Metamorphosis Tripping

Image via Wikipedia

I am up on the roof of my barn, morning tai-chi.  I go up in the darkness before the sky splashes with color. Alone up there in the dark I feel as if I am standing on the curve of the universe and the world is spinning under me.  I am able to detach from myself and circle above while my body goes through the beautiful tai-chi movements.  I am living with lupus, that said I am to avoid extreme heat and cold, but here on the roof the cold numbs my aching joints and limbs, muffling the noise of my boisterous daily pain. I can forget for a few moments that I have a debilitating illness that wages a daily war on me.

The sun peeks and colors transform the darkness and I am brought back to earth. This morning I am concentrating on my breathing, balance and ignoring the pain in my feet from the frozen roof shingles under them. 

“Katherine Ray Are you tripping?! What in gods name are you doing!?” Breaks the calm of the morning. 

It seems the neighbor up on the hill a few acres away has spotted me on the barn edge in some bizarre pose.  I calmly turn and causally wave not wanting to shake up the morning calm with a shouting match across the hillside. I go back to regain my focus…no… not going to work now with an audience. 

I shimmy back down the side wall and into the large window; quickly wrap myself up into a blanket.

My neighbor’s words still playing over in my mind… I believe everything good or bad happens for a reason and the universe at this time has asked me a question… I start to question myself if I really know what I am doing and how I think I can pull this off.  Should I slow down and re-group?  No one would blame me…. I grab some coffee and hobble to my laptop…toes are still tiny ice cubes on the end of my feet… where are the fuzzy wool socks when you need them… I have a mountain of paperwork to get caught up on for Metamorphosis. I begin to organize myself and make my lists…oh by the way I love using Evernote for keeping me together… it works well with the way my non linear Dyslexic mind works, check it out… ok commercial over.

A few cups of black strap molasses sweetened coffee later, I am about to let the wave of negative thoughts overtake me, when an email from a grant giver pops up on my email. 

When writing and applying for grants the first and most important bit of wisdom I can bestow upon you for proposal success is: make very good friends with the person deciding who is awarded the funds. If they like you they will go out of their way to make sure you have every bit of information you need to make your proposal stand out from the rest.   A new message from my latest favorite person awaits me.  She is giving me early heads up on a grant I sent in, its going to be approved.  It was a small amount of money for an even smaller indie documentary, but it will make a huge difference to this young aspiring filmmaker trying to make her first film. I am not noticing the pain in my still frozen toes any longer!

I hear my neighbor’s voice in my head once again but this time around I can confidently shout back “I know what I am doing and what a great trip this is turning into! “

Crowd funding ideas Metamorphis style

Image via Wikipedia

Budgets Budgets and more production budgets…

I’ve spent the day going over budget sheets and production budget forecasts for two different clients.  Funding is always a major factor in whether any company is successful or stopped dead in its tracks and entertainment production is no different.  The problem is, in film, television and the arts in general, one can’t sit down at the local bank and ask for a business loan… no matter how great the script or cast or crew.  It just doesn’t work that way for the entertainment gypsies.  Crowd funding has become a great resource, and one I try and push with the groups I work with who are on a small budget or no budget. 

Sites like Kickstarter and Indie go-go are funding conduits for a wide variety of start-up businesses, and art ideas.  The key to using them successfully is marketing your idea to a wide pool of people wishing to donate to your cause.   

So, you have your project now what?

One way to get your production some attention beyond the scope of your social network is to get some local press. But how you say? OK let’s go over some quick points.

We live in the wide world of global media and new outlets are invented almost everyday looking for content. But first look local, local press can mean a few things.

It can literally mean “local media” ie:  your cities newspaper, radio, and television stations .  It also your online community — not geographically local, but groups unified by a particular interest or topic. It can also be the place where your production is centered – but not necessarily where your office/home base is located.

Now say you’re fundraising for a documentary film about the ecological and sociopolitical history of the Great Lakes and you live in New York, the New York media most likely isn’t going to be interested. But blogs about ecology and economy or environmental activism would be, as would the local media in the region you’re film is concentrating on.

Here are a few ideas to get you started in identifying and pitching press to get your project additional coverage that will optimistically bring it additional funding.

