First of all, I went a little instagram crazy again. Sorry about that. Second of all I am not in a writing mood so this will mostly be photos. Third of all I didn't take that many photos.
Over the weekend we went on our summer camp retreat. It was really awesome. Our family rented out a summer camp for the weekend and there were about 25 of us. We made s'mores, played basketball, volleyball, and washers, tie dyed shirts, made jewelry, had a sing along around the campfire, watched a late night movie, and just hung out. It was pretty awesome. Lilly even took her nap in a bed with no problem. We all had a blast.
Cousins (Lilly and Ellie- 2/3 the camps namesake) welcoming each other to camp!
Camp sign hanging in the dining hall
Practicing bushing teeth at the "health and safety seminar" during camp orientation
Visitng Whiteman Airforce Base where Andy was stationed for 3 years
Rob & Elaine preforming performing their Balloon art & comedy routine during the camp talent show!
Lilly enjoyed the talent show. Especially since it involved balloons and she got to stay up past her bedtime.
Gabe the Magnificent performs magic during the talent show
Lilly, Anna, and Monica discuss all the fun they had at camp over Sunday breakfast.
I am very happy to report that MY EYEBROW IS BACK! That sure was fast. Revitabrow really does work! Imagine that.
I haven't really had time to keep up with my goals over the last month. I cannot believe it's August already. Over the past month I spent time at the lake with some friends, helped an Aunt move from Kansas City to Columbia, have been editing a documentary, and have begun work on the Citizen Jane Film Festival. It's been an incredibly busy month.
One awesome goal related thing is that, thanks to my awesome sister, I am going to be taking a knitting class at a place called True Blue Fiber Friends here in Columbia. I wonder if I can consider that satisfying my "Learn to Knit" and my "Take a Crafting Class" goals? I guess I'll just have to see how satisfied I feel after the class.
In other goal related news, I definitely like all kinds of sushi now. Andy and I took advantage of Jina Yoo's (an incredible local sushi restaurant) annual sushi buffet. It's a little expensive and you are only allowed one hour to consume all the sushi you possibly can, but so very worth it. Andy and I decided not to read the descriptions of the sushi, but to try a little of everything. There wasn't a single roll I didn't like. I must have wolfed down at least seven rolls of sushi. When we were finished I read some of the descriptions and could not believe some of the raw creatures I consumed. It was both delicious and terrifying. And to think I'd never even tried sushi just a few months ago. Jina Yoo's sushi is incredible.
I am hoping to begin working on sewing dresses for Lilly with my mutli-talented friend Monica, in the next few weeks or so... I am also hoping to post more often than I did last month.
Here is the film. It's only 2 minutes long so you should watch it first:
If I am going to live in the Midwest, I am pretty lucky to live in a town this large and with so much going on. Being a college graduate with a BA in Commercial film and Video Production, I am even luckier that Columbia has a large film community. We have two major film festivals, the Citizen Jane Film Festival and the True/False film Festival. True/False has this film competition called “Gimme Truth”. Each film submitted to Gimme Truth is a 2-minute-or-less profile of a Missourian that is 100% true or 100% false. Then there are three judges who guess if your submission is true or false.
I wanted to make a false film to submit. For some reason, the first thing that came to mind was a competitive musical chairs team. See, that is how my mind works. What is the stupidest more ridiculous thing I can think of? Oh musical chairs. A competitive team. Sure why not?
I had a lot of help with this film. I had tried to make one the year before and didn’t have any help. It did not work out. I actually tried on two separate occasions to make this one work. Both times I asked everyone to come help me, but then I didn’t have a location. The location is very important. Without a good location it wouldn’t be believable. On the third try, we got a location. Monica Senecal helped with this and therefore received the credit of Producer. She got us a space at the first Christian Church downtown. A very believable location for a competitive musical chairs team. What is more believable than a group of people that come together with a common interest at church?
Next, we needed to recruit team members. Matt Davis and Ben Poland, my two Assistant Directors, helped me get people there. We managed to convince some of our friends and family, Rob Bartel, Elaine Martin, Val Davis, Gabe Senecal, Jan Neitzert (my awesome mother-in-law), and Andy to come on down and be the participants by promising there would be cookies. It was important that we had people of varying ages to make it more believable. It was also important there were cookies. Several varieties of cookies. We actually didn’t have too many people, so we filled the negative space of most of the interview shots with people hanging out in the background to make it appear as though there were some more people there than there actually were.
