HELLO WORLD

Hello Daddy, Hello Mom
I'm your ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb
HELLO WORLD.
I'm your wild girl.


okay so those are pretty inappropriate lyrics I know. And I'm not really calling out dad and mom ... it's just stuck in my head because I love Dakota Fanning and I was watching The Runaways the other day and reading through the screenplay, looking for a scene to do for a monologue in my acting class.

Anyway. Wow. A LOT has happened since I last posted on this blog. And I decided to start posting on here again because .... I actually have SO MUCH to talk about now.

In between now and my last post I...

- moved schools from a HUGE city state university to a puny community college and moved back home
- Finished my first original short film, OBSCURE (2010)
(which, while it fails to silently narratively tell a story, I still know I worked extremely hard on it)
- figured out I want to do film as a career choice for sure
- started doing photoshoots
- went on an extensive trip to the Philippines in Christmas Break 2010
- applied to UCLA and CalArts
- got accepted into CalArts!
- drove down to visit CalArts for the Accepted Students Day 2011!
- had an unexpected tour of UCLA by my friend (since we were already down there)
- filmed, edited and published over 60 videos for my Audfacd YouTube channel (I have 82 videos online today)
- gained over 9,000 subscribers on YouTube for my makeup channel
- made many new friends from a new parttime job and a new school and new classes
- went to a Spring Trend beauty event in SF, being called in by their event coordinator because she saw my YouTube channel, ahh!
- rearranged my room
- wrote my first screenplay
- worked at Fright Fest as a talent (zombie/demented girl)
- went tandem skydiving at 12,000 feet!!
- got a driving permit (yes ... can't drive yet legally. But soon, before this year ends I will.)
- completed a Cinema 10 (The Art of Cinema) class - watch movies, write essays
- enrolled in a Cinema 15 (Film Production) - make movies

and of course ... to bring up the most related project to this blog ...

I started my first of what I'd like to refer to as a "big" film production. By no means do I mean professional ... but I tried to get as close to it as possible. Auditions, actor rehearsals, crew meetings, slating, external sound, film permits ... all of that madness. I can't believe where I was in January 2011. Tis called Human Root.

I just literally got back from the Philippines and before the semester even started I had the idea of a short zombie film in mind.

3 months later and my world has flipped. I think my personality even changed slightly. So many new friends, so much of having to put myself out there. I've changed so much since my elementary school days! Or even, high school days.

I'm even finally "comfortable" in my tiny community college that I used to loathe and feel so lonely in ... just when I have about 1.5 months left of school before I'm moving to another city 6 hours away to attend a private art school for the first time ...

So much is changing. Everything that I used to worry about, dream about, wish for and work for is finally coming into sight. I have a funcitoning YouTube channel with subscribers that actually watch and wait for videos, I applied to schools I spent SO much time researching and actually got into one of them, I actually am more sure of what I want to do with my life, I've gotten over the shyness of making new friends and meeting new people ... so much has changed. I hope I don't sound like I'm just bragging how great everything is because trust me, it's rarely like this and now that all these good things are happening I'm sure the next round of challenges are just around the corner. I just want to stop and realize how things worked out. How much has come through. It's quite amazing.

My goal for the rest of the semester is to just finish my classes strong. I am realizing these might be the last GE courses I take o__O From here on out it might be loads and loads of art classes which ... yes it sounds like heaven but ... I'm trying to appreciate what I know may be gone soon.

I had to drop my online political science class. And as bummed as a I was about that I was also relieved 2 minutes later realizing it was done and over with and I could focus on passing my other classes now instead of spending my time stressing about the darn online class and never actually getting anything done. It's the last course I need to fulfill IGETC (General Education Certification) but I realized ... if I go to CalArts ... do they care if I have all GE's done? I'm okay with taking one more regular class. Still deciding on if I should squeeze that into my summer.

