Ho Ho Ho

Wow it sure has been a while since I last posted, sometime after Halloween. But since then I have been a very busy girl. Not only has it been the holiday season (Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up on Tuesday) I have been working on a lot of various projects. Two film projects, one starring the gorgeous Isabella Rossellini called Green Porno, which were five short one minute films about insects and their mating habits (these will be going up on the Sundance channel website sometime in the new year) and the second film project was a short film by my friend Pat which I art directed. Both were amazing experiences and are making me so excited about the filmmaking process. Pat's film still has some special effects to be shot however it is already looking so beautiful. I also got started on a paid internship with a company called Little Emperor who are a bunch of guys who wanted to make a cartoon series for kids with China being the central theme (and teaching Chinese). And in under a year they have got 2 episodes finished, an awesome achievement for people who have never done this before. I am fixing up the animation that comes from the Philippines. And finally, yesterday I started a second internship at Frederator Studios. I'm working for a guy called Dan Meth, he creates a series called the Meth Minute 39 which has become super popular on the web. He realy loved what I did yesterday so now I'm painting all his backgrounds for one of the upcoming films. Whilst it's an unpaid internship it is a great experience and I just love being in an animation studio. It's fun being surrounded by geeks again!
We also had Thanksgiving amongst all of that and had a fun time with friends. The parade was great, HUGE balloons and MILLIONS of people. It has also snowed a couple of times (once it was a pretty, romantic snow...the others a horrible mixture of rain and snow which creates a grey slush which is far from romantic) but despite the lack of snow it still remains cold and windy. I'm getting used to the fact that you have to add on dressing time to every departure as it takes a good five minutes just to put all the layers on to head outdoors. Jess has been having fun here, shopping it up and helping me on set with Pat's film. It's great having her here to show around and do touristy stuff with. The first week was little rocky as we both came down with he stomach flu, but now we are both well again we're exploring the city with gusto (I guess).

Thanksgiving Day Parade and FOOOOD!

The art department on Green Porno

Names in snow


My art department on Girl Grooming, with director Pat


Jess wasn't too sure about the Met after this...



Jess and a dog walker in the park and a view of 5th Ave

When on earth is 7 degrees celsius a HIGH? yes another complaint about the cold

I will get used to the weather, but this is my first time living through a real winter, so I'm afraid the complaints are going to take a while to die out. Fortunately my heating has kicked and is awesome unless someone downstairs is having a fit and starts to beat up the heating system...so far that has only happened once, though it was at 6 in the morning, so I was a bit peeved.

As for life, I've just been going on with things as normally as I can. I'm still working on various freelance jobs and looking for a staff job. However there is a possibility I will be working on creating a web series soon, so thats pretty awesome. I've been going to galleries and eating in cool places, vegetarian restaurants here are simply amazing. There's even a guy down the street, he's a vendor (cooks all food on a trolley) and makes the most delicious vegan indian meals. He has lines of people every day. Some waiting almost an hour for his food. The funniest part is that he needs to have a guy sit in his ute across the road so that it wont get towed...my first trip to the dosa man saw that he was breaking in a new car sitter and was having a couple problems as the kid wasnt sure what exactly he had to do...amusing to me as I had ordered my food in advance...not amusing to the others who were waiting in line. Awesome food though...definitely a must do NYC experience.

And yes, Halloween was upon us last week...and boy was it crazy town here! Especially in the village. The most elaborate costumes could be found on people willing to spend 100s of dollars for one evening. The annual parade went past a few blocks from my home so a friend and I waited a couple hours to see the fanatics do the walk. Some of the 'exhibits' were stunning, large puppets navigating the street, costumed people on stilts and cool scary floats. I've never had a halloween experience quite like this one. After the parade people just filled the city, filtering out to different areas walking around in their costumes. I didn't feel too sorry for the many girls who chose to be "sexy red riding hood" or "sexy alice in wonderland" firstly their costumes were store bought, secondly it was freezing and their own fault not to wear tights. The pics of me are from a party the weekend before Halloween...I also stole some pics off facebook to show!

Everyone tells me this cool weather is nothing..but I'm from Queensland dammit!

Well the autumn weather has hit the city and I'm feeling the cold! It will be interesting to see how I fair come Christmas. I am however looking forward to it snowing here. I think that will be quite novel.

But enough about the weather. This week has been a fun one. I have been doing a lot of sight seeing with Tracey before she leaves on Wednesday, so we have been uptown to the MOMA, dined all over the town, been to Harlem for a church service, gone skating at Rockefeller centre and scaled the Empire State Building.

Harlem was awesome. Finally I got to see the Shout! trombone band Irene had been telling me about since I met her two years ago. We've tried to see them twice but always arrived too late, so this time we weren't going to miss out. This time we arrived early and sat through a long service which in itself was extremely interesting as church in Harlem is not the same as church in an all girls private school! And then the music started and it was amazing. There were at least 12 trombones, a sousaphone, baritone and about 3 percussionists. The sound these guys achieved was phenomenal. Had I been brought up in a church like that I'd be a very different person where it comes to religious views! A must see for any brass musician.

moma views

skating fun

city views from the 86th floor

A date with lady Liberty

Well it's about time I blogged about something stereotypically New York. Today Tracey and I made the trip to the Financial District, all the way down the bottom of Manhattan to see the lovely Miss Liberty. It was an unfortunate overcast and windy day however the benefit there was that it deterred most sight-seers and left us with room to move. Feeling peckish, we decided to head through Battery Park past the many men pretending to be the Statue of Liberty for photo opportunities, and into the world of business. And what did we stumble open as we drew close to the statue of the charging bull...a television set. I noticed that there were many director's style chairs with names printed on the back. The first one I see...I have no idea who it is, then scanning across I see "Vincent D'Onofrio". Immediately I look at the guy in the chair (well where else would I look first?) but alas, someone else was sitting in his chair...And then Tracey spots him with an excited squeal from both of us. So I made the use of my zoom lens today and snapped my very first "star spotting" pictures. We watched them film a scene and then headed to TGI Friday's for lunch. Fried food anyone? Vincent, a bite to eat?!

Then off to the Statue of Liberty as she had been patiently waiting for our arrival. Through crossed communications we managed to miss out on Ellis Island (something I recommend everyone see) but got to Liberty Island with plenty of time to spend wandering. Thanks to the wind though, this wasn't exactly enjoyable so we took our photos and left.

I also have realised that most people American perceptions of Australia have been shaped and influenced by that one episode of The Simpsons. Lucky for us, we are simple minded folk.

Battery Park

Cue excited squeals

Bcause you need MORE than one man in a liberty costume

Geeky cool...I couldn't resist