the Oscars. We were all so confused (as was probably everyone watching) and we couldn’t believe what was happening. I’m glad that the error was corrected during the show so the producers from “Moonlight” could get up and speak, but I know that it was a moment during the ceremony that will not be forgotten. I know it was an honest mistake, but it was a big mistake.

I think everyone was in shock after the awards were done, but we all headed to the backyard to start the costume contest. We all go around and announce what our costumes are so we can vote. When I announced my costume, I got a bunch of laughs, but I knew that my costume wasn’t going to be a winner. So many people had amazing costumes and I was just happy to see how creative other people can be.

I loved my friend Regan’s Hidden Figures costume (she was with some friends who played other characters from the movie). Their group got first place in the costume contest.

And the funniest costume I saw was actually the costume I was originally thinking of doing! When I went to see Dr. Strange, I immediately thought how cool it would be to go as the cape from the movie. I was trying to figure out how to make a cape look like it was levitating in front of me, but I never could figure out a simple enough solution. But my friend Andy figured out a really easy way to do it and I think his costume looked so much better than anything I could have done!

After the costume winners were announced, the party started to wind down pretty quickly. Most of the people at the party had to work the next morning (I had an early workout the next morning) so a lot of people were trying to get home. I left pretty early too, but since that’s when most people were leaving I didn’t feel like I was missing too much of the party. I went around saying goodbye to all of my friends and walked out to my car.

On a random side note, this was the first party since my car died on New Year’s Eve and it was a little stressful driving home. Even though I have a totally different car, I was still paranoid something would happen on my drive home. I’m sure I’ll feel like that for a while because things like that stick with me. But I got home safely and I’m so glad that I have a car that doesn’t have any problems!

Overall, it was yet another amazing party for the Oscars. I love getting together to watch the show and it makes me feel a part of an amazing community. Most of us know at least one person who works at the Oscars (I know 3 or 4), and we love getting to celebrate movies and be proud of our friends who are there. Hopefully one day I’ll get to attend the show in person, but I know if that happens I’ll probably miss going to the party since that’s what I look forward to each year!

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Default ThumbnailOscar Party Time (or Feeling Inspired) Default ThumbnailMaking Some Good Guesses (or I Am Not A Cat) Default ThumbnailA Night Of Oscars (or Last Minute Costumes and Enjoying The Show) Default ThumbnailBeing “Wild” (or Not Guessing A Lot Of Winners Right This Year) Default ThumbnailOscars Time! (or Inside Out vs. Star Wars) Default ThumbnailHollywood Superbowl (or Where I Was For The Oscars)

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Film Festival Day (or Being In Charge)

Posted on February 15, 2017 | 1 comment

This past weekend was the Beverly Hills Shorts Festival. In the past, we’ve had the festival happen over multiple days, but this time we only had it on one day. This ended up being a good thing for me because this year’s festival was quite the stressful thing. I love working this festival and at least the love and happiness I have overrides the stress I get. But that doesn’t mean that the stress doesn’t affect me sometimes.

As I mentioned before, we had a last minute venue change with the festival. It was an unfortunate situation where our previous contact was no longer with the venue, but they never told us that in their email correspondence. So even though we had emails from them saying that we were all confirmed for the date, there was no record of us since they didn’t work for the venue and had no authority to book events. I’m glad that the venue felt bad for what happened to us and was able to put us in a new venue, but it was still stressful knowing that it was a venue that I hadn’t held a festival in before and wasn’t sure how it would all work.

I had gone to the new venue to see the setup and try to plan out how I wanted things to happen, but still the day of I was stressed more than I would have liked. I wanted to be able to relax and enjoy the festival, but I knew that until I knew that everyone had a good time that I would be worried about things. But the staff at the new venue was amazing and really did everything they could to make sure that the festival ran as smoothly as possible. Things weren’t perfect, but without the awesome staff and management I knew the festival wouldn’t have happened at all. I’ve thanked them so many times already, but I can’t thank them enough. I wasn’t the easiest person to deal with when I’m that stressed out and there were lots of little things that I wanted to make sure were right. But they understood my need to try to make things perfect and really worked with me.

