Khristy's latest clients are an Italian couple who both love hard and fight hard as they plan a lavish wedding that has them at odds all along the way.
Day 306: On a very last-minute crew hunt for a Boom Operator {does sound}, Still Photographer and Makeup Artist since all 3 of my normal people are unavailable for our shoot this weekend. Thank goodness for both Mandy and Craigslist as I found what I needed at the very last minute!!
Day 307: Shot the bakery scene in episode 8 of DWP along with 2 web promos for the shop that let us use their space- Cordially Invited & Southern Girl Desserts. The nice thing was that I was able to cast a couple of my friends in the promos so they'll have a nice addition to their commercial reel.
Day 304: Held callbacks for episode 8 of DWP and it was so much fun! We paired up the actors we loved and had them mix and match so that we could see who had good chemistry with each other and with each change we saw something new. It's going to be super tough to pick our 2 leads as all of the guys did a really fantastic job.
Day 305: Wrote a promo for Southern Girl Desserts as part of the trade-off since they are allowing us to shoot in their shop this weekend.
Day 303: Reviewed Eco-Cast auditions for DWP Episode 8 along with those sent directly to my email. It's interesting to note that less than 10% of actors who were invited to submit a self-taped audition actually did. This means those who did take the time to tape themselves {and yes most were home videos without bells & whistles} had a much higher chance of being asked to come in for callbacks and some roles were even offered outright.
Day 301: Wrote a promo for Cordially Invited as part of the trade-off for allowing us to shoot in their shop.
Day 302: Casting session for DWP Episode 8 held at CAZT. We saw some HILARIOUS actors! It's always nice when you have a handful of people who do such a great job that you know you'll have a hard time making a decision. This means callbacks!
Day 298 - 299: Selected actors on CAZT and Actors Access to audition next week. For the most part I find it incredibly fun to watch actors reels but there were a few that either bored me to pieces or were just flat out weird that made me wonder why in the hell they'd spend their hard-earned money to upload it on these sites in the first place. On the other hand, there were definitely some that had me cracking up and made me excited to call those actors in.
Day 295: Shot the last scene for episode 6 then had lunch with some of the crew at Denny's. Being on USC's campus made me wish for my college days when bills and real life were of no concern. Anyhow, here are some of the pics...
Day 286: Renewed my TAN membership. Picked up 2 wedding dresses for future DWP use that was donated by an actress who knew I needed one to complete shooting episode 6. Thanks Cheyanne!
Day 287: Visited USC's United University Church to make sure it would work for the location we need to finish episode 6. It looks great online but you only see bits and pieces of parts of the church rather than a full photo of what it looks like as a whole. So I'm glad it's going to work out as we're planning to shoot on Monday.
Day 279 - Day 280: Tied up loose ends for last minute stuff needed for our upcoming DWP shoot. Greg & Lex saved me a huge amount of time and headspace by handling craft services so I was able to focus on simply acting for once.
Day 281: We shot most of episode 6 of DWP today and it was an awesome shoot! Everything literally went as good or better than expected and I couldn't be happier. Here are a few stills from our shoot...
I think it's safe to say there was a LOT of laughter on set which is why I love working with these people. And by the way, that invitation was GORGEOUS! Made me wish I was planning a wedding with a real bride who would be sending it to her guests.
Still have one more scene left that we'll take care of next week and then episode 6 will be wrapped.
Day 276: Visited the invitation shop to finalize our shoot and our trade-out and make our location agreement official. We will be shooting part of episode 6 at Cordially Invited and part of episode 8 at Southern Girl Desserts and guess what- they're in the same shop! Major score for DWP!
Day 268: Internship at the casting office in the morning followed by me firing the director of episode 6 of DWP at night. You know, I hate letting people go. I really do. I tend to hold on to relationships {both romantic and platonic} for far too long after they've shown themselves to be in disrepair and this was no different. I knew months ago that our working relationship wasn't working and yet every step of the way I fought myself on firing her because I really wanted to make it work. I even took it on as a personal challenge at one point. Ultimately though, it was like fitting a square peg into a round hole. It just wouldn't fit, period and I didn't want my show and my crew to suffer because of it so she had to go. As soon as it was done I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders and all the anxiety I had about our upcoming shoot was gone. So I knew I made the right decision instantly and my intuition thanked me for finally listening... even though it was months after the fact.
P.S. - I replaced her with Claire Wasmund who's picking up the dropped ball already. :-)
Day 260: Location meeting with Cordially Invited. We are officially shooting scenes from episode 6 and 8 here! Yay! Major victory for me. Tea date with Tara at my favorite cafe: Bricks & Scones, and last minute PSA audition at Plaster Casting.
Day 248: Finished writing the last episode of DWP. It feels really good to wrap this up and close it out in a way that I'll be happy for it to end. Now it's time to start planning the shoot!
