Tag: indie film

Been A While Hasn’t It?

Hello all,

Sorry I haven’t been as active as I was in the past. This year up until now has been a bit of a whirlwind. So why don’t I catch you up to speed.

January

I flew to the Philippines to visit family and while I was there, went to Thailand for fun – to take in the sites, culture, and most importantly the food. Granted I was in the PH for the same reason, well family and then food. Either way the trip was amazing, and it gave me a better appreciation for my culture as a 1st gen Filipino American.

February

A week and a half after I land from my trip overseas, and quite restless for work, I’m back at it coordinating a small commercial. I hadn’t realized how much I truly loved my work until I was thrown into it again. My job in production isn’t the most glamorous because we handle a lot of the accounting as well as making sure every human on set is taken care of, in terms of gear and such. As I said, not the most glamorous (since most people think that working in film is such a glamorous industry), but it’s quite satisfying – despite the long hours and endless emails.

From there, I was recommended and landed a job that would become a huge career move, UPM’ing (unit production managing) an extremely low budget feature. I have been told this multiple times and I will always relay it those that do not typically work in features,

Features are a beast in and of themselves. There are days where you will feel helpless and hopeless. And some days you may even want to cry. You just have to learn to make the chaos zen and the rest will be easy.

It’s the best words of wisdom I had ever received since I began working in this industry.

March

Going into principal photography of the feature. Prep becoming more and more intense as the day grows closer and closer. I will not say this feature was easy. It was challenging as f*ck. I had my fair share of egos and challenging personalities and fires that needed to be put out in order to make the entire shoot go by smoothly. Despite all of that, I did learn quite a lot. Most importantly, I learned what kind of leader I was and how to be one.

April

Finished shooting the first block, and going into our second block of filming. Where? Middle of no man’s land, Palmdale/Lancaster. That was definitely an experience. A place I don’t necessarily will go back to on my own free time. But hey, first business trip? Woo, I suppose. Always got to look to the silver lining right?

A week after I officially wrap, I pick up a day playing gig on a show and reunite with the people I typically work with. I made the wish that I was going to coordinate commercials after the feature… Little did I know that my wish was going to come true.

Looking back, April was probably my most active. In total, I worked on three different shows. UPM on a feature. PA (production assistant) on a series. APOC (assistant production coordinator) on a branded content (essentially a commercial) video.

That commercial was intense. I can’t talk about it much, but all I can leave you with is that it was intense. The show moved so fast the minute I had hopped on. My email was blowing up like there was no tomorrow. And the lovely wrap binder was growing to the point that it looked like I needed to buy another one.

And the adventures that await this month?

I’m still waiting on the official offer, but my summer is going to be completely booked. However, while I wait for that I’m currently coordinating a pilot that’s shooting approximately 20 minutes away from my house! My commute for once is going to be 20 minutes away! That’s simply unheard of! As you can tell, I’m quite excited about this commute.

And then I’m finally taking a much needed break in the east coast to visit my best friend and then family. But I’m getting ahead of myself, that’s next month.

Anyways that’s all I have for now. Sorry again for not writing as much as I used to, but as you can see I’ve been keeping myself quite busy. Here’s hoping it stays that way for the rest of the year!

Alright, until next time!

May 21, 2018
My 2017 in Review
I’m sure you can tell that this type of post is going to be a yearly post.

Well let me tell you, this has been one hell of a year. Definitely full of ups and downs, I’d like to think that it was more ups than downs. To be honest, thinking about it now I don’t really remember what my goals and resolutions were for the year. With that being said, I do feel like I accomplished quite a bit this year.

So let’s review this year shall we?

