Still trailing through press photos from the other premieres, as yet to no avail.
But you do have something to look forward to - all the events from the Black Swan premiere coming really soon.
Promise.
Wednesday 22 September 2010
There I Am!
Wednesday 15 September 2010
Girl about The Town
Day 11 of my stay in Canada, and day 2 of my Toronto International Film Festival activites. I didn't stalk celebs on Yorkville. I didn't chillax in the Four Seasons. I certainly didn't seek out Emily Blunt's hotel room and smuggle myself into there in a laundry cart. Not for lack of trying, anyway.
I went to another premiere.
This time it was opening night for The Town, a crime thriller starring and directed by Ben Affleck. It was a much bigger affair that The King's Speech, and this time things didn't kick off until around 9pm for the 9:30 screening. I got there for 7:30pm, and I have to say I was taken aback by the size of the crowd at that time. I squashed my way into the back row of people, hoping that some of them would eventually get fed up, perhaps not really knowing what they were waiting for, and leave. A few did... I probably gained another row, but by 9pm I was still about three rows back, only now closed in by another three rows behind.
Eventually the cars began to arrive, and despite the first car "only" containing producers and other execs, I got a taste of what was to come. By that I mean, I began what would be a long hour of getting to know everyone around me far too intimately. At one point a woman behind me, who was dressed and made-up so beautifully that she could have been one of the actresses, went against the grain of her attractive aesthetics and tried to - rather unattractively - scramble her way to the front. Good luck with that, love. In doing so, she actually, with her hand, grabbed the side of my head and tried to move it out of the way. Now, I haven't really lived in Blackpool for around four years, so something that I like to call the "blackpool rage" has pretty much all but left my nature. Except for in moments like that. I turned around, gave her my very best evil stare (with added twist of "you digust me") and said:
"Are you SERIOUSLY... touching my head?"
"Oh, I'm sorry I just.... lost my balance."
Course you did, you silly tart. I chose to ignore that, and said goodbye to the Blackpool Rage, focusing my attentions back onto the unfolding events on the other side of the barrier.
We didn't have to wait too much longer before the stars began to arrive. First came established actor Chris Cooper, then Ben Affleck himself. The crowd went into such a frenzy in that moment that I struggled to see anything, and the only photos I managed to get either showed a blurry version of the back of his (very nice) suit, or obstructed images of his face. Next came his wife of five years, Jennifer Garner, who again I barely saw. However, the glimpses I did get confirmed that she's actually even more stunning in the flesh than on screen. After that, Mad Men's John Hamm, star of The Hurt Locker, Jeremy Renner, Canadian actress Rachelle Lefevre and The Town's lead actress Rebecca Hall.
And then, the moment I`m not remotely ashamed to admit that I`d been waiting for.... Blake Lively. Some of you may know her from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, most of you as Serena van der Woodsen from Gossip Girl. Some of you probably won`t know of her at all. But know this: she is devastatingly beautiful. She wore a stunning red Chanel sequined dress and the most amazing earrings, and probably needless to say, I couldn`t stop looking at the girl.
I got a decent enough photo of her, and of everyone else except for Ben and Jennifer. I discovered that my camera is pretty, well, shit, when in situations like this, where there is a lot of movement and flashing light. Note to self: Must save up for good quality camera next year.
All in all it was a great night. The atmosphere at these premieres is more than electric, and the spectacle of seeing these incredibly famous people, all dolled up to promote their work... Well, for me it doesn`t get much better than that. There was a pang of something else, though, while I stood there watching everyone waiting for the stars, and watching them all arrive and the frenzy that surrounded the occasion. That`s where I want to be. That`s what I want. Not to be one of the stars, necessarily, but to be a part of that, a part of the madness. Whether it be to document the event itself or - and this is the real desire - to be there because of something I did, something I worked on...
It definitely wouldn`t ever get any better than that.
I went to another premiere.
This time it was opening night for The Town, a crime thriller starring and directed by Ben Affleck. It was a much bigger affair that The King's Speech, and this time things didn't kick off until around 9pm for the 9:30 screening. I got there for 7:30pm, and I have to say I was taken aback by the size of the crowd at that time. I squashed my way into the back row of people, hoping that some of them would eventually get fed up, perhaps not really knowing what they were waiting for, and leave. A few did... I probably gained another row, but by 9pm I was still about three rows back, only now closed in by another three rows behind.