Day 249:TAN Power Group. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this monthly meeting is AWESOME! There's nothing like being around other actors who are DOING things, not just talking about it. It literally lights a fire underneath me every time I go. Besides that, it's also such a great way for us to help each other out. There's this segment called "Issue Time" where we can talk about whatever issues we're having to get feedback & assistance from the rest of the group. Sometimes only advice is given but other times actual tangible help is provided- like the actress who needed a cheap/free mansion to shoot her webseries at, yeah apparently one of the members in our group has a friend who owns a mansion and he actually let her film there. Actors helping Actors- I love it.
Afterwards I headed to Blank Spaces to view their offices to see if they'll work for 2 of my reel scenes that I want to shoot and they absolutely will. The price was low, the parking's good and the customer service was fantastic so I can't wait to get this done. This is the first thing on my agenda for next month.
Day 246: Location scouting for DWP. I visited a new cupcake shop called Southern Girl Desserts {they have a DELICIOUS sweet potato pie cupcake by the way} since we'll need a bake shop for episode 8 and to my surprise the shop also houses a paper company: Cordially Invited. Since we need an invitation store for episode 6, this may be a way for me to kill 2 birds with 1 stone. I spoke with the owners of both companies and they seemed open to the idea of allowing me to shoot there. I made sure I sent them a detailed email later on and now I just have to wait to see if I can afford whatever they charge. Fingers crossed!
Day 239: Wrote a procedural - CSI, Criminal Minds, Law & Order type scene for Yvonne and I and I love it. Now we have to find a place for us to shoot and someone willing to shoot & edit it for a free lunch or a low cost.
Day 240: Casting Internship, sent an eblast of DWP updates to hundreds of real wedding planners as well as family/friends/colleagues and mailed the From The Heart proposal.
Day 241: Wine with Greg & Lex which ended up being a 4 hour conversation. Between the wine and the time, I had to completely give up on going into work but it was so worth it!
Day 242: Documentary meeting. There have been lots of rumors regarding the possible settlement in the Mitrice Richardson case. Though any settlement will probably hinder some of our film efforts, it was nice to learn what is fact and what is fiction from her mother.
Day 243: Rewrites- edited 2 scenes in episode 7 of DWP.
Day 244: Worked on episode 8 of DWP. Added one scene and rewrote an outline for the remaining scenes of this episode.
Day 245: Watched another interesting documentary: Hot Coffee. Remember that multi-million dollar lawsuit some lady won against McDonald's after she spilled coffee on herself? Yeah, this film is about that. It's all about tort reform and it was very enlightening.
Day 236: Location scouting for episode 6 of DWP. I have a quick scene that needs to take place either in the lobby or right outside the front door of a wedding venue so I visited The Sportsmen Lodge Events Center in Studio City and The Albertson Wedding Chapelin Mid-Wilshire. And speaking of DWP, we released episode 5 earlier this week. Here it is...
Day 212: Internship- Felt bad for a girl who was only one of 7 people chosen to audition for this guest star role who couldn't get out of her 9 to 5 job to come in. Those golden handcuffs pay the bills but it sucks if it doesn't give you the flexibility to audition when a role like this comes along.
Day 213: Class- Wildcard scene. I came fully prepared and rocked it out! Tonight was the best I've ever done in class and it was such an exhilarating feeling. I want more of it.
Day 214: Whittled down my target list even more based on the agents & managers whose actors are constantly called in to read at the cd's office I intern for.
Day 215: Caught up on the rest of the episodes of Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl that I hadn't seen yet. Even if you're not awkward or black, you've gotta take a look at this series. It is HILARIOUS!! Though it's not for you to see grandma- the language is pretty bad at times.
Day 216: Broke down my scene for class and rehearsed it throughout the weekend.
Day 217: Sent revisions to our composer Rob Gokee for the score in episode 5.
Day 200: Visited an invitation store that we may use for the next {and probably final} episode of DWP. Though there were supposed to be 3 more, all signs are telling me to be done with it already so I'm probably gonna end it with this next episode- or episode 7 at the latest. I'll have to rewrite the ending so that it makes sense for the season to end at this point and it won't be as complete as it would have with those additional episodes but it's a money hole that I just can't keep pouring into. I'd rather use that same money and put it towards more acting classes and other projects. Anyhow, I checked out the invitation shop and it's beautiful. It's much smaller than I would like and they want me to have insurance to film there, which I haven't ever had in the past when filming so this is not my first choice. If I can't find anything else though then it will be my backup.
Day 201 - 202: Read the first 2 chapters of Save The Cat, a screenwriting book by Blake Snyder.
Day 203: Broke down scene for class with character thoughts and slight blocking.
Day 195: Wrote a very loose outline for the the first act of our feature film.
Day 196: Listened to the first draft of the score for episode 5 and sent in my notes. Rehearsed with Danette for class this week. Did I say rehearse? More like ran lines because a sister was not prepared. Weak, I know, but it was good to at least say it out loud a few times.