1. Identify what “local” means for your project. Find out where your project has local interest: either in an online community, locally within your own town or city, or in another geographical location where your project is focused.
2. Put together a pitch. Don’t just stick to the old-school press release format. Make sure your project has a landing page that provides more information and an online destination (this could be your crowd funding project page, but might also be an additional website), and be sure to include links to that page. Put together some hi-resolution images to send. And finally, yes, write a press release. These three elements should be included in your pitch.
3. Put together a media list. Who are the influencers in your locality? Bloggers? Local television stations? Radio personalities? Maybe you’re not just pitching media, but like-minded organizations who would be interested in including your project information in their future emails and press releases. Think outside the box. Think big. Build your list to be bigger than you actually need it. Don’t edit it thinking, “Well, they wouldn’t be interested.” Be inclusive — but make sure everyone on your list is relevant.
4. Distribute your pitch to the media list. DO NOT SEND A BLANKET EMAIL to everyone on your list!  Pick the top 20 or 30 leads you have and write a personal note with your links and attachments. Be conversational in tone and be sure to tell them why you thought they could use the information. For instance, “I noticed you’ve written about similar scams on your blog about consumer protection, and our documentary seeks to expose…” Be personal, appealing and genuine.  Mass emails are not any of that and a sure way to show you really don’t care about the recipient. NOT a good impression

 

1. Don’t just wait around — follow-up, update, be proactive. Don’t use the “spray and pray” method, but try not to be too spammy, either. You don’t want to badger journalists. But make sure your sites are updates with relevant information. Perhaps locate the people you pitched on Twitter and follow them — join in their conversations. And within a few weeks if you haven’t heard anything, follow up by sending a relevant update. “Hi — I sent you some information about my project on September 20th, and since then we’ve had over 500 supporters — including anonymous donors — rally to protect this rare species of tropical ant in your area.”
2. Repeat. Are you sure you hit ALL your “local” lists? Keep thinking outside the box to identify additional localities where your project would be of interest. Then continue with step 2.

Remember: all of this does take time, but one news story on a local TV station, or a post on an influential blog , or mentions in tweets can mean a difference of thousands of dollars.

Camera Morphology

Image by Mike Babcock via Flickr

Today is another outside of Metamorphosis day and I get a rare treat.  I am sitting behind a studio camera waiting for a show to begin. 

I love working as a camera operator.  It’s all I ever wanted to do since I was a tow-haired six-year-old holding my fathers  Bell and Howell  8mm camera.  I successfully worked as one for many years but had to give up full-time shooting when my back blew out, and I could not handle the weight of a 30 pound camera on my shoulder for ten hours a day.  With technology rapidly changing and cameras shrinking every day, I might have to rethink my decision….

There is more to camera work than just making sure the lens is in focus and your shot is in frame.  You need to have a sixth sense about where to find a great image.  I love looking for “the” shot.  The audience member listening intensely, the band member lost in their solo, a single tear sliding down someone’s face.  The action the audience members wouldn’t see because they are focused on the main action, but add so much detail and complete the story line.

Live television is my favorite type of TV gig, you only get one take, timing is essential, and the action in front of the camera is genuine. You and the other camera operators are akin to an orchestra with your director acting as conductor masterfully guiding the visuals and cutting tempos between the cameras.

 Halfway into the production I hear my favorite line of the day “OK 2 (today I was camera 2) go find me a shot”  Ah, sweeter words were never uttered in my ears through  ill fitting studio headsets.

 I become Artemus on a hunt, swiftly searching for my subject, warming up with a few cut always that are first-rate, but not the world series out of the park home run, make  the director squeal in his chair like a little school girl shot.  This is where your sixth sense kicks in.  You see through your viewfinder but also gaze beyond it, taking in the image of everything else around you…. There it is!  …Slow zoom in…rack focus….wait for it… “NICE SHOT 2!” …Ah… my reaction resembles one by the lost middle child of a 12 sibling family starving for a moment of attention at the dinner table from Mom.  I smile, content knowing that I stirred at least one person, the important one that will remember I caught the money shot, and ensures I get called back to work again another day.

