The Film that Summed Up 2012 For Me

2012 is a year I will never forget for many reasons, and luckily some beautiful films this year were extremely impactful this year for personal reasons. Beasts of the Southern Wild is the one film that caught me off guard with how deeply it would affect me. My boyfriend, film critic Robert Levin saw its first screening last year at Sundance and called me afterwards, immediately telling me how amazing it was and that I had to see it. I agreed that yes, it sounded interesting, but I wasn’t going to let myself get caught up in the Sundance excitement for a film I didn’t want to be disappointed by.

Months passed and I continued to hear about the film until in August while in Montreal traveling with my boyfriend I finally got the chance to see the movie. There are a few times in my life when I can recall everything surrounding the event and experience of seeing a movie—where I sat, what the theater was like, if I ate a snack, what I did that day, etc—and Beasts proved to be one of those powerful film experiences for me. I went in with as open a mind as possible, trying to combat the buzz with a healthy amount of skepticism.

A few minutes into the film, I knew it was something different. The voiceovers are powerful and undetectable, the characters are different but relatable, the storytelling was beautiful but unique. And especially of all, the young actress, or actually untrained actress, Quvenzhane Wallis, was absolutely captivating. This is a film not only about people living trapped in “The Bathtub,” but one that I could relate to, or really anyone with a father.

At the time I saw Beasts, my father was home from his six month hospital stay and obviously unbeknownst to me, three months later he would be gone. The relationship between Hushpuppy and her father is not one that exactly mirrored my relationship with my dad, but there are obvious similarities that hit deep within me, awakening childhood fears of my father passing away when I was younger. The truth is, no matter when you lose a parent it’ll always be too early. You’re never ready. I hate when people say, “At least he’s not suffering and at peace.” He didn’t want to leave. He enjoyed every minute with his family no matter what.

My first memory is in the hospital with my father after he suffered a heart attack. The bed was taller than I was and I remember being told that daddy was going to be okay, but being extremely unsure what was going on. Growing up, I had nightmares of sacrificing myself to save my father, catching him when he fell (which literally would happen years later) and other such traumas. Hushpuppy may appear on the outside to be very different from everything about my childhood, but watching her was like watching myself as a young girl—afraid to let go, but trying to be the hero for her father.

My immediate family made huge sacrifices to care for my dad in his last year, but we would’ve done it forever. We hoped for that just as Hushpuppy would’ve stayed wherever her father was, in the Bathtub or out of it. My favorite quote from Hushpuppy in film, and one that sums up my life over the past year, is: “Everybody loses the thing that made them. The brave men stay and watch it happen. They don’t run.” It’s not easy to care for someone who can’t care for themselves, it’s painful to see someone wilt away. The image of Hushpuppy facing the beasts and not backing down is so powerful and moving. She’s looking death in the eye in her own way and saying, I understand, and I’m not afraid. I’d like to think my family did that this past year.

Beasts is beautiful because it is simultaneously simple and complex, easily relatable and precise, dirty and gorgeous. Beasts is the one film of 2012 I will never forget because my year was the exact same thing—every moment with my father was not only sublime because I knew to treasure it, but it was sad to know meant one less interaction, one less memory with him. I normally like to make a personal top 10 film list of the year, but felt this year should be more personal. I wish I got to watch Beasts with my father, but ironically, I’m not sure he would’ve fully appreciated it. He was more of a cowboys and Indians kinda guy.

Why You Shouldn't be Comfortable

I’m living the broke artist life in New York. It has it’s ups and downs, is definitely not as glamorous as it sounds, but I think all in all, it’s extremely supportive in keeping my creative juices flowing. I remember a few years ago sitting in my doctor’s office waiting room reading a magazine about the most successful people in our country (I think in the entertainment industry) and reading about Oprah. Say what you will about the woman, but she is extremely successful and a brand all by herself. The article basically gave examples of a few successful celebrities, notably Oprah, saying that in theory these people achieved so much because they weren’t comfortable growing up, but also weren’t so uncomfortable (financially and mentally speaking) that they got so depressed or overwhelmed they gave up.

My advice to anyone pursuing a career in filmmaking, writing or acting is don’t let yourself get comfortable. Don’t fall into a routine. Don’t take your backup job because you feel the pressure of needing a “career.”