It’s still weird to me to be in charge of everything. When I started with the festival, I was a volunteer. I worked my way up the ranks over the years (I’ve been with the festival for 9 of the 10 years it’s happened) but I still feel like I’m at the bottom of the totem pole. I need to build confidence with being in charge, but for now I have to fake it until I make it.

Since we had a reduced timeframe for the festival (which was because the other venue was supposedly only available for that limited time), we only had 2 screening programs: comedy and drama. And this year, one of my films was submitted and accepted into the festival! I know it sounds like I had something to do with it, but I do not program the films and the programmers don’t all know who I am. So it was exciting to have “Single Parent Date Night” make its festival debut at the Beverly Hills Shorts Festival!

The only downside to having the film in the festival was the way that the venue was set up, our lobby/reception area had about 8 TVs which all were playing what was playing in the screening room. So when our film started, I was surrounded by me. Not the best thing for someone who doesn’t love to watch themselves on the screen, but it was pretty funny to not be able to escape from it.

This wasn’t the most successful year, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a great festival. Everyone who was there seemed to have a great time and many filmmakers came up to me after the screenings to say how much fun they had. I’m glad that everyone had a good time since that’s all I really wanted to get out of the festival.

I know that we are going to take a bit of a break before the next festival. My co-director and I really want to bring it back to the glory days it had in the beginning. We want to be back in a great venue and have the filmmakers be excited to be screening there. We know we have a great event, we just have to make sure that others know it as well.

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Enjoying Movie Nights (or Watching My Screeners)

Posted on January 19, 2017 | Comments Off on Enjoying Movie Nights (or Watching My Screeners)

It’s almost time for the SAG Awards which means I’m getting ready to vote on who I think should win in the various categories. It’s still so much fun that I get to vote on the awards and it fees so special to me. I know that all union members get to do this, but it’s still relatively new to me and feels like a novelty. And I do take it seriously and want to make sure I vote for who I feel deserves to win and not just who is my favorite. I know that no everyone does that, but I look at it as if I might be nominated one day. I might not be a name actor by that point, but I would want as much consideration as an a-list actor might get. So I take each nomination just as seriously as the others.

Usually, I’ve been able to see more of the films before the nominations come out. I get to go to screenings through SAG-AFTRA and the film society as well as thought Women In Film and usually toward the end of the year those end up being the films that are the ones that get nominated. But this year, for some reason I really didn’t get to make it to many of the screenings of the films that were nominated. In fact, I didn’t get to see anything other than shows that were on Netflix this time. It’s just the way that the screening season went. A lot of screenings were times that I couldn’t go, and during the holidays a lot of screenings were the blockbusters and not necessarily the films that get award nominations.

So when we started to get our screeners, I was excited because I knew I needed to watch a bunch of movies. But somehow time was going by and I wasn’t watching the screeners I had. And over the weekend, I realized that I needed to start catching up in order to have time to watch everything before I had to vote. So I have been trying to watch one movie a day if possible to make it through my movies. I haven’t been able to do that every day, but I’ve been able to do it for many of them and I’m finally about halfway through watching all of them.

It’s been a fun routine at night (or sometimes before I start work in the morning) to pick out a movie that I want to watch. It’s a luxury to be able to watch these movies at my house where I can be comfortable on the couch (and pause the movies if I need to get something to drink or run to the bathroom). And when my hips have been hurting, it’s nice that I can stretch out on the couch or floor and get my body to feel ok. That’s not something that I can do in a theater, even though I do have to stretch out in my seat when I’m out at a movie or a show. Each time I watch a screener, I feel so lucky that I get to have this privilege and hope that I never get so jaded that I start to expect this treatment.

Most of the movies I’ve watched have been very good. I’m actually sad that some of my favorites are only available on the screener website because I know I’ll lose access to watching it soon. And there are some other films that I’ve struggled to get through and haven’t understood why my friends have thought it was the greatest movie ever or that it was better than all the rest. But whether or not I like the movie, I totally agree that the performances in the films have all been the best of the best and all the actors have been very worthy of their nominations.

