California Dreaming

Wowza, so, so much has happened since I last posted way back when. First and foremost, I’m relocating to California in July…holy moly, that’s a weirdy to type. It hasn’t sunk in yet but I do have moments of dizzying oblivion. The reason for abandoning my beloved London? (Nope…it ain’t the law, son)…I got into my dream program at the Chapman Conservatory for my MFA in Direction. It’s the most mind-blowing campus with facilities to make you teary-eyed and drool-worthy professors….haven’t heard of it? That’s because it’s film department is relatively new and on the serious up. Give it a couple of years and you’ll quake in it’s glory! The thing I dig is that because it has a less brash rep than some of the other prestigious programs in Cali, it is careful to reiterate that filmmakers are there to find their voice, however unique and however daring.

So, I came out to view the campus…I’m still in the O.C actually (flying back to Laaandon Town tomorra afternoon). I was invited to the Women In Focus event being held at Chapman with; Martha Coolidge (Material Girls), Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight), Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry), Jocelyn Moorehouse (How To Make An American Quilt), Sanaa Hamri (The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2) and Penelope Spheeris (Wayne’s World) who will also be teaching at Chapman in the Fall, hell yes! Spheeris, Peirce and Coolidge totally stole the show with their quick witted hilarity, their controversial statements, their indepth insights and their tales of rogue antics and scenarios. Without sounding too Californ-IA, it was way, way, rad.

So, while I am melancholy about leaving…well everything behind, I’m incredibly excited and motivated to move forward from the rocky blows of the passed couple of years. My passion and my overwhelming dream is to translate how I feel into some form of filmic representation that might somehow provoke or move others in a way that helps them to feel part of a community and that one voice, however solitary can make a difference amidst a whole crowd of monotonous murmuring. 

One worry is…there are gays in the O.C right?? I saw a whole lot of conservative suburbia…they’re out there somewhere I’m sure…right?!

Okay, I’m really tired now. I’ll write some more when I get back home, it’s just turned 12.35 am and my trip has been a little to short to get over the jetlag. Sorry about the spelling mistakes, I’m sure it looks like I wrote this drunk. 

By the way, I was accepted into the AFI and waitlisted by UCLA. It’s an honour and privilege to have gotten so far and to have been held in high regard by all of these prestigious programs. If anyone out there has dreamed of getting into UCLA, AFI, USC, Chapman, NYU or Columbia apply and if you don’t get in, apply again and if you don’t get in, apply again and keep going until they say yes. Never, ever give up. I applied to a bunch of the schools above last year and I didn’t get in; I felt destroyed, humilated, deflated of self-worth and void of confidence in my abilities as a filmmaker but after wallowing for a couple of months, I picked myself back up, made another short and applied again. Getting into film (the industry, school or both), in any concentration is a long, hard slog…it already feels that way for me even though I am at the very, very early stage of my career but keep at it, even if your head is bleeding from ramming against that seemingly invincible brick wall, I promise you, it will crumble eventually and you will come through it, battered and beaten but the last one standing nevertheless. Wowza. Al Pacino. Any Given Sunday. Do I flatter myself? Me thinks I do.

Peace out, happy dreaming and I’ll catch up with you on the other side of the pond. Lordy, lord, bring on the Bloody Marys!! I hate, hate flying!!

x