Campfire Theatre

Campfire Theatre.

Campfire Theatre

Image via Wikipedia

I’m sitting at a stoplight watching the grey rain clouds fly past the orange and gold tree line in the distance. Blue sky keeps blinking between the grey. My Director pokes me to tell me the light has changed to green.  We are on our way to a production location, my polish director sits next to me chatting in polish to someone back home. The PA is crammed into the back seat of my little brown mini cooper playing away on an I-pad. The rest of this odd tribe of production guys follow behind me in a dented white rental van. I am talking into the recorder of my i-phone via headsets while driving. Technology.  We are in a car the size of a postage stamp and yet worlds apart from one another. 

I love this crew… now…it certainly didn’t start out that way.  Back in January I took this 4 week freelance gig and was explicitly informed that everyone was tight-knit group from Poland I was the outsider, basically nothing more than a Sherpa to guide them around the city.  By the end of the 4 weeks they wanted to take me back home and marry me off to siblings… nice to have options.  Currently I now hold an exec producer title and enough crazy shared experiences to be considered a member of this Eastern European production tribe, although being the only one not speaking the language I am still the outsider. 

“Excuse me but does this have to do with Metamorphosis?” You ask my readers?… someone has to pay the lawyers fees, accountant fees, incorporation fees, and every other bill that comes up just to get this company up on its legs…

 “Beat it” by Michael Jackson starts playing on my stereo, the silver-haired director in my passenger seat starts laughing.

 “Katarzyna,(yes… they call me that and not Katherine) I remember coming home from the disco in the 80’s and hearing this song in the subways…fun times.”

An image of this man in a wide collared polyester shirt and tight pants, ala Steve Martin in one of his SNL skits in the Solidarity era Poland played to my mind’s eye.  He started to talk about how wild the club scene was to the P.A. jam-packed into the back seat.  Mind you the young P.A. in the back seat wasn’t born anywhere near the 80s… she listened with mocking disbelief.  As they began to bicker in polish, my mind wandered off to thinking about how these two people were born in the same city but light years apart from one another.  My director dealt with a country under soviet rule, and rations, protests, fighting, struggling for a free Poland.  This young lady was born into a completely different universe of wealth, freedoms, Big Macs, and cable TV. She heard the stories in history class but it was just that, stories of a bygone era.

I would love to take the two, sit them down by the campfire, and have them both verbally paint a picture of their home for us all.  They both walk the same city sidewalks, but oh how different they must analyze it all. Vastly diverse life experiences, each engaged in on the very same street corner, years apart from one another, and both tightly intertwined with the same culture.

I cant help but think it would make for a great night of theatre.

Metamophosis Teen Theatre

Metamophosis Teen Theatre.

Metamorphosis Pirating

Metamorphosis Pirating.

Metamophosis Teen Theatre

Image via Wikipedia

Kindly close your eyes and picture,  30 teens, 7^th graders- 12^th grade…all shapes and sizes.  They are all laying motionless and quiet (yes 30 kids quiet!) on a gym floor, heads on the inside of a giant circle.  I am standing in the middle of this large teen circle asking my student actors to remain absolutely still. They happily comply.  I then begin a body exercise geared to build muscle awareness and focus their minds.  As I call out my instructions I am amazed at how these young people are like parched august soil. I give a visual and they instantly soak it up not even leaving a watermark.  We go on to a challenging focus game and seeing that this is only our second rehearsal, and they are young and unfocused, the group fails to reach the allotted goal for the warm up.  My Seniors in this group brag to the new younger members that the former year the group attained the lofty goal. The younger students respond with a mix of disbelief and envy. 

I love the age difference, the older ones are quick to snap the younger ones into line.  When exercises are introduced, the younger watch the more experienced teens and learn from them and build confidence.

We go on to play a series of Improv warm ups and short games before tackling blocking our Christmas Carol Radio Show.  Part of me delays because I have yet to finish writing the opening…but we wont talk about that here and now.

