Monthly Archives: August 2010

by Becki | August 22, 2010 · 10:55 am

Summer Filming: Day 5

I’m terribly sorry about being so behind on this! I’m recapping yesterday tonight, then I’ll try to find tomorrey to do two blogs and catch you all up on filming.

Yesterday started off in Orange. We were filming in the backyard of a local house.

Gorgeous yard! Perfect for a party 🙂

The lovely Jenny made peanut butter, nutella and banana sandwiches for crafty. We are all indebted to her awesome chef-ing.

This was the day known around set as, “the makeout day”. It seriously consisted of me attacking my costar for about two hours and mauling his face off. I didn’t mind. Neither did he.

Lunch was the most amazing that we’ve had on set to date (at least in my opinion). As you all should know by now, I enjoy having food in cups. It’s more compact, easier to balance, and contains just about the perfect size serving for me.

Chicken in a cup!

This had about 1/2 of a cup of kale (!!!) salad, 1/8 of a cup of wild rice, and a roasted chicken drumstick. After going through life without kale, it’s suddenly begun to rain upon my head! It really does taste like a very leafy broccoli. I dig it.

After some more making out, we all wrapped for the day and headed up to Burbank where we began filming today. We made a stop at a thai restaurant for a ridiculously late dinner at 11:30pm.

Arunee House in Burbank.

Jocelyn, our on-set photographer, and Chelsea, set decorator/designer.

Malachi, dolly grip extraordinaire, and Dan, who should be editing our film.

Coco, our key grip, Jenny, our producer/makeup artist/on set mother, and Boa, our DP.

Scott, the writer/director of our film. He doesn’t like any food except for cheese pizza, and was bitter that we’d taken him here.

I got the panang curry with chicken and brown rice. Their recipe was very heavy on the peanuts, and ridiculously creamy, which I LOVED. Plus, brown rice makes everything healthy in my mind.

I enjoy blackmailing Malachi. It makes my day.

We were the last people in the restaurant after they closed, and they were still kind enough to give us all free ice cream! LOVE this place!

At first we couldn’t understand why they gave us free dolls. These are the most random pens ever!

That sums up yesterday! I got back to the apartment I’m staying at around 12:30am, and found out that my show, “Left at the Altar” had been airing all evening. Luckily I got my parents to DVR it since I don’t have access to a television now. Too bad production didn’t let my costar or me know it was going to be on! Rawr! If you want to see it, it should be doing a few reruns for awhile. My character is “Valerie”, and I believe we’re the last 15 minute segment of the hour on TLC.

Today was an amazing day, but you’ll just have to wait until tomorrey for me to catch you up, because I’m exhausted and have another early call in the morning. Have I mentioned how much I love my life?

I LOVE MY CREW!

3 Comments

Filed under filming, makeout, on set, short film, Summer Cambell, thai food

by Becki | August 20, 2010 · 8:28 am

Summer Filming: Day 4.5

I slept SO much last night. I crashed around 9pm and didn’t wake up once until 8:30am. My body is slowly forgiving me for the past few days. I woke up this morning and had an amazing, lovely, cleansing Monsta.

Don’t know exactly what’s in here, but there was TONS of spinach and lots of frozen cherries.

For lunch I had a slice of pesto pizza from Trader Joe’s.

It was difficult for me to finish this piece. My stomach has shrunk from being on set, and not in a good way. I’ve dropped five pounds since beginning filming. Five pounds in four days is very, very bad. I’m trying to even out my diet and eat regularly while on set.

I headed out for some pickups around 1pm, and got to set around 3pm. I had some time to kill before the crew arrived, so I read my latest book, Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay, next to the lake.

Cormorant? Duck? Mutated chicken?

When the crew arrived (the crew consisted of 5 people, because we were shooting guerilla style in desperation to catch the light), we first sat down for a picnic, provided by the lovely producer, Jenny.

Spinach salad with avocado and cherry tomatoes, turkey, lettuce, light muenster cheese and cherry tomato sandwiches, and pomegranate juice mixed with sparkling water. She is the best on-set mother ever 🙂

We reshot the last scene of the film from a few different angles, this time not fighting the sun, and it turned out really well. David and I happened upon some awesome bloopers.

For all of you who asked, here’s what I can tell you about the movie and my role in it. “A teenage girl plots revenge on the guy she likes after he humiliates her.” The movie is called “Summer Campbell”. I play the teenage girl, June Campbell, whose two best friends (who are twins) help her wreak havoc and revenge on the popular guy who humiliates her. It’s a short film that is written and directed by the incredibly talented Scott Sullivan. I’m telling you all, this guy is going BIG! I’ve never read such a hilarious, insightful script. If you have more specific questions, please ask in comments! I’ll answer with more detail :).

