The Good and Bad in LA...

What an eventful couple of days here:

1. Mamitas, one of my thesis films I edited, won the top prize at the Angelus film festival (http://www.angelus.org/) for $10,000!!! And, it gets to go screen at the Sundance Film Festival. I'm so going to Park City this year. =GOOD

2. Mamitas and my other thesis, The Line are both screening at the Directors Guild of America (DGA) in October for industry people and the like. This is kinda a big deal, so the school is paying for them both to go to a 35mm film print. Big time stuff for a student film. = GOOD.

3. Going to film is a technical nightmare for the workflow we have at school. And with two of my movies going to film, that's double work. Plus it's stuff I spent many sleepless nights during the last school year doing, so I just feel like, I've done this all before. It needs to be re-done because the school decided to wipe the drives that all our stuff was saved on. I feel like the amount of work I have to do in the amount of time is almost impossible. Plus, I'm not getting paid for the work. =BAD.

4. The Indie feature I was working on before the money ran out, had another day of work for me today. I get to make DVD's of the rough cut, so I get to see the result of all the footage I sunk (put sound and picture together) and organized in the computer. Pretty cool. =GOOD.
However, there is still all that work I have to do down in Orange hanging over my head. =BAD.

If anyone wants to see some excerpts from the movies I've cut in my years at Chapman, you can visit my website at: www.melissaannbrown.com
Let me know what you think. It's pretty basic, but it's my first attempt and I'm using some pretty rigid web building tools, which make some cosmetic things difficult.

When the view from your apartment is a brick wall...

Make it better...

I spent all weekend, painting this piece of wood, which I saved from my old bed frame. I feel pretty crafty and a whole lot like my mom.


Napoleon being sweet by the plants...


Ray telling him not to bite the plants...


Napoleon, not listening at all.

It Never Rains in LA!

Wow, finally weather different from warm and sunny to warmer and sunnier. The rain these past two days has been fabulous. It's always funny to see people outside right after the rain starts, looking toward the sky with their mouths open. People, do you know how much crap is in that rain? Think of the days where you can't see the mountains because the smog is so bad. That's what you are drinking. You can thank your mouth cancer on the blond bimbo driving the Hummer.

The View from the Balcony

This next portion for Anne, and for anyone else who wants to hear about how adorable my cat, Napoleon, is. Since Napoleon's scratching post look-out is placed in the corner of the big picture window of the apartment, he has taken to greeting the neighbors as they walk by. Occasionally we will hear people say hi to him as they pass and he sometimes replies with a meow. Last night as Ray and I were heading out, a neighbor was coming home and said that he loves our cat and if we ever go out of town he would love to cat-sit. I didn't mention that Napoleon likes to bite.
Napoleon sleeping, not greeting, on his perch:


Here he is out of the apartment, checking out the rain. The first time he's seen it in his life.

So cute you might throw up.


The little girl next door loves to talk to Napoleon through the window. Here they meet in person:

Hello you...

So good to meet you face-to-face.

Hmm... Well, if you promise not to grab me suddenly, I might come back.

It's a beautiful thing

I knew Los Angeles wasn't all bad. I found a cafe with free Internet. Yes, you heard me, free! None of this pay $3.50 for a latte and then $4.00 for a T-Mobile connection for an hour, where 15 minutes of that is spent figuring out the password and user ID and blah blah blah. Nope, not here. The coffee is served in plain white cups and there are bookshelves filled with paperbacks and art for sale on the walls and when you open your computer a message pops up and asks, "would you like to join the Cafe Marco wireless Internet?" Yes, yes I would like to join, thanks for asking so politely Cafe Marco. So, I click yes and like magic, the bars on my Internet connection are full. Just like that. It's a beautiful thing. A beautiful thing to do for people who want to sit around and write screenplays and look for jobs and maybe read a few chapters in a book and then get back online. No worries about time running out. If these walls could talk, they'd say, "it's cool man, relax, just do your thing." Cafe Marco is cool.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, Starbucks is not cool. They are the antithesis of cool. They are as corporate as they come. They are wolves dressed in hippie clothing tricking you into thinking you are cool for visiting their establishment. I'm going to make this statement here and now, so I stick to it: I will not be buying Starbucks coffee anymore. This is hard for me, since I've turned into one of those who gets a headache if not enough coffee is consumed in a day and with Starbucks everywhere, it's very convenient to just stop in, even if it's, "just this one time." However, this attitude is what has lead to Starbucks being built across the street from...Starbucks. This happened down the street in my old neighborhood. Starbucks bought my favorite coffee shop, which had free Internet, and turned it into a Starbucks, when directly across from it was already a...Starbucks. Both places, you need a T-Mobile account to get online. This needs to stop. Viva La Revolution!

Another cool point about Cafe Marco: it's within walking distance to my apartment.
Also, it has delicious fresh pastries, not stale ones, (eh hem, I'm looking at you Starbucks).

Ok, I'm signing off since I'm pretty sure I'm now on the Starbucks hit list. If I mysteriously disappear or if a sniper rifle...you know...I trust you to take over the revolution.

Making your way in the world today...

So, I'm back on the job market, which, FYI, sucks in LA. Everyone here has a lot of money, which I have determined by the fact that I usually find myself driving next to some obnoxious guy in a Lamborghini, with a comb-over and a hot broad in the passenger seat...or some dumb blond in a giant Hummer. I hate seeing some girls perfectly done French manicure on the steering wheel of a Hummer. So, where do they get their money? It's not like people around here work. People are everywhere at all times of the day. Traffic sucks at noon and just sucks worse at 5. So clearly people ARE making money and therefore there has to be positions open, like the jobs that people AREN'T doing whilst shopping at the Beverly Center per say. Well, fingers crossed that I'll get an interview for that celebrity website editor position.

Starting...

I need coffee before I can start this...

in Paris...

Oooh Paris...


That's what I need...

Coffee in Paris, spectacular Paris, with Ray...