Showering Renee with Love

Around the 20SB part of the blogosphere today, we're gathering to celebrate the idea of matrimony in honor of our lovely blogging friend Renee.

(Isn't she gorgeous?)

But dude, she was totally MY friend FIRST.

I met Renee back in 2004, when she started at my college. At the time, she was a theatre major just like me, although I was a couple of years ahead of her.

At one point, we had a joke that if another gal in my class and I somehow had a love child, it would be Renee. Hence this picture.

(Renee with her two "moms". Circa April 2005)

I believe it was coined more for personality blends than physical traits, but I believe there's a bit of faux-family resemblance there.

I feel that it is now an important time to share a couple of awkward pictures of her with you... You know, just because I can (both were taken by me).

(Renee photobombing behind our friends Liesl and Anna. Circa April 2005)

(Renee and Anna at Steak n Shake. This picture was taken for the early days of Facebook when they were finally letting you put up pictures for free without one of those wirehog accounts, and I thought a great subject for a photo album would be "Drinking Straws". Not kidding. Circa May 2005)

We did a production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella together. I played one of the ugly stepsisters (type-casting?), and Renee was a mouse. Yes, you read that right. A mouse. She was also a ball guest and a townsperson if I remember correctly, and I'm sure I could find you a picture of her dressed cute. But aren't mouse pictures better? That's what I thought.


(Renee is on the right in both pictures. Circa April 2005)

In this dancing role, Renee got to use her famous legs. Our Acting Improvisation professor once made the comment that she thought Renee was "all legs", and frequently compared her movement to that of a gazelle. And in my head, I will now always associate "Renee" with "gazelle". Always.


(Not great pics, I know, but at least you can see her light-up ears and our low-tech pumpkin carriage.)

And to prove that I was in the same musical, here's a picture of me trying to win over the Prince with Cinderella standing in the background.



For some promotional event for Cinderella, the actors played the Prince and Cinderella were scheduled to go to a local mall for a day in costume so that kids could get their pictures taken with them. So Renee and I decided that we should crash this event. We also decided that we should make costumes. So we dressed as the Prince's fan club... aka a bunch of girls who were trying to beat Cinderella out for the role of Princess. I believe Renee and I went to Wal-mart or Target or something to get supplies. We recruited a few other cast members and...


(In my dorm lobby, before heading out)

(Yeah, Renee definitely added fringe to the bottom of her shirt, because she was crafty long before she had an Etsy shop. And she also made the yellow shirt for that girl, if I remember correctly.)

(Fighting the Princess)

(Just like the Mounties, we always get our man.)

Hey Renee, I don't know about you, but I still totally have my shirt. It says "The Future Mrs. Charming". I'd send it to you for use pre-wedding if it didn't say "Mister Fister Fan Club" on the sleeve (Fister being the surname of the actor who played the Prince).

The following fall, Renee indulged me by going to a Toxic Audio concert with me when most of my friends thought that "professional a cappella" sounded lame. But see, she watched some YouTube videos with me in my dorm room (which took FOR.EV.ER. to load back then), and was convinced that it was anything BUT lame.





So we went to the concert. And then we stayed after and met the members of the group. Renee seemed to be particularly fascinated with the Bass, named Rene (ooh! Matching names!) after he did a Phantom of the Opera number. (Beau-Named-Joe, if you read this, watch out for him... he could be a threat. Or just start singing Phantom around the house a lot).

(Renee, me, and another friend of ours with Paul and Rene of Toxic Audio. Circa September 2005)

Later that semester, Renee and I did another play together: The Tragedy of Macbeth. And it was an all-female cast (which you can pretty much only get away with if you're at a women's college... which we were). Unfortunately, I don't have any sensational pictures of the two of us together, but I'll put on a few that I have.

(Renee is obviously the stunning Thane on the right, and I am Lady Macbeth in the center. Circa November 2005)



(Renee getting into mischief in the dressing room with our friend Anna... who seems to be in tons of my pictures of Renee, as you may have noticed).

Here's a random picture of some cast members in the dining hall after a rehearsal. Note that Renee and I are sitting next to each other and awkwardly peeking up like prairie dogs at the back of the table...

(The cross is just there to remind you that it was a Catholic school.)

So there. Now there's proof that I was her friend BEFORE she was a blogger.