On the way to my car, I got attacked by a wild peacock.

Not really. It saw me whip out the camera and booked it. Peacocks do not appreciate paparazzi.

We wrapped for the short day, then headed over to a liquor store to pick up some supplies for the night. I found and bought some Concannon Merlot, which I first tried at JJ Brewsky, and am now having a glass while hanging with the amazing crew.

Malachi likes to share with me.

Now, we’re all hanging out, prepping callsheets for tomorrey and enjoying each others’ company. I love these people.

Tomorrow will involve a lot of making out. That’s about it… My life is so, so difficult :-D. I’m off to eat a slice of pizza and hang out with these amazing people.

Ask me anything. I’ll answer, now that I know how much I can share :).

5 Comments

Filed under filming, green monster, on set, pesto, picnic, pizza, sandwiches, short film, Summer Cambell

by Becki | August 19, 2010 · 6:07 am

Summer Filming: Day 4

I can’t believe filming is already halfway over! Sadness :(. These always seem to fly by too quickly. So to recap…

I got to go home on Monday night, and woke up Tuesday morning to this! My roommate is amazing.

I was hoping to sleep in on Tuesday, but got a last minute audition for 10am, so I was up at 7:30am to prep. Yay. The audition went really well: I had to play a 15 year-old (!!!), and afterwards I met up with my friend, Tanya at Lemonade!

I haven’t seen this girl since March! Missed you!!!

I got 1 portion, split in half, with sweet potatoes and pistachio, and watermelon radish, ahi tuna, snap peas and sesame seeds, with a blueberry-mint lemonade. YUM!

After a lovely, long lunch filled with delicious food and a LOT of catching up, we parted ways. I headed over to Barnes and Noble to kill some time before I met my carpool to head to set.

I bought a book of crossword puzzles from the bargain shelf.

Ahhh, the Grove. My old stomping grounds.

I met up with my carpool buddy and we headed out to Dockweiler Beach for filming.

It was crowded! Lots of bonfires.

Yaaaaaah macro! My camera is my hero!

David running lines. Or being obsessed with his iPhone. One of the two… 😛

Aw, I love us :).

We were right next to LAX. We had at least 100 flights going out and flying in throughout the night.

Artsy!

Sunset. Happiness.

One of my favorites of the night.

We started filming around 7:30pm, and spent the entire night/morning out there.

This is a shot the the on-set photographer Jocelyn took. Check out her amazing photography here!

Everything was going amazingly well, and we were all hyped up and wired until about 3am. Then this happened:

Poor, sleepy Madi!

So, we started when the sun set, and ended the day with the sunrise.

Double happiness.

It was a really, really long day. I had been awake for 29 hours and desperately needed to crash. Over the entire course of today, I slept for 3 hours. Tonight, I shall sleep incredibly well :).

I’m off to check out more of Jocelyn’s pictures from last night’s shoot, and to enjoy a glass of Syrah, sit on the couch and not move until I go to bed.

I have never been so exhausted, or so happy in my life. I love being on set, I love my costars, and I love my crew.

HAPPINESS

5 Comments

Filed under Dockweiler Beach, filming, green monster, LAX, on set, short film

by Becki | August 17, 2010 · 9:52 am

Summer Filming: Day 3

I have learned my lesson. No Monsta in the morning means suffering for me. No breakfast at all means evil, crabby, sick feeling. On the way to set this morning I stopped by Starbucks for a grande soy chai and a cup of their steel-cut oatmeal.

YUM! I used half of their brown sugar packet, half of the mixed nuts packet, and most of the mixed dried fruits. My tummy was happy.

First things first: MAKEUP. The most important thing for me. You can’t help but feel pretty when you’ve been airbrushed to high heaven. Can I get my makeup airbrushed on in real life too, please?

Getting my makeup done makes me feel special.

Unfortunately, we were so busy today that I didn’t get many pictures. We filmed 3+3/8 pages, which in film world means a LONG, BUSY day. There were slingshots, bikes, tiki torches, peacocks and wasps involved. Lunch came right on time.

Spicy fried chicken, salad, steamed veggies and a small bit of paella.

After lunch we had some more slingshot work to do, and then changed locations and I had my sobbing scene. I love having some crazy emotional scenes. So much fun! In the end, we were fighting the light. Our last scene of the day was at sunset, and we jammed a lot of shots into a small amount of time. I was sprinting “back to one” to reset the scenes, but we got it all in!

After we wrapped, I got to go home!!! I get to sleep in my own bed tonight, and I could not be more excited! When I got back, my roommate heated up a big bowl of corn chowder for me (yes, we’re slightly obsessed), and poured me a glass of red wine.

