Ben and I leave tomorrow morning to head south to Los Angeles for round two of Red Moon shooting.
I'm very excited to get there and start working face-to-face with our Sirocco Research Lab chums. Lately our pre-production meetings have looked something more like this:
I hope to blog more often this time around, so keep your eyes on Breakfast for Dinner for up to date Red Moon production news. And stories. And gossip. And pictures of Ben in his underwear. And alllll that good stuff.
At some point I met the right people, I went to the right place at the right time, I told the right stories that got the right laughs and I managed to not trip and fall as I walked through some really big, oversized metal doors -- which all adds up to me finding out today that I got a job at the dreamy ad firm, Wieden+Kennedy, as a freelance project manager. I am shocked and excited, to say the least.
I was at the point only yesterday where I resolved to not settle for anything but HUGE here in Portland because I knew I wanted to spend more of my energy on the Sirocco Research Labs' film projects in LA. And that is when the universe chuckled to itself and said, "A-OK, Miss Reardon. Let me tell you a funny joke called Getting What you Wished For..." This really couldn't be more ideal, I'm now realizing. I will be working freelance at W+K while still having time and resources to jump down to LA for weekend shoots. And more importantly, the people at W+K are already big fans of SRL. I gushed about all my side projects in my interviews and got a big proverbial high five from everyone for making a werewolf movie. W+K seems to be an epicenter of all great side projects in Portland. Restaurants, films, art shows, bands, webisodes -- you name it, likely someone in that gorgeous building is working on it.
I leave for LA this week to finish shooting Red Moon and then when I get back it is go go go time for my very first real world big kid job at what will likely be one of the greatest play lands I have ever been lucky enough to stumble upon. No seriously, they have a human-size birds nest at the top of their atrium and they bring in premo bands for lunch time concerts in their salvaged lumber auditorium and there's a roof top patio that over looks the Pearl and there are dogs everywhere inside. Gush. Gush. Gush.
Beautiful building aside, these folks also really have their stuff figured out when it comes to creativity and pushing yourself to make bigger and better things. W+K has a motto or two that I couldn't agree with more. The first being the original proclamation of founders Dan Wieden and David Kennedy. "Don't act big, no sharp stuff, follow directions and shut up when someone is talking." Rules to live by.
And a more recent credo of W+K's is to "Fail Harder." Beautifully illustrated in their Portland office by way of more than 100,000 clear push pins.
This is going to be a fun and challenging gig, folks. For sure. I'll keep you updated.
Spread the word, mark it down, take note: Canary Sing is one of the hottest female hip hop groups you well ever know in your life. Ever.
Perhaps I'm bias because I adore the ladies of Canary Sing, good buddies Maddy and Hollis, but seriously they are fantastic. New tracks up on their MySpace. AND a fabulous new music video out for their song Freak Show. Directed by Wes Goodlife of the Kiss Kiss Goodnight production studio. Take a look:
I'm thinking my different groups of awesomely creative friends need to merge in the near future. Sirocco Research Labs / Canary Sing mashup?! The next CS music video featuring some handcrafted, dreamy aesthetic? !! Just sayin' ...
More crafting, more building, more messes, more sketching, more writing, more creativity.
Make more. 2010 will be my Year of Projects.
To kick it off, my first project of the year is a board that demands the making of more -- a to-do list chalkboard for our room. Ben and I have grown accustomed to giving our projects a home under one collective name -- The Department of Projects. We try to get at least one DOP project in everyday. It's like a pretend business, like when little kids play pretend grocery store, but our pretend business has a sewing machine, power tools and no bedtime.
Christmas came and went and my love for candy was rocketed to a new level of absurdity.
A month or three ago I made an off hand remark to Ben about how I really wish I had a Candy Safe. This may sound like a bizarre statement to those of you that don't know me well, but let me just say, I adore candy. I'm kind of obsessed. I can tell you which mini-marts in Portland carry Abba Zabbas and which ones carry apple flavored Zots. If anyone knows the true depth of my candy love, it is my other love, Ben Sellon. And thus, for Christmas 2009, Ben gave me my bestest gift ever. My very own Candy Safe!!
Why a Candy Safe you ask? Well, don't let the typical nature of a safe fool you -- this safe is not for hording or archiving treasured objects. On the contrary, this Candy Safe is for sharing. You see I have very strict beliefs on who in the world deserves candy. I hope, by way of my now securely locked Candy Safe, to control distribution of the best candy to all my friends. Jerks don't deserve candy. Come over to my place. If I like you, I'll pop out my Candy Key and we'll get our Abba Zabba on. If you are a jerk, stop being a jerk and maybe you'll get some candy.
Thank you Ben for helping me on my quest to give candy to nice people and nice people only. You get me.