I’m lucky to say that I don’t have to bartend, waitress or cater, not that those are bad jobs—you do what you have to—but I have a lot of freedom. I don’t do any of the clichéd actor day/night jobs. I get to work from home and make my own schedule to some extent, yet, I am not comfortable. I can’t afford expensive things and I don’t want to be working this job for another decade. This level of discomfort puts a healthy amount of pressure on me and also motivates me to continue pursuing getting my film off the ground. What I mean by healthy pressure is, I’m not so exhausted after my “put food on the table” job that I can’t write, audition or go to meetings.

The last week of my senior year at NYU I was offered a salaried job with an advertising company in Midtown. It would be great pay, benefits and working with what seemed to be like an interesting group of people. I asked them if the schedule was flexible at all and if I could take some time off if I landed a film. When they said no, I immediately turned them down, thanking them for the offer, but also emphasizing that my film career is important to me and something I’m not willing to give up. I truly believe that if I took that job, I would’ve worked my way up within the company and been full time there.

I said no thanks and I’m learning to say no even more now. If you have a vision of how you want your life to turn out, follow that path and don’t take on something that seems like it would be detouring your journey. I’m steadfast in my career goals to the point where I’d rather make sacrifices in my life to achieve what I want. I shouldn’t even say sacrifices because that’s not how I view them. I enjoy working on my screenplays and acting work so much that I don’t think of it as having to give something up. I’m gaining a lot by having freedom to create and feel very lucky to be able to have this gift.

Share with me in the comments how you make sure to stay motivated and have the freedom to pursue your craft! 

Big Decisions...and Why I "Get" Spalding Gray

The fact that I put this blog off last week and my procrastination actually turned into a full week sans blogging is no accident. After a productive and eye opening phone call with my career coach, Emily Grace, I admitted to myself that I want to direct and should direct my own project, my feature film, Gold Star. But for some reason, I still feared actually announcing it. Emily even encouraged me to blog about it, saying it would make for great material, so here I am, finally getting to it and owning it fully.

November 2012, and 2012 in general, has been a year of growing, learning and creating for me. Sometimes you just gotta roll with the punches, but if you kept letting yourself get punched in the face, you learn nothing and come away with a bloody face. Not so fun. When I had to take tai chi at the Lee Strasberg Institute way back when at NYU, I learned that when attacked, the best form of self defense is to use the attacker’s body weight against them, use their own force to bring them down. I believe this not only applies to fighting, but also to life and less physical things thrown your way. When bad things happen, use them, and that’s what this film’s been for me, a form of self defense against horrible things. By writing about my difficult year, I think I’ve changed it in a way, and my thinking of it. But I can’t go halfway with it. I can’t just write it.

After my father passed away last month, my view of the film changed. It became even more personal than I could have imagined. I was so afraid to admit that I wanted to direct the project, not only because of my fear of failing in some way, but also because I thought it would make me look like some kind of a control freak/megalomaniac, neither of which I am. I love collaboration. Discovering new ideas through partnership is exciting, and I plan on involving a great team to bring this film to the screen. I recently realized, though, that directing this is something I have to do. I go to sleep at night seeing scenes play out in my head, imagining the look of the film, the tone, everything. Gold Star is not only something I wrote and many things I experienced. It is real to me.

Not only a photo to promote my film, Gold Star, but a reminder that my father is everywhere. Photo by Ben Jarosch

I feel completely different as a person, like I came out of a battle scarred, yet with a new perspective on life. Everyone’s parents die. It’s something we all face, but in actually experiencing it I've had somewhat of a paradigm shift, maybe because I’m a bit young to lose a parent, I don’t know. Yesterday I was sitting in a workshop with a casting director, and I felt isolated as everyone was asking questions, like I didn’t really feel like a full-on actor per se.

Let me attempt to explain what I mean. The multitalented performer, monologuist and all-around favorite of mine, Spalding Gray once said something to the effect of (and I couldn’t find the quote anywhere but remember it striking a chord with me)…I couldn’t act because I kept judging the writing, the words and it all came out as judgments and I couldn't say it. Sometimes I feel this way—actually, a lot of the time. Ever since I started writing seriously and learning what my voice is, everyone else’s seems fake or like I’m going against myself by reading someone else’s words. I always connected strongly to Spalding’s work while at NYU. I’d spend hours in the library watching his archived, difficult to find videos while eating snacks by myself, laughing and writing down favorite quotes. I’m just starting to realize why I love him so much.

As artists, I think the greatest challenge is being brave and doing something different. Don’t be afraid to do something because you might fail. If you’re a smart, hard working person, you can figure it out. Yes, I will be taking on many roles in getting this film made, but it is my film, my voice and my story. I really have to be the one that tells it. 