Eventually the cars began to arrive, and despite the first car "only" containing producers and other execs, I got a taste of what was to come. By that I mean, I began what would be a long hour of getting to know everyone around me far too intimately. At one point a woman behind me, who was dressed and made-up so beautifully that she could have been one of the actresses, went against the grain of her attractive aesthetics and tried to - rather unattractively - scramble her way to the front. Good luck with that, love. In doing so, she actually, with her hand, grabbed the side of my head and tried to move it out of the way. Now, I haven't really lived in Blackpool for around four years, so something that I like to call the "blackpool rage" has pretty much all but left my nature. Except for in moments like that. I turned around, gave her my very best evil stare (with added twist of "you digust me") and said:
"Are you SERIOUSLY... touching my head?"
"Oh, I'm sorry I just.... lost my balance."
Course you did, you silly tart. I chose to ignore that, and said goodbye to the Blackpool Rage, focusing my attentions back onto the unfolding events on the other side of the barrier.
We didn't have to wait too much longer before the stars began to arrive. First came established actor Chris Cooper, then Ben Affleck himself. The crowd went into such a frenzy in that moment that I struggled to see anything, and the only photos I managed to get either showed a blurry version of the back of his (very nice) suit, or obstructed images of his face. Next came his wife of five years, Jennifer Garner, who again I barely saw. However, the glimpses I did get confirmed that she's actually even more stunning in the flesh than on screen. After that, Mad Men's John Hamm, star of The Hurt Locker, Jeremy Renner, Canadian actress Rachelle Lefevre and The Town's lead actress Rebecca Hall.
And then, the moment I`m not remotely ashamed to admit that I`d been waiting for.... Blake Lively. Some of you may know her from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, most of you as Serena van der Woodsen from Gossip Girl. Some of you probably won`t know of her at all. But know this: she is devastatingly beautiful. She wore a stunning red Chanel sequined dress and the most amazing earrings, and probably needless to say, I couldn`t stop looking at the girl.
I got a decent enough photo of her, and of everyone else except for Ben and Jennifer. I discovered that my camera is pretty, well, shit, when in situations like this, where there is a lot of movement and flashing light. Note to self: Must save up for good quality camera next year.
All in all it was a great night. The atmosphere at these premieres is more than electric, and the spectacle of seeing these incredibly famous people, all dolled up to promote their work... Well, for me it doesn`t get much better than that. There was a pang of something else, though, while I stood there watching everyone waiting for the stars, and watching them all arrive and the frenzy that surrounded the occasion. That`s where I want to be. That`s what I want. Not to be one of the stars, necessarily, but to be a part of that, a part of the madness. Whether it be to document the event itself or - and this is the real desire - to be there because of something I did, something I worked on...
It definitely wouldn`t ever get any better than that.
Sunday 12 September 2010
Star Stalking. I mean Star SPOTTING... Ok I mean Star Stalking....
Last summer, my biggest disappointment on leaving Toronto wasn't leaving my brother and family behind - Worst Sister Award, over here - or facing the dismal British autumn, or just leaving a very cool city for my pretty unremarkable hometown. It was the thought of missing out on the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) only days before it began.
Luckily this year I've been here for at least the first half of the Festival, and while it's proving almost impossible to get tickets for anything, I'm doing my best to check out as much of it as possible. Anyone who knows me will know that the translation for that, for the most part, is a nice bit of celebrity spotting. Some would say stalking.... I would staunchly deny it. Before giving in and admitting to it.
So my first experience of TIFF was, of course, a couple of hours spent on Yorkville in the north of the city. Yorkville is the place to be for celebs, and the place to see for all avid celebrity spotters. It's home to the Four Seasons and Hazelton hotels, as well as designer stores and exclusive clubs and bars. It's also right around the corner from all the other top-notch hotels and hangouts. Myself and another celebrity-obsessed friend arrived there at around 4:30pm on Friday, which in hindsight wasn't all that wise - the first big opening night of the Festival, at the time of evening when pretty much everyone would either be getting ready to go out, or already on their way.
