Follow me on my many ups & downs in the Entertainment Biz. I'm an aspiring & yes even a working actress believe it or not. I've found myself on the flip side of the casting couch(so to speak) & even managing/developing talent. I have quite a different take on things, then say your acting teacher or stage mom. Oh, be warned, I swear, occasionally! You can take the girl out of Boston but you can't take the Boston out of the Girl! xo- Nicole
It's definitely true what they say, "What goes down, must go up" and vice versa. Thank you for allowing me to indulge in swimming in dark waters last week. There are a lot of highs and lows in creative brained people, life styles and choices. And I think/hope anyone can relate to the fact that most New Years and Birthdays bring up a lot of self reflection. I have been in contact with more geminii and Aries folk in particular and they seem to have been going through a similar thing as me. How were all you Taurus peeps this bday season? It's always nice to know you are not alone.
Well the sun is coming out again, figuratively and literally. I worked on the beach yesterday (my birthday) for Dan Bell Casting, then had a screening to go to last night for THE BURDEN OF MY OWN COMPANY and had my two besties come out with me for chocolate! See my wind blown hair below making my wish!
Then after this around midnight I came home to some sweet gifts in the mail and on my porch.
Cards, flowers, bathsalts & a target gift card. 4 of my favorite things!
I got a cash dog sitting gig over the weekend, booked our New Orleans trip in June, later than expected but also cheaper for waiting, I am working again today at Dan's and he threw my into an audition for IHop, and tonight I am throwing my self a little gathering at Cafe Gratitude in Downtown LA. It's their new spot that I haven't been to yet, with faces & hearts that I adore and don't see much anymore!
So I have since realized we were going into retrograde and having a few loved ones allow me to vent it out, really helped a lot. And I also realized I have been neglecting myself. Meaning not doing things that I know help me feel good. Like yoga, or exercise in general. Having fresh flowers in the house. Playing music I ENJOY, THAT IS UPLIFTING. Burning candles and incense. Getting puppy love. Drinking green juice. Going to a workshop of a Casting director on my Target list. Being outside watching nature! As soon as I started tending to my spirit I felt things shift. Feeling good is what matters the most in any spirituality you study. Being grateful, thankful, and hopeful brings things to you! THAT'S your Magnet Effect!
The other day I got a little burst of inspiration and it challenges me to get hip with the kids and technology of today....VINES. What the heck are vines?! Right? I know, well I don't know, but I am going to figure it out. 6 seconds of nothing or crazy antics that for some reason people get really into, not to mention there's young adults out there who have become millionaires from them. My flash of inspiration came after a chapter I read in my Kabbalah book which said this week I should concentrate on repetition! Copy & Paste, send out resumes, trance, meditate, duplicate a behavior that has worked in the past....that kind of energy. So I think, since my life has been flashing before my eyes, a cool side project for me right now would be to collect all the footage that I have of acting work and put them out once a day as VINES, and if I can't figure out Vines, I will do it on Instagram. This is another way to celebrate and showcase the many characters I have taken on over the years! Then after I get through my resume, maybe I can Vine 6 sec characters. It's sounds like a fun thing to do and to keep me creating and really test how believable I can be in 6 secs.
Stay tuned to my facebook page: facebook.com/nicoledionneacting
Just for the record my grammer is probably horrendous and I don't care. I request a bday pass! Just want to say hi and keep in touch before I leave work!
Thank you for all the bday love yesterday friends.
I am creeping up on my birthday and I can't help but find myself in a bit of a funk. I used to be really good about planning a big gathering to celebrate with friends and stretch my creativity picking a theme. Last year however, I was on a plane to Maui. Great right?! Well could have been perfect but the week prior some life experience came up to leave me in a shitty head space and not feeling very celebratory. I almost didn't go.
Maui is a Magical place and something about the Volcano Energy seems to bubble up a lot of emotions. It's almost like getting sick from too much drinking. You aren't going to feel better until you purge all the toxins out. Maui helped me purge some wounds and after I did, I could truly enjoy the warm clear water and beautiful sunsets like no other place I have experienced. So as tough as it was to keep it together at first, I came out at the end so happy & grateful for my experience.
