Back in My Old Shoes, Part Two

I have no idea why I decided to share this stuff with you. But now I have to show you the trailer!! LOL. I'm so nervous!!! Okay. But I'm gonna do it anyways. :) I actually got real nostalgic watching it. I really am SO PROUD of this!! Even if the Sundance people didn't like it! :)

So I left off at the photoshoot.... we shot lots and lots of pictures. It was totally awkward at first because none of us knew each other but we did have a great time! :) The photographer even was cool and ended up coming over and taking a bunch of pictures of the girls a few months later for his portfolio. Win-Win for both of us! :) We spent the next four months or so filming in different parts of the city and surrounding areas. I was so tired from the pregnancy but they were great about working around my stuff, growing belly, etc.

The entire movie was unscripted, which means we were improv-ing the whole time! We had basic storyline to go with for each scene (which were created as we filmed) but that was about it! Once the film had been edited, we had a showing at a local old-timey movie theater. That was super exciting to have all of our friends come and watch the movie, on a real movie screen in a real theater! We had a Q&A afterwards and it really was just splendid and so much fun!! We even signed autographs!! Ha!! I was really proud of myself, even if it was just a little movie. I wish I had been taking more pictures back then! I have zero pictures of the event! :( We had so much fun making Rick & Roddy (that's the movie title, more or less). It'll always be dear and near to my heart! Here is the trailer! Enjoy! {I recommend playing it with the HD Off.}

Rick and Roddy Trailer from Anthony Meadows on Vimeo.

{And here is the second trailer! Again, HD Off is my recommendation!}

White Tiger: The Story of Rick and Roddy (Green-band trailer) from Anthony Meadows on Vimeo.

{I believe it to be rumored that the entire movie is available online somewhere to either watch or download. For free, of course! I'm not completely sure but I think it is up there somewhere. If you can find it, then I give you permission to watch it. :) Haha!}

We submitted the film to Sundance that year and sadly were rejected. Oh well. There will be more opportunities in the future! Like the one I had on Sunday! I spent the afternoon filming a music video for a local band at a nearby warehouse near my home. The guy, his name is Scott ~ I should really just stop calling him 'the guy', who put together Rick & Roddy, was filming/directing the video and needed extras. I was called in to be one of the band member's girlfriends. Can I just say that first of all ~ these "guys" were really KIDS. Like children. Okay, they were 22/23 but I swear I thought they were 16 years old at first! Hahahaha! We had lots of fun filming and it only took a few hours. I won't give away the whole theme of the video but there are zombies involved. I will post the video once it's complete!! I did not take pictures. Left my camera at home... boo. I know, so wishing I had pictures of it now!

So Scott is working on a depressing love story right now, and guess who is going to be in it??? Yours truly!! I'm super excited to do some more acting and this movie will be more scripted so that will be nice. {Improv is fine but when the creative juices aren't flowing it can get awkward.} This won't be happening for a few more months but I will keep you posted!

It feels so very great to be back in my old shoes, even just for a day every once in a while. I LOVE acting. I LOVE presenting a new story, dressing up in costumes, the feedback from a pleased audience {or even from a not-so-pleased audience}. When I became a Mom, I felt like my whole existence of "ME" burst into a trillion pieces and landed all over the world. I completely lost My Self. When I work on "creative" projects, like filming, or spend time with my best friends when we get to visit, or when I do the little things that make me happy ~ I find these little pieces of me that burst away so many years ago {meh... not really that long ago}, and I pick them up and put them back in my "ME Pocket". And I'm reminded that I just have to go out and find them because they'll be waiting for me wherever they landed.

I love finding Me. I'm usually not as far away as I let myself think I am. :) 

~

Thanks for stopping by my blog to read the other half of this story! Hope you enjoyed it! It's just a piece of my life I thought I'd share. :) 

If you missed the first half of this story, you can find it here. :) 

Back in My Old Shoes, Part One

I grew up with a love for theater, movies, acting, music, dancing, the arts. Not due to my parents pushing, it was more of a "deep within me" love for it. 