Monkey See, Monkey Do

A few days ago, I was at a complete loss as to what to write for my weekly blog. It’s my first week back in the city, and I would be lying if I said it was easy. It seems like the last time I was here, everything was different. I still had my dad and was hopeful for his recovery. I’ve been fighting this empty feeling inside, like everything I knew and loved was ripped from me. But I know that’s a lie.

I believe in not only performing, creating, writing, auditioning and even the real world, there is a truth and a promise in the ability to visualize. The power in this ability is changing your visualization from something negative to a tangible positive. Rather than remembering my father wheelchair bound, I am trying to choose to remember him as he was -- smiling, laughing and playing the piano. Yes, in my head I see his struggles the past year, but that is not who he was. As with the visualization of my father, we also choose how to visualize our goals.

Before going into an audition, do you imagine your best possible work or do you think of the worst case scenario?

Various psychological studies have been explored to study this phenomenon. While in high school, for an AP Psych project my sister asked our soccer team to shoot a soccer ball and then shoot it again while first imagining scoring a goal. A lot of us scored the second time. Maybe we just tried harder, I don't know. The brain is a powerful thing.

I wouldn’t say I’m an optimistic person overall. I have many fears and struggle to understand concepts and ideas broader than myself and beyond my reach, but I can say that my imagination is powerful. If I can remember the feel of my father’s hand when I was a child, or if I can imagine a casting director’s face after I absolutely nail an audition for say, a dream role in an indie feature, then I am going to choose to visualize those things – because if I can visualize them, then they were real, are real, and can even happen.

Be Thankful

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays despite the fact I don’t eat turkey, meat-filled stuffing, or gravy with a meat base. Hey, yams are good too! Veggie stuffing as well! This year, Thanksgiving will be strange. If you’ve been reading this blog, my father passed away just 11 days ago, and I feel like this holiday is happening too quickly and without welcome. I remember last year, my father had just come home from the hospital for Thanksgiving. We were all thrilled to have him after months of fighting in ICU and rehab. A few days later, he sang me (sort of) happy birthday.

This year will be different, but I am thankful. I think in general, in life, it is important to take a moment and reflect on everything that you have and have had. Don’t think about your life with judgments or negativity, but just acknowledgment. This is definitely one practice I have carried with me from all those semesters taking tai chi at the Lee Strasberg Institute - thanks Ron! I had an awesome father, and the fact that he’s gone doesn’t change the fact that he was absolutely kick-ass. My memories will never be erased and the person I am today is because of him. I am thankful.

Now because this blog should really be about filmmaking and acting and making things happen for yourself, I think this thankful attitude should be carried into one’s artistic career. I’ve gotten caught up in the trap of thinking of other people’s careers and wishing for things I don’t have, upset I didn’t get a part, or hoping for certain auditions, but this is a wasteful way of thinking. Be thankful for what you have. Everyone’s career is different. If I landed a huge film role right out of school, I wouldn’t have had the drive to want to make my own film and really take charge.

Your career can only start to take shape when you sit back, relax and focus on what you have, what you are thankful for and why.

So maybe tomorrow in between helpings of Grandma’s pie, sit back and look around you at the people at your table. You wouldn’t be acting and filmmaking and creating art if it weren’t for those people and your upbringing. Mom may call too often at times, Dad may harass you to “get certain things done,” but remember that those people not only physically made you, they shaped you like a little piece of clay into the person you are now.

What are your favorite Thanksgiving memories at home with family?

For Dad

The Mayans feared that the world would end in 2012. For me, it has felt that way, and for my father, it is true. I know this sounds extremely dramatic, but on Saturday November 10^th, a piece of my childhood died along with my father. What began as a quiet, relaxing date night (the first in a while because of the craziness of the hurricane) ended with a text message from my brother and phone call from my mom telling me the words I’ve feared since my father first had a heart attack when I was three, “Vick, he’s gone.” My heart has physically been hurting for days, today is the first day I don’t feel ill.

To anyone reading this, if you lost a parent, I completely understand how you feel. It’s surreal, a dream, you think you’re going to turn the corner and see them. Right now, I’m writing this from my dining room table, where I often worked from home and watched my dad sit in his wheelchair while my mom was at work. I’d jump in the room when ‘The Price is Right’ came on, to laugh at the overly hyper contestants with him and guess on prices together. I still see the back of his bald head out of the corner of my eyes, then I look up and it’s gone.

