I first became interested in filmmaking while I was a Fine Art major at University of Texas at Arlington in the 1980's. I saw a group of creative looking, very friendly students a bit older than me and asked who they were. "The filmmakers" came ...
moreI first became interested in filmmaking while I was a Fine Art major at University of Texas at Arlington in the 1980's. I saw a group of creative looking, very friendly students a bit older than me and asked who they were. "The filmmakers" came back the answer. Our college was unique in that the film dept. was within the art department. So you had many people who heard of our dept. head, Andy Anderson and want to be part of the film dept. who could not draw or paint but did so to get access to the classes in film. I was already into art totally but became a filmmaker too. I see it as an extension of my artist side. It is another way of expressing. The commerce side of it has had little interest to me.
In college I worked on a feature film, INTERFACE that our whole dept. made together. It starred Lou Diamond Phillips, who was a theatre major. He often chatted with me in the lounge are of our college and also starred Laura Lane who became Lauren Lane in the TV show-The Nanny.
I worked on my own films and others' films in college. I branched into animation and made a stop motion film and cell animated film using a Bolex. Working alone appealed to my introvert aspects.
After college I wandered a bit, going to Europe for 2 months and seeing Michelangelo's David and lots of other incredible art in Europe. I then wanted a change and ended up in Cleveland reading books by Camus, Malraux and Sartre, attending punk and industrial shows and getting miserable.
Making a change I returned to my parents in Texas and realizing that Sartre did not live in isolation as I had but had a lively social life and only wrote about aloneness and that I should never have followed his imagined path.
I then moved to Austin for the 2nd time with my good friend Dan. We went around to all the film companies asking for work. I said I could do camera work and they smiled and told me to start as a Production Assistant(PA). Dan and I attempted some filmmaking on our own but nothing much happened then. We had some auditions filled with drinking whiskey and I think it scared our potential actors.
I answered an ad and worked on a film SLACKER which ended up doing well for itself.
I worked as a PA for about one year-having some interesting experiences. My first paid gig I worked for a 2 Live Crew shoot. The woman in charge was a loud, bitchy, scrawny cat woman wearing leopard tights, her assistant smelled like onions. I was the van driver for the camera crew. At first cat woman yelled at me I was driving too fast so I slowed to a crawl and she yelled at me for that. We pulled up to a hotel and the camera crew got out to tape an interview with 2 Live Crew. A quiet woman got out and she was very nice and she noticed me being a punk and asked about it and that was how I got to meet Penelope Spheeris of DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION fame. We chatted on & off the rest of the night.
I then fell in love with my future husband and decided to not work in film anymore for my daily bread. I turned down a job as office PA on a Sissy Spacek film and went to work in academia. I tried several times to get jobs outside of academia if I found one I liked but was unsuccessful. Once you do the academia jobs many non-academia places point their nose up at you when they see you coming.
I have done AV, media and Production work at a medical school, hotels and a community college. Meanwhile I wanted to make a feature length film to prove my chops. Having very little money but a ton of self discipline I decided to make a film about the Dallas Fort worth punk scene. Since I had been a part of the punk scene I knew it would help me get in touch with people and I knew the subject matter. I started the film in 1995! I did research and got a motley crew together.
I finished the film in 2006! When I started it I thought it would take about 4 years! It's too long to go into but it was a helluva learning experience.
An earlier version of the film premiered at the Dallas Video festival in 2007. I re-edited a large portion of it and that screened in 2008 in LA at the Don't Knock the Rock music and video festival at the Silent Movie Theatre, A big highlight was getting to meet and communicate with Allison Anders of GAS, FOOD and LODGING fame, who invented/ran the festival. In 2009 the film did a sold-out show at Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas on a Monday night at 10:30pm. In 2010 it screened at the punk rock venue Conscientious Projector in 2010 and at The Greenhouse, resale/new boutique and show hall in 2011. Soon coming on DVD or pay perview!
Somewhere in here I gave birth to my son and took a long break from filmmaking. Happily I have a great kid who I spend tons of time with to make sure he grows up into a wonderful human being!
Meanwhile I make short videos on the side. A music video for the talented singer/songwriter Gary Graves, Souls' Day- a horror/mystery short and plan on making a secret film soon-shh it’s a secret. I also am writing more screenplays, short and feature length and do 3D animation and multimedia on the side.
I also collect old filmstrips and plan on screening some of them at some point in public.
