Tag Archives: Women in Film

Last Official Mentee Meeting (or Planning For 2016)

Posted on December 9, 2015 | 1 comment

This past week was the final mentee only meeting for my Women In Film mentoring group. We’ve been meeting for about a year now, and we only have one meeting left with our mentors.

It’s been a pretty awesome year with my mentoring group. I’ve become friends with all the women in my mentoring circle. I’ve hung out socially with them outside of our meetings and we’ve discussed working on a project together in the future (the benefit of having women in all parts of the industry in the mentoring group). And I’m sad that our year is coming to an end.

Our last mentoring group was pretty small. Due to holiday conflicts, only 3 of us were there (out of 8), but we still had a nice time. It was more of a social hangout than an official meeting, but that was fine with us all. We chatted about things we have been doing in the past few months and what we are working on in the start of the new year. We also did a gift exchange (I got some greeting cards with amazing artwork on the front done by one of my fellow mentee’s husband).

With the end of the official mentoring circle time here, we also discussed what we wanted to do going forward. In my past mentoring group, it seemed like the end of our official time was a natural end to our group. We had never met outside of the meetings with our mentors, and while I do keep in touch with some of them over Facebook we’ve never gotten together after the end of our group.

But with my current group, we’ve gotten to know each other so well and have really bonded as a group. So we started talking about keeping our current schedule of meeting every other month as just a group of mentees. It’s going to continue to be an accountability group as well as a sounding board for questions or issues we might be dealing with in our professional or personal lives.

We’ve already started to plan how to continue our meetings into the new year. I think that we will be meeting again in February and I have to say that I’m so happy that it seems like the rest of my group is also looking forward to continuing with our meetings. I’d be pretty upset if we stopped meeting. Our meetings have become evenings that I look forward to. It’s an evening with my friends and an evening that always leaves me feeling inspired. I still feel like I’m the most beginner of our group, but if anyone else feels that way about me they don’t show it. They treat me with so much respect and have really helped to push me further in my career.

I’m so lucky that Women in Film partnered me up with the mentoring group that I have. I know how tough it can be to create a bond within the group when all the women are extremely busy and have crazy and complicated schedules. But we all tried to make our meetings a priority and it really worked. I have the opportunity to join a new mentoring group in the spring or fall next year, and I’m not sure if I will do that. I would love to have another great group, but I’m also scared that the new group wouldn’t be able to live up to this group and I wouldn’t be able to be as involved as I would want to be. I’ve got time before mentoring circle applications come around again, so I don’t have to rush to a decision yet.

But for now, I’m so grateful for what I’ve gotten out of the past year and I can’t wait to see what the next year with my mentoring group will bring to me.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailMeeting My Mentoring Circle (or Being In The Minority) Default ThumbnailEnd Of The Mentoring Circle (or One Final Lunch) Default ThumbnailAnother Mentee Meeting (or Beach Brunch) Default ThumbnailThe First Mentee Meeting Of The Year (or Catching Up On Life) Default ThumbnailPlanning My Next Project (or Meeting A Director) Default ThumbnailWIF Mentee Potluck (or How Many People Can I Fit In My House)

1 Comment

Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , ,

Miss You Already (or Women Filmmakers and Cancer Patients)

Posted on November 5, 2015 | 1 comment

I recently had an opportunity to see an advance screening of “Miss You Already”. I was excited enough to go see a new movie, but this screening also had a Q&A with the director, Catherine Hardwicke, as well as with Toni Collette and Tyson Ritter, who are actors in the film. While going to screenings are a fairly regular occurrence through my union, my WIF membership, or other industry opportunities; this one ended up being very special for me.

The first thing that was so special about this screening was the casualness of the entire event. Usually when there is a screening with a Q&A, after the Q&A is done the cast and crew are whisked away by their publicists and other handlers and are in their cars before the audience gets to move. There’s almost never interaction between the audience and the guests.

