Recently I had an emergency internet need and was in the middle of nowhere Texas. I had to think fast and find a place with wireless. There was a Starbuck's an hour away, so I drove there to use the internet only to find out the service is provided by T-Mobile and costs $9.99 for a one time access (or you can subscribe for a monthly charge). I'm so used to every coffee shop in Austin offering free wireless that I was really shocked and irritated. Starbuck's has a high enough profit margin that they can well afford to offer this service free as well. I actually went so far as to write Starbuck's a letter of complaint (yes, I'm that woman) and they gave me a non-response.
Then I had heard about this coffee region thing in Ethiopia when NPR did a story on it. Basically, Ethiopia is trying to assign a system
similar to French Appelacians for wine to their coffee, in essence copyrighting their coffee and entitling them to a larger share of the profits (they currently make about 3 CENTS per cup of coffee sold).
Here's a link to the petetion to get Starbuck's attention. Until they can get their acts together, if you must have a frozen latte please visit a locally owned coffee shop. I guarantee you can find one just as tasty and they are often quicker and less expensive. In Austin, I love Epoch coffee on North Loop and in Houston Cafe Brazil is always a good bet.
I guess if you personally have stock in Starbuck's you might not agree with this. But then again, if you have stock in Starbuck's you're probably not reading this...
I have to say I'm getting pretty sick of my generation and their apathetic ways. The older generations are creating a huge mess for us that we're going to spend the rest of our lives cleaning up and dealing with, all because we are too busy shopping to vote or get involved in our communities. I have a friend who has been volunteering with me recently and all she can talk about is how her involvement with the organization has not resulted in a return on investment. I tried in vain to explain to her that wasn't quite the point.
I guess all I can do is keep trying to care for all of us and hope that it catches on.

House Hunting Continued

After deciding to stick with my current apartment and investing a small but pretty penny into improvements, I realize that ultimately the reason I may have such a hard time feeling satisfied and settled in the home that I have is because it is not my home, it is a space I rent from someone else and which ultimately I do not own. It is not permanent and I can not posses it.
Sadly, this is the plight of myself and so many other people I know. I've spent a lot of time researching purchasing a home and can find no way in which it is a viable option based on my current means. A friend of mine found a place a few blocks away from her that is in the $130,000 range. Its affordable because the backyard backs up to some train tracks that, although not a busy thoroughfare, is still in use. Even at that extremely low price, a 30 year mortgage would be something like $900 per month and would end up costing more like $330,000. Not to mention maintenance and property taxes. How do I get away from renting when the hard numbers prevent me from even entertaining the idea of this being a possibility for me? My current rental payment is a little over half of that amount, and it's essentially my comfortable ceiling. Add a car payment and student loans to that and even my *good* income gets stretched very thin.
I guess all I can do is continue to focus on my goals and also continue to research alternatives to the traditional mortgage path. Maybe I'll get really lucky and a relative I don't even know will leave me enough to buy whatever house I want. Ahhh, a girl can dream.

Trying to Be Professional

Okay, seriously, I get sick to death of all the actors out there who don't know how to be professional. This is the Entertainment INDUSTRY and being an actor is a JOB, it is not a right or a priviledge. I guess I was lucky in that when I was a model and an actor I received training on the business side of things from my agency, Page.713, which used to be Page Parkes Talent and I think has changed its name again. Now that I'm on the other side of the casting table, I see people come through with the most ridiculous attitudes and behaviors and everytime I want to just yell at them and tell them to stop and then throw them out on their ears. Our most recent project featured someone who not only was high maintenance, rude, and often late, but this person also tried to steal wardrobe from production and rolled their eyes at the director when he gave direction claiming "I know the character better than you do". Oh really? Because last time I checked the directors created the character, not you. Oh, and their performance, well, lets just say it wasn't star material.
So, to anyone out their in the talent field who may be wondering what it means to be a PROFESSIONAL actor, here's a few words of advice:

• Be On Time...In fact, be early.
• Be Polite...Those are not the 'little people' helping you put on your clothes, makeup, telling you where to stand, etc, those are your coworkers and without them you wouldn't have a role to fill. Also, you never know when that PA you snubbed is going to be the next huge director or producer who will never hire you because of your attitude.
• Know your lines. I myself am guilty of this one and can tell you from experience that it is disruptive to production and other actors and is something of which to be ashamed. Planning on improvising to be a more natural character is selfish and unrealistic. Know your lines first, be able to deliver them in the way the director desires and improvisation may fit later.
  
