Friday, January 17, 2025

2023 updates

 I moved these from my primary log of ongoing updates


News from 2023

Performance

  • Oct 10 & 18 recording VO for Count of Monte Cristo
  • June 8&9 -- recording VO for undisclosed commercial -- very pleased that new XLR mic is giving satisfactory results -- after struggling with  USB mics for years.
  • April 14 -- filming "Fear of Getting Old" Bridgeport CT d Leo Caserta

Courses

  • Netflix CD's -- Actor's Connection

CLE

  • 11/8/23 "One-Day Patent CLE Seminar" NYIPLA in person
  • 11/1/23 "Is It Obvious? Let's Reconsider.  Design Patent Obvioiusness vs Utility Patents"  NYIPLA in person
  • 9/7/23 JPPCLE -- on Zoom
  • Dartmouth Lawyers Association’s July 18, 2023 program entitled, Generative AI and Its Legal Implications in IP Law,

  • 6/22/23 "Anti-counterfeiting Procedures in Latin-America and Europe" IIPS
  • 6/10/23 "From Madoff to SBF to Trump: The Changing Role of White Collar Prosecutions" Columbia Law School & a conversation with Dean Lester & Preet Bharara
  • Dartmouth Lawyers Association’s May 24, 2023 program entitled, Town Hall,
  • 2/3/23 "The New Unified Patent Court and "UPC Land" IIPS
Media consumption
  • Live shows attended: Lindsey Stirling 8/1/23; Sweeney Todd 7/15/23
  • Recordings purchased; Josh Groban (20th anniversary edition of Closer); Mat & Savanna Shaw (2 albums); Lucia Micarelli & Leo Amuedo (Saudade, 2 Christmas Singles), Tony Ann ( Emotionally Red, Emotionally Blue, Emotionally Orange, Something I could ..., Rain); Jackie Evancho (Behind my Eyes, Carousel of time); Connie Talbot (4 singles with Boyce Avenue);  Adam Lambert (You Make me Feel...); William Goldstein (Collaborative Composition); Voces 8 & Eric Whitacre (Home): 
  • Movies seen in theaters: Trolls, Wish, Spiderverse, Oppenheimer, Barbie, Mission Impossible VII
Other events attended
  • NYYM Sessions in April, July & November -- all on Zoom
  • 40th Law School Reunion, Columbia -- in person
  • 50th High School Reunion, Livermore, CA -- in person
Sightseeing videos

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Monday, January 13, 2025

The Divorced Billionaire Heiress

 May 6-9, 2024 I had my first sleep away acting gig.  We were shooting a vertical format movie of mini-episodes.  This is a remake of a series that has been very successful in China.  Apparently, this particular one was the most popular vertical drama in China.

Here's a promotional video for the series, my part starts shortly after 19 minutes.  It's a long promotional video.  These vertical series are typically viewed in an app on cell phone.  This one is apparently called Short TV, tho I've also heard the app called "Shortmax."  I haven't actually gotten the app myself.

Thanks to my sister-in-law for finding this clip. She immediately remarked that the real "Raft of the Medusa" is 16'x24', much larger than the one shown in this clip.


Director: Ying Xiao

Production Studio: Paradox Films https://www.paradoxfilmsny.com/

Here are some set pix



The director gave me a nice compliment.  She said I was the prettiest grandma in NYC.  Swelled head. 

I bought myself a little souvenir on my own.  Part of the plot includes references to fake antiques.  This is such a one.




The team that made this series is very impressive.  Since the film uses vertical [aka portrait] format, they can have multiple cameras at once, each one focused on one actor.  They only had to do one or two takes of each scene.  Normally you get a separate take for each view, but this way they don't have to take separate takes for different views.


****


Concerns:

The characters in this show are mostly very poorly behaved.  My cast mates compared this show to a series called "Succession," which I haven't seen.

Some of the characters are depicted committing crimes such as commercial bribery and conspiracy to monopolize interstate commerce.  A concern I have, as an attorney, is that viewers may not realize that these acts are white collar crimes.

If you see a murder depicted on a a show, I think you know right away that that's a crime.  You immediately know that you're not supposed to do that yourself.

I'm not sure if the viewer of white collar crimes -- as shown here -- knows that they are just as much crimes as physical crimes like murder and assault.

I wish there were some kind of warning about the criminal nature of the activity depicted.

#DivorcedBillionaireHeiress #VerticalDrama #ShortTV


Here's an Instagram post that I made about this film.


Here's a trailer of the French dub version

@Short Max

Héritière Milliardaire Divorcée

♬ Promoted Music - Short Max


Apparently the English Language version is doing well


 This is the instagram account of the production company, in case you're curious https://www.instagram.com/journey.entertainment.official/

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Sunday, January 5, 2025

"Family Affair"

 This was a student movie that I did at SUNY Purchase.

The author/director/producer was Cheye Bieber.

My character was called Amaryllis Vacanti.

Here's the YouTube video



This was filmed in the admissions building at the college. I was wondering all the time if this was a sign that I should maybe take some courses there.  I think this is a surprisingly good student movie.


It's always an internal debate for me, if I should accept unpaid positions in student films, when I'm trying to position myself as a professional actress.  I like to help students, tho.  You never know when  student is going to become a famous director later and hire you.

I don't just go out for any role however.  I don't like to play "sick grandma" who has cancer or Alzheimer's.  I am a real cancer survivor, but that's depressing and I'm doing acting as a fun retirement activity, not to get depressed.

Most roles for grandma are either "sick grandma" or "flashback grandma" who is already dead.

This one was different.  This is grandma who is still alive -- tho not too sympathetic in her reaction.  Also I think the plot is very topical

I am very interested in this business of long lost family members appearing after DNA tests. There were a couple of instances of this in my personal life.  

My ex has a biological cousin who was put up for adoption in infancy who reappeared later as an adult.  Most family members welcomed her warmly and invited her to family reunions.  Her bio-mom was long deceased, in fact her illness was why the baby was put up for adoption -- and she was never married to the father, so he wasn't around to object.  One aunt was suspicious of the young woman, as possibly wanting money, like the character in this film.  Actually, that woman, like the one in this film, did not need money.

Later, I was approached on FB in a situation where there was a long lost member of my cousins' family.  She was not a blood relative to me, because she was from my aunt's husband's family.  I was approached, because I'm active on FB, while the relevant cousins are not.  In that case, sadly, the cousins who were her blood relatives (tho somewhat distant) did not welcome her -- being concerned about embarrassing her bio-dad, who conceived her in a non-standard relationship.

Then, this summer, when I was driving through Ontario, I heard a radio broadcast on the car radio, about some research that had been done on this topic -- of the long lost relatives turning up after DNA tests.  The researcher found that out of wedlock children were generally not welcomed by their bio-dads.  Even the moms were often not happy to see them -- which was sad.

In any case, I thought that this was a very interesting topic, so I was happy to play this role. 

I think the student did a good job with this film.  

I do feel sad that my glasses sometimes blocked my eyes, but for the most part I think the thing is good for a student production.

#paternitytest #longlostfamily #dnatesting 

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.  


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