JANUARY
- Started off the year in New York with my mom’s side of the family – had a white Christmas and New Year
- Did an adult thing and got myself a gym membership
- Started working for the school for my last semester as a coordinator on shoots and a student assistant in the classroom.
FEBRUARY
- I reconnected with an old boss and got to work on a spec pilot that I recently learned is going to Sundance, which is really exciting!
MARCH
- I signed on to be a Line Producer to a ULB (ultra low budget) short in July
- Took a spontaneous trip with the family to the central coast #whereintheworldisMichelle
MAY
- Coordinated my first PSA (and got a spot as an extra 😉
- Graduated from college
- Watched U2’s Joshua Tree Anniversary tour
JUNE
- Worked on my first commercial and television series
JULY
- All Time Low’s Young Renegade concert – got introduced to a new band (Waterparks – if you haven’t listened to them, you should go and check them out)
- Production for short
- Travelled to Solvang to decompress from the short I had Line Produced
AUGUST
- Worked on Jameson First Shot – first APOC (assistant production coordinator credits!)
- Signed on to be a UPM (Unit Production Manager) for a short shot in November
SEPTEMBER
- Worked wrap out on a YouTube series
- Worked on a reality shoot – I was a walking disclaimer for a cool minute
- Visited my best friend in Washington #whereintheworldisMichelle
OCTOBER
- Worked on a feature for the entire month (yay being employed for a month)
- Went to the Rams vs. Seahawks game
- Saw Tom Hanks do a promo for his book – thanks to NPR
NOVEMBER
- Wrap out of the feature
- Prep, shoot and wrap out of a short
DECEMBER
- Saw Tommy Wiseau in person for a screening of “The Room” at the Egyptian theatre
- Worked on my first music videos (two in one shoot) – the exciting part about this job? I was the Coordinator!
- Did a holiday horror double feature (also at the Egyptian) – and went on a general adventure for the rest of the night afterwards
- Went to my first ballet, The Nutcracker (and I got to put a new coat of mine to the test)
I feel the downs that I experienced weren’t that many. If anything I would say, the few (three days to one week) breaks that I would get, I would start to get bored and question my ability to do a job because I wasn’t working. But then again I feel like that happens to most people who work freelance.

Just a word of advice to newcomers to the freelance film world…

Don’t be down because you’re not getting work. Just keep applying and hustling and sooner or later you’ll land a job. And remember: no job is too small. Don’t think that you’re better than being a PA, everyone starts somewhere. And remember, don’t let your mistakes define you. Apologize, then do better.

With that being said, and me explaining how my year was, how was your’s? Feel free to comment below!
December 19, 2017
What are you thankful for Michelle?

The typical answer is always: health, home, family friends, food (aka everything stated in the featured image – which is also not my image)

**UPDATE: This is my 20th post woot woot!

Whenever someone is asked that question, and I’m guilty of this too, I don’t think they really think about this question too hard. Mainly because they starved themselves the whole day knowing they have a fat meal waiting for me, which again is also something I’m guilty of. However, this year I figured I would really explore my answer to that question.

So what are you thankful for this year?

Everything, to be honest. I’ve been lucky enough to work in an industry I thought was going to be a pipe dream. Instead two years ago, I was lucky enough to meet my mentors while interning on a feature. And since then, they’ve given me the opportunities to help me grow within my department. And starting this year, not even a year out of college, I got to move up from being a production assistant to being an assistant production assistant (APOC), coordinator (POC), unit production manager (UPM) and line producer on ultra low budget shows.

I’m extremely thankful for where I am in my career now. And thankful to everyone who has supported me along the way. My career journey doesn’t stop here, and I don’t plan on stopping any time soon. Just keep on following and we can both see where tinsel town is going to take me.

With that little blurb on what I’m thankful I’ll leave my comments open for you. So tell me, what are you thankful for this year?

November 23, 2017
A quick and easy recipe for filmmaking
No pictures this time. Just words.

I feel like a good majority of the time that I post anything on my blog it’s mainly going to be 20/20 hindsight. To be fair though, I did get this just through my second day of working on this show.

Now I’m not going to go do a bullet point list of everything that went wrong whilst working on this. But I am going to give just a warning for those of you who want to go into filmmaking.

