Location Scouting

One of the true joys of working on film is location scouting. Actually, this is a complete and total lie, because trying to secure locations is murder. But the actual driving and looking at places is wonderfully fun.

As some of you know, I am working on a film called Loop Planes. As the director Robin says, "It's the classic story of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, because boy is biologically a girl." Yep, it's about a transgender female to male 13 year old. You can read more about it here: loopplanes.com

Loop Planes takes place primarily in an amusement park and we are shooting in a little mom and pop park in Connecticut called Quassy. Last Sunday we had to go for a scout.

Oh my goodness, so so FUN! I was wearing a sun dress. Going to an amusement park in a sun dress may not be the best idea. Particularly if you have to ride rollercoasters for "research." Let's just say, I am pretty convinced a few people saw my panties...

Part of our scout was determining if we could take certain shots. All of us stood in and photos were taken as reference. In the photo below, I am playing the dad and Robin is playing the lead who is trying to fix one of the machines. Yes, I do make a great father in a skirt! The truth is, Robin doesn't look like she is fixing a machine at all, but looks rather dead. Or at least like she dropped a wrench on her head.


I am pretty excited for this shoot. It will be crazy hot in late August when we shoot and I am hoping tempers do not flare. Plus, there will always be dippin' dots, which is frankly the best part of any amusement park!

I am a Producer

I came to school to produce movies. People have always laughed about this fact because who goes to grad school for film to be a producer? Well...I do.

While Columbia has been rough (even if I become a billionaire, I swear I will NOT be "giving back") I have discovered my true talents here. I am an artist. I like making collages (see recent collage below...I just finished last night!) and drawing pictures and getting paid to do graphic design. I am a writer. I love writing short stories and scholarly film articles on everything from women screenwriters of the silent era to the pedophilia aspects of Edward in the Twilight series. Columbia has helped me what my talents are not. I don't particularly like writing screenplays. And I am still far more interested in making experimental films than narrative Hollywood/indie crap...



That's not fair. I am a producer of narrative short films. I try to do a good job for my classmates, but I can only work on the film if I like their script. And it helps if I like them too I suppose...I think I must be doing a good job of picking people to work with because the next three upcoming films I'll be working on have all been fully funded by outside organizations. I helped write the grants, so I feel very proud. It takes a lot of work to get a film funded. We received 25 grant rejection letters for LOOP PLANES, before being funded by Killer Films. The Sloan Foundation generally supports one film per year for $20,000, but this year decided to fund two! UNCANNY VALLEY and TERREBONE! And I happen to be attached to both films! So for those of you who say there is no funding in the world, I say KEEP LOOKING!!! And now I am heading off to my next pre-production meeting...