This year, I have been hoping to go to New Orleans, one of my bucket list places. But everyday that goes by that I am waiting on checks, I am seeing the flights go up and up and up. This birthday is significant enough that I am finding myself being a bit of a Debbie Downer on myself. Because I am dwelling in the dark thought of "I am NOT where I wanted to be by now". I am financially surviving, not thriving. I am not further enough along in my "career". I am in a position where I can't just fly home on a whim for a birth or a death and I am left feeling guilty I can't be there more for my family. But here's the thing about all that. I made the choice to be here. Am I questioning my choice?....Yes, every few months when it feels like I am spinning my wheels going no where, I question my choice. Every time I get another year older and I have another anniversary of my move here, I question my choice. But now, my age is becoming more apparent. Mortality becomes more real when you lose a parent and people in your life start to pass on, or give up on their dreams, get married or have babies. And you look at your life and say...."What am I doing?"
What am I doing? That's my big birthday question. I don't want to worry about money anymore. I don't want to ignore the fact that I am half way to retirement. Could I even retire realistically? I don't want to ignore the fact that if I want kids I need to start considering that. But how does all of that fit into an acting career? People do it everyday. But I have no clue how I would. I have to spend money to make money. I am getting gigs that help me survive out here a little longer but how do I get over the hurdle of actually starting to thrive financially? People say it's hard. And it takes 10 years before you hit it big. Well, I am past 10 years. And I have worked pretty hard. I have cast and acted for all of those years. I have juggled multiple jobs, I have had relationships start and end, I have made contacts and lost some, I have added a handful of projects to my resume every year. So WHY am I feeling like I am in the same place as i was when I was 25, just a bit wiser and with slower metabolism? Am I loyal to a fault to the wrong people? Do I not network enough? Am I not being seen enough? Is it my look? Do I really need to chop my nose off to make it in this town? Am I a shitty actress and don't know it? Or is it just a slow season and I'm just getting restless? Am I meant to do this? Or am I meant to do something else? at this point if I am meant to do something else I wish God would just smack me in the face with it so I can deny what that is anymore!
Welcome to the minefield of the ACTOR, or even ARTIST in general. Obviously not a successful, financially stable one. They have their own set of problems. But for me, I find myself here again. And it's getting sickening. You try to give yourself the benefit of the doubt. "Well Nicole, You had a lot of trauma last year with your Dad dying and your Mom in the hospital", "You have been distracted just trying to catch up financially after that", "You are working through a lot in your relationship and that can be distracting", "You didn't have TV for years, so it's okay to watch so much now because you need to catch up on what's going on the in world", "If you take more casting work it might take away from your acting focus but you need to pay the bills somehow". Life happens to EVERYONE. I mean at what point do I call BULLSHIT on myself. WHAT THE HELL AM I HOLDING MYSELF BACK FROM, & WHY???
I am deathly afraid of settling in life. I am deathly afraid of giving up my dreams because I saw how miserable my Dad was if he wasn't playing music. We need our outlets. It's the air we breath. We need to be able to express ourselves, or it will bottle up and explode internally. All I want to do is reach people. Help people heal and transform through the projects and roles I take on. I was on that path and flowing pretty good. Leading Ladies was one of those dream projects that had a message and made some headway but then things fizzled for me again. Abducted was another project that talked about a subject matter that needs to be addressed in this country. But that didn't get much momentum either. There are only so many people in this industry that want to do the same and use there art to make change in the world, and a lot of them don't know me. As for the rest if it's not a guaranteed block buster money maker they aren't interested. So aside from stalking the people I want to work with, how do I get seen? I have been thinking more about the idea of making my own way. Shooting something close to my heart. But I hear the perfectionist critic in my head say, "you don't have a camera" and "you wouldn't know how to use one anyway", "you don't have money for a budget to get the equipment", "what the hell do you know about making a film?", "no one is going to take you seriously, "and people aren't going to want to help you or care what you have to say". I have a few projects, writing, pitches, songs, videos, that I started with a gusto but never completed because that voice gets louder and louder....then I jump onto another persons dream and help them fulfill that so I don't need to finish what I started for myself. INTERESTING EH?
Acting is the quick fix to that need to express. And dancing was that for me before Acting. I have a much bigger version of myself than I have allowed myself to be yet. I know that. I have been dabbling. Maybe because I am a Gemini and I get bored in one job to long. Maybe I am a great starter so I can enable a finisher. Maybe I am meant to be a social butterfly and sprinkle a little faery dust on everyone I meet. Maybe in some small way I do make other people's lives better by encouraging their dreams. I don't know. I hope so. But I want to play BIGGER. I want to be in a bigger game now. I'm just not sure how yet. And every spiritual practice I encounter reminds me the HOW is not my job!
