Wednesday, November 6, 2024

texts to the chair of the democratic party in westchester 241106

 I would like to communicate with the DNC about how I feel this all goes back to the way they silenced and smeared Tulsi Gabbard in the 2020 election. This allowed Biden, a historical hawk, to sneak into office without his hawkish history being revealed. They ignored the fact that the majority of Americans wanted peace.

Trump framed himself as the “peace” candidate.  There were a lot of right thinking people who voted for him for that reason.

e-mail to FCNL 241106

This election brings an interesting irony.  Many progressive Friends supported Harris, because of her views on human rights and social justice; however, we dropped the ball on peace.  We ignored the fact that the draft dodger candidate was positioning himself as the "peace" candidate.  We ignored the fact that the popularity of Sanders on the left and Trump on the right indicated strongly that the majority of Americans want to step down from being the world's policeman.  We went for the hawks: Hilary, Biden, and Harris.  We shot ourselves in the foot. Peace has to be a bigger priority.

Monday, November 4, 2024

2022 updates

 

News from 2022

Performance

Courses

  • "How to Help a Loved One Who Struggles With their Mental Health" by Women of Dartmouth 10/13/22
  •         Certificate Program in 3D modeling and 3D animation  -- 1 year program completed this summer  
  • 4/21/22 Climate Change and Our Cities -- Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory virtual
  • 7/19/22 "Environmental Pollution: from Sources to Human Exposure" Celia Chen (Dartmouth '78)
  • 3/10/22 Presentation by Pfizer CEO -- Washington Post virtual

CLE

  •         11/16/22 "The future of Fair Use After Warhol v Goldsmith" NYIPLA
  •         11/9/22 "NYIPLA One Day Patent CLE Seminar"  (In person!!!)
  •         10/6, 12, 19/22 "NYPLA 2022 IP Transactions Bootcamp"
  •         9/14/22 "Hot Topics for Congress and the USPTO: 101 Patent Eligibility and PTAB Director Review"
  •         August 2022 -- completed viewing recordings of the Summer 2020 JPPCLE
  •         5/18/22 "Arbitration Seminar" Dartmouth Lawyers Association
  • 4/5/22 "Intellectual Property Crimes and US Innovation" NYIPLA
  • 1/28/22 "Using Petitions Effectively in Patent Prosecution" NYIPLA

Media consumed

  • live concerts attended: Josh Groban at Bethel, NY (7/5/22); Caramoor:  Caroline Shaw, Angélica Negrón & Raquel Acevedo Klein (7/21/22) ; Phoenix Rising (7/16/22)
  • albums purchased: Avi Kaplan "Floating on a Dream"; Mat & Savana Shaw "Happy Like That"; Nathan Pacheco "Higher"; Barlow & Bear "Unofficial..."
  • movies seen in theatre: "Top Gun Maverick" 7/16/22 (Bridgton drive-in, Maine)

Sightseeing Pix

Woobles Ad

 

Studio VideGro

Cindel Krajewski, CEO

Director: Jenko Kent

Location: Beacon, NY

This was such a fun project.  Before I went into it, I thought that the other characters in the script: Mr Pond and Miss Tibbles would be played by other actors.  It turned out that they were stuffed animals, which made the script super funny.

I was impressed with the efficiency and cleverness of this studio. I would definitely recommend them to anyone who is trying to do a video commercial on a budget.  


Saturday, October 5, 2024

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Ads for the American Society of Retina Specialists (ASRS)

This gig filmed in the Chicago area in June.  It was an exciting gig, because it was bilingual.  I didn't think that my Spanish was good enough for a bilingual gig, but they booked me.

English 60 s


English 30 s


Spanish 60 s


Spanish 30 s



Age related macular degeneration (AMD) is much more common in fair skinned people, especially with blue eyes.  I was chosen for this ad, because they felt I looked like an AMD patient.  

My mom did, in fact, have this condition.  I've been told I look like her.  My poor mother had AMD, cataracts, glaucoma, and herpes in the eye.  I'm hoping that the brown eyes I inherited from my father will protect me from some of this.  She had blue eyes.

I learned from this ad that AMD is much more treatable than it used to be -- with injections into the eyeball.  While that doesn't sound so great, the ad emphasizes that it isn't as bad as you think.

The actress for the main character told me that she was particularly interested in this ad, because several of her family members suffered from retinal disease.

This ad was filmed in the Chicago suburbs.  I was out there for a personal trip and was able to combine the filming.  Here's the blog about the trip June Car Camping Trip . 

I am not fluent in Spanish, but I was able to rehearse the Spanish lines driving out to the site.  My pronunciation is good, but I found that the muscles of my face needed a workout to be able to form the words properly, especially since it was medical terminology.  My scene partner, who is a native speaker of Spanish, was very complimentary of my delivery.

#Actor #Actress #ActorsLife #ActressLife #ASRS #RetinaSpecialists #BilingualActor

Tuesday, September 10, 2024

Updates May 2024

All sorts of things are coming out, clips are being added to the blogs listed at the bottom, as they come out.

There's an audio play called "The Count of Monte Cristo," based on the 19th century novel by Alexandre Dumas, that's starting streaming May 21 on lots of audio podcast platforms, where I play the evil Mme de Villefort. My episodes won't be out for a while.  This was recorded in the fall, director Chloe Wilson.

There's a vertical mini episode series on Short Max called "The Substitute Bride" where I have a role as a witness to an attempted murder.  The episodes started streaming May 2, but I don't know if my episodes are out.  I believe that this may be an English language remake of a series that first came out in China. Director Xiao Ying

The week of May 6, I participated in the filming of "The Divorced Billionaire Heiress" in NJ.  This is another Chinese production.  Apparently, this particular vertical series was the most popular one in China.  The director was again Xiao Ying. She told me I was the prettiest grandmother in New York City, which was very flattering.  There was a second woman there, whose full name I didn't get, who was introduced as one of the top directors in China.

It was interesting working in vertical format.  They were able to use five or six cameras at once, so there was only one or two takes for every episode. With a wide screen, they have to do these views as separate takes, because the views overlap the camera positions.  In the vertical format, there is no periphery.  That made filming much faster.

It seemed to me that older women have higher status in China than in the USA.  In the USA, the roles are commonly "older woman with Alzheimer's" or "older woman with cancer," where the primary feature of the character is that she is sick.  Here, in "The Substitute Bride," I played an important witness to a crime; and, in "The Divorced Billionaire Heiress," I played the head of a large, family business.  I appreciated getting higher status roles.  

Another difference I noticed was that the director was constantly urging me to act in the way that I've learned to call "big" in the acting world.  "Big" means really emphasizing the emotional response.  Most video directors that I've dealt with here in the USA don't like "big."  They will often tell me that I'm too "theatrical."  They want subtler portrayals.  It's been a learning process trying to suppress those "big" responses, but this director liked them, which was more fun for me.

My sister-in-law found a clip from "Mystic Tycoon" that I filmed this year, where I play the evil grandmother, Lisa.  It turns out, which I didn't realize at the time, that this production was actually a video trailer for an audio podcast series. I embedded the Facebook video into a blog, so you can watch it even if you don't have a Facebook account. I haven't recorded any audio for this series, so I guess, if the evil Lisa appears in the audio, someone else has recorded it. 

Links to separate blogs about these gigs (in reverse chronological order of the gigs.)  Some of these blogs include embedded clips or links to clips





Student film that I’m in.  Most of my lines were cut out, but you can hear me briefly at around 4 minutes https://vimeo.com/957504849