It was very important to me to have the film look good. For this we would need a good cinematographer with a good camera. This is where Logan Lemmon came in. He is a fantastic cinematographer and luckily he is also a nice guy and agreed to help out. Side note: He will die if you feed him potatoes.
I had actually been working on the rules of competitive musical chairs for several weeks at that point. I did some research on how the game came to be and what some appropriate guidelines for a competitive team would be. After researching, it turns out there are no other competitive musicalchairs teams anywhere in the world (or at least that haven't had any info about them on the internet- if you're out there, let me know...). I explained all of the rules to our team members the day of filming. They did a great job considering they learned everything just 20 minutes before we began. And judging by their interviews, they are all pretty good liars. Actors. I mean actors.
After we finished shooting I spent the next two days editing down over an hour of footage into two minutes of pure mocumentary gold. Then, I tried to convince Andy to help me burn it to a disc so I could submit. Since he was pretty busy (he was teaching a film class at the university and gearing up to shoot a feature all while in the middle of shooting a short) we didn’t burn to a disc until late the night before it was due at the T/F office. This meant I would have to go over and find the offices downtown on my lunch hour. I mean lunch half hour.
By the time I found the offices and climbed all the stairs that lead up to them, I was sweaty and out of breath. Partly due to nervousness over having my film selected, but mostly because I am ridiculously out of shape and there were a lot of stairs.
I busted in to the office and exclaimed between loud obnoxious breaths “I…Have…a…film…for…uh…is… this…Gimmetruth!?” They were in the middle of a meeting and all looked up at me. I sure felt like a world class idiot. Until this one woman, the only one not at the table and sitting at a desk said sweetly “Do you have a Gimme Truth to turn in?”
“Um, uh huh”
“Oh great!” She said
I walked out of there thinking, I hope these people don’t remember who I am when they watch my film.
On the way back to my car (I had to park a block away before I climbed all the stairs, hence the sweat and heavy breathing) I decided to stop in to one of my favorite restaurants (Main Squeeze) for my favorite sandwich (The Grilled Cheese Deluxe) to congratulate myself on accomplishing goal number 5. After all, my goal was merely to enter a film into a festival. I had no idea I’d actually get IN!
The next few days I went back and forth thinking, I totally got in! How could I not have!? And, I didn’t get in. I just know it. I didn’t get in.
Finally, by Tuesday before the event was scheduled to take place, I got an e-mail with the subject “Congratulations Gimme Truth Finalists!” I got in! I got in!
I was so excited all week! My whole family and most of the friends in the film (and some who weren’t in the film) all came to support me. We went out to dinner first and then arrived at the theater early. I couldn’t have been more excited. They played my film first. Everyone laughed at all the right times. Afterwards I was called up on stage where each judge was allowed to ask me one question to help them decide whether my film was true or false. Two judges guessed “True”, and one guessed “False”. SUCKAS!
After all the films, they announced the winners. After they named the third place winner, I thought, I’m not gonna win. I know I’m not. They called second place and I didn’t hear my name. I thought for a second and was like, Wait! That’s the name of my film! I won second place? I won second place! Woo Hoo!!! The best part about it was that the entire time I was completely not expecting it. I walked around with my trophy glued to my hand for the rest of the night.
It was all definitely worth it to keep going even though things were not going my way for my first few attempts. I cannot wait to submit to next year’s festival. I am already thinking of some ideas…
Above: All dressed and ready to go to Gimme Truth!
Below: Andy and I at dinner before Gimme Truth. (Photo by Ben Hendrick)
Above: A Filmmaker on stage with the host, Johnny St. John, and the judges.
Below: Me with judge, Ameena Mathews, and our trophies after the films
(I thought I should fill you in on the goals I accomplished before I started this blog. I am going to begin with Number 9)...