FILMMAKING TAKES A LOT OF PREPARATION BEFORE ACTUAL EXECUTION.

Anyone who tells you otherwise, is either lucky, or an idiot. If there’s one thing I learned from working in production there’s five steps in the filmmaking process:
1. Pre Production
2. Prep
3. Production
4. Wrap
5. Post Production
Those are probably going to go against what you learned in school. But if you work in production (the department I mean) then you know what these steps entail.

Now most of you may think that Pre Production and Prep should go hand in hand, when in reality they go one right after the other. In prepro you need to make sure you have the funding and schedule locked down. No exceptions. Except for the schedule, because that can always change. Funding, however, can not. This is where the line producer will come in. They will prepare a prelim budget to run with the producers and the producers will then try to see if they can cut anything or make the budget work and try to get the money. If you’re reading this and suddenly have the idea that this is the post where you will learn where to get funding, I hate to break it to you. But this isn’t that kind of post. Think of this as more of a recipe for filmmaking.

So important things that need to be locked down in pre production:
- Funding
- Schedule
Once you’ve locked down those two things then you can go into prep. Now this stage is just simple execution of your (or the line producer’s) budget. This is where you make sure you button up EVERYTHING. I do not know how else I can stress the importance of this stage. In prep you lock down the following:
- Talent
- Crew (incl. post production – but can be locked down during shoot)
- Scheduling
- Department needs
- Locations
Like I said, this is where you button up EVERYTHING. Now this stage can take from as little as two weeks to two months. Preferably, two months just because of talent and locations.

Once you feel comfortable enough that prep is all good and ready to go (even if you’re not because your shoot days will not move because you do not feel comfortable enough) you will then move on to the production stage. Some departments may think that production is probably one of the hardest stages in filmmaking. Which don’t get me wrong each department has their own challenges and I understand why production is challenging. But for Production, this is the easiest. Why? Because, like prep, it’s all about execution, execution, and execution. To be honest, once you pass prep it’s all a breeze from there. Production and wrap are the easiest stages. The main thing to keep in mind if you work production is that during this stage, you need to always make sure your crew is happy. An unhappy crew means an unhappy shoot. But you should do that with everyone not just crew, but it’s important to remember that they are the ones who put in man power to help make the film what it is.

Now once you’re done with shooting, it’s important (if you’re not doing payroll) to take a breather before going into wrap. Take a few days, a week even, either way take as much time as you need depending on how intense the shoot was before going into wrap. Why is this important? Because you’ll be drowning in paperwork. And you deserve to take a breather, if anything, you deserve to refresh yourself after x amount of 12-14hour days. This is the stage where you make sure all of your accounting is updated and ready to hand off to the accountant. This is where you close all your vendor accounts. Make sure your logs are up to date. And, if you’re like me, make sure everything can be found both digitally and physically in a wrap binder. Wrap should never take any longer than a month – but again this is also depending on how big of a show you were running.

Well, I guess this is the most wisdom I can bestow upon you for now. Please feel free to like, share, comment any other pearls of wisdom you may have about filmmaking here. Or if you have any soecific questions about it (because I know I only really spoke about it vaguely) feel free to comment or contact me via the contact page and I’ll answer them as fast as I can! Now go out there and shoot (film) something!
November 2, 2017
That’s A Wrap on The Only People

So I just wrapped up my first ULB show as the Line Producer. And I have to say it was most definitely a learning experience. The amount of fires I had to put out was ridiculous. But I am happy to have this experience under my belt and see that I really am capable of being a Line Producer. I do have some more learning to do, but I mean who doesn’t? I’m also happy to have been able to work with old friends and meet new ones. Hopefully the people I brought on to this show, also learned or got something out of this show too.

When I first went into this show, I couldn’t help but feel a bit intimidated just because I had never managed a show this big. But as the show went from prep to production and eventually into wrap, I couldn’t help feel that this was what I was meant to do in film. As most of you know, I weirdly love logistics. There’s just something so soothing and therapeutic (most times) when you look and organize everything.