I win!

I was hoping to sleep in tomorrey before I had to head off for the night shoot, but a last minute audition came in and I’ll be out the door by 9:30am. Sleeping shall be had on set tomorrow night, at the beach. Yeah, filming at the beach will be hard :).

Okay, yet again I must leave you to pass out and sleep as much as possible before my alarm goes off tomorrow.

Bon nuit!!

4 Comments

Filed under corn chowder, fried chicken, makeup, set, Starbucks

by Becki | August 16, 2010 · 8:37 am

Summer Filming: Day 2

Last night, I ended up heating up a bunch of leftover chicken divan and someone brought back a bottle of Muscato – a really sweet white wine, which we all split. I had half a glass, brushed my teeth, and promptly passed out. Or attempted to. I got a total of about 3.5 hours of sleep last night. This means I’m functioning on 7 or 8 hours of sleep for 48 hours. Yay.

Call time this morning was 7am, so I swung by Starbucks for a VENTI soy chai latte, and grabbed a granola bar.

My lovely costar Madisen Hill, getting her makeup DID.

I basically sat around on set with this kid:

and had a 4-hour long listening party. We have incredible taste in music. Seriously.

Then came lunch.

A section of a chicken and pesto sammich, and a veggie sammich.

Sign made by Chelsea to save Coco’s life. He remains alive as of now.

After lunch came another 5 hours of waiting, so I decided to check out the park where we were filming: Irvine Regional Park.

I didn’t have to force David into this. At all.

Dahlia and Nancy joined us. Yay for new friends!

Pony rides for people. Miniature pony rides for miniature people.

This gigantic park rents out these little party pavilions, and you can also rent bouncy houses.

David and Nancy under the Camel Toe tree. I’m so sorry I wrote that.

I finally got to filming at 5:30pm. Today was known to the crew members as “The Lake Scene” and to us actors as, “The Makeout Scene”. There was a romantic kiss atop of a waterfall while the sun set on the lake below. Oh, and the twenty people who gathered to watch the scene made it a lot less painful and awkward :P.

I did not eat enough today. I’m waiting on the crew to see if we’re going to get some frozen yogurt from Cherry on Top down the street, but they’re all busy working and prepping for tomorrow. Lame. I’m off to attempt to either eat, or pass out and try (hopefully with more success) to sleep so I don’t become a total beeyotch on set tomorrow. You’ve all been warned!

3 Comments

Filed under bouncy houses, chai latte, granola, Irvine, Madisen Hill, National Park, pony rides, Starbucks

by Becki | August 15, 2010 · 8:19 am

Summer Filming: Day 1

Tired. So tired. I went to bed around 11pm last night, and woke up at 5am this morning to get to set. I set up all my Monsta stuff so I could wake, blend and go, but that didn’t happen. Breakfast was a banana and a big mug of coffee on the road.

I arrived to set, which was cloaked in thick fog and wonderfully chilly.

I gulped down another cup of coffee and ate an Oats ‘N Honey bar while getting my makeup DID.

We shot the master of one of the first scenes as well as a few close-ups which took a few hours, then broke for lunch.

Yay, catering! Thanks Jenny (our amazing producer)!

Check out how artsy this photo is! Oh yeah, I’m that good. I had a spinach and strawberry salad, a small scoop of chicken divan and a big old slice of garlic bread. Then I had another big old slice of garlic bread.

Hi-jinks were had. I took a walk around the park and checked out some of the trails.

We shot at O’Neill Regional Park in Trabuco Canyon. For those of you who don’t know, that’s FAR. I’m down in Orange for the remainder of the weekend.

Lots of gorgeous trails and buildings to see.

The interior of that car was HOT! Our awesome co-star/stunt driver Jordan kept stalling the stick shift. It was pretty epic – but to be fair, he did learn to use a stick over the course of 15 minutes this very morning!

Cookies were had. Multiple cookies.

Now I’m chilling in my room, realizing that I didn’t have dinner and I’m pretty frikkin’ hungry, but too tired to go out and eat. I think tomorrey I’ll be raiding the craft services table for the first few hours. Now I’m going to go pass out! Call time for tomorrow (yes, we’re shooting on a Sunday :-/) is 7am. I will most definitely be sleeping on set, and taking pictures of co-stars.

When’s the last time you spent an entire Saturday in a national park?

🙂

4 Comments

Filed under banana, Chicken Divan, coffee, cookies, filming, set, short film, stick shift

by Becki | August 14, 2010 · 8:18 am

Here and Now

Exercise of the day: Squatting down, lifting heavy boxes, and speed walking at work. That counts!