My friend is somewhat of a seasoned pro at star spotting, so she suggested we take a look inside the Four Seasons. "I hung out in the lobby there for a few hours yesterday, but I didn't see anyone..." she said. For her, the exceptional part of that sentence was the lack of sightings, not the fact that she just racked up to the Four Seasons and plonked herself down on one of their plush lobby sofas for the afternoon. So, following suit, I wandered into that very same lobby whilst practising my very best "I'm supposed to be here" version of nonchalance. Once again, it worked, and once again... no celebs. Just a lot of important-looking people stood around waiting for more important-looking people.
The waiting did pay off. A little later on we watched Bill Murray (who I hope wasn't going anywhere fancy, since he was wearing a simple body warmer and baseball cap) get into his waiting car outside the Hazelton and be driven off slowly, pausing with his window open to allow fans to take photographs. It's nice to see the real old-school actors having time for their fans. Something which was brilliantly juxtaposed ten minutes later, when Megan Fox was whisked away in a big, white Audi with blacked out windows and, from what I could make out from their silhouettes, flanked on either side by bodyguards. Wouldn't wanna risk a security threat Megan, would ya. Or worse, a bad photo. Maybe one of those with a half eyelid flutter. Damn, I wish that window had been open...
After that we gave up on Yorkville and headed down to Roy Thomson Hall for the premiere of The King's Speech, a British film which stars Colin Firth as King George VI, and tells the story of his struggle with a bad stutter. We didn't have to wait long for everyone to arrive, the only big stars being Firth and distinguished actor Geoffrey Rush. It was a fairly small premiere, so we had a good view and got to shake hands with Colin. We succeeded in getting the only real reaction from him that night, when my friend shouted "Hey Colin, see you for a beer later, yeah?", and me adding "We'll find a nice Irish pub!".
Aside from Colin's lovely, friendly handshake, the real event of the night was meeting a fairly strange young man who was more of a star-spotting "pro" than either of us could ever wish to be (and would ever wish to be...). His conversation starter was to offer, since he was so tall, to email us his photos if we didn't manage to get any good shots. He then showed us the glossy A4-sized photos he had ready for the two actors to sign, and went on to tell us - in detail - about all the celebrities he'd met and seen so far this Festival. The best moment, though, came when he proudly said:
"And last year I was the only person to get Robert Deniro's autograph... No, wait. It wasn't Robert Deniro. Who was it...... Oh yeah, Mariah Carey. Mariah Carey's autograph."
Everyone around me burst into not-so-subtle laughter. I, realising that this guy was a few signatures short of a full autograph book, stayed completely straight-faced, and answered:
"Yeah. I can see how you'd get the two of those confused."
Poor guy didn't really get it. He carried on, blissfully unaware of his sweet-but-creepy appearance, shouting "Happy birthday Colin!" before the car door had really even opened - and raising even more judgemental eyebrows - and repeating poor Geoffrey Rush's name more times than I ever care to hear again.
I was smugly satisfied when, last night at the premiere for The Town - which I will be writing about soon! And which was a much bigger event - I saw the same guy, at the back of the huge crowd, looking on with a dejected expression on his face that seemed to say:
"With this crowd I'll never get Jennifer Aniston's autograph. No wait, not Jennifer Aniston..... Ben Affleck. Ben Affleck's autograph..."
Luckily this year I've been here for at least the first half of the Festival, and while it's proving almost impossible to get tickets for anything, I'm doing my best to check out as much of it as possible. Anyone who knows me will know that the translation for that, for the most part, is a nice bit of celebrity spotting. Some would say stalking.... I would staunchly deny it. Before giving in and admitting to it.
So my first experience of TIFF was, of course, a couple of hours spent on Yorkville in the north of the city. Yorkville is the place to be for celebs, and the place to see for all avid celebrity spotters. It's home to the Four Seasons and Hazelton hotels, as well as designer stores and exclusive clubs and bars. It's also right around the corner from all the other top-notch hotels and hangouts. Myself and another celebrity-obsessed friend arrived there at around 4:30pm on Friday, which in hindsight wasn't all that wise - the first big opening night of the Festival, at the time of evening when pretty much everyone would either be getting ready to go out, or already on their way.