That was not the case with this screening. It seemed to be not only a WIF event, but a crew and production team screening. Many people in the audience were involved with the film in various positions and they had a little after party after the screening that my friend who joined me for the screening and I got invited to join.

I got to talk to Catherine Hardwicke a little bit. She’s seriously amazing. She’s a big advocate for making sure that more movies are made with female directors and writers. Men are a majority of writers and directors and things really should be more balanced. She is an incredible director and I feel honored that I got to meet her and she spent a little bit of time talking with me (and taking this awesome picture with me).

Miss You Already

The other reason why this screening was so special to me was the subject. Without giving a ton of spoilers away, one of the characters in the film gets a breast cancer diagnosis. The character has to go through several of the same treatments that my mom went through (the character had a similar type of breast cancer). But the way the character reacted to her cancer was very different from how my mom did and that made me feel so grateful for my mom.

When my mom was diagnosed, she told me pretty much right away. I wasn’t able to share it with friends right away because we wanted family to know first and my mom to get through some things before the news was shared. But it was a pretty open discussion with us all. I could ask my mom anything I wanted to without fear of her reaction or upsetting her. A lot of things were (and still are) unknowns, but nothing was hidden from me or anyone else in the family who wanted to know.

After my mom’s surgery, I saw her in Tahoe when I went to visit my family. While I was there, I got to see my mom’s scar and what things looked like. That helped me feel much more comfortable with everything. When you look up post-mastectomy photos online, they can seem both scary and unbelievable. Seeing what it looked like on my mom normalized things.

Through surgery, chemo, and radiation; my mom kept a very positive attitude. Yes, technically cancer at any stage can kill you (or the treatments can kill you or make you sick), but as a family we just focused on positivity and recovery and believed that my mom would get through this just fine. That’s exactly what happened, but I know that even if it wasn’t that way my mom would have still maintained her positivity. Again, that all made me feel much better about the circumstances and helped me avoid googling things that I shouldn’t.

For all I know, my mom just put on a brave face for us all and it was much scarier and more horrible than I know; but if she did protect me from the negativity I appreciate that.

Obviously, my mom’s cancer story isn’t everyone’s cancer story. Not everyone has the ability to stay positive or immediately get a fatal diagnosis. And my family is much luckier than most because almost everyone is in medicine so we understood things without having to do as much research (and that research is so terrifying). And even though the story in “Miss You Already” isn’t my mom’s story, it’s so refreshing to see a cancer story that tells things honestly and doesn’t make it seem easy or so hard that life is over from the moment you are diagnosed.

“Miss You Already” opens this weekend and I really encourage you all to go and see it. Not only will you be supporting a fabulous movie, you will be telling the studios that films by female directors are popular and there should be more of them. Both of those things are very worthy things to support.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailA Screening At The Walt Disney Studios Lot (or “What The F@#- Is Cancer And Why Does Everyone Have It?” Default ThumbnailCancer Questions (or Hopefully This Will Help Someone Else) Default ThumbnailAn Evening Of Fabulous Women (or Getting More Involved At Women In Film) Default ThumbnailMy Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (or A Movie With A Fun Friend) Default ThumbnailF#*k Cancer (or Proof That My Mom Is A Badass) Default ThumbnailThe Sorority Nobody Wants To Belong To (or Getting Support From Strangers)

1 Comment

Posted in Acting, Family, Tough Stuff

Tagged , , , , ,

Another Meeting of Mentees (Social Hour and Not Business Hour)

Posted on October 2, 2015 | 2 comments

On Monday after my epic doctor afternoon we had another meeting of the mentees of my Women In Film mentoring group. I was really happy that the meeting was that evening because it gave me something to look forward to while nervous about all the pain from the medical stuff. And I tried to focus on that while in the middle of each thing (sometimes focus can help me not pass out with shots, but it’s not a guarantee).