And Renee has said that I inspired her to blog. In fact, I'd like to think of myself as her muse. After all, she has copied my fashion sense a couple of times... Like here:




I know what you're thinking. "Angela, that shirt was mass-produced. Those pictures prove nothing." Okay, fine, non-believer. I have a couple more exhibits for you. Behold...

Me dressed up for my Senior Formal, April 8th, 2006:

(Note me on the far right, in that gorgeous blue number. Also note how skinny I was back then, because DAMN I was skinny. Hello 20-pound-thinner version of me!)


Renee dressed up for her Senior Formal, April 2008:



Notice anything familiar? Yeah. I rest my case. I'm her muse, I tell you. Her MUSE!!!

Alright, fine. I don't really believe that... Renee has plenty of good ideas on her own that have nothing to do with me and my incredible taste in dresses. In fact, sometimes she inspires ME. For example, she turned me on to 20SB, which is the whole reason I have blog friends and have CONTINUED blogging. Without her, I never would've experienced awesome times like this:



(Renee and me with Joy of Big Time Fancy and Pete of The Situation Has Deteriorated. Circa June 2008.)

Anyway. Renee, I love you so much. And I'm so excited for you and Joe. So right now, I'd like to remind you of the current happiest day of your life (at least, as far as all your blog readers can tell...)



Remember that?

I want your wedding day to be at least 7 levels better than the day you drove around Chelsea Clinton.

Best wishes, my lovely Renee.

And congratulations, Joe. You've found one hell of a Belle (and a gazelle!).


May you live happily ever after!

~A~

Exposure Blogging

(Me all dressed up to watch the Tony Awards... Am I the only one who does that?)

A couple of weeks ago, I went into NYC on business (to be trained in how to put gloves on customers at the jewelry/accessories store I'm working at). I happened to be in town the same day as a panel discussion on theatre blogging, which was led by the guy who is in charge of the New York Times theatre web page. I made some great contacts there, and one of them led to something awesome.

I have been in communication with the online managing editor for a notable theatre website (ETA: my brother recommended that I remove the name, so I have).

The company has a trade publication for actors. It used to be the magazine that every actor got, because it gave all sorts of information about upcoming auditions and gigs and people to contact and the like. But in this fancy technological day in age, the physical publication has sort of fallen to the wayside and is now hard to come by. And in its place, there's a glorious online version. You can subscribe to the site to get all the insider information, but you can access most of the stuff without that.

The Head Honcho of the online division of said company has read my grad school blog (thanks to a contact of mine from that panel discussion). He wrote, "Perhaps there is a way we can help your work get a wider audience."

Being the dutiful student that I am, I wrote to the head of my grad school program for his opinion on the matter. He wrote, and I quote, "Sounds great to me – go for it. Just keep the blog going! It’s been the best tool we’ve had for recruitment!". (And you thought I was kidding when I said my school loves me.)

I spoke to the online guy today. There's a blog that they have on their website that generally has about 6-8 contributing actors writing for it at a time. They generally write 300-400 word posts about 3-4 times per week. They'd like me to write for it.

Pros:
- Audience! My current blog has gotten about 15,000 hits in its first year. Their blog gets 250,000-300,000 hits per month.
- Exposure. Huge for an actor.
- Prestige. If I ever want to write about acting (or teach/coach) in the future, this is a great thing to have on my résumé (I'd call myself an "online columnist" instead of a blogger, of course).
- Link-backs. I can put the link to my grad school blog (or my brand new web page... which I won't link to here, but it's AngelaLastName.com if you know my last name. It's not impressive yet, but I established it this weekend to lock up the domain... and I'll make it nicer later) at the end of every post I do.
- Awesomeness. THIS IS SO FREAKING COOL!

Cons:
- Lack of personal branding. I'd only be a contributing blogger, so it's not really the same level of personal gain that I get from writing my own blog... So I know that I won't be giving that up.
- Length. 300-400 words is not exactly my style. If you haven't noticed, I tend to be a bit wordier than that.
- Responsibility. I'm going to be taking a full load of classes AND be in a season of theatre rehearsals/performances AND be keeping up my regular blog (as the head of my program has told me he wants me to) AND be Skyping with my long-distance boyfriend nightly... Writing 3-4 posts a week might be slightly unrealistic.
- Content. They don't want the posts for their site to be like the ones on mine. They want exclusive, original content. Which means that in addition to all the rest of the stuff I'm doing this year, I'd have to come up with 3-4 creative and interesting post IDEAS each week.