My friend is somewhat of a seasoned pro at star spotting, so she suggested we take a look inside the Four Seasons. "I hung out in the lobby there for a few hours yesterday, but I didn't see anyone..." she said. For her, the exceptional part of that sentence was the lack of sightings, not the fact that she just racked up to the Four Seasons and plonked herself down on one of their plush lobby sofas for the afternoon. So, following suit, I wandered into that very same lobby whilst practising my very best "I'm supposed to be here" version of nonchalance. Once again, it worked, and once again... no celebs. Just a lot of important-looking people stood around waiting for more important-looking people.
The waiting did pay off. A little later on we watched Bill Murray (who I hope wasn't going anywhere fancy, since he was wearing a simple body warmer and baseball cap) get into his waiting car outside the Hazelton and be driven off slowly, pausing with his window open to allow fans to take photographs. It's nice to see the real old-school actors having time for their fans. Something which was brilliantly juxtaposed ten minutes later, when Megan Fox was whisked away in a big, white Audi with blacked out windows and, from what I could make out from their silhouettes, flanked on either side by bodyguards. Wouldn't wanna risk a security threat Megan, would ya. Or worse, a bad photo. Maybe one of those with a half eyelid flutter. Damn, I wish that window had been open...
After that we gave up on Yorkville and headed down to Roy Thomson Hall for the premiere of The King's Speech, a British film which stars Colin Firth as King George VI, and tells the story of his struggle with a bad stutter. We didn't have to wait long for everyone to arrive, the only big stars being Firth and distinguished actor Geoffrey Rush. It was a fairly small premiere, so we had a good view and got to shake hands with Colin. We succeeded in getting the only real reaction from him that night, when my friend shouted "Hey Colin, see you for a beer later, yeah?", and me adding "We'll find a nice Irish pub!".
Aside from Colin's lovely, friendly handshake, the real event of the night was meeting a fairly strange young man who was more of a star-spotting "pro" than either of us could ever wish to be (and would ever wish to be...). His conversation starter was to offer, since he was so tall, to email us his photos if we didn't manage to get any good shots. He then showed us the glossy A4-sized photos he had ready for the two actors to sign, and went on to tell us - in detail - about all the celebrities he'd met and seen so far this Festival. The best moment, though, came when he proudly said:
"And last year I was the only person to get Robert Deniro's autograph... No, wait. It wasn't Robert Deniro. Who was it...... Oh yeah, Mariah Carey. Mariah Carey's autograph."
Everyone around me burst into not-so-subtle laughter. I, realising that this guy was a few signatures short of a full autograph book, stayed completely straight-faced, and answered:
"Yeah. I can see how you'd get the two of those confused."
Poor guy didn't really get it. He carried on, blissfully unaware of his sweet-but-creepy appearance, shouting "Happy birthday Colin!" before the car door had really even opened - and raising even more judgemental eyebrows - and repeating poor Geoffrey Rush's name more times than I ever care to hear again.
I was smugly satisfied when, last night at the premiere for The Town - which I will be writing about soon! And which was a much bigger event - I saw the same guy, at the back of the huge crowd, looking on with a dejected expression on his face that seemed to say:
"With this crowd I'll never get Jennifer Aniston's autograph. No wait, not Jennifer Aniston..... Ben Affleck. Ben Affleck's autograph..."
Thursday 9 September 2010
Bonjour... Uhh.... Au Revoir!
"I'm just gutted. This stuff always seems to happen to me."
"It doesn't love. It happens to me too. Today I backed into a lamp post!"
And so went one of the many long-distance, middle-of-the-night phone calls between my mum and I a couple of nights ago, from my hostel in Montreal.
I'd been there for less than 24 hours and I'd managed to get ill. Some sort of sickness bug, or possibly a bit of food poisoning, or something, but all I knew since waking up that morning was that I couldn't even keep down a few sips of water. The one part of my trip, apart from seeing my brother, niece and nephew, that I'd been really excited about had ended before it'd really begun.
