ramblings of a raconteuse

Recently a number of people have been asking me what my next producing project is going to be.  My simplest answer?

Me.

After having spent the last few years as what my friend Bonnie Gillespie (casting director/author) would call a “self producing actor,” I’ve churned out a heck of a lot of content.  From my web series pilot The Day Player back in 2009 to 98 episodes of my vlog “Helenna’s Tinseltown Tuesdays,” to my latest online project the animated comedy series “Girl and Boy,”  I’ve spent a lot of time and energy creating projects.  While none of them really “took off,” that was never my goal.  While some of the projects I produced were purely for the love of creating, some of them were solely a means to an end.  The goal for me was never to create a hit online series, it was always to use the projects I produced as a spring board. 

Since graduating theater school I have always been focused on being a working actor.  Ultimately, a series regular whose hiatus from her show is spent on film sets each summer.  

The reality is that this type of goal can take many many many years to accomplish, and for the majority of people it’s not a goal that will ever be attained.  Consistent financial success in this industry has so much to do with other people’s free will and the “Entertainment Gods” aka) fate.  You can be the most incredible actor that has ever lived but never catch a break or “get arrested” as Hollywood folk say.  This very reason is why so many actors, myself included, turn to producing their own projects.  It’s a way for us to take control over our careers while also allowing us to mold how we are seen by the decision makers and higher ups.

When I produced the 2 part web series pilot “The Day Player,” I had very specific goals in mind.  I knew that I wanted to showcase myself as a comedic actor.  I also knew that I wanted to get the project in front of people in “traditional Hollywood” so that I could open doors that had previously been closed to me.  This is something that I talk a lot about on the Geek Girls Create panel that I sit on; specifically that so far, producing for me has been a means to an end, and a successful one at that.  After all, it’s because I produced The Day Player that Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg were introduced to my work as an actor and planted the seed of what ultimately lead to me being able to audition for “American Reunion” and then book it. 

For me, this is a definite measure of “self producing” success. But this being said, I’ve made the decision to fly without my “self producing actor safety net” for the rest of 2012.  I say “safety net” because I’ve kept myself busy for a few years doing everything I could not waiting for the phone to ring.  As an actor in LA, I firmly believe that this is one of the best things you can do so that you don’t feel like you are being eaten alive by this industry.  It helped me feel a great sense of control in an extremely fickle business. 

Over the past few years I’ve also spent huge amounts of time absorbing information about new media and learning everything I could.  One of the biggest things I’ve learned? Researching and implementing social media strategies is a full time job. Producing content is like, 6 different people’s full time jobs.  And while this definitely kept me busy and feeling like I was feeding my creative self, it took me further away from the reason I moved to LA to begin with and made me feel like my brain was going to explode.  Is there a lot more that I could do to open even more doors as a “self producing actor?”  Absolutely.  But, I was spending so much time creating that I was overloading myself so much that ironically, my creative self was starting to burn out.  Being a burned out creative does not really support being a strong actor. 

In addition to the exploding brain factor, all of the projects I’ve produced including the musical series Songs From, The Ex-Convict’s Guide, my vlog, Girl and Boy etc… were projects I did because I loved the content and I loved producing, but I’ve recently realized that with the majority of these projects I was making lateral moves instead of upwards steps. 

I love producing and it is something that I will absolutely be coming back to especially since my husband and I share a production company, but I have decided that I’m shifting focus. The rest of 2012 is devoted solely towards upward steps in my career path; specifically, to Helenna the Actor.

So, what does this mean? 

I am now declaring my remainder of 2012 as the year of “Project Helenna.”  

Stay tuned to my next blog post (out Friday, May 4th) for the nitty gritty on what this means and to see my action plan…

Xoxoxo helenna 

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tweet me at: @helslevy

browse me at: helennasantoslevy.com

email me at: contacthelenna@gmail.com

aka) I’m the resident “artsy farsty nerd” ;) 

Written for my weekly Friday blog post at:  

See I may not have a crazy amount of trivia in my brain about comics and characters, but I definitely have my fair share of geek out knowledge when it comes to anything Joss Whedon and also… zombies.  There are other things I geek out about too, but those are the 2 major fields of my geekdom.  And can I just say…. Cabin In The Woods?  Hellz YES!!!

#geekgirlscreate and #nerdsunite OH YEAH!!!

Written for my weekly Friday blog post at:  

It’s no secret I am a “fan girl.”  Perhaps too much at times.  When I find something I love I kind of freak out about it and want everyone I know to experience its awesomeness.  Whether it be a new food, a song, a great website, clothing, place, director, writer, film….you name it…if I love it, I’ll probably rave about it to the point of exhaustion, just so that someone else can experience that same joy.