This meeting ended up being a bit small. We try to figure out when a majority of the group can make it, but everyone is really busy and with all of us being creative types sometimes last-minute schedule conflicts come up. But even with a small group, we still get what we need out of the group.

We started as a more social gathering than anything else, but that’s maybe because we were waiting to see who else might be coming. Once we realized that everyone who could be there was there, we went around the group sharing what we had done over the past few weeks since our last meeting with our mentors.

Sometimes when we do that, I feel a bit pathetic. It always seems like everyone else has amazing updates while I just have my same old things to say. And I know that it’s because many of the other women in the group (and almost everyone who made it this Monday) are writers so they are able to control their work a bit more than I can. They can always start a new script while it’s not as easy for me to find a new project to act in or put together my own project.

My updates are pretty simple but even with the little things, my fellow mentees are very excited for me. They love that I won my delegate seat for the SAG-AFTRA Convention and that I’ll be there all weekend this weekend (I’ll share some posts about that next week). And I told them a bit about the blogger conference I was at recently and how I think that will improve my blog in the long run. Their excitement about my baby steps makes me feel better about what I’ve gotten done.

After we all went around and shared our updates, gave advice, and cheered each other on; we were back in social mode. I know I keep saying this, but I love that we’ve gotten to become friends and we can have a lot of fun at our gatherings. It doesn’t feel like there’s ever pressure to impress each other (even though I put that pressure on myself) and I feel more like I’m spending the evening with friends instead of a networking/goal accomplishing group. I think the best goal accomplishing groups are made of friends, and I love that we have organically become that.

It makes me wish that I had made a bit more effort with the 2 girls who showed up regularly with my original mentoring group. I think that if I had tried a bit more, we could have created something great among ourselves even if our fellow mentees didn’t come to meetings or we didn’t have regular meetings with our mentors. But knowing that I can do this now motivates me to continue doing this in the future.

I know that my current mentee group is going to continue meeting after the official mentoring time is done. At our next mentee meeting, I think we are going to set up the plans for how we want to keep this going for the long run. I’m glad that everyone else seems to be on the same page as me, because every time I meet with these women I feel more and more grateful that I was placed in a group with such like-minded women and that they have encouraged me to better myself without pushing me or making me feel less than.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailMeeting My Mentoring Circle (or Being In The Minority) Default ThumbnailEnd Of The Mentoring Circle (or One Final Lunch) Default ThumbnailAnother Business Brunch (or A Delayed Mentoring Circle Meeting) Default ThumbnailA Quick Happy Hour (or Making Myself Be Social) Default ThumbnailLess Networking More Socializing (or Another Evening With My Fellow Mentees) Default ThumbnailAnother Evening Of Mentees (or Advice and Socializing)

2 Comments

Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , ,

Less Networking More Socializing (or Another Evening With My Fellow Mentees)

Posted on July 30, 2015 | Comments Off on Less Networking More Socializing (or Another Evening With My Fellow Mentees)

My Women In Film mentoring circle had another one of our potluck gatherings at my house. While I love when we get together on the alternating months with our mentors, I really look forward to the mentee only meetings.

Since it’s been hot here (and I don’t have a/c), I put together food for the potluck that required no extra heat in my house. Trader Joes saves my butt in these circumstances. They have great cheese selections and the meats and crackers are good too. The crackers were half-broken when I opened the box, but I tried my best to make the tray look as pretty as possible.

Meat and Cheese Tray

I think a lot of us had the same idea because so many things that were brought were pre-made. We had wine, some chocolate, potatoes salad, and regular salad. It made a nice little spread for us. But that’s fine with us since we are there for the company and not the food.

And yes, the point of these gatherings is to network, discuss our goals, talk about the progress we’ve made, and encourage each other. And we do that for a while. We set a time limit for everyone to talk so we all get a chance to talk, and the “business” conversation took a little over an hour.