I have nothing to enthrall you with for today. My camera was kidnapped by my roommate for the day, and nothing out of the ordinary happened except for a lovely visit from my mum who took me to a wonderful lunch at Lazy Dog Cafe. Thanks, mom!!! I had half of the chicken walnut salad sandwich and a cup of the tortilla soup.

This is my here. This is my now.

Paul Newman’s Cabernet Sauvignon and a script.

Side note: Paul Newman is one of my all-time favorite actors. And those EYES!!!

Tomorrey begins day one of eight on set of the short film I’m starring in. I’ll be leaving the house at 5:30am tomorrow morning with a large mug of coffee and a Monster on hand! Right now I’m running laundry, charging cell phones and cameras, and packing up my car for the long haul. The next time I’ll be home will be Monday night (if I’m lucky), but I’ll have all my blogging materials with me to do some quick posts, if nothing else.

I’ll also be tweeting from set! Follow me here!

Happy weekend!

2 Comments

Filed under Lazy Dog Cafe, Paul Newman, red wine, script, short film

by Becki | August 13, 2010 · 9:39 am

Kale Chips and Dance Battles!

Exercise of the day: An hour-long hike through the woods!

It was a beautiful day! The hike consisted of LOTS of steep inclines, and halfway through, I was limping on account of my screwed-up knee. I finished, but hopefully I’ll be fully healed soon enough so I can pick up the pace!

The day started with a big Monsta, of course.

5+1/3 cups of spinach, 3/4 of a cup of soymilk, 2/3 of a banana, 1/4 of a cup of frozen strawberries, 1/4 of a cup of frozen blueberries and the juice of half a lemon.

After we got back from the hike, I threw together a KSS for lunch.

1/2 of a bag of chopped lettuce, 2/3 of a chopped and sauteed zucchini, 1/2 of a cup of warmed lentils and 1/2 of a container of egg white salad.

It was an itty-bitty salad. Something else was needed to satiate my stomach.

YEP! That ought to do it! A small Tutti Frutti with a scoop of peanut butter cups on top.

I picked up a bunch of kale from the grocery store so I could finally try some of those Kale Chips that everyone’s been talking about in the blogosphere. I started with 8 gigantic kale leaves which I rinsed, tore into small pieces, then sprayed with a little olive oil and sprinkled lightly with salt and pepper and baked at 350F for about 18 minutes.

Before…

And after. They shrunk to 1/3 of their size! These are very interesting: wafer thin and they melt in your mouth, but have a very spicy bite to them! Also, they smelled like broccoli while they were cooking – kind of disconcerting. Not sure if I’ll make these again.

Next up: happy-hour at JJ Brewsky’s in Camarillo and Step Up 3D!!! Win-win-win!

Too much to choose from! And this is just the appetizer list…

Beer for him (that’s not a shot next to the Guinness, that’s a sample of their other beers that he was deciding between).

Vino for me! You didn’t think I’d stick to my no-beer-for-August rule, did you? This was a fruity, smooth Merlot. De-lish!

For fooding we split the ahi tuna appetizer…

and a California avocado-bacon burger with sweet potato fries.

I finished my half. I’m not sorry.

We had to stock up on candy before we hit the theaters to avoid the overpriced stuffs, so we hit up the local RocketFizz – a retro-vintage candy shop.

This place has tons of old-fashioned and new candy, as well as over 700 different types of soda!

They also have some amazing gifts. I almost forwent the candy for these. Almost.

MOVIE TIME!!!!! We got to the theatre a little early to avoid crowds, and were welcomed by this sight:

It was PACKED!

3D glasses on! Woohoo!

Overall thoughts on the movie: Meh. The dances are amazing, but the movie was completely geared towards the 3D aspect. There was a lot of dancers thrown towards the camera, water being kicked towards the audience and Slurpees sailing towards the camera in the sky. There was nothing memorable to me, even though the effects were awesome. They should have gotten rid of the whole “story-line” they were trying to make, and just added more dancing! I guess movies in theatres just aren’t my thing.

Anyone want to go find a dance battle with me? Or make kale chips. Whichever…

4 Comments

Filed under green monster, Guinness, hike, JJ Brewsky's, kale chips, Merlot, Step Up 3D

by Becki | August 12, 2010 · 9:25 am

Monster From Heaven!!!

Josephine is awesome. She is my bestest friend ever, and I can see a long friendship extending from our short period of time knowing each other. She’s also a magician. She turned this:

1.5 cups of soymilk, 8 cups of spinach, 1/2 of a cup of frozen strawberries, and 2 bananas…

INTO THIS!!! MAGIC!