I am a theater geek. Well in high school I was. I was a member of our Thespian troupe. In order to be inducted you need 100 hours of theater service both on and off stage. I worked very hard painting sets months before our shows opened and backstage during performances. Wait, did I say worked really hard? I think I might have meant goofed off for 92 hours with about 8 hours of actual hard work. Yup, I am pretty sure that is what I meant. I am sure Audrey Miller, the set painting club supervisor and awesome-est art teacher I never actually had as a teacher, would agree. Ahhhh, high school theater. The glory days. I was stage manager for “How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying”, co-directed “Free To Be You And Me” with my friend Tracy, and all around had a blast. Some of us would go every weekend to get rush tickets for the Rocky Horror Show on Broadway (Oh yeah I am from New York for anyone who doesn’t know me reading this). These were some of the best times I’ve had in my life and I knew it then.
What I really wanted was to be in the musicals. I auditioned for one musical and didn’t make it. Just one. My dream was, and is to this day, to be in a musical. But just because high school is long over doesn’t mean I can’t still make this happen right? And just because I am not really a strong singer or dancer or actress doesn’t mean I couldn’t be, right?
Suddenly I got this image in my head of myself on stage with the lights shining in my eyes and the silhouettes of my family in the audience. I had a vision of typing up the Facebook status, “I’m in a musical!” and all the congratulatory comments that would follow. And so goal number 9: Audition For A Musical (and the idea for this entire list) was born.
Then I came down from my cloud and remembered how I kinda suck at singing and dancing. Well, I’m not that bad. I have just never had any kind of training in either. Kindergarten ballet and those three months I was in chorus in sixth grade do not count. So I downloaded part of the soundtrack from Spelling Bee off of iTunes. I did some research on the internet and read (and memorized) some of the audition sides. I watched some Youtube videos of the characters. I decided I would be best for the role of Logaine SchwartzandGrubeniere. I learned her song “Woe Is Me” and decided, even though it is not traditional to sing a song from the show you are auditioning for, to do just that. I practiced from about January to April about 1-2 times per week for about an hour each time.
Ok, I sound crazy, right? But you can tell just how badly I wanted this. A few days before the audition I began having second thoughts, but I pushed them out of my head. I was going to do this no matter what.
The day of the audition came and I was pretty nervous. Then I arrived at the Church where the audition was to be held and my nervousness turned to excitement. I am really going to do this!” I thought. I was so happy when I was called up third, because I don’t think I could have sat still much longer.
I got up there and I ROCKED it! I had little moves that went along with it and I belted it out, which I have NEVER been able to do before when singing in front of people. The character I auditioned for has a lisp and I had that lisp down PERFECTLY. Judging by the other auditions I could tell that I shouldn’t count myself out yet. They weren’t bad, I just meant I was just as good as they were. And I wasn’t delusional this time either!
I got a callback! I could not believe it. I had never in my life gotten called back for anything. I continued to practice. When I arrived back at the church, I knew I was out of my league. Way out of my league. This other girl there, Jordan, was up for the same part I was. She was AMAZING. I had seen her in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar just a couple of months earlier so I already knew she was going to be good. She had experience and charisma and I’d like to say moxy. I’m probably right about that, but I have no idea what moxy is. I guess I should have just Googled it instead of letting you all think I’m an idiot. Anyway when I saw her I knew I didn’t have this part. As if my inability to sing along with accompaniment and my completely moronic dance audition weren’t already tell tale signs. When it was all over and I found out the next day that I didn’t have the part, I didn’t feel at all disappointed. Monica obviously saw something in me that was enough to put me up against these other girls with experience and amazing natural talent. I didn’t feel like I belonged there, but I felt honored that I was good enough to be up against those girls.
I really feel like I accomplished something. I will audition for musicals in the future. I think I might find a pianist to help me work on singing with accompaniment and maybe take an aerobics class or two at the gym to help me to learn how to catch on to dance moves quickly and keep up with everyone. For now I will concentrate on some of my other goals. I will be revisiting this one, however.
By the way, Monica asked me to be the props mistress for the show and I am beyond thrilled. I am so excited to be involved and to meet all these new people! I’d like to thank everyone in that audition and especially at the callback for not laughing at me. Thanks guys!
Above: Some us Thespians being Thespians
Below: Me with one of my besties, Mary Orzano, when I stage managed How To Succeed... and she was the leading lady, Rosemary.
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
