Tag Archives: the real girl’s guide to everything else

Keeping the Ball Rolling…

24 Feb

Yesterday felt very productive.

I spent the afternoon with a brainstorming creative writing session with my friend and fellow actor. We whipped out three rough drafts of scripts in about two hours and, might I add, they’re pretty funny. It felt good following through on a commitment we had made to each other- to make a webseries in order to obtain our SAG eligibility. (If all goes as planned, I’ll share exactly how we did it!)

First thing’s first, which was coming up with the ideas. So, last week we met for lunch to come up with a sort of game plan. Then we set a date to actually sit down and write. After a couple cancellations, we finally met yesterday, keeping the ball rolling and not letting our project lose steam. I can’t tell you how many ideas I’ve had with friends, fellow aspiring directors/producers/actors, which disappeared as quickly as they arrived. But, that’s okay… because one day one of those millions of moments of inspiration will actually materialize. The trick is, to never stop having these ideas, to never stop creating even if your last 998 ideas withered away to die…. it’s that 999th one that just may be the hit!

Then later on that day, I spent the evening at a webseries launch/networking/charity event in West Hollywood watching the smart, witty, entertaining, feminist, funny work of my peers. This made me feel good. This day made me feel good. I felt motivated. It’s like the feeling I get after going to a really awesome art opening– all I want to do is go home and paint! It’s like I get this burst of creative energy and I just have to make something. But if I never go to an art opening or a museum or a gallery then that creative fire dims and I could go months or, dare I say it, years without making a single work of art, another great passion of mine. This is exactly why it is so important to go to screenings, film festivals, workshops, networking events… to keep that fire burning bright! This is your dream after all, let’s make it come true!

Keeping it Real

16 Feb

Last Friday, Feb 12th, marked the premiere of the webseries “The REAL Girl’s Guide to Everything Else“. Produced by my friend’s production team, it makes me feel so good, inspired, motivated and proud to see talented actors making it happen within my circle of artists. And not only that, but making strong parts for women. As a female actor in this town, it can get discouraging  having audition after audition for weak female roles. Or scrolling through the casting sites and only seeing “nudity required”. Or looking at character breakdowns and no matter what the part entails, at the end of the description something to the effect of “and sexy”.

The Real Girl’s premiere episode, “Love, Lunch and a BOGO Sale”, proved that this series is going to be fun, smart and entertaining. I will admit, I’m a sucker for anything created by a friend… but so what. I’m not pretending to be objective here. In my most humble opinion, I believe it was evidently well-produced, acted and written- enough that in just a mere 5 1/2 minutes I was enticed to watch more. I can’t wait for episode 2.

This is the cool thing about the direction the entertainment industry has been heading as of late- it’s getting easier and easier for self-producd works. Casting Director Bonnie Gillespie talks about this all the time in her blog, and encourages self-producing actors with her “Self-Produced Clip of the Week”… which, by the way, featured another friend of mine just last week!