This was the smoothest, most velvety drink I’ve ever had! I might change the name to Green Velvet. There were no chunks and no chewing! MAGIC!

After having my amazing, magical, velvety Monsta created by Josephine, our Vitamix (yes, I have named, and laid claim to part of it/her), my roommate cooked up something I haven’t had in a loooong time!

A breakfast scramble with eggs, zucchini, orange bell peppers and LOTS of jalapeño sauce!

I spent the entire day chopping up an ugly men’s polo shirt (the shirt was ugly, there wasn’t an ugly man) and sewing it into a cute, fitted little v-neck. I had to wear this ridiculous shirt for work, and wouldn’t have been able to show my face in public if I’d worn it as it was. Pictures will come tomorrey!

I was able to find some time within all my creativity to go get some frozen yogurt with the roommate.

I had a blend of chocolate, birthday cake, and cookies n cream with a small spoonful of peanut butter cups on top from Tutti Frutti.

Unfortunately I had a random work schedule today, and had to leave the house around 4:30pm. I wasn’t very hungry after my fro-yo but knew that I had to eat something, so I threw together some whole grains and protein.

Multigrain and flaxseed crackers with a little peanut butter, coconut butter (homemade, thank you very much), and banana slices. It did the trick.

I lasted about two hours at work before my stomach started grumbling, so I made a quick stop to Paciugo for a child size gelato – brown sugar waffle cone and amaretto chocolate chip. After many compliments on my lovely revamped shirt, I headed home to a glass of “red wine” and some Food Network. Tomorrow is yet another day off for me and will involve a brewpub and a viewing of “Step Up 3D“. It’s gonna be an amazing day!

What arts/crafts have you completed that you’re most proud of? Let’s see some pictures!!!

5 Comments

Filed under breakfast scramble, coconut butter, green monster, Josephine, Paciugo, tutti frutti, Vitamix

by Becki | August 11, 2010 · 9:45 am

Covered in Clay!

It was a wonderful, WONDERFUL day! I really can never complain on my days off, but today was exceptional. I started off with a Monsta!

5 cups of spinach, 2/3 of a cup of unsweetened soymilk, 1/3 of a small banana, 1/8 of a cup of frozen blueberries, 1/4 of a cup of frozen strawberries, and the juice of 1/2 of a lemon.

After finishing off my Monsta and a few cups of coffee, my cousin/friend Allie came over for our day out on the town! The first stop was to visit the love of our life…

INDIAN FOOD!!! IN VENTURA!!! There was a buffet today, so I filled up this plate, and then… stopped. I could have gone back for more, but I didn’t, and that’s saying something!

Afterwards, we headed to my favorite chocolate shop, Trufflehound’s.

You can watch them make the chocolates as you peruse their gigantic selection.

Allie and I parted ways after our amazing day of foods and ocean views in Ventura, and I headed over to meet up with my mom and head off to our pottery class!

I am completely enamored with this yard!

Grapes STRAIGHT FROM THE VINE in their yard!!! These were wonderfully delicate and sweet. I want to grow my own!

Our teacher’s hubby brought in an array of snacks for the class.

Delicious lemon bundt cake from Costco! I didn’t have ANY!

And by not having any, I mean I only had half of one of those huge hunks. YUM.

Tonight we trimmed the feet of our bowls and wrote our initials. Well, we were SUPPOSED to write our initials…

WOOHOO!!!! HikeBikeEat 2010, bay-bee!

My mom was bad-ass and went for the red clay that beginner and intermediate potters are scared of. She kicked its ass and made an awesome bowl!

We headed home, covered in clay, mud and dust (and by we, I mean me. My mom stays entirely spotless somehow, even with the red clay!) and opened up something amazing that my parental unit caved and bought after I’d talked them deaf about it. That sentence was too rambling to understand, but look at this picture and drool your cares away.

OH MY GEEZ, NO WAY, THEY DIDN’T, DID THEY? COULD THEY? THEY DID!!!!!

They bought a Vitamix! I’m so happy/excited/jealous/FREAKING OUT!!!! Tomorrow’s day of food will be Vita-EPIC!

Pardon me for now: I’m going to sip my “red wine“, flip through the Vitamix cookbook, and then attempt to sleep while tossing and turning like it’s Christmas Eve, waiting to use “Josephine” (we have officially named the Vitamix after a lovely character played by Lena Olin in the movie Chocolat). Side note: Lena Olin is my hero! She is amazing!

Who’s your favorite actor/actress?

4 Comments

Filed under bundt cake, Chocolate, grapevines, green monster, Indian Food, Mom, Pottery class, red wine, Vitamix