I talked about some of my frustrations I’m going through including wanting to get back into improv classes. I’ve almost got all the money saved up, but the schedule of upcoming classes doesn’t really fit into my schedule. I mentioned how I hadn’t had any auditions in the past month, but that really doesn’t worry me. And of course I talked about how I’m running in the SAG-AFTRA election (although since none of the women in my circle are in the union they can’t vote for me).

And after that, we kind of just had fun together. I really love this. I’ve made some wonderful new friends and I feel encouraged that we will continue to meet (maybe not as regularly) after the officially mentoring circle has ended. I love that we have really bonded as a group and we really look out for each other and want the best for each of us to have in our careers.

I actually saw one of the board members of Women In Film at my Sunday job this past week and got a few minutes to talk to her. I told her how grateful I am to have this new mentoring circle and how we have really connected as a group. She seemed really happy to hear that our mentoring circle is doing so well. Many groups sound similar to how my old group was (not meeting regularly), so our group is in the minority with our motivated we are with setting our meetings.

We should be having our next meeting with our mentors next month (hopefully I’ll have more to update by then). And I’m looking forward to that. But I’m really looking forward to the next mentee only meeting where we can sit back, relax, and really just talk and support each other.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailAnother Evening Of Mentees (or Advice and Socializing) Default ThumbnailEnd Of The Mentoring Circle (or One Final Lunch) Default ThumbnailMeeting My Mentoring Circle (or Being In The Minority) Default ThumbnailGetting Ready To Get Mentored Again (or A Evening With WIF) Default ThumbnailAnother Meeting of Mentees (Social Hour and Not Business Hour) Default ThumbnailLast Official Mentee Meeting (or Planning For 2016)

Comments Off on Less Networking More Socializing (or Another Evening With My Fellow Mentees)

Posted in Acting, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged , ,

Another Evening Of Mentoring (or Having Faith In My Agents)

Posted on June 16, 2015 | Comments Off on Another Evening Of Mentoring (or Having Faith In My Agents)

Last week was another meeting of my WIF mentoring circle with our mentors. I’m really enjoying seeing almost everyone every month (and my mentors every other month) and I really do feel like as a group we have really bonded.

At this meeting, we updated our mentors on what we had gotten accomplished since our last meeting with them. I had known a bit of what my fellow mentees had done since we had our potluck last month, but everyone had some really great updates.

Some people had booked some amazing work in their fields since even our meeting last month. I love to hear that they are all doing so well and that they are moving forward in their careers. Sometimes I feel like I am so far behind in my career compared to all of them, but it does inspire me to see what is possible.

For my update, first of all my mentors asked me to log all of my auditions between our last meeting and this meeting (so 2 months worth). I had 4 auditions, and I was pretty happy about that. My mentors seemed a little surprised by how few auditions I had, but they also understood that the industry is a bit slow right now. But they still questioned why so few auditions when the other actress in the group had about 10 times the number of auditions as me. But you really can’t compare us since we are totally different types and she is non-union while I am union.

My mentors did ask me about how I feel about my agents. Honestly, I love my agents. They have worked so hard for me and truly believe in me. But I think that since I know them so well it might be tough for others to understand why I believe in them so much. It probably seems like blind faith.

But not all agents would have worked as so hard for me as they have. They have stuck with me through lots of weight changes (and some hair changes). Not all agents would have dealt with that. I bet that most agents would have dropped me for gaining weight.

But my agents believe that I can book work at whatever weight I happen to be. And they know that it’s just a matter of time before I book something great. And they know I work really hard all the time. When I’m not auditioning, I work hard at building my reputation in this industry as a good, reliable, and knowledgable actor. And hopefully with that reputation casting directors and other industry people will remember that and bring me in for parts that are right for me. And many of my auditions are at casting offices that I’ve auditioned at before. So it’s not that I’m not a good actor, it’s that the part I auditioned for wasn’t right. And hopefully those offices will keep bringing me in until the part is right for me.