There totally are some front-runners in my mind for who I want to vote for already. I won’t vote until I finish watching the movies because that’s only fair. I don’t feel like there is a lot of campaigning by actors and producers to get their films or performers to win. I do get flyers and things in the mail (and I guess you could say getting a DVD screener versus having to watch it on a website is a way to campaign), so I don’t feel pressured to vote any certain way like some other awards shows might have. I get to be an actor watching actors and deciding who is inspiring me the most with their performance.

I’ve got less than 2 more weeks to work on this and I think I’ll be fine getting through all the movies. I do need to set aside time to work on it (which seems like a funny concept to me), but as long as I make it a priority in my off time, I will watch everything before needing to vote. And right after voting, I’ll get to see how the rest of my union actors feel about the performances when the winners are announced. I can’t wait to see what happens!

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Another Grove Adventure (or Dinner And Not A Screening)

Posted on December 22, 2016 | Comments Off on Another Grove Adventure (or Dinner And Not A Screening)

I rarely go to the Grove, so the fact that I went last week was unique enough. But the fact that I went back this week is totally crazy! But since it is the time that I get a lot of invitations to screenings, there is always a chance I’ll be back there. Most of the screenings I go to are at the Director’s Guild or other screening rooms, but from time to time the screenings are at regular movie theaters.

This week, I had been invited to a screening of “Sing” at the Grove. I RSVPed right away, but because it wasn’t a screening hosted by an organization that I’m a part of they said that they overbook and seating will be first come first served. I invited my friend Dani to come with me and since we both had that afternoon free we decided to meet up for dinner before the screening.

The screening was at 7:30 and we figured we should try to line up an hour or so early (that’s what I usually do), so we met for dinner at the Grove at 5. We ended up going to the Cheesecake Factory since it is next to the theater and were seated on the balcony. They have heating lamps out there so it wasn’t too cold, and I liked having the view of all the lights from our table.

We had a nice dinner and discussed lots of random stuff. Some of it was about our tickets for Pantages (it was at dinner that we realized our next show was on Oscar Sunday so we started to work on figuring out when to move our tickets to). And of course since she is my workout buddy we discussed Orangetheory. It’s always nice to be able to get together with a friend for dinner and I’m glad we had some time to hang out that wasn’t before a show or on the treadmills during class.

We enjoyed our dinner of salads and cheesecake (you can’t go to Cheesecake Factory without getting cheesecake!) and then headed to the theater next door to line up. The line wasn’t too full so I figured getting there when we did worked out pretty well. Dani has never joined me for a screening, so she was excited to go to one with me. And close to 7pm, the line started to move and we were getting excited to get inside.

But as we were almost at the front of the line, someone from the studio came over to say that the screening was at capacity and that there were no more seats. This is something I know can happen at screenings, but it’s never really happened to me. Turns out, the line that we saw when we got in line was only part of the line. They had been letting people inside the theater for almost an hour by the time we got there because some people were lining up 2 or 3 hours before the screening.

While I was sad that we didn’t get in, it wasn’t horrible. I do want to see “Sing”, but I’m sure I’ll have other opportunities to see it. I know I’m so lucky that I get to go to as many screenings as I do (movies are so expensive!) so I’m not going to be upset that I missed one of them. There were so many kids in line who didn’t get to see the movie and I feel so bad that they didn’t get in.

Since we no longer had a screening to go to, Dani and I decided to walk around the Grove a bit. The Christmas decorations were just as pretty as they were the week before, but it was so much more crowded there!

We decided to wander around Barnes and Noble where I found some new books I wanted to add to my library wish list plus some books that I want to buy as gifts for people next year. It was funny walking around a bookstore since I haven’t really done that in a while. And there were some sections in the bookstore where there were so many books in a row that I have read! I know I read a ton, but since they are usually on my Kindle I don’t think too much about the number of books I get through.

It was nice getting to window shop in a bunch of different stores and see the various holiday decorations that the stores have, but the crowds at the Grove were starting to get a bit overwhelming. It was tough to walk around without having to stop because there were too many people in front of us. So we decided it was time to leave there before the crowds got even worse.

Even though my plans that night were to get dinner and see a movie with a friend, it was just as nice to get dinner and window shop. Taking time to just walk around and check out what is happening isn’t something I do all the time, so it was a nice change of pace from what I’m used to.

