Elena has been working in the film industry in the mid-Atlantic area of the U.S. since the late 1980’s. She was an intern in wardrobe on the set of the original film, “Hairspray” written and directed by Baltimore Director John Waters in 1987.
moreElena has been working in the film industry in the mid-Atlantic area of the U.S. since the late 1980’s. She was an intern in wardrobe on the set of the original film, “Hairspray” written and directed by Baltimore Director John Waters in 1987.
She spent the summer of 1990 working as the personal assistant to Kevin Bacon. While working for him she was also putting together a script, eventually titled Life After Lisa, which would later become her second web series.
In 1992 Elena joined the union I.A.T.S.E. Local 487 and started working in the craft services department for films and commercials. She was the Key Craft Services on many John Waters films including Pecker, Cecil B. Demented, and A Dirty Shame. She also filled the spot of Key Craft Services on all five seasons of the hit HBO Series, The Wire.
In 1998 she created her first web series, Jamie’s Way. She hired a local teen cast, including her god-daughter Krysten, and filmed four episodes. But back in 1998-2001 sites like YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Vimeo etc. barely existed, and it took forever to download video on the web. Still, the teen cast has their share of fans, and the site had 20,000 hits a day! How? “Pictures!” smiles Elena, “always updated with new pictures.”
In 2008, after The Wire ended, the work on film sets in the mid-Atlantic area became non-existent. Elena went back to New Media and created two more web series, Life After Lisa (based off the script she had started writing back in college) and Click On This, a lifestyle interview show.
Two webisodes of Life After Lisa were filmed in the Fall of 2008 and the web series became one of the first 11 web serials to be a New Media Signatory for the Writer’s Guild East.
Elena started filming webisodes of Click On This at the premiere of the movie Respire, and at the Baltimore Women’s Film Festival in 2009 and to date there have been over 200 episodes released with many more on the way!
In 2012 Elena created Chasing Brianna, a dramedy about a web cam house in Baltimore City. The pilot will be coming out in early August, 2012 and more episodes in the fall of 2012.