I know that it’s tough to understand sometimes why I’m being so patient about lack of auditions. Or why I trust my agents so much when I don’t have dozens of auditions each month. I guess it’s because I have faith in myself and my career. I know that when it’s my time to shine, I’m going to be totally ready and prepared for it. And all I have to do is keep getting prepared and be patient because eventually it will be my time.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailHearing Some Non-Nonsense Advice (or A Substitute Mentor) Default ThumbnailMeeting My Mentoring Circle (or Being In The Minority) Default ThumbnailMentoring Circle (or Women Who Support Each Other) Default ThumbnailMore Mentoring (or This Is Exactly What I Needed) Default ThumbnailEnd Of The Mentoring Circle (or One Final Lunch) Default ThumbnailAnother Evening Of Mentees (or Advice and Socializing)

Comments Off on Another Evening Of Mentoring (or Having Faith In My Agents)

Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , ,

Upgrading My Self-Tape Set Up (or 2 Auditions In 30 Minutes)

Posted on June 10, 2015 | Comments Off on Upgrading My Self-Tape Set Up (or 2 Auditions In 30 Minutes)

I’ve done self-taping in the past, but I’ve always kind of figured out last-minute how to set things up at my house. I’ve used a towel or blanket as my backdrop and just had a friend come and run the camera for me. Most of the time, casting directors understand that when you self-tape, it’s not going to look as nice as when you go into a casting office so it’s ok if it’s not perfect.

But this week I had 2 different self-tape auditions that I needed to do so I decided that this was the time to take things a bit more seriously.

First step was getting a nice backdrop for my auditions. I knew that I wanted a blue backdrop (it’s a nice flattering color) and I figured getting a king sized sheet would be the easiest way to do it. So I headed to Bed Bath & Beyond (with a 20% off coupon) and went hunting for the cheapest blue sheet I could find.

Self-Tape Backdrop

I’ll admit that it wasn’t as easy as I thought to find just a flat sheet and not a sheet set. I looked at curtains as well, but those were pretty pricey and weren’t that wide. But I ended up finding the perfect king flat sheet and got that (and saved my receipt since this is a tax write-off).

My two auditions were pretty different. One was for a web series and had 4 different scenes each with a line or two. I submitted for that role through Actors Access (an online casting service) and instead of getting an audition request they sent me a self-tape request.

The second audition was for the ABC Diversity Showcase. This was similar to the NBC Showcase I self-taped for last year. This time, they had a couple of different scene options online and we could do whatever scene we felt best represented us.

I put a request online to my friends to see who would be able to help me self-tape, and my friend (and fellow mentee) Melissa was happy to help. She had just done her audition for the ABC Showcase as well and had a nice camera that we could use.

I ended up wearing the same outfit for both auditions (I didn’t plan on that but it ended up working out that way) and I think my outfit looked great against my new backdrop.

Self-Tape

Melissa helped me with the web series audition first. We did 2 different takes and I was very happy with the second one.

The ABC Diversity Showcase audition took a few more takes. First, we did the introduction part of the audition. I had to say my first name, hometown, and answer one of the questions they posted on the website (I answered what superpower I’d like to have).

Then we moved on to the audition. As much as I tried to be memorized, having 2 totally different auditions in the same day threw me a bit. I wasn’t totally memorized, but I was pretty close. The audition was about 4 pages long and we went through it quite a few times. Many times, I didn’t get through the entire scene before I decided to stop. I think we only made it through the entire scene twice before I felt good about it.

We managed to knock out 2 auditions in just under 30 minutes. My brain was working overtime and as soon as we finished I relaxed and was able to think about what I just did. I was still feeling happy about my auditions so we decided that we were done.

Melissa took the memory card home with her and she emailed me the edited auditions pretty soon after we finished recording. And I was able to email both of my auditions to the respective casting directors that evening.

I’m pretty happy with the new backdrop I bought for self-taping auditions. It will be much nicer to use than a towel or blanket. And hopefully I’ll have more self-tape auditions in the future. They are becoming more common since you could even use your phone to record an audition. I will still use my regular camera or have a friend use their nicer camera for any auditions I have to do on my own. It’s nicer than an iPhone and I’d rather try to have things look as nice as possible without going crazy.