When he proposed this, I mentioned my hectic schedule and said that I didn't know if 3-4 posts a week was realistic. I said that 1-2 posts a week would be better for me. He said that he'd have to think about it, as generally they think it builds a better fan base to have more regular of posts from each author. He also said that it would be okay to have mixed media (aka I can put up pictures or videos, or embed YouTube videos I think are interesting) and just basically add commentary. He said that frequency is more important than length. So that would be a lot less stressful...

I told him in that case, I might be able to do 2-3 posts a week.

As I was getting off the phone with him, he said, "Oh, I forgot! We have another option!"

On a different (harder to get to) part of the site, there's an "Advice" blog that frankly doesn't appear to advise much at all. He said that for that, it's mostly just guest bloggers. It would be in the style of a first person essay about a given experience, telling a whole story about something. It would be 1200-1500 words in length, and it'd only be once a month or once every couple of months.

Pros:
- Less frequent. Dude, I can totally do a post a month. Easy!
- Length. 1200-1500 words? Piece of cake. During NaNoWriMo I was writing 1,667 words a day! And it'll give me more of a chance to write like myself than a measly 300-400 would.
- Credibility. How awesome would it be to say I was writing a monthly ADVICE COLUMN for this site? Totally makes me sound like a pro.

Cons:
- Less exposure. I'd still get to do the link backs, but this is on a hard to find part of their site. I'd already read (and subscribed to) the other actor-written blog, but I had no idea that this one even existed.
- Less excitement. Not nearly as cool as being a regular columnist.


The way I left it with the guy was that I'd think about it, and we'd be in touch. I'm not going back to school for another month, so we have time.

I don't know if there'd be any monetary compensation, but I don't even really care. I'd be getting paid in exposure, which is still really stellar. It's especially great because my brother is trying to help me set up selling ad space on my grad school blog, as I've been contacted by two different legitimate-looking companies in the last couple of weeks who want to buy ad space from me (and you thought I was kidding when I said I'm famous).

Anyway. I just wanted to share this part of my journey with you all. Let me know if you have any thoughts on what I should do. I could use some advice.



May you be exposed in all of the right ways (and none of the improper ones).

~A~



P.S. For the sake of comparison, I just copied and pasted all of the above into Microsoft word (Note: pre-edits). It was 1,177 words long. And it took me about 20 minutes to write it. Just food for thought. (ETA: Post edits it is 1,170 words long)

The Film Set

(Sorry for another post stolen from my other blog...)

(Me on set!)

As promised, I'm finally going to share my experience working on the short film, Evelyn Sack's Eleven o'Clock Number.

I got to Tallahassee on Saturday evening (July 27th), and the adventure began.

The Production Designer, the Art Director, and I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond to buy some additional props that had not yet been obtained. The three of us were scheduled to go shop for one of my costumes on Sunday afternoon, but I realized that the director wanted to shoot the scene I needed the outfit for on Sunday morning… We ended up getting to the mall 30 minutes before it closed. In a mad dash, we went to 6 stores in that 30 minutes, I tried on a bunch of really ugly things and a couple of cute ones, and we bought two dresses, a suit, a jacket, and three shirts (knowing that most of these items would be returned unworn).

On Sunday morning, I got up, straightened my hair, and went to a television news studio where we were filming our first scene (which is chronologically last in the film). I ended up wearing a red dress we bought at Ann Taylor Loft (the first thing we bought in our shopping rampage) with a black jacket that I had brought with me to Florida. That first scene went pretty well, and was totally a piece of cake! We only did a few takes.

We went to the place we were filming afterward, which is turned out is this huge house. And when I say house, I mean mansion. It has two kitchens, two laundry rooms, maids’ quarters, and even its own guest house. It’s pretty incredible. I rehearsed with the other actress, and we choreographed our big fight scene.

On Monday, I woke up early and went through my Fitzmaurice tremoring and my other vocal warm-ups, despite the fact that the scenes we were filming that day were for an action sequence without dialogue. Somehow, just going through the warm-ups puts me in a better state of mind to act.

