Je suis champion de clavecin

Bloggity blog blog.

Class four! Getting started on two person dialogue shots any say here, but in the mean-time here is the latest version of my one person dialogue (needs ever so much work still, so frustrating!)

Happy Graduation!!

No clever titles from me this time, because Graduation was last weekend! And it was super-dee-duper-dee fun! (Um, I'm not sure what that means exactly, I'm not exactly great with words.) So, yes graduation! Which I have absolutely no pictures of (though facebook is chalk full of ones that other people took). Sadly I am bad at time-management so I couldn't go to the Friday day/night events or the after-party Saturday night. (err, though I probably could have at least gotten dinner with people after graduation if I hadn't already bought tickets to an SF Sketchfest show that started at 8. I'm sorry! The funny was totally worth the accusations of ditching though!)

I volunteered at Graduation so I got to the location at 11am, and then the those of us who were sitting out in the theater watching the rehearsal got to "graduate" many times so they could practice reading through the names. This was fun, but weirdly tiring. Part of the reason for that could have been because after about the third time around we all started coming up with increasingly more ridiculous ways to get across the stage.

We then went backstage for lunch, which featured an AMAZING view of Alcatraz (seriously, I didn't know you could get so close to the ex-prison without being on a boat). For lunch I had a pile of Doritos, an apple, a banana and coffee (glorious coffee!) and I was told the sandwiches were quite good too. (I did not partake as I am allergic-ish to bread.) Then, eventually, Chris and I went to help open bottles of wine (in theory) and were generally not super helpful, as we both had wine-opening fail.

Then the graduates arrived! And there was a lovely graduation ceremony, full of wonderfulness. And after I spent time with wonderful people, many who I have only met on the website or through chat (and stickam!). It was awesome being able to talk to people without worrying about lag. (If we had cared to we could have even sang in sync!) I forget who, but someone brought Heidi beer which she drank warm. (Side note: the food at the buffet/reception/post-grad gathering whatever you want to call it was really quite good)

After that grad was all over! :( But I met up with my mum and we had an excellent Dinner (she and I had an excellent breakfast as well. There are aspects of the city that you have to love, good food being one.) and got to go see Totally Looped and The Lampshades, which combined featured the following actors: Laraine Newman, Maria Bamford, Oscar Nunez, Rick Overton, Joe Liss, Richard Kuhlman, Kate Flannery and Scot Robinson. And then I drove home and finished blocking pretty much half asleep.

So, yes, that was graduation!

Also, I realize I haven't updated since week one and I just want to say that Jay Jackson is an excellent mentor! (I had a 30min critique this last week, wow!) He really knows his acting and makes an effort to stop by our Workspaces and PRs to leave feedback during the week, which is seriously awesome. So, yes, I need to spend more time on my assignment (I'm so frustrated with my pantomime! I wish I knew why it feels like I'm fighting is every step of the way.) And I have officially abused both my parenthetical remark and exclamation mark privileges in this post so I think I'll be off now.

TTFN, ta ta for now

And my love he purloined away

Bloggity blog blog

I'm really bad at blogging. In case you can't tell. I've just started class 3 and am am super super super excited to get started on acting! I've decided that I'm going to take a new approach to blogging and not try to get in so much info. My new mentor is Jay Jackson, who I have yet to meet, but I've been asking around and I hear nothing but good things. His resume is certainly impressive! And, yes, I'm super excited.

And, here's my progress reel for anyone who cares to see it (i.e. My Mum!)



Um, yes, I believe that is all I have to say. I'm volunteering at AM graduation next weekend (the 17th) so I will probably have many pictures and stories to tell from that.

Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

I saw a commercial today which feature various celebrities reading from the following editorial . I believe it was supposed to make me shop at Macy's, or maybe it was supposed to remind me to go shopping on black Friday. What the commercial was for is irrelevant. I felt that the commercial had somehow cheapened the original spirit of the editorial. So I went digging up the original, in hopes of remembering how nice the message in this article is. Why, exactly, it is being used in a commercial over a hundred years after it first went to press. So, here's the editorial by Francis P. Church "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus", first published in The New York Sun in 1897. Enjoy. :)

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

Dear Editor—

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O’Hanlon

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

This is my assignment for the week, I'll write more tomorrow.

If life seems jolly rotten, there is something you've forgotten, and that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.