But having things more ready for self-taping (and having friends who are willing and able to help) are great steps toward being prepared for having more and more auditions come my way!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailSelf-Taping At Home (or Auditioning In Yoga Pants) Default ThumbnailTaking More Chances (or Maybe I’ll Get Picked This Time) Default ThumbnailAudition Prep (or Taking My Career Seriously) Default ThumbnailAudition Fairy (or The Tale Of Two Auditions) Default ThumbnailAn Isolation Audition (or Working On My Self-Tape Game) Default ThumbnailSelf-Tape Saturday (or Turning A Video Shoot Into A Photo Shoot)

Comments Off on Upgrading My Self-Tape Set Up (or 2 Auditions In 30 Minutes)

Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff, Shopping

Tagged , , , ,

Another Evening Of Mentees (or Advice and Socializing)

Posted on May 21, 2015 | 3 comments

My second mentee only meeting with my Women in Film mentoring group was this past week. I offered to host again because it’s pretty convenient for me to have the meetings in my house. Plus it seems to be centrally located for the rest of the group.

Only about half of our group was able to make it, but I was still excited to catch up with those who were going to be there. I took the opportunity to use my new serving dishes I got from my grandparents and they were perfect!

New Serving Dishes

Since the group was smaller this time than in the past, we only spent about an hour catching up on the goals that we have gotten done and what our goals for our next meeting will be. It still inspires me every time when I hear what everyone else is doing with their careers. I’m so lucky that I was matched with this group who are all very motivated and are dedicated to getting as much out of this mentoring group as possible. This is exactly what I was hoping to get out of doing a second mentoring circle.

I hate that I feel like I’m trash talking my old mentoring group. I’m not. But with that group our mentors weren’t as tough on us about attending meetings and they never told us to meet on our own between the meetings with them. And the other women in the group were mostly absent from the meetings. I really only got to know 2 of the other women because they were the ones who showed up for the meetings.

After our hour of catching up, we ate some dessert and started to me less formal and more social as a group. It’s not that we haven’t been social in the past, but this time we really relaxed and started to share fun and silly stories. I got to know the ladies much better and I feel that we got to bond a bit more as a group. I’m hoping that if we try to stay to time limits with our personal catchup and goals discussion that at future mentee only meetings we can continue to be more social and not just about business. It was a really nice touch and I think that everyone else enjoyed that too.

We will have another meeting with our mentors next month (the date isn’t set yet), and I’m hoping to have fun news to update everyone with. Since everyone else always seems to have such great news and stories to tell everyone, I feel almost a bit competitive and want to have some awesome news of my own.

So I’m trying to work on my career much harder than I have in the past just so I can feel like I can keep up with everyone. But I think that is one of the reasons you get into a mentoring group like this. You get motivated by everyone else to better yourself and you have a great group to lean on and ask for help.

I’m working on some ideas about what will push me farther in my career, and I’ll be sharing one of those things with you all tomorrow!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailEnd Of The Mentoring Circle (or One Final Lunch) Default ThumbnailLast Official Mentee Meeting (or Planning For 2016) Default ThumbnailMeeting My Mentoring Circle (or Being In The Minority) Default ThumbnailLess Networking More Socializing (or Another Evening With My Fellow Mentees) Default ThumbnailHearing Some Non-Nonsense Advice (or A Substitute Mentor) Default ThumbnailGetting Ready To Get Mentored Again (or A Evening With WIF)

3 Comments

Posted in Acting, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , , ,

Hearing Some Non-Nonsense Advice (or A Substitute Mentor)

Posted on April 30, 2015 | 2 comments

I had my next Women In Film mentoring circle meeting with my mentors this week. This meeting is different from the potluck dinner last month because our mentors were there to give us advice and help guide us in our careers.