I intend to spend my summer doing 6 things
1) Making money at Six Flags as a costume character
2) Filming Halloween videos and makeup tutorials for my YouTube channel
3) Working on Human Root in FINALLY YAY post-production
4) Spending time with my best friends before I move
5) Doing a few more photoshoots
6) Preparing my room for me leaving ... getting rid of old stuff

With that said I'll leave you with the teaser clip of Human Root, edited & shot by my cinematographer, Tyler. It's quite spiffy ... I can't wait for more released footage which either him and I/or I will be editing.

SEE YA!

Oh we have a film shoot this Friday. Hospital scenes. Must prepare. Get it right in 1 day.



Enjoy!

- Cat

Skulls & Zombies!

Oy vey, I haven't posted a blog in so long. So ... I basically made a video about this but I don't mind writing blog posts every now and then so, here it is.

I am not deadddd! I've missed making videos so much but I truly have not had much time because of the short zombie film I've taken up this the end of January. I wrote the screenplay and directed it! And of course, I chose the majority of the costumes and makeup styles. However, I had HUGE help from my makeup artist friends (mostly from Fright Fest) and even my amazing hair stylist friend! I don't even know hoooow the heck I pulled so many people together on no budget. It just goes to show that if you really believe in something, people can follow your lead and get the contagiousness of your passion and really believe in it too. Not to mention, I am extremely blessed to have so many helpful and supportive friends! I've always said I have such a small group of friends but recently I'm seeing that I have connected with way more people than I've realized. Through my past jobs, through schools I've gone to ... through friends of friends and friends of friends of friends. Somehow, I was able to pull together a pretty professional crew including a slate, cameraMEN, an assistant director and even a pretty pro sound guy! I was able to pull together a sufficient amount of zombie extras (which is not easy, i tell you! so ... much .... facebook contacting ...) every night from the start, it was type type type type type, answering texts, phonecalls ... oh boy, so this must be what being a producer is like! D:

While I don't really enjoy the scheduling aspect much, I know it's good that I'm experiencing it so I have a taste of what it's like. For example, I was makeup artist on another student film set so I know what it seems like, waiting around for people then suddenly getting a rush of them, a stressed out director then being left to wait for another 3 hours.

So now I may kind of know what a producer or personal assistant goes through later on if I ever get a bit more professional.

It's taken a bit of a toll on school because ... unfortunately when I feel passionate about something it completely steals my mind and energy from everything else I need to be doing ... but, I'm working on catching up with all that academic goodness right now.

So yesterday, I was in that weird funk of unproductiveness after exerting oneself immensely. So, generally ... the after shock of being super productive but also sleep deprived. I've been in that funk since February 27 (the last day we had filming) up to now. So, to try and jumpstart my productivity I decided to do something spontaneous and artistic.  So I chose to recreate Lady Gaga's skull mask and make some videos with it on ...

my main reference picture:

the result ... geez this kind of looks like a cigarette or alcohol ad o___O

i thought it'd only be appropriate to take a group picture with my two and only skull props :)

And now, the snippet video:

So, now I'd like to share with you a good amount of behind the scenes shots taken on set. All these photos are taken by Jess Escobar (the cute little asian guy who helped out on my Pretty Little Liars and Bellatrix photoshoots!) I love photography myself, but one thing to know about film is you simply cannot do everything yourself ... so I asked him and another one of my high school friends to be the portrait and behind the scenes photographers on set. And they took quite a handful of AMAZING shots. I'm so lucky I know them! Here they are:

Filming the music video portion of the film

Me on set trying to film a scene with a ton of extras ... you can tell it was funny to film but serious on camera!

Me and Heidi (she found me on YouTube!) doing makeup ... I look so stressed D:

one of our scariest zombies on set!

oddly calm for a man being attacked by zombies! xD

my crew & I reviewing footage on a dslr camera. hell yeah only girl! :P

me blocking out a scene with an actor

dancers on set

movie still shot of the human survivors running from the zombies

our sound guy working with the zombies

school girl turned zombie

4 of the lead role characters!

Heidi and I! I look so tired ... this is after the middle of the day and she was about to go home

A new zombie in a car

me trying to direct the music video portion & zombie extras in the back