On Top of the World – New Scene

On Top of the World: I shot a new scene for my demoband with just three other colleagues: Mykyta Gibalenko as director and DOP, Ben Reynolds as the other actor and Chris Rauch on sound. Believe it or not, that’s really all it takes to put a film together. Well, that and motivation. And speaking of motiviation, why you may wonder do I even go to the trouble? It’s true I do shoot quite a lot but projects (at least mine) seem to get tied up forever in post. That means, I don’t get to get my impatient little hands on anything new in a timely manner. This can be a real drag when you’re trying to show off what you can do.

I actually love doing short films and scenes and would like to do many more. Of course,  it can be a lot of work. But, in the end its worth it because you are the one in charge and you can decide exactly how to cast yourself. In this case, I have used the role of Judth (the name of my character) to reiterate my “type”. Judith is an ambitious lawyer, on top of her game and seemingly the world as well. But is she really…? Bum, bum, bum!

 

Here are a few screenshots from the shoot. I think Mykyta did a beautiful job.

Sky Sharks!

I will be joining the cast of Sky Sharks, a horror comedy directed by Marc Fehse.

Synopsis:
A team of Arctic geologists stumble across an abandoned laboratory in which the Nazis developed an incredible and brutal secret weapon during the final months of WW2. Deep in the ice, they accidentally awake a deadly army of flying zombie sharks ridden by genetically mutated, undead super-humans, who are unleashed into the skies, wreaking their bloodthirsty revenge on any aircraft that takes to the air. An elite task force is assembled to take on this deadly threat and stop the Sky Sharks from conquering the air, but as time runs out, the task force realizes they will have to fight fire with fire, and the stage is set for the greatest flying super-mutant zombie shark air battle the world has ever seen….

Now if that doesn’t sound like a whole bunch of messy fun, I don’t know what does. As an actress, this is an opportunity to just let loose and have an unbridled good time. We start filming next in September.

Actress Self Tape for a Rom Com

As an actress, it’s important to always be honing my skills. There are a couple of ways to do this. 1) You either do it on set which is not always conducive to experimentation or 2) you take a workshop. I must say, when the coach is good, I love a good workshop but most of these workshops focus on your performance skills. I started taking an online self-tape workshop with Greg Apps, a casting director from Sydney Australia which I am enjoying immensely because he’s introduced me to an entirely new way to think about how I put myself on tape – and that is from the point of a casting director. Surprisingly, that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with your acting ability. It’s all about how to be surprising and standout. I mean, think about it. The casting directors look at the same scenes all day long. They can probably recite the lines themselves. So you’ve got to do something to makes yourself stand out from the rest of the actors. The way to be entirely unique is to be yourself.

I always try and find the similarities within the characters I play to myself. We all have thousands of facets inside of us that are cut and polished based on our life’s circumstances. If you keep that in mind, it’s not too hard to find the things you share. This is important because then you are being true to yourself and the character and in doing so, will be entirely unique.

I usually get cast in really heavy, dramatic things (which I love) but Greg has introduced me to another side of my acting persona and that’s the comedian. I had an absolute blast doing this Rom Com self-tape. My son, Marc, who loathes helping me, even had fun. I’d love to get your feedback.

 

 

Escape the Series

Wesley Howard is the creator, writer and director of a new series called, “Escape”. It’s wonderfully written with a brave and endearing hero named Pablo. I play Diane who is Pablo’s lover. The series is a unique take on a difficult theme – that of sex trafficking. In spite of the heavy theme there is still quite a lot of levity written into it to help alleviate some of the horror. We will begin filming in September and I can’t wait.

The Wild, Wild West in Bavaria

This month I had a chance to work of something very unique: a short film entitled “Mama’s Coffin” about America’s Old West. It was produced for the University of Film and Television, or the HFF as its known here in Munich, and directed by Moritz Schloegell. I had no idea that there’s actually a thriving community of Old West fans here in Bavaria and they were kind enough to supply the costumes and location for one of the scenes. Here’s a peek at the full costume I got to wear.

I love it! This was the first time I got to wear a costume from an era that I didn’t live through myself. I played Abigail Boone, an embittered woman too disappointed with her son to show him any kind of affection – which I have to say – is truly about as far away from the real me as you can get. But, it was a blast to play!

Title: Mama’s Coffin, Directed by: Moritz Schloegell, DOP: Markus Schindler, Producer: Matthias Ring, Costume: Tamara Müller

Shoot with Photographer Nishit Joshi

Nishit Joshi is a photographer from India who recently moved to Munich where I was lucky enough to shoot my new portraits with him. He really understands how light plays on a woman’s face and he was incredibly humble and easy to work with. Here are some of my favorites from our recent shoot.

New Portraits with Photographer Gordon Meissner

Man o man, did I have a fun time shooting with Gordon Meissner in Berlin! It started with Johnny Jo, an amazing makeup artist based in Berlin who made me look beautiful but not too made up – not an easy task, but so important for actors’ portraits. Take a look, this was the picture we snapped when he was done. 

Then we walked over to my empty apartment in Xberg and took full advantage of the summer sun! I got so many good shots out of our shoot! Here are a few of my favorites all done with natural light. Gordon is soooo talented!!!

JJ Schreibt Interviews Me for His Blog

Last week I had the please of being interviewed by Joerg Joachim for his blog. Joerg is a great interviewer and an evocative writer, able to conjure of a mood with just a few words. He asked me lots of probing questions and frankly, got a few things out of me that I hadn’t planned on saying. “What?” you ask, well you’ll just have to read the article! Oh, one caveat — it’s in German.