Growing Independent Film Industry in the Southeast

When I returned home to Louisville, Kentucky from my three year-long stint in Los Angeles as a professional actress I expected more. I anticipated that my recent win as a Marilyn Monroe Look-Alike by Premiere Magazine and my appearances on Beverly Hills 90210 and Matlock would have every talent and casting agent in Louisville falling over themselves to represent and utilize my homegrown talents and experience. It didn’t happen. I felt like Yukon Cornelius after I swung my mining pick into the ground and brought it to my mouth to taste for traces of the delicious silver and gold acting opportunities at home and “Nuthin’. Hello, I won the Marilyn Monroe look-alike contest!

Fifteen years later, to my delight everything is coming up roses in the Southeast independent film industry. Is it because I am no longer a platinum blonde ingénue and now a sultry redhead? Is it due to widely available and affordable video and film equipment? Has the increase of Los Angeles film location shooting in Kentucky infused the film community here: ELIZABETHTOWN, SEABISCUIT, THE INSIDER, STRIPES, etc, etc? The 48 Hour Film Festival, among others may have tempted some independent film makers who otherwise would not have stepped behind a camera with simple, short formats and alluring prizes. How wonderful to have developed an extensive filmography in my own hometown due to the indy boom.

Louisville has had a thriving arts community for the entirety of my life. The city has claimed a local ballet, orchestra and professional theater company: Actors Theater of Louisville (that had everyone I auditioned for in Los Angeles inquiring). The River City also boasts a cultural center, the Kentucky Center for the Arts that is used for a myriad of artistic and mind expanding events—from K.D. Lang concerts to poetry readings by Maya Angelou.

The semi-professional theaters in Louisville are also noteworthy and prolific. I cut my teeth at the KY Contemporary Theater before I got my B.A. and moved west. Pandora Productions produced a compelling version of SOUTHERN BAPTIST SISSIES. Since, then Susan Linville, Founder and actress at the Necessary Theater has offered amazing productions with compelling new scripts as does Looking for Lillith. The recent one-woman show WOMEN SPEAK IRAQ developed and performed by Shannon Woolsey was performed with such virtuosity and passion for the widest range of opinions and postures I could imagine.

My training, my stage and life experiences experience have given me the depth that I claim and utilize now as a film actress. Oftentimes, people will ask me which medium is my favorite. They both have their draws. In the live theater experience, the actress has the opportunity to get immediate feedback from the audience, has a substantial amount of time to build emotional crescendos and has the obligation and luxury to live in the moment and keep going whatever the immediate reality (not fun when scenery or a co-actor is falling on your head).

Film offers the luxury of another take, if the first one or fifteen takes aren’t the cat’s meow, you can do another. Film tends to pay better. (However, anyone who acts for the pay is a little misguided). You can capture the moment forever on film (This can be most upsetting for some who aren’t involved in savory productions). Most films have a larger audience than the theater does.

Advice for the film actress: study. If you wish to be an actress, learn from the best in your community who teach. Do not study under an opera diva and expect that you will be taught the subtleties of a fine camera performance. Do not study at modeling agencies who are primarily interested in increasing their bank accounts. Study under those who have the experience you are seeking. Universities are an excellent place to learn and perform as an actress.

If you are younger than college-age and wish to act, go see as many plays and films as you can. If you enjoy someone in a stage performance, find out his/her name and if you may have a few minutes of their time to see how they gained their polish. Community theater is a great place to start. Hopefully you will get a sane director and be able to squeeze into the cast despite the member of the board of director’s narcissistic casting. If you think that Hollywood is political—spend a summer in a community theater!

Surround yourself with positive people. If you consider someone incredibly talented as an actor or director, but he/she is constantly negative, overbearing or abusive—go elsewhere. Life is too short and no matter how badly you want to act—it’s not worth it.

The directors that have had the distinct pleasure of working with are great collaborators. Chris Courson from Lightspeed Productions first cast me as a lead in his film called EMMA’S CODE for Louisville’s 48 Hour Film Festival. Immediately after that in July 2007 he wrote the most amazing short called CIRCUS NUTS and cast me again as a lead. We were so pleased with the results we will be shooting a feature-length on this premise this summer.

Chase Dudley is a young director who was open to my suggestions when he needed other quality actors for the independent feature film LAST SEEN ALIVE (knowing people always helps good actors who are easy to work with get cast). Tracy Dudley his wife wrote an amazing screenplay with a strong female lead, Detective Malone. Tracy was very open to working together to make the script and character as believable and formidable as possible. The process and final product was such that we are planning on working together on a sequel in 2008. LAST SEEN ALIVE will be available at www.amazon.com in late January 2008.

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Reading for fun

Recent studies have shown that across the board, in all mediums, Americans are reading for pleasure less than ever before. This isn’t just literature, novels, etc, this is all forms of the written word, including magazines, even the mighty Internet. Yes, that includes blogs. Less than one third of adults reported having read any literature in the past year not required for school or some other assignment.

Sounds shocking at first, but really, who didn’t see this coming?

In fact, those stats seem rather high to me. I think out of everyone I know, only 3 or 4 people would consider themselves regular readers. Sitting down with a book has become a quaint, old-fashioned novelty notion, almost an affectation, like smoking a pipe, collecting cigars, home brewing, bonsai trees, single malt scotch, and Civil War enthusiasm.