One of the two mentors I have wasn’t able to make it for the meeting, but our mentors arranged to have a substitute mentor on hand so that we would still have 2 mentors at the meeting. I thought that that was a very nice gesture and really appreciated it.

We were missing a couple of fellow mentees at the meeting, but a majority of us were able to make it. And since we had a substitute mentor there, we spent the beginning of the meeting going around and telling her about our careers and the goals that we set 2 months ago and that we have long-term.

I’m very embarrassed to say that I didn’t do so great with my goals I set 2 months ago. One of them was to get through the film festival, so that one I did accomplish. But the one I really wanted to work on was saving money so I could get back into improv classes. I was really hoping to have about a quarter of the money that I need by now (or more), but I was also hoping to have more luck finding a secondary day job.

I know that I can ask for the money for the class for my birthday, so no matter what I will have the money by August. But hopefully I can have enough money together that I can register for the class by my next meeting with my mentors in 2 months.

As we were going around the circle talking about our goals, our guest mentor was pretty tough on us and not accepting any excuses we had about why we didn’t get our goals done. She was encouraging me to attend casting director workshops (I personally don’t believe in the ones that you have to pay for and she respected my opinion on that). She also said that while I love my agents, perhaps I need to find agents that get me out more often. I completely understand where she is coming from with that idea, but I know that I’m pretty much going out as often as my direct competition does. And I doubt that new agents would work with me as much as my current agents do.

But hearing that tough love did motivate me to do more for myself. My agents do work hard for me, but I can make their job easier. Besides getting into the improv class, I really need to update my reel. I also am going to continue working on my networking with casting directors and writers. The more people who know me, the better.

While I did disagree with some of the ideas that the guest mentor had for me, so much of what she was saying was exactly what I needed to hear. Even when she was talking to my fellow mentees about how they need to stop making excuses and being victims of their circumstance, I took that to heart. I can’t force anyone to give me more auditions, but I can make it so I’m a more desirable actress for casting directors to want to bring in. And that’s how I need to focus myself on my career.

While I think that both of my regular mentors are amazing and are so generous with their time and their advice, I’m a little sad that our guest mentor won’t be at the next meeting to check in with all of us. Maybe I’ll run into her at another event in the future and I can have an amazing career update to give to her!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailEnd Of The Mentoring Circle (or One Final Lunch) Default ThumbnailMeeting My Mentoring Circle (or Being In The Minority) Default ThumbnailWIF Mentee Potluck (or How Many People Can I Fit In My House) Default ThumbnailMore Mentoring (or This Is Exactly What I Needed) Default ThumbnailAnother Evening Of Mentees (or Advice and Socializing) Default ThumbnailAnother Delayed Brunch (or I Wish I Had More Accomplishments)

2 Comments

Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , ,

WIF Mentee Potluck (or How Many People Can I Fit In My House)

Posted on March 19, 2015 | 1 comment

With my new WIF Mentoring Circle, our mentors want us to meet with them every other month. For the in-between months, they want all the mentees to meet on our own. We set up our meeting when we all met for the first time, and I agreed to host.

We decided to make our meeting a potluck so everyone signed up to bring something different. Obviously I would have the plates/cups/silverware for everyone, but I also wanted to have some food. I knew that the days leading up to the meeting would be stressful, so I did some searching online for easy appetizer ideas. I ended up deciding on doing a meat and cheese plate with some crackers. And fortunately, Trader Joes has some pretty incredible things so I was able to make this pretty easily.

Meat and Cheese

I got the tray and bowls at Ross Dress For Less because I realized as I was getting ready that I have no serving platters. That tray was $6 (I’m thinking about going back to get another one) and those bowls were in a set of 4 for $7.

I spent most of my afternoon cleaning my house (doesn’t everyone do that when company comes over?) and my fellow mentees started showing up right on time at 5pm.

With all the food that everyone brought, my dining room table looked pretty full.

