Today we just wrapped day 2 of the short film Heartprints, a short film project that was in the works since last year when I got together with a couple of actor friends of mine, and we decided we wanted to write, produce and act in our own film. We got a great cast and crew together and we're excited to finally be bringing the vision to life.

Here's a picture of the director and DP setting up one of the last shots today. Only one more day to go! More pics to come later.

Here are some pics from our recent Theatre West Show OUT OF YOUR HEAD:

 
Upcoming performance at Theatre West this weekend:

October 22nd at 8pm and October 23rd at 2pm

A group of young people enact real life events from their own lives that have been carefully tucked away, and play with other unconscious meanderings from other sources.

It's free!  Theatre West is located at 3333 Cahuenga Blvd. West, LA, CA 90068. Free parking is available across from the theatre in the Panasonic lot.

Hope to see you there!

For more info click here.

xo,
Kimberly

This August I attended my very first Worldcon in Reno, Nevada. I drove up from LA with storypilot which somehow turned into a 12 hour excursion instead of the expected 8 (albeit we did stop at an outlet mall but not for that long). By the time we made it to Reno we drove straight to the convention center.  We were sad to miss the band Tricky Pixie but we arrived just in time for the play, Godson, based on a short story by Roger Zelazny. This was where we got our feet wet, our first taste of things to come and what an interesting flavor it was. 

We stayed in a cheap hotel the first couple nights, one that was undergoing renovation. How relevant as this worldcon was titled Renovation, so I guess I can appreciate it for that and the hot complimentary breakfasts ;). For the last couple nights we upgraded to the decadent Peppermill hotel and casino. This Worldcon was our first real Con ever. Sure, I've been to Anime Expo at the LA convention center before but only for 1 day and I was mostly just a wandering character (Yoruichi from Bleach). This was a 5 day event jam packed with panels from at least 10-5 during the day and parties every night. Since this was our first Worldcon we dove into all that we could. Here were some of the highlights:

Girl Genius Ball with Patrick Rothfuss (King Killer Chronicles) and Storypilot

As you can see it was a steam punk fantasy theme. We had fun dressing up for this and partaking in the Regency dances. One of the great things about Worldcon is that you have access to all of your favorite fantasy and scifi writers. If they're not busy you can go up and talk to them, ask a question, snag a picture. Everyone I met was so nice and down to earth. It's so much fun getting to see an author's personality after you've read their books. 

Another highlight of Worldcon was the literary beers and kaffeeklatsches - you could sign up to join an author, publisher, editor, agent or artist for a beer or coffee with an intimate group of people for an hour. We had the privilege of sitting down with this year's John C. Campbell award winner, Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians. The Magicians is a wonderful book that has a type of humor you don't often see in fantasy books with a splash of stark reality. Lev showed up late but was gracious enough to stay longer to make it up to us even though it left him with hardly enough time to make it to George RR Martin's wedding ceremony. Which brings me to another point. There are some intelligent, interesting individuals at these conventions. Before Lev arrived it was fun just sitting and chatting with other fans of the genre. 

Panel highlights for me - I loved going to the Meet the Campbell Award Nominees panel which was moderated by last year's Campbell award winner and this years Hugo nominated author, Seanan McGuire (aka Mira Grant, author of Feed). Let me just say that Seanan McGuire is awesome. She's smart and entertaining, the kind of girl who takes on a challenge and does it with all the gusto in the world. I had seen her and Campbell nominee Lauren Beukes go head to head the night before on stage for the game Just A Minute which was so much fun to watch. Seanan rocked it. At one point after being called out by Lauren, she called her mom on stage and had her verify that she indeed was telling the truth about making her siblings dress up in costumes for some tv show. Anyway, back to the actual panel. The Campbell nominees were just a great bunch. Period.

I'm a big fan of Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn Trilogy, Way of Kings, etc.) so I attended a lot of the panels he was on, including The Writing Excuses live podcast, which was enjoyable. They had a few guests on the show - Lauren Beukes and Pat Rothfuss to name a couple - and it was fun getting to see Mary, Dan and Howard in person. What I love about Brandon is that as soon as he gets into a room for a panel he's already up front asking "Does anyone have a question?".  Even when I approached him after a panel to have him sign Way of Kings, he asked me if I had a question. As a matter of fact I did have one off the top of my head which was:  What character resonates with you most from any of the books you've written? Brandon's answer:  "That's a hard one. I guess I'd have to go with Dalinar." This is a character that's been with Brandon since he was fifteen.

Another thing that was exciting for me to learn at worldcon was that there were a couple panels geared towards actors. I attended one that focused on voiceovers for audiobooks and one called Creating a Memorable Video/Podcast. 

Even with all of the panels I attended I still had time to take over Westoros: 

You will probably recognize the Iron Throne from HBO's Game of Thrones. 
You probably won't as easily recognize that I'm dressed up as the character Yeine from A Hundred Thousand Kingdoms - a Hugo nominated book by N.K. Jemison. 