Production will always be my home and honestly, I couldn’t have done it without the help of my mentors who have taught me everything I know when it comes to production.

I first started in entertainment four years ago as a PA and eventually produced my own stuff. And then I took some time off to really focus on finishing school. It wasn’t until last summer where I started taking on more work and juggling school in the process. Going into March I took on my first coordinating shoot on a PSA for the OCDA’s office. From there I went into becoming a department head for this shoot. It really does show you that if you really want something and will put the time and effort into getting it. You’ll eventually move up and get rewarded for your hustle.

Until the next show guys!

July 31, 2017
LA Cine Fest Semi Finalist Woo!

Hello all!

I know it’s been a while since I last posted anything, but I’m excited to announce that Because I Love You (2016) is a Semi Finalist at LA Cine Fest!

Exciting stuff right!? So I had the privilege to work on this amazing short film a little over a year ago. This project is one of my more meaningful projects because of the message behind the film.

The film itself is about Audrey (Diana Diaz) who after escaping her abusive ex boyfriend (Derrick Dover) falls into a spiral of depression and paranoia. Her mother (Paula Lauzon) pushes her farther by conveying a message from Derrick asking for another chance. Audrey’s cousin, Charlotte (Stephanie Mills), wants to help her out of this vicious cycle, but only she can help herself when her nightmare comes to visit.

We will learn if we’re finalist by hopefully the end of next week. So keep an eye out for more announcements regarding this beautiful short film 🙂

May 14, 2017
WTF!? – Nessa Knows (S01E01)

Hi all,

Sorry I haven’t been posting lately. If you’ve been keeping up with my via social media, you can see that I’m (currently as I write this post) 13 days away from graduation! Woo! Exciting stuff guys!

Well during this semester, I’ve been keeping very busy. I produced a pilot on youtube (for a class), coordinated a PSA for the Orange County D.A’s office, producing a short to be filming at the end of July, all while juggling exams, papers and projects. So, yeah – been staying pretty busy.

Anywho, there is one project that I had wrapped back in the beginning of April that I never got a chance to write about. So I’m going to write about it now.

Over the semester, I had the chance of co-showrunning a pilot for YouTube called Nessa Knows. The show itself is about a Vanessa (played by Alexandria Lewis), a senior in high school, who learns that she has a unique gift of reading minds, but her insight becomes both a gift and curse. She soon realizes the world is full of stereotypes, and learns the true nature of the people she interacts with everyday.

Long story short, this show was fairly difficult to run because, unfortunately we had a difficult personality on the crew that kept holding us back. However, she did pull through with production. Not so much during wrap and post. But what are you going to do? You deal with it, work around it, and move on.

On the upside, the final product turned out to be pretty good. I’ve attached a link below 🙂 And for our final we’ll be making an indiegogo campaign for the show. So if you like the pilot, you can keep an eye out for that!

Well, enough of my rambling. On to my next piece of good news! Post to follow shortly after! 🙂

May 14, 2017
Set Daze

Just wrapped up another shoot. And as always I loved every minute of it. I know that I work in the Production Office the whole time and pretty much handle paperwork for most of my day during production, but I’m not complaining. To be honest I really love it. I know what you’re thinking. You’re probably thinking, “if you love paperwork so much why don’t you just work a 9-5 like most people?” And my answer is because I will most likely not have the same amount of love for that job, that I have for this. I know that if I did that, I would have hated coming into work. I would have always just dreaded the day until I got off. Yes the hours on set are long, but it doesn’t feel that way. Well not to me at least.

I also think I’m getting a better handle on being an Office PA too. And I’m hoping that within the next few months I might be able to move up to Production Secretary or APOC (Asst Prod Office Coord) and then eventually become a Line Producer/UPM.