Food Table

We all grabbed some food and then sat in my living room area to chat.

I was pretty shocked that all 8 of us who were able to make it fit into my living room pretty easily. I’ve never had more than 5 people over but with my new couch and the rearrangement of my living room I can fit more people than before!

We all went around the group and shared what we had done since our last meeting last month. We got advice and shared stories and it was really a great evening of women who really are working hard to make it in the entertainment industry.

We ended up meeting for almost 3 hours (we might have to figure out an agenda for our next meeting so we don’t run crazy long). This mentoring circle is such a huge difference compared to my other mentoring circle. I don’t know if anyone in my last mentoring circle really met outside of our group meetings. We definitely weren’t told that we needed to do so (I like that my current mentors really want us to meet during the in-between months).

I’m excited to see how the rest of this year goes with my mentoring circle. I have my next meeting next month (that meeting is with the mentors as well). Hopefully they will have some guidance on how we can run our own meetings to maximize what we get out of it.

In the meantime, I’m just so grateful that my mentors and fellow mentees are just as enthusiastic about getting as much out of this year as I am!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailEnd Of The Mentoring Circle (or One Final Lunch) Default ThumbnailMeeting My Mentoring Circle (or Being In The Minority) Default ThumbnailLess Networking More Socializing (or Another Evening With My Fellow Mentees) Default ThumbnailGetting Ready To Get Mentored Again (or A Evening With WIF) Default ThumbnailAnother Mentee Meeting (or Beach Brunch) Default ThumbnailLast Official Mentee Meeting (or Planning For 2016)

1 Comment

Posted in Acting, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , ,

Meeting My Mentoring Circle (or Being In The Minority)

Posted on February 19, 2015 | 4 comments

Last night was the first meeting of my new Women In Film mentoring circle. I was a little nervous going in because of my experience with my last mentoring circle. While I really loved getting to know the women in my last circle who showed up, out of 10 women only 3 of us regularly attending the meetings. And while I understand that we all live busy and crazy lives, it was still disappointing.

One of my new mentors is a manager and the other is a producer. They were both so nice at the meeting and their stories and experiences were amazing to hear about.

After our mentors introduced themselves, we went around introducing ourselves. In my last mentoring circle, almost all the mentees were actors. There were some writers, but most of them were also actors (I think there was only 1 writer who wasn’t an actor as well). But in this group, there is only 1 other actor! Everyone else has such a variety of jobs. There are writers, directors, producers, and even someone who helps entertainment industry companies rent office space!

Not only did all the other mentees have a wide range of jobs, they were all super supportive and enthusiastic about the mentoring circle and what we can accomplish as a group! My old circle was supportive, but we were looking more toward our mentors as guidance to what our group should do. This time, we are taking charge of things and are planning our own mentee meetings between the meetings with our mentors (I’m actually in charge of organizing our mentee meeting).

I left the meeting feeling super positive and excited to see what the next year will bring for me and the other women in my mentoring circle. I really feeling like I was put into an incredible group that will help me reach my goals (and of course I will help them as well).

I’m not trying to put down my last mentoring circle. I learned a lot from my mentors and the other women who regularly attended the meetings. But I really felt like there was so much more that I could have gotten out of that group than I did. And maybe part of that is my fault that I did not ask to see if we could do more. But now I’m super motivated to make this next year super productive and I know that this mentoring circle will help me reach my goals.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailLast Official Mentee Meeting (or Planning For 2016) Default ThumbnailGetting Ready To Get Mentored Again (or A Evening With WIF) Default ThumbnailAnother Business Brunch (or A Delayed Mentoring Circle Meeting) Default ThumbnailEnd Of The Mentoring Circle (or One Final Lunch) Default ThumbnailMentoring Circle (or Women Who Support Each Other) Default Thumbnail4 Years Of My Mentoring Circle (or Celebrating With Brunch)

4 Comments

Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff

Tagged , ,