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Movies And Christmas Lights (or A Busy Movie Week)

Posted on December 14, 2016 | 1 comment

I recently had a week where I got to see 3 musicals in one week. And this week, I’m going to have a week where I see 3 movies in a week! Fortunately, 2 of those movies will be free (thanks to the SAG-AFTRA Film Society) so it’s not an expensive week. Movies are really expensive now! And while I’ve only seen 2 movies so far this week (the last one will be “Star Wars” on Saturday), it’s been pretty great.

The first movie this week was “Patriots Day” and that was a screening at the SAG-AFTRA Film Society. If you haven’t heard of this movie, it is about the Boston Marathon bombing. I had recently seen a documentary about the bombing so I was very familiar with the timeline and story going into the movie, but it was still a great movie. I think the woman sitting next to me didn’t know the timeline because she was in shock each time something happened.

It’s not an easy movie to watch, but that’s part of the reason I think people need to see it. This is a part of recent history and it shouldn’t be ignored. I know some people don’t love recent history movies, but I think this one was reported about in a censored way so many people don’t realize everything that happened. I think the movie doesn’t get released for most of the country until January, but I recommend being on the lookout for it.

The day after seeing “Patriots Day”, I went to another movie. This time, I went to see “Dr. Strange” with my friend David. David is the person I see all superhero movies with since he knows the story from reading the comics and he tolerates all the questions I ask after the movie is done. I enjoy the movies, but since I don’t know the back story so I tend to get confused.

This movie was the one we had to pay for and we went to the Grove to see it. I usually stay away from the Grove because it is very crowded and touristy. But it was the closest place that the movie was playing and had a time that worked out well for both of us.

We found parking quickly there (which is almost unheard of) and went straight to the movie. It was a good movie and I think the superhero movie that confused me the least. All the things that I thought would be questions for David ended up being answered in the movie! I’m sure that over the next week or so I will think of random questions like I always do, but after the movie nothing seemed that confusing to me. So after the movie was done, we decided to walk around the Grove a bit.

David hadn’t been to the Grove at Christmastime before so I said we had to check out the tree. It’s a pretty giant tree and while they were doing some filming stuff around the tree it wasn’t too crowded over there. We did our best attempt to get a selfie with the tree, but the only way to do it was to hold the camera below us which is really the least flattering angle.

We walked around for a bit longer after that and then headed back to the car. It was a bit crowded there and a ton of families in line to get pictures with Santa (who is in a giant house in the middle of the shopping area) and I didn’t feel like trying to walk through the crowds to see more of the Christmas lights and stuff around.

I’ll possibly be at the Grove again before all the lights and decorations are down, but if not I’m glad I got to check it out this time. I do enjoy seeing Christmas displays even though I don’t really celebrate Christmas myself. And even though seeing 3 movies in a week sounds pretty indulgent, it’s the holiday season so I figure anything goes!

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Planning My Next Project (or Meeting A Director)

Posted on November 18, 2016 | Comments Off on Planning My Next Project (or Meeting A Director)

Now that “Single Parent Date Night” is pretty much done (we are just submitting to film festivals now), I’ve been trying to figure out what I wanted to work on next. I’d love to find another project that I can star in again, but it’s not that easy. I thought about seeing if I can find another writer friend to help create a project for me, but again that isn’t easy and I didn’t know if that was the right step.

But a while ago, my friend Camber (who I met through our WIF mentoring group) mentioned an idea for a documentary that she was thinking about doing. I’ve helped to produce one documentary before, but that project was pretty easy. Our entire movie seemed to come together really well and since it was mainly interviews it was an easy shoot to do. But the documentary that Camber brought up to me will be much more involved and will require more planning.

I don’t want to get into too many details (mainly because they aren’t figured out yet), this documentary idea would be one about nature. It would involve travel both within the country and internationally and it would require a pretty decent budget. Also, since it wouldn’t be interview based, we would pretty much have to write a script for the documentary to help guide the project.

Neither of us have experience with creating a documentary like this and we knew that we would need some help pretty much from the beginning. I brought the idea to the director of “Single Parent Date Night” (who also directed the documentary I produced previously) to see if he wanted to be a part of this project too. I trust him so much as a director and would have loved to have him a part of this. But the subject isn’t one that interests him and that is something that is important to us. We don’t want someone directing a project just to do it, we want them to have a passion for it since we need their guidance on how to tell the story.