Self Realization is not always easy or fun. And the realizing is only the first step. I have had these realizations before but don't always know how to change them. But I refuse to be a victim of circumstance. I have had my share of living in unideal circumstances. I wasn't ever given the perfect platform to take off from. But I am who I am because of what I was given and the choices I keep making for myself as an adult. Whether I regret them or not. I am where I am. And it's not a terrible place. It's really a pretty good place most of the time. But its not ideal for me at this age, when I was still in my 20s sure. So my focus needs to be raising the bar, raising my worth, and believing in myself more. Maybe I should be more like my character JUNE in Bobby & June: Impulse: If I have an impulse I SHOULD go with it, or like my character LUSH from #WIMMR- I could use a little bit of her delusion of grander, because the realist in me can be a naysayer, or I could learn from JANE from In The Night and take a blind leap of faith. This is what is so magical about storytelling. You get to be a part of another world that gives you a new perspective on yourself and life. I think that's why we all love TV & Movies so much. Sure it's nice to escape & just be entertained but to also need to feel and be moved. And sometimes a movie can even plant a seed of change in ourselves.
Every hero of every story has to go down to come up! There is a rights of passage or lesson in a journey before they live happily ever after. I think we can all get a Happily Ever After. And some days its hard to believe that because my dad gave up, before he got his. If we can hold tight while being whipped around in the tornado, let go when the current wants to takes us, and remember each tomorrow is a new day and a chance to be reborn, then we can & will get our happy ever after. All you have to do is make a new choice. If it ain't working TRY SOMETHING NEW. And on that note I am gonna go for a walk and shake it off!
Now in Honor of the Late Great BB. KING singing my theme song this month!
Hey Guys & Gals Over the past year especially I have been receiving more ECO CAST or At home audition opportunities. "Opportunities" is an interesting word. Because I am not a cinematographer, I don't have pro lights or a Red HD camera or boom mic. SO I found this seemingly convenient at home audition thing was completely not convenient at all.
With the uprise of Youtube celebrities and Selfie Nation I feel really in adequate to "DO IT MYSELF". Some of these "at home videos" are really really good and seem to have professional lighting. A casting studio is set up to make you look at least decent because they need to look good so you to get the job, but they too still show flaws. I don't need to be tech savvy when I arrive though, I just need to bring a good audition. That is my job. Now, I am expected to Act, Find a reader, Light myself & Have a camera?! Cell phones now have great cameras thank goodness, but anyone else feel like they look out of whack or distorted on them sometimes? No, just me?! Great! haha In LA, and I am sure in NY there are a lot of studios you can pay anywhere from $25-65 to tape your audition for you. Great idea & great money maker. Just another place we actors, mostly struggling artist have to pay to just be considered for a role. Anyway if you can't tell after a few of these on my own I started to become a bit bitter. Finding the right lighting, clearing a wall, or rigging my boyfriends painters lights when it's too dark, using my cell or an old cam corder a friend let us borrow that he never took back, running out of room on the tape, or it doesn't synch with sound, oh and i don't have enough time to get a reader or to hold said camera for my slate....I mean the list goes on for hiccups that can occur. Well one day venturing around Ikea, I got inspired. I was thinking, what I could possibly do to make things a little bit easier for myself the next time one of these show up? If you have a small space like me, with not one clear wall with good natural light or many window options to let it in, here is a cheap DIY to consider. It cost me $12.99. And it was super easy to put together.
And I saw some curtains at Ikea for $9.99 as well that I planned to purchase. I was hoping to find blue or green as a lot of casting studios tend to use those two colors for backdrops. And I also had it in my head it would help the green in my eyes to pop out. However, see what happens when the light in the store hits it, never mind straight on light....you see right through it which defeats the purpose. They do have other options with thicker material that could work great. I loved the blue color.
These were $29.99 for two panels. They were nice and thick so light couldn't get through and had that soft velour like texture on one side. That is a good choice to make it more matte behind you and avoid the chance of shine from the sun. So its still a pretty good deal if you are going to use them as curtains to double as audition backdrops! For me, I only wanted one panel. So back to the drawing board but at least now I had a good idea of what I wanted. I am sure I could find what I need at a fabric store for much cheaper. But now measurements.....Which I would really know until I got it home and put it together.