I got to the set around 6:15am. My character was supposed to have sort of given up on her appearance. I happened to already own a muted brown suit that looked pretty drab on camera. I also wore a turquoise tank top and black shoes that I owned. We let my hair air-dry. I wore my glasses, and I had no make-up on. When the Production Designer (she was in charge of the way the costumes, set, and props looked) saw me, she said, “You look terrible. It’s perfect!” Initially, I was mildly offended (after all, I was wearing all my own clothes and looked how I normally look on Mondays), but I understand that it’s a little different for camera.

People were setting things up long before the other actress and I had anything to do. Around 8:00am, the First A.D. (which seems to translate to a Stage Manager in theatre) called for a “New Deal”. The New Deal happened before every scene that we shot. The other actress and I would act out the entire scene while the rest of the crew watched (most were seeing it for the first time) and the Second A.D. videotaped it. Then, the Director of Photography (who is in charge of cinematography -- designing the lighting and setting up shots) explained all the angles that the scene would be filmed from, and with what camera lenses. After the new deal, the crew started setting up everything to prepare for the first shot.

This movie was being filmed on a camera called “The Red” (called that because it has a red lens), which produces digital film. It’s a lot less expensive than traditional film, and everything is shot in HD.

Before each shot, I’d have to stand on several marks (i.e. places that I would end up during the course of the action) and the crew would arrange things around me. The D.P. (Director of Photography) held up a device to whatever was supposed to be in focus in the shot (usually my face, but sometimes a prop I was holding) and call out that things were at various numbers (like “2.8” or “4”), and then the camera team would adjust things. I asked if the device measured light. They explained that a camera lens works a lot like a human eye. Just as our pupils adjust depending on the light in the room, camera lenses have to do the same to get a clear picture. The device was not technically measuring the light, but rather was measuring how much the camera’s equivalent of a pupil had to open in order for the shot to work.

The camera team also used a measuring tape to figure out the distance between the camera lens and my eyes. From what I could gather, the focus of the camera is operated manually, and the two people operating the camera have to make adjustments mid-shot when actors move. For some really close shots, I was told that I had to hit my mark within two inches or the shot would be “soft” (fuzzy and not focused). That was especially crucial – and difficult – for a shot where I fell to the ground and had to land in the same place every time. I got pretty good at hitting my marks as a result of that shot.

We spent all of Saturday just filming the fight scene over and over again from every angle possible. Sometimes the camera was static, and sometimes it moved on a track. Sometimes one of the actors wasn’t in the shot at all, so the person who was had to react to something imaginary. Sometimes they moved the furniture around in order to “cheat” shots (make it look like an angle was right when it really wasn’t for the sake of continuity).

Between takes, the director would come over to me to privately give me instructions. "I need you to be crazier, and sickly enjoy hurting her," for example. A couple of times I got, "pull it back," and a couple of times I got, "don't be afraid of going too far," depending on the shot. A lot of times I was told to slow things down (so that it will be easier for them to cut things together in editing; film acting involves far slower of impulses than stage acting). After filming, he made a joke that he wanted me to have, "Flames. Flames, on the sides of your face..." (it's a quote from the movie Clue).

(The Director, giving me notes)

Before every take, they called for "Last Looks", which meant that the Production Designer would make sure everything looked consistent to how it looked in every other take, so that the footage would cut together properly in the editing room. My character was supposed to be sweating and stressed out. Therefore, my Last Looks meant getting my face, shoulders, and hair sprayed with water from a spray bottle, and messing up my hair, and then patting me down if the water looked too drippy. For the other actress, it meant making sure that her facial mask looked perfect (and since I was "smothering" her with a pillow in most takes, it needed a lot of touch-ups... and it meant cleaning some of her mask off of the pillow).

(The other actress and me posing by her "heart monitor".)

During the times that the crew was preparing for shots, the other actress and I occasionally had a little time to head over to Craft Services, which is where all the food for the cast and crew is, and is probably the most dangerous thing on a film set. Apparently, crews eat pretty much only junk food. There were so many different kinds of cookies and crackers and muffins… I successfully managed to avoid all of the really treacherous food and tried to eat mostly fruits and veggies, but it wasn’t easy. At one point, the Producer (which, for this project, was sort of the equivalent to a Production Manager) went out and got me pineapples and bananas (which I swear that I did not request in a diva fashion, and he was super sweet to get them for me).