• Be Flexible...Things don't always go as planned. Don't throw a hissy if a schedule or location changes. Always have your cell phone on so you can be reached in the event of a change. (Side Note, if you want to be an actor you absolutely must have a cell phone)
  
• Take Direction...If you don't know how to take direction without getting line readings every five seconds, try another profession.
• And Finally: Don't make demands or expect special treatment...until you are an established star upon whom the movie is "banked" you have no leverage. Don't be an asshole. This includes thinking you will be able to keep wardrobe, props, jewelry, etc from production. Just because they belong to your character does not mean they belong to you. Often, production will need to keep those items in storage to ensure continuity in any possible reshoots. In low budget productions, lots of items will be returned to the store or to the person from whom they were borrowed. They are not yours unless someone offers them to you, and you shouldn't ask either. Its tacky.

Always Remember : You are extremely replaceable.
There's a lot of other things that bug me about the talent pool here in Austin, and it probably reads true for many other areas, but ultimately I really wanted to get this off my chest and was specifically asked not to write anything like the Lohan Letter so this is what I chose instead.

When Technology Works...Life Can Be Easier :)

I'm the type of person who geeks out over lots of things, especially technology. I get really excited when something works the way its supposed to and beside myself when somebody combines a series of steps into one simple thing that works. Case in Point: Google. Not only do they offer a good email system (gmail), but they incorporate that system with photo sharing and calendar creation through google calendar's and Picasa.

From Production St...

I'm jazzed today because I discovered that Picasa's web photos feature hosts your photos for myspace and blogs, so no more logging onto photobucket or kodak or hello or any of those other album sharing websites because you can invite anyone to view albums on your Picasa Web Album and it uses software you already have installed. Yay!

Housing Woes - Joys

I spent the beginning of this week looking for a new home as my friend Shannon and I were planning on moving in together at the end of November. Then, night before last, Shannon called me and said she was going to continue living with her ex(?) boyfriend Keith. I'm not sure if she is considering him still in the boyfriend light or just in the roommate light but either way I'm glad this came up now and not after we had already moved. Fortunately, my landlord had not received my move out notice yet and so I was able to rescind it.
This, however, brings me to an interesting conundrum. I have wanted to move out of my apartment for several months for the following reasons:
The foundation settled over the summer and there are now cracks in the walls and around the floorboards.
The air conditioner is not a very efficient model and so it stays very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter.
The dishwasher is an older model and it is somehow broken because it gets clogged up with food particles and these food particles get moldy and smelly.
There are now roaches living in my apartment. The dirty, nasty European kind. They hang out mostly in the dishwasher.
And perhaps the strongest reason to move...I live in the Ghetto and sometimes I worry about my safety.

The reasons I have not been able to move before and why I won't be able to move now boil down to one simple thing:
I can't afford anything else.
Sure, I could get a dinky little efficiency in a nice neighborhood somewhere, but then I'd be unhappy to be in such a cramped space. I could move into a huge apartment complex in the Arboretum area, but then I'd be annoyed by my hundreds of neighbors, the commute, and the boring floorplan.
So, I've decided to stay put and instead invest a little time, effort, and money into making my current home better. I think its the healthiest solution available at this time.
Not sure what all I'm going to do yet, but I'm sure it will be fabulous.

Post Production: Alright, Already

I think that it's Friday. I'm not sure and its hard to tell because when I'm not working its really hard for me to keep track of dates. I didn't even get out of bed until 6:30pm today which means my schedule will be wacked out for the next three days. The worst part of that is I missed early voting today which means I'll have to go next Tuesday with everyone else. I'm programming my phone to remind me or else I'll miss that too.
I've spent a lot of time this week trying to decide what the next steps are for me as a producer. We finished shooting the short last Friday and managed to get everything in those five days except for one little scene that will be picked up next Tuesday. I still can't believe how well the whole production went. I've wanted to produce a short and have tried twice unsuccessfully over the last two years, so when I began this project I assumed I would face a lot of the same problems I dealt with on previous attempts. I think it speaks loads about the merit of this project that none of the problems that have become hurdles in the past reared their heads.
We were able to raise almost enough money with minimul effort on our part. We've recently discovered a website called Revver which hosts content we provide (in our case, outtakes) and shares a portion of the revenue generated when viewers click on the advertisements at the end of the clip. Here's one of the outtakes:





This is a great discovery for us and has got Josh and Craig really excited about creating more content for the revver site. I've been trying to encourage them to submit Soft Shoe for a few smaller festivals as well in attempt to generate interest in our upcoming, as yet untitled, short. Since its already been available for viewing online for a few months, I don't see any point in premiering it at South By Southwest, which I think is their plan. I think it will detract from the excitement for the untitled short.
Aside from that, I'm having a hard time figuring out what my role as producer now entails. I'm working on thank you stuff for the various people who helped make the movie possible. Adrienne is working on the press kit. I guess I should just continue researching festivals and marketing/distribution opportunities. Oh, and I need to start planning our spring fundraiser.
I guess that's enough to keep me busy for now. I'm looking forward to going back to work already, I don't realy operate that well without some sort of structure to my day. Tonight I'm going to really push myself and try to finish cleaning my apartment.