I am fascinated by watching this group. They are so diverse, come from multiple school systems, ages, family backgrounds but yet the one commonality they share is not the pursuit of acting, but a desire to be inspired.  From early childhood we put our offspring into grey boxes of conformity, give a floppy toxic plastic plate full of fast food education, toss in front of a TV and tell them Disney is entertainment, and that Xbox is exercise and you find love on the internet.  Don’t bother with thought, just do as we say, and OH look! A shiny cell phone for you, so you can text with the friend who actually is sitting next to you. What if they don’t flourish in this mushroom garden box?  They are then labeled with ADHD or ADA or what ever flashy acronym the synthetic daytime talk show hosts are introducing as the latest educational fad crisis hitting our youth today.

These kids are just young adults desperately trying to get outside that stagnant grey box, turn their minds on and let the creative juices escape.  They want to stretch and breathe, inspire one another, play, and be a rock, Scrooge, or an old lady at a bingo hall, or come up with a bad impression… and laugh.

I don’t expect any of my kids to become great actors or improv artists.  My goal isn’t to put on a glossy production for the parents to brag about. (it’s always a great production but again I digress)  

I want these teens to leave with a set of skills they can use in any field they sally forth into. I want them to know how to think outside the box, and on their feet.  How to actually communicate with one another, and if the usual way doesn’t work? Not be afraid and instead creatively discover a different approach.

Metamorphosis Pirating

Metamorphosis Pirating.

Metamorphosis Pirating

Earlier today I was discouraged because I was wasting yet another day, sitting in my fancy New York City doctor’s sterile examining room waiting for my bi-monthly exam. I feel at this point I can call him my fancy doc because of the chest grabbing bill I receive bi-monthly.
He enters with his nose still in my chart, and while going over the papers asks how I am feeling.
“Um, very rundown, achy, oh and my dyslexia has been kicking in high gear now too over the past two days ya think it’s all related?”
I crack a nervous smile and look for his response.
He looks up concerned and runs through a litany of questions of which I proudly answer correctly.
“What about stress? What’s going on in your life right now?”
Oh I didn’t want that question. I nervously giggle, take a big breath, look him in the eye and with machine gun speed spit out:
“ My dad had a heart attack, went into the hospital and found out he has cancer, my horse got sick and I had to put her down, my teen theatre group just started and I changed the script at the last minute to a live radio show and I now I am behind on grant writing and pirating for two production clients, budget overhaul for another production AND I have yet to do the final review for the non-profit paperwork for my professional all green alternative energy resident organic improv theatre educational outreach company that will produce original works and films, writers workshops, film festival, that all will in turn be aired on the web to create our own entertainment network. “
I crack a big smile and wait for his response… The cute rectangular glasses are now on top his forehead, the smile has faded, he just stares.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t call the orderlies in here to take you upstairs?”
I muster up my best Dan Aykroyd “Because I’m on a mission from the theatre gods!”
He tries not to smile, but darn I can be cute when faced with the possibility of forced hospitalization. He sits down on his little wheeled stool turns his back to me, writing in my file. My mind races for something positive to say, in a nervous childlike voice out blurts “I took a nap a week or so ago on a Saturday… it, it …was nice!” He spins back around ,looks up at me, not amused. I crack another cheesy smile.
“Maybe I am approaching this wrong and you really don’t understand the term stress.” He says in a low voice.
We go on to debate what is considered stress, he asks questions that give him a better understanding of where I come from, and why I am so goal driven, and I am educated on why resting isn’t really being just lazy. We come to a meeting point. I will schedule more naps, begin my mornings later and start bed time earlier. Enthusiastically I am certain this will work and help my body pain and fatigue. As he is wrapping up, he asks what I implied earlier by pirating, thinking I did re-enactments.
“I’ll demonstrate for you. Show me what you have in your pocket or wallet please. “
He hesitates but complies. Out of a brown over packed wallet comes 500 bucks. I try not to grin.
“OK, now out of that 500, how much are you now going to give to me for charity?” He looks surprised and I smile. “Arg!”

So, at the end of the day not all is wasted. I am typing this from my bed (and not locked down in a hospital) with 200 dollars on my nightstand to dump into a Kickstart fund tomorrow for a worthy cause, still on track for Metamorphosis, and a doc who will never again ask what pirating is.