All in all I had a great time, and I'm now an addict, which reminds me I need to sign up for Chicon7.

I recently cast my short film Heartprints at CAZT studios. It was a great experience and I wanted to share some feedback for those who are looking to cast a project there or for actors who may have an audition there.

Producers/Casting:
If you're a producer or an actor/producer like me who's casting their project, CAZT is pretty awesome. It's centrally located in West Hollywood so it's easy for most actors to get to. Best of all it's FREE. You just go here to sign up and create a casting breakdown for actors. You can email them for whatever slot you'd like to audition actors in and if it's free it's yours. They have different size rooms so if you know you're going to be needing a lot of space you can request to have one of the bigger rooms if it is available. The best part of casting at CAZT is that they provide you with the camera equipment to record the auditions and then they upload it online so you can watch the auditions later. The only catch is a simple one. You just have to write three lines of feedback for each person you audition. That way if the actor has a CAZT account they can benefit from reading the feedback you have given. 

Actors:
If you're an actor in LA, then you've undoubtedly been to CAZT. I've been there to audition for projects from student films to national commercials. If you haven't been yet, I'd suggest to give yourself time to park and walk there, especially if you're going on a weekday. There is street parking. I'm pretty sure if it's the weekend you can park right on Formosa (CAZT is located at 916 N. Formosa Ave). If it's not then you can normally find parking on Willoughby or Romaine. Once you walk in there is a board on the left-hand side for you to see what room your audition is being held in. You'll be asked to provide an email when you sign in for your audition. This is so if you have a paid CAZT account you can log in later to see your audition and feedback the casting director has given. You can also submit yourself for Los Angeles auditions that are posted on there. I'd recommend signing up at least for the free account on CAZT. That way you can upload your headshot and resume and casting directors will be able to see them when they're reviewing your audition later.

Hope this helps!

Blessings,
Kimberly

I'm so excited to be working with Gisela Shiffer of 3G management as my new manager. She's a wonderful woman with a great personality who works hard for her clients and really listens to what they have to say. So here's to a wonderful new addition to the team!

Lately I've been pouring a lot of energy into a short film we're shooting in May called HEARTPRINTS. I'm one of the writers, producers and actors of the short. We just finished casting the project this week and it was definitely an interesting experience. I've interned in casting offices before but to step into the actual role of being one of the casting directors was another experience entirely. I now can really empathize with the task of a casting director and with the advice that they have given us actors. Casting people really want the actors to come in and nail the roles they are going out for. They're on our side!  And sometimes there are so many actors who come in not owning a role, that  are there to "audition" and you wouldn't feel confident putting them on a set. As actors we have to go in owning the role completely and doing it as we would do on the set, anything less is a waste of our time and the casting director's time.  Once you audition, let it go. It can be down to a couple great actors and have nothing at all to do with acting ability, but rather trivial things you can't control. 

If you'd like to contribute to the HEARTPRINTS project please check us out on Indiegogo - http://www.indiegogo.com/heartprints

Blessings,
Kimberly

I recently joined Theatre West, which has been a really great experience so far. Betty Garrett, may she rest in peace, was a member. She taught the musical theatre workshop on wednesday nights. I unfortunately did not get the chance to meet her or take her workshop because my acting class with Ted Brunetti is on wednesday nights. I really wish I had gotten the opportunity to meet such an inspiring woman.

It's great to be a part of a theatre with so much history. A lot of the members have extensive experience in the business and I hope to soak in some of their knowledge. Right now a group of us are working on putting together 10 minute pieces that we write ourselves for a showcase in June. I'll keep you posted.

There have been so many major events going on in the world this year. People from Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen and Libya standing up for their freedom against authoritarian rule. The earthquakes in New Zealand and most recently Japan with over 20,000 missing or dead. My thoughts and prayers are with them all.

In my last post I told you all of the little project I was doing for Halloween. I decided to dress up as one of my favorite character's from the fantasy book series The Wheel Of Time and in honor of the November 2nd election we made it in the vein of a political ad. Jason Denzel, founder of the largest Wheel of Time fan site on the web - dragonmount.com - featured our video on his page which was awesome. Here is the finished result:





Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving! I think this year I made my best pumpkin pie yet ;)

Happy Halloween, everyone! Be safe and have a great weekend.



Catwoman is probably my favorite costume but this year I will most likely be a Renaissance girl. For those of you who are Wheel of Time fans like myself I am also dressing up as one of the characters for a silly and fun little project in honor of the release of the 13th book, Towers of Midnight, on November 2nd. For those of you who don't know what Wheel of Time is, it's a fantasy series which started about 20 years ago penned by Robert Jordan. I only recently came to know the series a few years back and have had such fun reading all of the 12 books out loud and bringing to life some of the characters. As an actor especially, this has been a great joy because there are so many amazing characters in these books and strong women. I'll give you a little hint about the project...it is a video and I will be posting it on my blog so stay tuned. :)

Cheers,
Kimberly