What I love most about film production jobs is that they’re not all the same. The job’s never the same. There’s always something new to learn. AND I’m not stuck in the same location every time. Maybe that’s what scares a lot of people from not pursuing a career in the arts. Because there’s not stability in it. And most people out there, want the stability you know?

Well that’s all I have to say. I hope you enjoyed reading this as well as looking at my lovely pictures too. I try to keep it interesting for you, don’t want to let it all just be boring text you know? 😉

Until the next job, this is Michelle signing off…

February 24, 2017
Champagne is up for Summer 2016

This entire summer has been one hell of a ride. Definitely got more hands on learning with the industry. I got to intern on two features and a digital series. PA on a commercial and a feature. And produce (well in the process of producing) a short film. All while interning at a small production company out in Studio City. Yeah… one hell of a ride and many hours of sitting in that infamous Los Angeles traffic.

I have definitely been blessed to be given all of these opportunities that have helped me learn and guide me through the belly of this beast we call show business. What I love most about entertainment is that nothing will ever truly be the same job. It’s constantly changing and evolving and well you have to learn to adapt or get eaten alive.

This past project that I got to Office PA for was definitely the job that kicked my ass in terms of learning experiences. This was my first real taste of being an Office PA. And to be completely honest, I loved every minute of it. Sure the job is tough and it royally kicked my ass but I’ll be coming out of it with more knowledge that I can bring to other jobs.

I feel that when it comes to learning or preparing for the jobs that you want in entertainment it’s all based on experience. Sure you can buy all the books and go to all the classes, but really there is nothing like being thrown into the ring and getting down.

I remember when I stepped onto the set of my first feature I was shadowing the UPM (Unit Production Manager) and I asked her, “Is there anything you can tell me that I should know to prepare to be a UPM, Line, Coordinator, etc.” And she told me that there’s nothing she could really tell me except that you just learn from the different shows you get on. Each show is different. And you just learn to adapt and go from there. Another discouraged me from going down that road because all you do is paperwork. And I told him that as strange as this is going to sound I actually like paperwork. There’s a strange solace for me just knowing that I understand everything that I read. I like dealing with logistics more than creative. I think it’s mainly because I’m having a hard time creating so I’d rather help with the process of creating something. That and I also feel that there’s just too much pressure to be creative now. Everyone is creating something. But no one is truly going out there and creating anything.

From that first feature I had landed my first industry internship where I got to see what it was like to work for a small production company. My experience here was and will truly be invaluable. I learned so much of what goes into creating a show, from prep to production. As well as what it takes to run a small independent production company.

While working there I had managed to get onto a commercial which then led to my second feature, both of which I had Set PA’d for, and then finally hopping on to my third feature while developing my fourth short film.

Views from the third.

I learned so much over the summer and I will never forget what I’ve learned and who I’ve met in the process and what they taught me.

And just like every “champagne” shot called, there is always this bittersweet feeling of knowing that something has come to a close. But with every new end is the start of a wonderfully unknown beginning. Fall 2016 I’m ready to see what you have in store for me.

August 26, 2016
I do many things “Because I Love You” and abuse is not one of them.

As of 15 June 2016 at 11:00AM, my chapter entitled the above title has officially come to a close.

It has been quite a journey and a little bittersweet to say the least on closing this chapter of my life. Throughout the process I could see that I have truly grown into my skill set as a short film producer. But it is not only that, I feel as if I have grown as a person working on this film. I have grown sympathetic and more compassionate towards women who have gone through abusive relationships. Trauma like that never truly leaves the victim, or survivor, but with some time and reflection they learn to cope and move on as best as they can.

The film itself is about a woman on her journey towards self healing after an abusive relationship. She is haunted by the past of her abusive ex boyfriend and must finally confront what has happened to her in order to regain control of her life.

Being able to see all of the hard work that the cast and crew put into this film and finally being able to see it on the big screen was definitely something else.

And now we’re onto the 2016-2017 film festival circuit! Will keep you all posted! Wish us luck!

June 17, 2016