My Rock Star Life!

My Rock Star Life....

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Dear friends,

What an amazing ten days I’ve had. On the Tue. Before Thanksgiving I got a call from the Kelly Fores, the local Manatee Commissioner from the Fla. Film Commission who knew me from the work I did with the Banyan Theater Company this summer. She asked if I would be interested in doing props for a music video that was filming locally. The video is for the band Shinedown and the song is “Second Chance”. As this whole thing began to unfold I found that the production co., The Collaboration Factory, is from Los Angeles and the group is BIG STUFF, on Atlantic Records. They had chosen Anna Maria Island, a quaint fishing village just north of Sarasota because the producer Thom Fennesy’s parents have retired here and he had been here for his Dad’s 80th birthday and fell in love with the locale. I called my dear friend Elizabeth Shannon in New Orleans (My son Scott’s Godmother) who has been doing props and Art Direction for films for many years and after hours on the phone with her teaching me the basics of working props and art for films I thought I just might be able to do this. Following a couple of calls to L.A. with Thom, sending of resumes etc. I had a conference call with Thom and the Director Ryan Smith and they decided that they loved my way of communicating and asked me to be Art Director! Little ole me?
So….. they sent me the “treatment”, an outline of the story and a general idea of what Ryan wanted as “the look” and there was no turning back. Thom, Ryan and the Production Supervisor, Napoleon Oscoa arrived Sunday and came and picked me up on a windy, rainy Sunday and we went off location scouting. I got along with everyone right off the bat and we had a great day checking out beaches and houses and fishing and bait shops, etc. I got my budget and I was off running like hell. We film on Wed and Thurs!!!!
So, I got my team together. Five people with a variety of wonderful skills and varying degrees of experience in film. I borrowed my ex husband Roger’s big old van and rented a huge box truck from friends and started scrambling to create the “worlds” the director needed. I got furniture, and appliances and paintings and bedding and fabrics and junk and more props than you can imagine. Everything from old unpaid bills, to a city bus stop bench. I created a little boys room, a teenage ballerina’ bedroom, a garage stuffed with overflowing “interesting junk” a homemade Ballet Bar, A living room, a bus ticket, etc.. I rented, bought, borrowed, begged and stole. (the city bus stop bench, we put it back) I painted, printed, aged, distressed, touched up and created as we went along.I had ballet trophies made to order for a shot and a dance magazine cover created. I smeared real fish guts on two aprons and bought $250.00 worth of red snapper individually selected for their beauty.
My team was brilliant. I can’t say enough about them! They made the whole thing possible for me.They made me look good!God bless my team, Barry, Julie and Mike Look, Mark Stokes and Bob Downes.
We took furniture out of the location house then hauled in and assembled our furniture and props. We fine tuned as we went along.After the shoot we then had to take apart and haul out what we brought and reassemble the owner’s furniture and accessories exactly as it had been before we arrived.
On Wed. we shot our interior shots at the house with actors. On Thursday we shot our exteriors at the fishing docks, fish market, local streets, the beach and a “bus stop-gas station” with the lead singer Brent Smith and the band. Executives from Atlantic Records arrived and actually treated me like I was a pretty big cheese.(little did they know it was my first gig as Art Director!) I was talking with a nice young man (they’re all young of course) who is Shinedown’s Management Rep. By a wild coincidence, he turned out to be Gwyther Bultman, my old friends Bethany and Johan Bultman’s son originally from my home town, New Orleans! I changed his diaper when he was a baby. I haven’t seen him since he was 4 or 5. Isn’t that hysterical? He called his Mom and she told him stories about things we did together! How funny is that?
I got to hang with Brent and the band and the Atlantic Records people in the Rock and Roll Trailer and like a true bumpkin got my picture taken with all of them! They were all so sweet it was crazy.
Everything went spectacularly well. The weather was perfect, the camera crew was so nice, I got to walk around with a rock star looking “walky talky”. The director told me over and over how much he loved what I created! Unreal. And Ryan Smith has worked with all kinds of big groups. After two exhaustingly long, long, long days we wrapped. Yesterday I did all the returns of stuff I used, paid people and did all the paperwork with receipts, rental, costs, billing etc. I met with Thom and Napoleon last night at the Ritz, (WoooHooooo) to finish up before they flew out today for L.A. They went through the paperwork (I’m terrible at paperwork but it all balanced out) cut me a check and then we relaxed for a while and hung out. Thom told me the nicest thing ever. He said I was the best thing about the whole video shoot and that he wants to keep in touch. Can you believe?
The video will be released in Jan. I’m already looking for my outfit for the Grammys. (LOL)
Well, that was my last ten days! You just never know what’s around the corner.
Love you,
Annette