Better late than never… I guess you can be the judge.
The tail on the end of 2013 was eaten up by a few interesting adventures. Kicking off with an unexpected trip to Vermont and Massachusetts. One of my house mates, Patrick, works as a Promotional Manager and he was in need of a Segway rider to help hand out promotional gear to college students. The chance to escape the city for a week and get paid to ride around in the sun on a segway sounded like a pretty good deal, so I joined him on the road trip. On our time off we managed to squeeze in a visit to the Ben & Jerry’s Ice-Cream Factory – and yes we got FREE samples. We also visited a Six Flags Themepark, my rollercoaster cravings were pretty bad so a dose of adrenalin was welcomed. And we also went hiking at Mad River Glenn and filmed a short film. The script was brainstormed in the car and we pearched ourselves and camera off the side of a cliff. We were plagued by bugs and continuity issues but somehow we made a short film. It’s about the lengths you have to go to these days to be consided a B.F.F. You can check it out at www.vimeo.com/jessicarobinson.bff
Then in September I made the trek back to Australia to celebrate my mum’s 50th Birthday with my family. We travelled down to Melbourne for a luxury hit which included tickets to see King Kong the musical (we had front row seats and it was amazing to see the puppet master’s control the 1 ton King Kong puppet), soaking in the natural hot springs at Mornington Peninsula, overindulgence at the Melba Restaurant and a divine spa stay at the Langham Hotel. We then returned to Sydney for mum’s Birthday Party at Doyle’s with the wider family and friends. It was an amazing week of celebration!
The time flew by and I returned to NYC for my next big opportunity – my first TV gig. Randall Einhorn (the director from the Macy’s shoot) offered me a role as his Assistant on the FX Pilot, Death Pact, starring Tracy Morgan. The experience was amazing! I got to shadow Randall for the entire process and meet many inspiring people from all different departments. I made some extremely valuable connections with Executive Producers and Writers, that hopefully one day will feature in these tales. Fingers crossed that the pilot gets picked up and you will get to see the show but some of the highlights for me were the special FX meetings (think finger slicing, donut target practice and shooting up a Prius…oh and an auditorium full of mutilated people), I think I managed to get myself blacklisted from ever using a Porsche in any of my future production and I have seen Tracy naked!
Heading into winter and also trying not to slip backwards into the Production Assistant roles…I have seen the light…November was a slow month. And left me feeling a bit lost and kind of invisible. But I took advantage of the down time and headed to the New York City Library at Bryant Park each day to write and in the evening reward myself with ice-skating. I managed to finish the first draft of my feature script called Transplant, a film about a mother who is devastated to find out that her daughter needs a heart transplant but as time runs out, the opportunity to transplant her “mother’s love” to one of her daughter’s friends, seems to be the next best option. It’s a three strong female lead cast that explores friendship, love and the extremes people can go to, to avoid heart break…now if only I can get Toni Collette, Ellen Page and Holly Robinson on board to act in it and bring along some contacts for funding.
I also received some great news about the feature film, Met in NYC. It was accepted into the Seville International Film Festival and premiered in November to sold out crowds. Sadly, I couldn’t attend but the director Dani, Producer Carmen and many of the cast were there to walk the red carpet. Hopefully, it will have a chance to premiere in NYC in 2014. You can watch the trailer at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iChJsKzBZaI (you can turn on English subtitles).
In December I headed back to Oz for Christmas with a quick stop in LA to see a couple of friends and indulge in Pzookie (fresh baked cookie with ice-cream), standup comedy and Universal Studios (of course)! Then I proceded to waste my time down under and destroy my three year sickness free record and be plagued by tonsillitis, laryngitis and a mystery virus. Silver lining of course being home to enjoy the Aussie medical system and the priceless care from mum.
This year I am determine to hit the ground running so I flew in to NYC last night and had my first interview for Director’s Assistant role for Ed Burns’ new pilot called Public Morals. So, finger's crossed my new nickname will be Smithers soon! Excellent.