Now, many of you know about my love for Harold and Kumar, but for those of you who don’t, here’s the back story…

I had just graduated from theater school and was planning my move from Vancouver, BC to Los Angeles with my at the time boyfriend, now husband, Barry W. Levy.  We were sitting with our cats on the couch watching a rented DVD of Harold and Kumar Go to Whitecastle. Yes, DVDs were cool in 2004, in fact I was still watching movies on VHS, actually I still watch movies on VHS, but I digress.  Watching Harold and Kumar was the moment that everything shifted for me.

It was the first time I had seen lead minority characters in a comedic film ever.  And not only were they minorities, but they weren’t “acting like” your typical minority characters in Hollywood films with accents and smothered in stereotypes…or rather…these two characters and this whole film, took the stereotypes, threw them into a big bag, shook it around, and then puked them back out at you. 

Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and it’s creators Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg = Brilliance.

Now, going back to how they changed my life. 

Although I spent time living in Singapore and the Philippines until I was five, once we moved to British Columbia, Canada, the majority of my childhood was spent as the only “minority” in school.  In fact, when I was 7 years old the girl who was supposed to be my best friend and I got in a fight.  While standing in the classroom right after recess, she made some pretty nasty comments about me based on the color of my skin, words that no 7 year old could think up on their own, and I cried in the cloak room for a good twenty minutes.

This was the moment that I realized I was different.  Until then I had never even thought about the color of my skin or how I was perceived by others, but that was a harsh and surprising slap in the face.

During the rest of my elementary school years and high school, I was still one of the only “different”  faces in the whole town.  This never really bothered me however, in fact I never even gave it much thought, but I did always wonder why all of the shows I was watching and all of the movies I went to see, had so few people who looked like me.

Fast forward to sitting on our couch watching Harold and Kumar.  Suddenly, there were two characters who acted just like everyone else I knew and who weren’t in a film specifically made for Asian Americans or Indian Americans etc… they just were two dudes living their hilarious lives.  And “hilarious” was also a word that altered the course of things for me…

I had spent a lot of time in theater school delving into the darker side of myself, writing intense poetry, and loving artsy fartsy foreign films by people like Bertolucci.  I joke a lot that the intense “Russian/German side of me” and my “bright playful Filipino side” are always at odds with one another pulling me in two different directions as an artist and as a person.  While I always liked comedy, I never really considered it something that I would pursue because I always felt “most alive” doing gritty dramatic stuff.  That is until Harold and Kumar planted the comedic seed in me.  I started watching a lot of comedies.  I started re-watching comedies.  I decided that I would open myself up to the possibility that comedy would be a genre that I would pursue further. 

Fast forward to 7 years later.  One of my missions has been to be one of the many female faces on television and in films that help shift the stereotype just like Harold and Kumar did for me.  My hope is that there will be a little girl or young woman sitting at home watching something that I’m in whether it be film, tv, or web, and think “oh wow she looks just like me, I can do that.”  

While the visibility of minority faces in Hollywood has changed a lot in the past decade or so, I think there is still a lot of work to be done, and I am incredibly proud to be in the next crop of actors who can hopefully blow the top off of this box, and help more minority women rise to leading roles in film, tv, and the web, specifically in comedies. 

I myself am doing what I can to help this shift.  In 2008 I created The Day Player to show case my comedic ability as well as Helenna’s Tinseltown Tuesdays which kept me on track and accountable.  My husband and I have a couple of projects in development as well as many seeds of ideas that are just starting to sprout.  As an actress, I’ll be popping in to a neighborhood theater near you in a small role in next year’s American Reunion directed by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg (yes, in connecting the dots, this is a “life coming full circle event”).   All in all, I am going to keep going on the quest that Harold and Kumar started me on and enjoy every minute of it.

Thank you Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg for creating a franchise that ignited a fire in me.  I owe you both some White Castle.  Although, my next quest might be to get a vegan burger into that joint, but again, I digress….

xooxox
hels

P.S. A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas is now in theaters and it is epicly HILARIOUS.  In fact, my face hurt from smiling so much.  Go and see it, your funny bone will thank you.

And so it begins.

I’ve been an avid vlogger for two years now sharing my journey in Hollywood for Helenna’s Tinseltown Tuesdays.  I felt it was time that pen hit the virtual page.  I’ve written poetry since I was a child. The artist in me has always been trying to break through with the power of words which is what lead me to being an actress.

In this blog I’ll be sharing a number of poems I’ve written originally published in the online magazine Joie de Vivre as well as the events of my day to day, and anything else that strikes me as worthy of a blog post vs. my perhaps too frequent facebook status updates…

Anyone who is close to me knows that my “cheerful loud Filipino side” and my “tormented Russian side,” are always at odds…my own personal paradox.  So with that being said, here is the side that you might not have seen yet if you are a viewer of my vlog.  This is the Russian artist side, where things are a little more risque and a little more moody. 

So I urge you to turn up the Portishead, turn down the lights, and grab a glass of wine.

Welcome to “ramblings of a raconteuse.” (purposely lower case, e.e. cummings styles)