This is distressing to me, obviously, since 70%-80% of what I do with my life is based around writing, and therefore, by extension, reading. Am I training in an obsolete trade? Is my dream of becoming a successful writer kind of like my dream of becoming a successful blacksmith?

And, what exactly is causing this decline in literacy? The obvious answer is, not enough “Reading is FUN” posters in our libraries. How are people supposed to know, if they’re not told? I think if the statistics were examined you would find a very clear link between the decline of Elijah Wood “Reading is Hobbit-Forming!” posters and the decline of American reading. But although this is certainly a major contributing factor, there must be others, because I’ve viewed my fair share of pro-reading advertisements, and even I find myself reading far less than I used to. What is going on? Let’s take a look at a few of the elements of modern society that are edging out the written word…

Television
Low cost and ease of production for reality shows featuring attractive, vapid automatons in crude parodies of life situations allows for vast explosion in quantity of TV shows, with each channel boasting dozens of similar shows, each with its own spinoffs, knockoffs, and webisodes, until total psychological saturation is achieved. All available brain space is filled with the televised thoughts of attractive, vapid automatons.

Straight to Video Knockoff Films
Having already watched every other film in Blockbuster, people turn to low-budget, nearly-homemade films released to coincide with similarly named, similarly themed theatrical films, ie, Transformers / Transmorphers, Beowulf / Beowolf

Video Blogs (See Youtube)
Weary of ingesting the inane thoughts of strangers by reading them in written text form, Americans turn to video blogs, or “Vlogs”, where they can listen to the inane thoughts of strangers while watching their faces from an uncomfortably close camera angle, and randomly assigning them celebrity status by public whim.

Sports/Video Games
Competitive entertainments allow bored Americans to work their reflexes and mental dexterity without actually doing anything, feel part of something without actually being part of something. People flock to Sports/Video Games as an outlet for their personal energies and as a general mental anesthesia. Helps relieve pressure of disposable income and time.

Beowulf: the IMAX 3D Experience
CGI animated film hurls arrows, spears, axes, blood, guts, and naked Angelina Jolie directly at the viewers, completely blowing our minds and making us never want to read, write, talk, or walk around ever again.

Youtube
Endless supply of videos where lightsabers have been digitally placed in the hands of people or animals who were not previously holding lightsabers.

There seems to be a trend here. As part of the general movement away from difficulty and towards ease and instant gratification, humanity seems to be trying to avoid even the difficult senses. The popularity of video blogs shows that people would much rather have information poured into their brain through their ears than have to focus their eyes on letters and attempt to comprehend writing. Is the day too far off when even listening to information is considered too much effort? Too dull, too slow?

Probably just in time for the invention of direct-to-brain connections. Entertainment won’t require us to use our senses at all. It will just be dumped directly into our minds in a big, sticky, informationy gob. An entirely new form of blog will appear, not the web log, or the video log–the “brain log”, or….”blog”.

Hmm.
Brlog…?
Brailg…?
Hmm.

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Digital Painting

Hello! I’ve been doing digital painting for a surprisingly short amount of time, but thought that since I’ve got around two years under my belt, I might as well voice some thoughts on the subject. I’m only a hobbyist, but I’ve graduated to CS3 recently and have had a Wacom tablet for some time and it appears that’s the standard layout for most people.

I started art when I was very young in the sense that I enjoyed writing short stories and loved to try to draw Ren & Stimpy characters. Sadly, I let that die away when I reached high school and never really cared again for art until things came to college. I found myself so bored in calculus and other studies that I’d draw in my notebook. At some point, I got very addicted to drawing my dreams and yet I couldn’t get color because I didn’t really want to mess with paint in a dorm room. Anyone who’s been there knows that they don’t take lightly to anyone getting paint all over the furniture and I just knew that’s the kind of person I am. That’s right… my first impulse was that digital art was pretty clean. And I’m no neat-freak in any capacity. My room vacillates from messy to sterile several times a month.

So, going in to digital painting, my inspirations were people who did a lot of concept art and also landscapes. One especially prominent fellow comes to mind whom you can look at over here. An example of his 2d digital painting style is here. Some artists avoid stroke work and try to be purely realistic but I especially think the joy comes out when you can blend things fairly well. I’m trying to get there, but sometimes I veer off like in the art work of paper XI. A good tutorial of his method can be found here (I love this method too… forgive my bias here). Someone once told me “Wow… it’s like painting with pen-pricks of light”. I especially enjoy the feeling of wielding millions of little variable colored flashlights.

It’s an entirely different thing when you print your work out, but I prefer to keep it all digital when possible. I guess it feels cool to throw out something you did with no real cost on how many copies you make. I know that people steal digital media left and right, too. I don’t so much care about ‘pirates’, but when I say “steal”, I speak of those who claim they did a piece of work when in fact it was based on someone else’s effort or maybe entirely just a copy. It’s a very tragic side effect.

Still, it’s amazingly fun to look back from digital painting and smile and say to a traditionalist “Hey, does your oil paint have an Undo? My media does.” But sadly, when I go back to drawing on paper, I find myself searching for Ctrl-Z all the time and looking like a goofball.

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