Last month I had a work trip to Toronto. It was very exciting, because I’ve never been on a work trip and I’ve also never been to Canada NOR have I ever traveled internationally alone. The trip itself was fun by pretty low key. but it also made me think a lot about my job and the fact that confidence is largely performative.
Get it? Cuz I’m a PRO at PROcrastinating? Cool cool cool.
I have to blog twice today because I’m behind my 2 posts a month resolution. Not that it totally matters, because I definitely missed my May vlog due to traveling, pre-production, and the fact that I can’t self-frame worth shit and ended up with raw footage of what would have been a very good video where my head floats in the bottom third of the frame and sometimes dips out entirely. So. Things are going well.
Forgive this first blog for being scattered. I’m waiting for a video to upload, waiting for a thumbnail to be designed and sent to me, fielding work messages, looking over a pre-production breakdown, and trying to avoid all of them at the same time.
This month has been kind of insane. We launched the podcast I produce and host for work (subscribe! And send us a screenshot of your 5 star iTunes review for a chance to win a $250 Amazon gift card!), got ever-closer to our July film festival, I started production in earnest for a web series I’m producing/assistant directing, I started pre-production in earnest for Sam and Pat are Depressed season 2, we launched our crowdfunding campaign for Sam and Pat and hit our initial goal in 15 hours (though we’re still very much in need of a bit more, if you want to help!), and had my yearly physical! That one isn’t very exciting but it happened this month so it goes on the list!
I’ll write a better blog in an hour. Probably.
Please subscribe to it on iTunes and leave us a nice review! You’ll get something too (in addition to my sultry tones)- if you email podcast@stareable.com a screenshot of your nice review, you’ll get entered to win a free Forget The Box teeshirt, a free ticket to Stareable Fest, or a $250 Amazon gift card!
Sometimes I worry that the things I write/create and publicly promote are too weird. My short film Ace and Anxious (spoiler alert) ends with a visual gag implying a man has had sex with a playing card. My web series Sam and Pat features escalating and absurdist visual gags set against two characters being mean to each other and talking about therapists. My web series Brains is a narrative vlog from the perspective of a narcissistic sociopathic YouTuber trying to get a boyfriend post zombie apocalypse.
The worry about the weird comes not from a worry that the things I make aren’t good. I think they’re quite good- I’ve even got some awards to prove it!
The worry comes more from the fact that it’s very hard to succinctly explain these projects and their value to people more successful than me. “Oh, you make films too? What are they about?” “You better sit down for this.”
Other times, I am delighted by the weirdness, because it sets me apart and is true to my voice, which is also very weird. And honestly, every time I’ve tried to write something earnest and straightforward it’s sucked. Weird used to be an insult, but now it’s literally my brand.
So anyways, please help me make the second season of my weird web series Sam and Pat Are Depressed by keeping an eye out for our upcoming Season 2 Seed&Spark campaign! You can get a head start by following me on Seed&Spark OR by signing up for our newsletter!
As a reminder of how weird season 1 was, below is a series of photo prints featured in episode 8.
I’m tired, y’all. Absolutely wiped. This blog was gonna be about something else but then I sat down to write and damn near fell asleep in this Starbucks. Continue reading “I’m tired of the hustle”
About a month ago, Quinn and I were having dinner with a friend who was discussing a personal situation that had gone sour fast. He was explaining the story and the various causes for the souring, including the personalities and quirks of each person, and gestured to me saying “you know what I mean, Bri. You also don’t have a lot of empathy.”
Continue reading “Relearning (Or Not) Outward Displays of Empathy”
That’s right, long time readers, it’s a SEAN STORY!Â
I know I’ve talked about this before. The day I revealed this tale, with a deep shame, to my parents was also the day I talked about it on my old collab channel TheseFolk. But I’ve never really gone into detail about the dumbest single thing I’ve ever done, which is also incidentally one of my best stories. Continue reading “That time I secretly met up with a boy from the internet”
A few weeks ago on Twitter, I was having a conversation about branding and public personas with some fellow filmmakers, and one of them (a fantastic Canadian director named Brianne Nord-Stewart) made a joke that “my personal online presence is regulated by the notions of “am I okay with this living on forever?” & “do I care if my grandpa sees this?”” And it struck me how considerably less family friendly my online presence has become over the past few years. Continue reading “Public Displays of Profanity”