Well, not exactly. I did have one good night there, meeting some really cool people and ending up checking out a couple of bars with another English girl with whom I drunkenly discovered I shared my birthday...
Ash: "I don't know how to say my birthday in French. How do I say 18th?"
Zoe: "Dix-huit. Dix huit Avril....."
Ash: "What? Shut up. When's your birthday?
Zoe: "Dix Huit. Avril. Eighteenth of April."
Ash: "No it isn't. Get out your passport."
[Cue around 20 minutes of "Shut up's!" and passing passports around, and of course a couple of random French guys who don't speak english, laughing at our photos and saying "Black... pool?" in a variety of ways].
So, two days early I arrive back in Toronto. I wish I could have stuck around and enjoyed my time with the great people I met, but being ill by yourself in a random hostel isn't all that fun - especially in a French-speaking area when your French amounts to "Do you speak English?", "Is there a toilet?" and "Hello, my name is Pierre, and I am a Vet" (which I'm sure will make at least some sense to my fellow classmates from lessons with the legendary Madame Castick!).
It sucks. Full on sucks. But this stuff happens, and you just have to look on the bright side.
Or make one up so you don't cry!
"It doesn't love. It happens to me too. Today I backed into a lamp post!"
And so went one of the many long-distance, middle-of-the-night phone calls between my mum and I a couple of nights ago, from my hostel in Montreal.
I'd been there for less than 24 hours and I'd managed to get ill. Some sort of sickness bug, or possibly a bit of food poisoning, or something, but all I knew since waking up that morning was that I couldn't even keep down a few sips of water. The one part of my trip, apart from seeing my brother, niece and nephew, that I'd been really excited about had ended before it'd really begun.
Well, not exactly. I did have one good night there, meeting some really cool people and ending up checking out a couple of bars with another English girl with whom I drunkenly discovered I shared my birthday...
Ash: "I don't know how to say my birthday in French. How do I say 18th?"
Zoe: "Dix-huit. Dix huit Avril....."
Ash: "What? Shut up. When's your birthday?
Zoe: "Dix Huit. Avril. Eighteenth of April."
Ash: "No it isn't. Get out your passport."
[Cue around 20 minutes of "Shut up's!" and passing passports around, and of course a couple of random French guys who don't speak english, laughing at our photos and saying "Black... pool?" in a variety of ways].
So, two days early I arrive back in Toronto. I wish I could have stuck around and enjoyed my time with the great people I met, but being ill by yourself in a random hostel isn't all that fun - especially in a French-speaking area when your French amounts to "Do you speak English?", "Is there a toilet?" and "Hello, my name is Pierre, and I am a Vet" (which I'm sure will make at least some sense to my fellow classmates from lessons with the legendary Madame Castick!).
It sucks. Full on sucks. But this stuff happens, and you just have to look on the bright side.
Or make one up so you don't cry!
Sunday 5 September 2010
Creativity Vs The Clock
A funny thing can happen to you sometimes. You reach a point, in whatever situation you're currently in, where you're absorbed into your own routine so much that it becomes difficult to add any more elements into that routine. Not only that, some of the old, well-worn elements can lose their place.
In short, shit becomes pretty boring. And if you're anything like me, your solution will likely be to grab that routine by the ankles, turn it upside down and shake all of the out-of-date, loose change out of its pockets. Then, stand it up, straighten its collar, give it a couple of slaps around the face and tell it to sort itself out.
So, you ask, what's the meaning of all this, of all these metaphors? What are you trying to tell me? Well... I quit my job. Yep. teagirl is currently flying solo on the teabag front. No big pots of hot beverage from this kettle right now, just one solitary, stolen-from-Starbucks mug.
My time had come to leave Halo Post Production. I'd had a - mostly - brilliant time working there, learning plenty of useful skills along the way. The biggest plus was getting to work, day in, day out (and often night in, night out!) with some of my best friends. Someone told me recently that all people who work in TV are crazy on some level, which I'm finding makes for some very interesting and enjoyable friendships. But you can't stay in one place for the people, as sad as it is - and was - to leave them behind and move on. I'd gotten everything I could get out of the job, there wasn't room for progression, and while I would have always given it my all, my heart was starting to focus itself elsewhere. And I'm very much a "heart" kind of girl.
