Full Circle Moment at the Academy Museum
A full circle moment. There’s not many times in life you get to fully reflect. I come from a family where accomplishments are expected and not necessarily celebrated. But that is what has made me who I am. Someone who does what she says and works really really really hard.
"You must remember to celebrate wins"
Celebrate Your Wins with People Who Support You
I have been learning as I get older that sometimes for your own sanity, especially in the film industry, you must remember to celebrate wins. I owe this to having a lot of amazing supportive friends. Because this is a long game industry, one that is arduous, filled with way more times of despair than with moments of success. So when you do get a winning moment, you must take the time to reflect and be grateful or you will want to just give up.
Last weekend, I got to go to the Academy Museum with one of my closest friends and colleagues (Roxy McDanel) to see a behind the scenes photo (taken by Mattias Marsigan) from one of my earlier film sets, “Shakespeare on the Range” to commemorate being a new Shorts Branch member of the Academy. I remember when I was invited, I never formally celebrated. None of it really hit me. Not even when the packet was sent to my residence. The only time that it mildly dawned on me that I was in the Academy was when I got to park in the secret parking lot underneath the Academy theatre.
So, when the email came from the Academy that they wanted to showcase this particular behind the scenes photo at the Academy Museum, I bawled my eyes out. And when the day came to see the actual exhibit, I couldn’t believe that my photographer buddy, Aaron Tyler, my mentee and startup friend, Paul Nnaoji from askaguru.com, and Roxy, actually wanted to come and celebrate the moment with me.
Roxy & I at the Academy Museum
This is an important moment for many reasons. Roxy, also my roommate (though unfortunately not featured in this particular photo because she was busy panicking/rigging the next blood gag) and I started making films when we knew ZERO things about films. I had at this point, only taken a few editing courses, made a few Youtube sketches that I did everything on and somehow had the audacious idea to convince a motley crew of other clueless, but passionate filmmakers to make my first $30K feature film, FUNEMPLOYMENT (that I never formally released, but will soon, hopefully) together.
When I say I knew zero, I mean it. I never went to film school. This was my makeshift film school. I luckily had an experienced actor who was kind enough to educate me that I needed to feed everyone after 6 hours. My callsheets were simply emails. But from this experience, I found a team of people who quite literally “grew up with me” as filmmakers, Roxy being one of them. She has been a makeup artist for almost every film I have ever made. And she continues to kill it in this film industry.
And for us to have one of our behind the scene photos - and this particular one - Shakespeare on the Range - the first short film that we had a G&E truck - where all of our film equipment didn’t fit in the Prius of my co-producer’s car and an actual REAL gaffer… and background - is quite amazing.
I am so thankful that I am still here, still going strong. And my desire to make films, to direct, still burns strong. I am so grateful to everyone who continues to believe in me and my journey along the way. I will get there. Wherever there may be, but if anything… at least I made it into a museum. Haha.