(Me trying to stay out of people's way between takes)

By the end of the first day, I realized that being on a film set felt sort of familiar to me; it’s a lot like being an actor in a play during tech weekend. Some of the crew people have tons to do (Director, Director of Photography, First A.D., Gaffer, Key Grip, Best Boy Electric, First Camera Assistant, Camera Operators), some of the crew people have a lot of time where they’re just waiting around for the chance to do something (Sound Team, Script Supervisor), and the actors have to stand in places for long periods of time, and then repeat the same 10 seconds of a scene over and over again. In short, it felt like I had one of the easy jobs.

That said, by the end of the day, I was tired. Being on set was exhausting. And the fact that I was doing a lot of combat (well, stage combat… but I don’t know if you call it the same thing when it’s not on stage) all day was probably the culprit.

The second day (Tuesday), we filmed every other scene in the movie. We filmed in an order that was not chronological in any way, but seemed intuitive to the crew in terms of set-up locations. Because the set ups were all over the house, it meant more downtime for the actors. And since I didn't have to be "sweaty", I didn't have to get sprayed down with the water at all.

There was one scene in which I had to run down a staircase. And then they'd call "cut", and I had to climb back up the stairs and do it again. I got my exercise that day.

Near the end of the day, a couple of the crew's professors showed up to check in on them. I think it was their Production Design professor and their Cinematography professor.

(The man with the ponytail is their Cinematography professor. Among his many credits, he did the Underwater Photography for the movie Jaws.)

After all of my scenes had completed, the crew applauded for me. They were really sweet. I then went and watched the monitor as the other actress filmed her final shots. They looked so cool! I was excited.

Once she finished, the other actress and I went off with the Sound crew. Normally, we'd be called in during the editing process to say lines while watching ourselves on the screen for any parts where the sound wasn't clear, which is called "ADR" (one person said it stood for "Automated Dialogue Replacement", and another said "Additional Dialogue Recording"... both are on Wikipedia, so who knows?). But I'm pretty far out of town, so I'm not really able to come back for that. Instead, we went to a quiet room and recorded our lines a few times into a microphone, trying to say everything with the same speed, inflections, and accidental paraphrases (or rewrites) that we used in the filming. They called these recordings "wilds".

One of my favorite things to witness happened after all the filming was over and most things had been packed up. The people who were ATL ("Above the Line" -- Director, Director of Photography, Production Designer, Producer) went through and thanked all the BTL ("Below the Line" -- everyone else) and the other ATL for their help. It was lovely. Every single person on that set was important. And it was neat how we all worked together to create something.

(Me with the Artistic Director, Daniel. I stole these pictures from his Facebook.)

Anyway. It was a wonderful experience, and I feel incredibly blessed to have been a part of it. I hope I have more opportunities to work on screen in the future.


May every newly opened door help you find happiness.

~A~

Film Shoot Screen Caps!

Okay, so I'm completely stealing a post from my other blog, but I think it's worth doing...

As those of you following me on Twitter know, I worked on a graduate student film in Tallahassee last weekend. I started typing up information about the whole process (it was so cool!), but haven't had time to finish it yet...

But, in the meantime, the Director of Photography took some screen caps of the footage, so I thought I'd share them with you.


Lara (me) in silhouette on the phone with her boss.


Lara on the phone with her boss.


Evelyn walks to her vanity.


Evelyn putting on makeup to make herself look sick.


Evelyn telling Lara how worthless she is.


Evelyn sleeps while Lara tries to murder her.


It looks like a real movie! I'm so geeked, I can't even tell you. :)

~A~


P.S. This is the reason I missed the 20SB Chicago meet-up. A total bummer to have missed it, but at least you know I had a good reason.

Health Update

In case you were wondering...

My second blood test came back totally fine, so I'm in the clear on brain issues.

My ultrasound was completely normal.

I've had stomachaches all day.

So basically, now they have no idea what's wrong with me, but something is definitely still wrong with me. In some ways, it's more frustrating and disappointing than having a real answer.

My doctor wants to put me on birth control to regulate my cycle, but I'm not into that idea. I really don't want to add more hormones to my body. Especially since I'm trying to be healthy and lose weight right now.

I've already lost a good chunk of weight. 17 pounds since November. Today I stepped on the scale, and the number I saw was lower than I've seen in two years. I'm a size 6, which is skinny for a normal person, but still pushing it for an actress.

I'm doing exercise videos and I've given up french fries. I'm just trying to eat other bad-for-me foods in moderation.

Why do I always feel like I'm fighting against my body?


May you find a way to work with your body instead of against it.

~A~