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An Exciting Month
We’re secure! By that, I mean that there is a little lock icon beside the website url because I fixed the security issue and people should be able to find the blog again. Amanda 1, Technology 0, right? This past month has been pretty consistent as far as working for the gym and doing Jiu-Jitsu classes, doing background as a high school student and living a multitude of lives as a standardized patient. There’s also some new/exciting things happening. For starters, I turned 29 and celebrated and had a wonderful time. Then I realized I only have one year left to accomplish my 30 by 30, and slightly panicked. But…
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Podcasts, BAs and BJJ
The day after the competition we decided to take it easy. We had a delicious brunch with mountains of crepes and meat pies and all the toppings you could need, then spent the afternoon hanging out and watching movies. The rest of the day was equally as productive, comprising of video games with friends and a few episodes of Breaking Bad (I know, I’m way behind, but I’m getting there) On Monday it was back to the grind. I spent the afternoon getting ultrasounds for work, then in the evening went to the Women on Screen: Out Loud podcast wrap party. To be completely honest, other than the first Serial…
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2019 Resolutions
Here we go again 🙂 Learn Armenian Learning a new language is on my list of 30 things to do before I’m 30, and although I had originally planned to learn something like Italian and use it as an excuse to go back to Italy, I am now going to focus on Armenian. Possibly not as useful in the global sense, but my boyfriend’s family all speak it, which gives me lots of opportunities to practice. Also, his grandmother likes to sit beside me and tell me stories in Armenian, which would be amazing if I could understand them without having to make him translate everything. I think I’ll save…
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All the Things
When I got back from Montreal I had a week of summer camp, during which I also had to finish all of the pre-production for my short, which we decided to name All The Things. Camp was awesome, with 2 kids I particularly enjoy, who were really into all of the acting and performing things. My favourite part was probably when they asked to do my short. Not only were they super sweet in telling me how much they enjoyed it and it was touching, they were absolutely adorable and heartbreaking when they put it on for me. I am hoping they enjoyed themselves, but I was a pack of…
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I started off my week with a pole dancing class, where we learnt a fun routine that looked way out of my reach before we started, but was looking pretty good by the end of class. That evening, I went to the Monday night ‘Amazon’ BJJ class. A huge part of me wants to get completely discouraged when I keep ending up on the bottom, or tapping out, but then I remind myself that I am a beginner, who is still learning, and the reason why I feel like I am doing worse than when I started is because people are no longer treating me like I have no idea…
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The Last Week
Some very interesting things have happened in the few weeks since I last posted. Chronologically, I will start with the last class of the month at Suzanna’s; audition class. We spent the first few minutes discussing how I went from being in class indefinitely, to “I’m moving to Toronto in December.” Suzanna wasn’t ready to lose me to Toronto, and to be honest it didn’t seem real to me yet either. I was apartment hunting and figuring out budgets and finding all kinds of potential roommates, but it still felt like something that wasn’t really going to happen. An old friend from class came in unexpectedly, which was really nice,…
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Filming my Short – Production
I want to start by saying that I am so grateful and appreciative of everyone involved in all stages of production on my short. The actors, the extras, the crew, the advisors…everyone who helped in any way, you have my undying gratitude, and I know that I owe you, big time. Feel free to collect at any time. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Two weeks ago at this time, a bunch of kind-hearted strangers (and friends) came to my house to film a short story that I wrote. Seven scenes and seventeen and a half hours later, we wrapped and I had accomplished what I set out to do years ago. Without giving away…
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Filming my Short: Pre-Production
This is something I have been delaying posting about, maybe because at first it seemed like such a huge thing that it couldn’t really be happening, and then I just wanted to wait until I got the location, or I got the actor or…there was always something. Still, I wanted to make sure that I shared the entire process with you, so here is a post on our progress so far: Asking for Help When I made “Film a Short I Wrote” one of my resolutions this year, it was mostly to try and push myself to do something I really wanted to do, but was also really terrified of.…
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Coffee, Country, Café
I think we have already established that there are few things I enjoy more than being on set, so it was really fun to film a short a few weekends ago. On the Saturday, we met at a farm about an hour North of Montreal, where I roasted coffee beans, climbed a tree and filmed some scenes. We had a general idea of what we needed for each shot, but the dialogue was completely improvised. The story was a living thing, changing and growing as the day went on. I also had to repeatedly drive into the shot, which is definitely not on my list of things I love to…
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A Perfect Labor Day Weekend
When I left work on Friday, everyone was anticipating the long weekend. Yesterday was Labor Day, which could have meant 3 days spent lounging by the pool, catching up on some reading…a vacation. Instead, I got to do something a million times better. I got to act and do what I love all 3 days. It started out on Saturday, with some outdoor scenes for Diablo, a short fan film I am lucky enough to be a part of. We had to create an old medieval village, so I was out in the country with an awesome group of people. I decided to take advantage of the remoteness and didn’t…