I made sure to buy the rack the you could adjust for height. As a lot of times when directors ask for a "slate" they want to to say your name, agency, role your are reading, sometimes profiles, and also a body scan with the camera (which makes it hard to do by your self), all before going into the scene. Anyways with this in mind I knew I would need my rig to be taller than me. So here is the rub for some of you. I'm about 5'5"-5'6" And this just about suits me....with no heels on. So plan B will have to be raising it up a bit. So maybe looking for bed leg raisers or even stacking some sturdy books under the base. Fortunately most of your audition work can be sitting down though. And this won't even be an issue.
When I got home I remembered I had a brown curtain with the same material I need in my bedroom already. So I through it on to test it out before going out to buy more material. And It actually fit perfectly. The length and height happened to work great! We have a fold up chair I can throw in front of the backdrop and with the wheels attached to my rig it made it much easier to test the best window source to get natural light from.
This is my window facing west, where the sun is over head a lot of the day and sets at night, I took this around 12-1pm. Its very bright. Taken between 12-1pm.
This is what the light source looks like from iPhone camera, with no hair or makeup, mind you. But I'm fully lit, its a good frame, and you can see my eyes!
Now playing around with my light sources from the north I have more options.
This gives me more of a dimensional look which might suit a scene a little better. I have light from the west, and two light sources from the north, a window & an open door.
This option is with the light from the west as well as just the window source from the north. Shutting the door seemed to give me a more dramatic look. You can see I do start losing the eyes a little bit though. Food for thought, the darker the shadows on your face the more concealer you might need. I have natural dark circles under my eyes and need to be careful NOT to enhance with bad lighting. Unless I am auditioning for a junkie! haha
Now for cameras! Whether you have a High Def or a iPhone you still need a tripod or a person to hold it for you. You have a little more control with a standard video recorder when it comes to a framing than with your iPhone if you want to use it in selfie mode (you can't zoom with iPhone if you want to see yourself). However you can always upload footage to iMovie and crop the frame if need be. My issue is my couch is right under my west side window so I had to be inventive here. Luckily I found a solution. It fit perfectly and snugly in my blinds that way even if I have a reader they don't have to worry about holding the camera and looking at the script at the same time. And I don't have to try and move my couch! Big Bonus!
If I film from the north side the window is further away so that is when I tripod would come in handy. I only have a desk top one but I can place it on a stool or an adjustable music stand....again, its a chance to improvise and be inventive.
Below is me, with natural/camera friendly makeup and hair styled with a tighter frame than the above iPhone photos. This shot was taken around 4pm. Which surprised me, since I wasn't expecting the lighting to still be this good. The later daylight from the west though seems to add a little bit of an orange filter which compliments my skin (a professional cinematographer told me that once and it stuck) and the color looks a little different with this camera lens verses the iPhone lens.
So here's proof your set up can be relatively cheap & effective. All this, ended up costing less than one session at a studio. However, keeping in mind I didn't invest in this camera (but would have iPhone as back up anyway) or the curtain, which would probably range from 5-15$ if I bought the appropriate amount of fabric at a fabric store. Which by the way using the rack I purchased from Ikea, a 7x4 to 8x5 piece of fabric would be ideal for a backdrop and I'm guessing would work for a lot of people. Consider the space you have to work with in your home and your own personal space you take up. We are all different shapes and sizes. Again this is more referring back to the need for those damn bodyshots.
Now since it would be a total eye sore in my small space to just have this rig out all the time, I purposely chose the Ikea Rack for the fact that they usually have products with easy assembly and dissembling ability. So my breakdown for this after the initial set up in super easy, in 4 pieces and can be stored in a small closet out of the way! Take off the top, two sides, and leave bottom with wheels together....out of the way, Like so...
Just to be extra efficient I suggest keeping instructions and screws separately labeled for safe keeping.
Now if you are getting so many self tape auditions at home and booking like crazy you can always use your hard earned money to invest in more professional equipment as you go. They have great lightening kits on Amazon ranging from $100-500. However, that's a lot of equipment to store. Also if it's too dark to get any natural light in, bulbs that were recommended to me from a director friend were Daylight CFL's 100 watts, which you can pick up at Home Depot that i could use with my boyfriends painter lamps. This this is the best small space solution in my mind. When I can afford a house, then I will have my own studio but until then.....HOPE THIS HELPS YOU FELLOW ACTORS OUT THERE.
