Sunset Blvd

This past week was pretty hectic; I was trying to keep my eyes open the best I could as I began to write this. Writing about my weekly adventures has become difficult as I feel like I do not have enough to say.

Monday night was filled with fun and loud music. The Athens band New Madrid was playing a set at Bardot for their weekly event called School Night! LA. The second to last band to play, Tigertown, was absolutely amazing! The Sydney, Australian band has a really fun and eccentric indie vibe. Towards the end of the show, I was able to talk to the lead singer of New Madrid about the band, Athens, UGA, and some other stuff. It is really cool to see an Athens band moving up in the industry.

Tuesday was a super long day from the get go. Christine Swanson, the director of The Miki Howard Story, was a guest speaker. For the first part of the class, we watched the movie The Miki Howard Story. Then during the second half of class, Mrs. Swanson brought in the costume designer and editor for the film. The costume designer, Darryle Johnson, was Miki Howard’s friend and personal costume designer during her high reign on the music charts. Darryle has also dressed the cast of One Eight Seven, Scary Movie, and Everybody Hates Christ. Darryle was even nominated for a Primetime Emmy for outstanding costumes for a series in 2006. The editor, Grisha Alasadi, spoke about his experience editing the film and also being the director of photography on Christine’s other features such as All About Us. The long day continued as everyone dolled up to attend the Grady College Alumni Networking Event. The event brought together many University of Georgia Grady alums to socialize. The event was fun and very insightful.

After work on Wednesday, the group attended a screening of Sunset Boulevard at the Rooftop Cinema Club. The atmosphere was joyful and slightly reminded me of when my neighborhood pool while growing up would have movie night with a giant blow up screen at the shallow end. I have a list of over 300 movies that are featured in The Great Movie Ride at Walt Disney World’s Hollywood Studios. An instant classic, Sunset Boulevard, is featured in The Great Movie Ride and I was so excited to cross it off my list

Thursday was another long day with Christine Swanson being a guest speaker again. Christine brought her husband, an actor, and director of photography to the class. Michael Swanson, Christine’s husband, is a producer and TV studio executive who has worked on shows like The Community, Parks and Recreation, and Master of None. Michael gave us insight to working for a TV studio and balancing a TV budget. The actor, Darius McCrary, talked about his experience on set and what it was like to be a child star on Family Matters. The director of photography, Tommy Maddox-Upshaw, was great to listen to and talk to after class. He gave me some tips about grad school. After class we went to Sony Studios. Thinking we were going to be given a tour of the studios, we were taken by surprise when led into a small theater with large reclining chairs. As a future director of photography, I found the 4K camera crash course very knowledgeable. The crash course was interesting, but dry, and I would have liked to worked with the cameras a little bit to learn more about how they work.

Friday night was by far the best night of the week. A couple of my co-workers and I went to a show called “Marry, F*ck, Kill” at the Upright Citizens Brigade at Franklin. The show was really funny and the warm up group had a few well known actors in it. After the show, we went to Davey Wayne’s (or more like we went to go wait in line for 1 hour 40 minutes). About halfway through the line to get in my friend, Rosie, and I had to go to the restroom. We asked the guys we were with to keep us updated on the line while we went to find a restroom. The keep things short, Rosie and I ended up on the roof of the W hotel at a private pool party. After spending a little bit of time at the party, we met up with our group and finally got into Davey Wayne’s.