The question I've heard the most so far, naturally, has been "So where are you heading next?" This is where all that "grabbing by the ankles" and shaking things up business comes in. In true Ash style, I've changed pretty much everything, quit my stable job (during a recession... yes, I'm aware!) given up my extremely-tiny-and-lime-green London home, all with no real plan.
There's a bit of a plan. I'm in Toronto right now visiting my brother (and doing my last piece of decision-making about my possible 6-month stint here next summer). When I get back to the UK I'm having some much-needed family time in Blackpool before throwing myself into everything again. Which means more couch-surfing and hopefully some production jobs that will lead to something stable, so I can set up camp in the Big Smoke once again....
But it wasn't all about the job, about changing my situation to better suit my progression. Something else occured to me, only part-way through all these changes, and bear with me, because it may sound a little pretentious at first. But, I felt that my creativity was being stifled. I've always been creative, and I mean always. In anything too.... music, writing, sketching... at one point I could even make over 50 things out of one of those cardboard toilet roll holders. And creativity was exactly one of those things that had become excluded from my routine. Not only because I didn't have any real spare time, but because I was so absorbed by that routine - and so focused on spending all free hours between the pub and my bed - that I didn't really feel like being creative anymore. I didn't want to make the time for it. I stopped writing, I can't tell you the last time I drew anything that wasn't a moustache on Katie Price's photographed face. And I stopped blogging.
So, I'm back. If only for the reason that I really don't have any bloody excuse now.
Stick the kettle on, would you?
In short, shit becomes pretty boring. And if you're anything like me, your solution will likely be to grab that routine by the ankles, turn it upside down and shake all of the out-of-date, loose change out of its pockets. Then, stand it up, straighten its collar, give it a couple of slaps around the face and tell it to sort itself out.
So, you ask, what's the meaning of all this, of all these metaphors? What are you trying to tell me? Well... I quit my job. Yep. teagirl is currently flying solo on the teabag front. No big pots of hot beverage from this kettle right now, just one solitary, stolen-from-Starbucks mug.
My time had come to leave Halo Post Production. I'd had a - mostly - brilliant time working there, learning plenty of useful skills along the way. The biggest plus was getting to work, day in, day out (and often night in, night out!) with some of my best friends. Someone told me recently that all people who work in TV are crazy on some level, which I'm finding makes for some very interesting and enjoyable friendships. But you can't stay in one place for the people, as sad as it is - and was - to leave them behind and move on. I'd gotten everything I could get out of the job, there wasn't room for progression, and while I would have always given it my all, my heart was starting to focus itself elsewhere. And I'm very much a "heart" kind of girl.
The question I've heard the most so far, naturally, has been "So where are you heading next?" This is where all that "grabbing by the ankles" and shaking things up business comes in. In true Ash style, I've changed pretty much everything, quit my stable job (during a recession... yes, I'm aware!) given up my extremely-tiny-and-lime-green London home, all with no real plan.
There's a bit of a plan. I'm in Toronto right now visiting my brother (and doing my last piece of decision-making about my possible 6-month stint here next summer). When I get back to the UK I'm having some much-needed family time in Blackpool before throwing myself into everything again. Which means more couch-surfing and hopefully some production jobs that will lead to something stable, so I can set up camp in the Big Smoke once again....
But it wasn't all about the job, about changing my situation to better suit my progression. Something else occured to me, only part-way through all these changes, and bear with me, because it may sound a little pretentious at first. But, I felt that my creativity was being stifled. I've always been creative, and I mean always. In anything too.... music, writing, sketching... at one point I could even make over 50 things out of one of those cardboard toilet roll holders. And creativity was exactly one of those things that had become excluded from my routine. Not only because I didn't have any real spare time, but because I was so absorbed by that routine - and so focused on spending all free hours between the pub and my bed - that I didn't really feel like being creative anymore. I didn't want to make the time for it. I stopped writing, I can't tell you the last time I drew anything that wasn't a moustache on Katie Price's photographed face. And I stopped blogging.
So, I'm back. If only for the reason that I really don't have any bloody excuse now.
Stick the kettle on, would you?
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