I had planned on majoring in theater in college... but a lot happened {too long to get into this morning) so I ended up just getting my degree in Communications and put acting on... pause.

In January of 2007, I worked on the set of Fred Claus for two days! I was an extra and yep, you can see me between minutes 16:30 and 17:00 if you go frame by frame! I can spot myself now without going frame by frame... ha! I worked for two days on that set and they were: the best. days. of. my. working. life. ever. Top Two Days. Ever. I was finally at home. It was definitely where I was meant to be! Heck, I even made more money in those two days than I ever had in two days at any other job! Growing up, I had always told myself that after college I would move out to California and give myself two, maybe three, years to land some jobs. If I was working by the time my three years was up, I'd stay longer and see what else happened. Working on Fred Claus was the exact push I needed to know that this really WAS what I wanted to persue, and that I was really motivated now to do it! I was GOING to make it!

After being an extra, I started to seriously think about moving to California. {Please say "California" like Arnold, ok?} My lease would be up in July and I'd be free to roam the world. It'd be scary, exciting ~ I'd be fulfilling a promise I made to myself to never let myself wonder "What Could Have Been" about this. I wanted to chase my dream and make it my b.i.t.c.h. You know? The wheels were turning and I was in charge! At the very least, I figured I could probably make a decent living as an extra. As long as I could line up the jobs...

Three weeks later, my out-of-town boyfriend visited.
And we ended up creating two very wonderful little girls.

And my dreams of becoming an actress pretty much disappeared once I found out I was pregnant. Moms can't chase dreams like that, you know? The life of an actor is very last minute, very late night; it takes a lot out of you, and frankly as the new mom of twins ~ I no longer had the drive needed to chase the dream. Can you imagine moving your brand new family across the country just so you can selfishly chase the dream of becoming a Hollywood Star? Aside from all that, my newfound After-Twins-Mommy-Body certainly was no longer up to par with my Hollywood peers. {I know I should be proud of my body for having twins ~ but going from a sleek/probably underweight 85-90 pounds to... well, having twins, sure did a number on it!}

So life went on until April of 2009. {I had no idea at this point that I was pregnant. Of course.} The acting bug will never go away {acting on stage is like crack, seriously. once you start it's hard to go back to normal life}. I was perusing Craigslist for jobs. And found this guy who was looking for extras for this film they were going to start shooting soon. As things turned out, they gave me a lead role {we were really more of an ensemble cast than leads/secondaries} instead of the part of the extra that I had responded about. I signed on for the part and a couple weeks later we met with a photographer to shoot the promo photos for the movie. 

And by met with a photographer and the guys who were shooting the movie, are you ready for this, I met these guys (5 of them) at a warehouse (the photog's studio is there). In a sketchy part of town. It was only a few minutes from my house, I had my husband on speed dial, and he knew I'd be calling/texting him at half hour intervals so if I ever didn't text, he knew to alert the authorities, etc. It was a total chance. I seriously was taking a chance ~ but isn't the life of an actor full of chances? Chance is the only way I'm going to find my big break. And I just can't watch my dreams slip away ~ it's too sad for me. I had to take that leap. 

So when I saw them drive up to the building and I saw how nerdy they all looked ~ I really wasn't nervous anymore. :) They really AREN'T nerdy guys at all, but I didn't get any bad feelings in my gut {and I'm one that believes in the power of my gut feelings}. They totally looked like the people I hang out with ~ I was starting to get really excited!!

I unfortunately can't find the CD of images from the shoot, so I can't share those today. Sorry. Lame blog post without a picture. My bad. But we had a lot of fun and I knew that I was getting into something good!

~

Part Two of this story, including the trailer for our movie (and pictures if I can find 'em), coming later this week! Don't forget to come back and hear the rest of the story!