I’ve gone into my mother’s room to smell his pillow, I wonder what his last thoughts were. I wish I could’ve gone home to see him sooner, hugged him when he passed. I’m glad that his last vision of me was after I finished my personal marathon and thanked him via video. I made my mom put me on the phone with him after he watched it, and he couldn't make a sound. He was apparently crying. I now have his 1987 marathon medal, he asked my mom to give it to me as a gift when I came home.

Last year, partially to cope with my father’s illness and partially to take charge of my own career, I began writing a film about my relationship with my father. It’s an extremely personal film and addresses what it’s like to grow up with a father that’s older than most people’s grandparents. Above is a photo taken by my friend Ben Jarosch a month before my dad's passing. It will be used in promotional materials for my film, but it also shows how much my father and I loved each other.

I’ve always feared death, always. It isn’t something I can understand, and I’m so, so afraid that when you die, that’s it. In the past few days, I’ve felt like I'm going crazy talking to pictures of my father, hoping they’ll speak back, asking him to move things in a room to show me he’s there, and then half-waking up in the middle of the night with sleep paralysis as if he’s hugging me too tightly.

The film I wrote, “Gold Star” means much more now than it ever has. Although my initial intention was to have my father play the father role in it (most of his scenes would involve no lines), my father will be in it in every other way. Memories we had and still have are in there, the film will be shot in my house, I plan on somehow including actual video footage and photos of him (maybe in the credits).

I miss my dad so much. 25 is too young to lose a father. I find comfort in knowing that the rest of my family, and myself, have zero regrets. We worshiped him over the past year. He fought to give us a year. I stood in front of him for hours before and after and even during my work week, helping him with rehab, physically moving him room to room, bringing him outside to get light, hugging him nonstop, making him laugh, learning how to suction him, inventing a way of communication, and just being with him as much as possible. Lately, I’ve been questioning why I do anything and I feel like sometimes it’s more for him than me. Making “Gold Star” is going to be emotionally exhausting at times, but I have to make it. We all create for different reasons. My reason is therapy, love and memory. My dad used to tell stories all the time, it’s my turn to take the torch and be a storyteller for him. Love you dad. 

Script Reading

Last night was the first time I heard any of my screenplay writing read aloud. I was incredibly nervous all day, secretly hoping that the unwelcome nor’easter would cause a cancellation of the Tisch Alumni Script Critique Group. Alas, no cancellation, and the dull stomach ache all day raged onward as 6:30 came closer.

I’ve been working on my screenplay Gold Star for months now, and am just starting to share it with friends and colleagues, reaching out to trusted individuals to collaborate as my team grows. The feedback has been generous and positive. Yet, hearing the first 15 pages of my screenplay read aloud in front of a group of my peers proved to be an entirely different thing, a terrifying thing.

If you don’t know who Ted Hope is and you’re into film, god help you. The man is a indie film powerhouse, blogging constantly, producing, and a fountain of knowledge about the ever changing film industry. Yesterday, I found his blog particularly close to home. In it he encourages filmmakers to get help, but not wait for it to get a project done. People won’t always help, and sometimes they will take more than they give. It’s a delicate balancing act. He ends the post by stating:

“Being true to your heart and ideas is a revolutionary act.  I think the world is ready for you to get it done.”

Lucky enough to read this post before I traveled through the snowstorm last night, I felt empowered. Don’t wait for someone to help, just do it no matter what. I can do this - I kept thinking to myself. You got this, girl!

While hearing my screenplay read aloud, I grew more relaxed. I realized that yes, something I worked tirelessly on is actually good, and yay, people are laughing at the right moments, the actors’ instincts are dead on. It was one of the most exhilarating experiences ever. It gave me something more than acting has given me to this point -- writing allows you to not only create a character, but an entire world.

After the actors finished and handed me my script, I sat at a long table, awaiting comments and criticisms. Everyone’s feedback was extremely kind, and people were excited to hear that it was based on a true story. People asked me to bring in the rest of the script, curious to see how it turns out and what happens to the characters. I learned a lot about not only screenwriting, but my own process last night. I felt a little surge of power inside as well. I want to keep doing this.

The screenplay presentation reinvigorated me after weeks of meetings and email correspondences and “busy work” for my film. Gold Star is loosely based my life, but entirely from my heart. I can’t wait to share it with the world.