Just like the minutes before your next episodes of Game Of Thrones or whatever series you are into, they give you a nice recap to remind you of what had happened the week or sometimes multiple weeks before. Last week I told you I was going to do that for myself. Since it's been slow for me the past 2 weeks, not working or auditioning much, I thought it would be important to remind myself EVERYTHING I have had going on. My YOU DID IT NIKKI list was 50 items of things I could pat myself on the back about over the past year. I feel good about having 50 things. I would like to get a few more under my belt too before my Bday the end of the month.
Also leading up to my birthday and also since it seems to be a quiet time for me, I figure it was time to do a little spring cleaning and I have a bag of old shoes and clothes ready for GOODWILL. Which until this year I totally took for granted. I had no idea how great this company is and never realized before how they live up to their name. They helped give jobs to people with disabilities and disadvantages and help people in recovery. It's a great cause that I am happy to contribute too. And I picked up one of my favorite Books again! A wish can change your life...which it can! Try it!
Mine looks a whole lot more ratty these days because I have picked it up 1-3 times a year since 2008. Geez, that's already 7 years ago. It's a 10 week commitment to the Energies of Kabbalah. In lack of better terms, you are setting intention and deliberately creating with an Ancient Jewish Practice! Which I would like to simplify by saying you are spinning some MAGIC! Every time I pick it up I feel like I am discovering something new. Please try it! And to go along with the tree of life you are encourage to plant a tree with your wish. You can donate to their forrest or elsewhere but it's important to give back somehow. If you follow me on Instagram @nicole_dionne you may have seem this already!
At Fresh & Easy right now, you can buy baby trees for $2.99. When you plant one, the company will also plant one. Pay it forward to our future and the next generation's future because all the hard work we are doing trying to get somewhere, searching for or embracing love, and striving for or already living our dreams is all for nothing if we can't breath! I mean really.....it's that simple. So I bought 2. A Pine & a Redwood! I'm looking to my future, of having my own yard. One day big enough to plant them in one day!
The Pine Tree reminds me of home. We had them in our woods and a big one in my uncle's yard. We would run around them as kids and play with the cones that would drop and glue our fingers together with the sap. One day when i was around 6 or 7 my Mom and I were playing frisbee and it got thrown into the tree. I went to retrieve it and I disrupted a hornet nest. They swarmed me. Before I even knew what was happening my mom dove on top of me trying to protect me. A mother's love is a powerful thing. She literally took as many stings as she could for me. We were welted. And my Aunt rushed for the hose and covered us in Mud. It's was scary then but heartwarming and funny to think about now. I knew what mom's love was that day on a whole nothing level. The selflessness she had and still has is Saintly.
The Redwood Tree brings up more recent memories. The Redwood remind me of when I met my Cafe Gratitude future friends for the first time in NoCAL, and I had a mystical connection with a lady deer who followed me in the Redwoods for 10 minutes. So much transitioned for me the year that followed. It was like I had a heart opening surgery! When cafe G came down to LA I was reconnected to people who left me inspired to get back to my spiritual self and work on my heart. And they would later be a rock of a community that helped me through some really hard days in 2013-2014. And I will be forever Grateful to my family and community and those trees for those memories.
I had received sad news the other day, that one of my uncles had past away after a long fight with health problems brought on from Cancer. I was lucky enough to get to spend some time with him and my Aunt during his healthier days when they opened their doors to me last year while my mom was hospitalized. Uncle Ronny was a really cool, stand up guy with lots of interests and talents. He was a good husband and a good dad, a good teacher and from what I have been told a really good shopper. haha. In the end he was a strong and brave man. And when doctors were scratching their heads and throwing their hands up in the air he decided he had enough and just wanted to be home. I can't imagine ever being faced with that choice or knowingness. But there is something superhero like about the quality of character and soul who can willingly look death in the face and accept it. Like reading the last chapter of your own life story knowing that the last page is getting closer. I have a hard enough time letting go of fictional characters never mind myself. To me it's the bravest thing anyone can and will do. You will be missed Uncle. Thank you for being one of my heroes this past year and being such a good man in our family! RIP