Err, yes, I am clearly awesome at blogging... clearly. *sighs* I have no idea how long it's been since I updated. Oh well, I'm doing it now! Week eleven of class one already, AH! I can hardly believe it. We're on our last assignment for class one already, I can't believe how quickly this time has flown by.

So, in the time since I last updated I spent a week in Minnesota visiting my extended family, which was really fun, but it made it almost impossible to get work done. And in the first week of overlapping action too! Alas, it shows in my work. I need to learn to plan work better. It's really easy to fit it into my schedule when I'm home, but near impossible when on the road.

The week after Minnesota I went to Siggraph and Disneyland. Siggraph was a total blast, and I got to meet some of the truly awesome people from AM. AM's party was ridiculous (and I'm not just talking about the price of drinks! $10 for a Jack and Coke, what!?) so much fun, so many cool students and mentors, total blast! I enjoyed myself thoroughly at the convention and learned some things in the process! Awesome.

Then, I was finally home and in the middle of a move! Ah! Unfortunately rent on my old, totally fabulous, apartment reached too too high of a price, so I've moved in with a few friends. Which, on the one hand, is nice, because it forces me to be social. But, on the other hand, it forces me to be social!

So, anyway, yes, what have I been doing AM. Much much, I assure you. I think I will skip a viewing of my pendulum for now, as I am rather anxious to do some clean up on it as soon as I get the time.

So, yes, I believe the next thing was my Tailor hop, which reflects my fairly exhausted mood the week I working on him. (between siggraph and Disneyland how can I be expected to concentrate!?)


Then, the next week, we began work on our Vanilla walk and did a pose for "Physical Strength"

Which, again, still needs some revision.

And, here's my finished Vanilla walk (still need to work on the knees a bit, there's just not enough time in the week!)





And, my "concerned" pose




And, now, this last week! We did blocking for our character walks. I decided to do a sort of Jim Carry/Walking to the beat of a happy song walk. I think it looks better when you play zippity doo dah with it.



And lastly, my "exhausted" pose. Which, in retrospect, kind of looks like he's really full.



I fully expect both of these to need some revision, I was a little rushed. Thus the full look. Still waiting for my critique! Can't wait.

I seriously cannot believe class one will(effectively) be over at the end of this week! I can't believe I'm already on walks. It seem like yesterday I was freaking out because just installing Maya was intimidating! I've certainly come a ways!

So, yes, I will try to update soon. Sorry I fail at blogging!

you leave me with my jaw on the floor

So, I have decided that I need to give myself a day to update this blog, or it will never get done! And, Monday seems like a lovely day, even if it is technically Tuesday now. :) So, I'm going to make an effort to update every Monday, no promises though! I just got back from a lovely night at the bars helping my friend celebrate/bemoan her first day of real work, so now seemed as good a time to update as any!

So, the last, wow, has it really been three weeks? Anyway, the last three weeks have been as fabulous as predicted. Paul Allen (my mentor) is really great about answering questions during Q&A and giving AMAZING e-critiques. Have a mentioned before how grateful I am to have stumbled on this school?

Anyway, here as the two poses I did for week 2 and 3 of AM.
Our first pose was supposed to be, well, anything! Just to go out and sketch poses from life. Davis, is unsurprisingly, very boring when it comes to poses.


This pose is supposed to convey "excitement", I can't even tell you how much trouble I had with it! I felt like every pose I came up with was really cliché. I also feel like there something really off about this pose, I'm working on it.

Week before last we did a basic bouncing ball. I decided not to tempt fate and just do a very simple bouncing ball. I did put rotation on the ball, but you really can't tell. I could of left the curve of the ball visible but didn't for a couple of reasons, a) I wasn't very happy with how the rotation was looking and b) I hate the way the nurbs curve looks around the ball!


Then, this last week, we did two bouncing balls of different weights. A lot of people changed the sizes/colours of their balls but, well, I'm a total maya wimp so left things alone. I haven't gotten my critique back for this, so I'm still a bit nervous about it!



So, yeah, that's what's bee going on! My guess is that my mum is the only one who will read this (hi mum!) and maybe my sister (hi Dani!). But, if you do read, yay!

J'adore y'all mucho! (I like to mix up my languages sometimes =) )

PS I feel it's worth mentioning that the subject/title of my blogs are always song lyrics, just encase they seem super random to anyone. ♥