So I posted in a couple of different industry related groups that I’m a part of to see if there were any directors who specialized in documentaries and possibly had an interest in doing a documentary about nature. I kept the post a bit vague as we are still figuring out what our documentary will totally be about. I got a couple of responses, but there was one director who seemed to be very interested in discussing the project so Camber and I met with her this past week.

I feel so lucky that I’ve had some amazing people come into my life in regards to acting and other entertainment related stuff. The director we met with is very much on a similar wavelength as Camber and I are. And she had some great ideas for us on how to narrow down our ideas and to build a narrative for the film. She even gave us a list of films to watch so we could get some more ideas!

The best thing was that she said that even if we didn’t want her to be our director, she still wanted to help us make it! That is just so generous and I know that she will be a great asset to the film. I’m just so grateful that she responded to my post and was willing to meet with us even though we don’t have a full concept to present yet.

Camber and I have a lot of work to get done before we meet with this director again (or meet with any more directors). We know this documentary that we want to make may take more than a year to do, so we want to do everything right. And even though it isn’t acting, this project is a creative one and is helping me exercise the creative part of my mind. I hope that we can make this documentary a reality. Not just because I want to be able to do it. I really feel passionate that I want everyone to see what we are hoping to make and I feel like it can have a big impact on a lot of people.

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A Premiere Morning (or Seeing Myself On The Big Screen)

Posted on November 17, 2016 | 2 comments

This past weekend, we had the premiere screening of “Single Parent Date Night”. This film has been a pretty quick process (which is nice) and we’ve been able to get things done very efficiently from pre-production to post-production. I’ve been seeing the film through each edited version, so I knew what to expect. And I had seen the final cut already (but just on my computer), but seeing it premiere for an audience is always different.

We ended up renting a theater in the valley to hold the screening. And since our film is only about 9 minutes long, Christopher (the writer and my co-star) decided to create a 3 film screening of different films he wrote. The entire thing was only 30 minutes, but it was nicer to have that than to just have everyone come to a theater for a 9 minute movie.

When I arrived, I couldn’t stop smiling. As soon as I walked to the theater where we were screening, I saw our movie listed above the door. Everything looked so real and official and this was the first time a movie I was in had this.

single-parent-date-night

The theater we were screening in was a regular movie theater, so there were a bunch of seats and the screen was a full-sized screen. It was a little overwhelming, but awesome at the same time. Most of the people who came to the screening were friends of our director, Bryan. But I had a couple of friends show up too and I was glad they were there! I knew they would be honest with me about the movie and even though I knew it was good, I was very critical about my performance.

Our film was the last one screening, so I tried to stay calm while the other 2 movies played. And before I knew it, it was time to show off “Single Parent Date Night” to the world!

movie

It is always very tough for me to watch my own performances. I feel like things weren’t done right, I said something funny, or with this film that I blinked too much and too long. I’m very nitpicky and it’s hard to get over that. So I tried to focus on the audience watching the show for the first time.

Fortunately, it seemed like everybody really liked it! A lot of my lines got laughs, people seemed to be very into the story, and we got a lot of applause when the final credits came up. And I did manage to watch a bit of it when I wasn’t feeling too nervous and was in shock with how crazy it was to see myself on the huge screen there!

on-the-big-screen

When the screening was over, we all went up to the front to thank everyone for coming. Some of the people there were people who supported our Kickstarter and I wanted to make sure they knew how much we appreciated every dollar that was given. We were willing to do a Q&A too, but since most people there were also filmmakers and our film is pretty self-explanatory, there weren’t any questions.

After that was done, I went over to my friends to see what they thought and they all really loved it! They enjoyed my performance and thought the story was really cute too! I’m glad I had their support there because it is very nerve-racking to see a project that you have worked so hard at completing be done. All you want is for everyone to love it, and thankfully it seems like that was the reaction we got from the audience.

I know that a lot of people wanted to come to the premiere and couldn’t (either due to scheduling or distance), but we decided to put our film up online for everyone to see. So make sure you check out “Single Parent Date Night” to see what all our hard work created!

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