2007 Year In Review

I know have been really bad about posting (Ha-when am I not?!) and so I am going to do a "Year in Review" to make up for it. Hold on to your seat because there is a lot here!

First of all, this has been a phenomenal year for me. I feel like I have changed the way I view life in such a positive way and I am so grateful for that. I have learned and experienced so much this year and I am thrilled with the progress I have made in my career, the wonderful people I have met and I have had the pleasure of spending time with this year (both professionally and socially), what I have learned about life, love, success, happiness, gratitude, etc…

I’m just happy. And I’m excited about 2008. But before we go there, here is 2007…

Jan 2007 was actually month number three of a 16-month marketing mentorship course I am still taking with Jay Abraham, which has been absolutely amazing and has totally changed my life and the way I look at the world and business. It has made me a better person in so many ways, not just in business but also in my social life. If you want to find out more about him, you can go to his website at www.abraham.com. He has a free download of the first chapter of his book, which I think everyone should read.

In March/April I directed a commercial for one of my favorite restaurants in Pasadena, Brits Pub and Restaurant. That project will be posted in January. The project ended up in the hands of a very SLOW editor who made several mistakes and didn’t do a very good job, so the project had to be re-edited, which is why I’m still working on it. I love this project, and I had a great crew and cast to work with. This was probably the most giggly set I’ve been on, and that’s great because I think it’s good when people can enjoy themselves and work hard at the same time. In fact, that’s the ideal I aim for.

In May I directed a spec music video for the song “Grey Street” by Dave Mathews’ Band. I am so happy with how this one came out. We are still playing around with the special effects and color correction, and when it’s done I will post it (probably January).

There were also two other projects I participated in last spring.

One was helping with Troy Conrad with his Comedy Jesus (www.comedyjesus.com) project. He does a fabulous stand up show as… well… as Jesus, and he uses a lot of audio/visual enhancements. He also had me do some improv on camera which was really fun.

The other project was for a student film for Brooks Institute (www.brooks.edu) in Ventura. I played a punk girl who is murdered by this guy that has been following her because he’s attracted to her and he keep shooting footage of her with an 8mm camera. It was a very artsy-fartsy project, as most film school projects are, but very fun and though I’ve never seen it, it seemed like it was coming out pretty well. I never got a reel from them and they never returned my favorite pair of black boots, which kind of irked me. (Josh, if you’re reading this, give back my boots!) Still, I’m very grateful that I got to participate in it. It was fun. And the director was Josh Harman. He says he was one of the final 34 directors selected for Steven Spielberg’s ON THE LOT (www.thelot.com).

Meanwhile, I was also helping out with a class about Producing Ultra-Low-Budget features, taught by Suzanne Lyons. Suzanne was having me video tape her lectures so that students that were missing from class (film production often conflicts with classes) could watch the lesson before the next lecture. It was a wonderful experience to work with Suzanne and I met fabulous people in the class.

One of the people I met was Jim Shea, who owns a school called Cinema Arts Tech (www.cinemaartstech.com), which teaches film producing (bigger budget producing) and Script Supervising. I ended up in the Script Supervising class with Jim Kelly Durgin, who has been professionally script supervising for over 40 years. His mentorship was incredible, and not only has it made me a great supervisor, but it has improved my directing tremendously by making more acutely aware of details. I’m more detail oriented now than I’ve ever been, which is saying a lot for the class.

I also took at Budgeting and Scheduling class with Cleve Landsburg, who has also been in the business forever and offered a wealth of information and had great stories about the industry.

I literally finished my last class with Jim and was swooped up by Lis Fies and Heidi Hornbacher, the producers of The Commune, to work on their feature. I’ve known Lis for a few years and we’ve worked on some short projects together and so it was wonderful to finally work on a feature with her. It was awesome working with Heidi, too, whom I met over the summer when we all got together to see Troy Conrad’s Comedy Jesus show (which I mentioned earlier).

From there I worked on another feature called Eugene. The editor showed me footage when I was dropping off script notes and it looked really great. The producers are planning to do the festival circuit, so even though I don’t think is up on IMDB yet, it should be soon.

And now that Eugene has just about wrapped, I’ve finally had time to go back to finishing up the projects from last spring, which you will have an opportunity to see soon.

I have noticed that I will go to a friend’s blog once and not return unless my friend reminds me to do so, but I have friends that send updates to me via a newsletter which I always tend to read and find very interesting. Therefore, my next post will most likely be a link to the newsletter form of this blog. I will probably send a letter out as often as I’ve posted here, so there should be no worries about too much mail or anything like that. It just makes it easier for you to keep up and KNOW when there has been an update, rather than having to check back to see if something has been posted.

If you feel strongly either way regarding the change to a newsletter, please post a comment and let me know your thoughts.