The tail on the end of 2013 was eaten up by a few interesting adventures. Kicking off with an unexpected trip to Vermont and Massachusetts. One of my house mates, Patrick, works as a Promotional Manager and he was in need of a Segway rider to help hand out promotional gear to college students. The chance to escape the city for a week and get paid to ride around in the sun on a segway sounded like a pretty good deal, so I joined him on the road trip. On our time off we managed to squeeze in a visit to the Ben & Jerry’s Ice-Cream Factory – and yes we got FREE samples. We also visited a Six Flags Themepark, my rollercoaster cravings were pretty bad so a dose of adrenalin was welcomed. And we also went hiking at Mad River Glenn and filmed a short film. The script was brainstormed in the car and we pearched ourselves and camera off the side of a cliff. We were plagued by bugs and continuity issues but somehow we made a short film. It’s about the lengths you have to go to these days to be consided a B.F.F. You can check it out at www.vimeo.com/jessicarobinson.bff
Then in September I made the trek back to Australia to celebrate my mum’s 50th Birthday with my family. We travelled down to Melbourne for a luxury hit which included tickets to see King Kong the musical (we had front row seats and it was amazing to see the puppet master’s control the 1 ton King Kong puppet), soaking in the natural hot springs at Mornington Peninsula, overindulgence at the Melba Restaurant and a divine spa stay at the Langham Hotel. We then returned to Sydney for mum’s Birthday Party at Doyle’s with the wider family and friends. It was an amazing week of celebration!
The time flew by and I returned to NYC for my next big opportunity – my first TV gig. Randall Einhorn (the director from the Macy’s shoot) offered me a role as his Assistant on the FX Pilot, Death Pact, starring Tracy Morgan. The experience was amazing! I got to shadow Randall for the entire process and meet many inspiring people from all different departments. I made some extremely valuable connections with Executive Producers and Writers, that hopefully one day will feature in these tales. Fingers crossed that the pilot gets picked up and you will get to see the show but some of the highlights for me were the special FX meetings (think finger slicing, donut target practice and shooting up a Prius…oh and an auditorium full of mutilated people), I think I managed to get myself blacklisted from ever using a Porsche in any of my future production and I have seen Tracy naked!
Heading into winter and also trying not to slip backwards into the Production Assistant roles…I have seen the light…November was a slow month. And left me feeling a bit lost and kind of invisible. But I took advantage of the down time and headed to the New York City Library at Bryant Park each day to write and in the evening reward myself with ice-skating. I managed to finish the first draft of my feature script called Transplant, a film about a mother who is devastated to find out that her daughter needs a heart transplant but as time runs out, the opportunity to transplant her “mother’s love” to one of her daughter’s friends, seems to be the next best option. It’s a three strong female lead cast that explores friendship, love and the extremes people can go to, to avoid heart break…now if only I can get Toni Collette, Ellen Page and Holly Robinson on board to act in it and bring along some contacts for funding.
I also received some great news about the feature film, Met in NYC. It was accepted into the Seville International Film Festival and premiered in November to sold out crowds. Sadly, I couldn’t attend but the director Dani, Producer Carmen and many of the cast were there to walk the red carpet. Hopefully, it will have a chance to premiere in NYC in 2014. You can watch the trailer at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iChJsKzBZaI (you can turn on English subtitles).
In December I headed back to Oz for Christmas with a quick stop in LA to see a couple of friends and indulge in Pzookie (fresh baked cookie with ice-cream), standup comedy and Universal Studios (of course)! Then I proceded to waste my time down under and destroy my three year sickness free record and be plagued by tonsillitis, laryngitis and a mystery virus. Silver lining of course being home to enjoy the Aussie medical system and the priceless care from mum.
This year I am determine to hit the ground running so I flew in to NYC last night and had my first interview for Director’s Assistant role for Ed Burns’ new pilot called Public Morals. So, finger's crossed my new nickname will be Smithers soon! Excellent.
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