So when can I call myself a photographer or a filmmaker?

My words exactly.

http://jasonandjenniebrown.blogspot.com/2015/10/so-youre-photographer-now.html

Photography/Film is not for the insecure. Yet, I fall under that category as I’m sure many do. 

I feel that Jennie expressed the inner conflict so perfectly in her post. I see several images like this “I was ready to walk away forever and somehow we keep going.” I think the personalities in this field can be painted very stereotypically as overcharging, mommy-blogging, outgoing, trend-searching, financially insane, abrasive self-sellers but we are so much more complex than that. It’s a competitive field, that’s true but not all of us are ruthless. It seems that so many forget the hours spent in dark rooms, late at night, finishing edits. Or the fact that it’s an art, truly that grabs our eye or breaths life into the world around us not the top ten poses with the exact same smile. Truly, what I find most intriguing about film and photography is it has endless opportunities to learn something new. I want to know EVERYTHING and honestly? I don’t think it’s possible, but I’ve loved the process of trying to get to the proclaimed “expert.” Not because I want a pay-raise but because each time something clicks, it’s EXHILARATING.

My personal win: (don’t read if you don’t care, I’m not trying to brag but trying to document moments like this so when I’m feeling insecure and need to remember why I do what I do.)

I was contacted two weeks ago from a woman I have always admired. To be honest, "admire" is an understatement. If it were up to me to choose whose voice would narrate my life in my own head or in a movie, she’d be my choice (sounds like HONEY.) She was interested in me taking her family pictures. Immediately I thought that it must be a mistake. She was either recruited by my mom begging her or because she pitied my financial situation. Furthermore, SHE’s a photographer and pretty much living my ideal life (living in Sundance, travels the world to empower women and save wildlife, independently wealthy, incredible curly hair…etc) We scheduled it, I researched my butt off to try and be the best I could for her and then her grandkids got sick so we postponed the shoot but she invited me to dinner. Even though I knew I would love sitting and listening to the sounds of nature with her, I was nervous she would see how much I wanted to make her happy. It helped me to go up and see the style of photos she likes and how it is hard to capture her soul as accurately as she is but as she talked to me she kept saying phrases like, “Your style is so natural” or “this photo is like what I’ve seen of yours; bright and joyous” or “it’s why I was originally drawn to your work.” Meg doesn’t lie and those small tidbits of words hinted that she KNEW my work. More than that, SHE liked MY work and had faith I could capture her. I felt that the experience was the greatest compliment I have ever received. 

You know the question that people ask, "if you could have a meal with anyone, who would it be?" I feel lucky because the person I would choose actually gives me the privilege to be invited up to her home on occasion.

If you ever worry you’ll never be good enough. Whether it’s something you are passionate or not, the book “Editing” by Justin Chang has proven to me that we’re not alone (at least in the film industry.)

“For a long time, psychologically, I never felt I was good enough. All the other editors I worked with were so sure of themselves; they were all so well spoken and loquacious. I could never talk like that.” -Michael Kahn (Steven Spielberg editor)

“If something doesn’t seem quite right and you don’t really know why, simplify.” -Anne Coates (Oscar winning editor)

“If editing is anything, it’s telling a story and applying a rhythm to that story.”-Richard Marks (editor of Godfather: Part II, Apocalypse Now, Say Anything, You’ve Got Mail…etc)

“Film schools can teach you technique, but they can’t teach you pacing and rhythm; those are things you have to have in you to begin with, or you have to teach and train yourself.”-Valdis Oskarsdottir (Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind editor)

Screenshots

I'm going to be on TV (various episodes) in January. Oh joy. Haha, I find the scenes pretty ironic considering that I don't drink.

Last Episode, Rockefeller Tree and Face Painting

"....Monday you went to work, came home, and we fell asleep super early. It was wonderful. Tuesday you were gone until after 9 or 10. Which was also wonderful. Wednesday we worked out pretty much all day. What? Say it say it, what. Thursday was our magnificent day in the city and we did gloriously beautiful things, no questions asked. Friday night you worked, came home and both of us for some reason were exhausted so we went to sleep. Saturday was a great day, we worked out for hours, did laundry and yea and then we went to our dance thing, it was great. I think there is a reason I don't do the blog posts, catch my drift? Catch my, feel my, catch a drift? It's a rhyme time to be in a prime time. Where should I put these cookies? Lizi babe?  What? What are you laughing at, huh? What chu laughing at girl? Hey, Hey I said. Don't start writing stuff down what I say."-Dave

There's a time in your life that you realize you have just met an interesting person, not saying that everyone doesn't have their own odd quirks but you come across people who are extra special once and a while. I was requested to shoot on Tuesday for the last episode because we were going to have to do the kill scene twice and they wanted their "blood specialist" to be there.  Cleaning up the fake blood was extremely difficult because we used 4 times as much blood than usual, plus some cranberry sauce for coagulation. I actually spent my entire lunch hour cleaning up after it. This made me lose my appetite, spaghetti definitely didn't look appetizing after that.

I have found a mockingjay on set, if I hum a certain song by our second camera man I can hear the song eventually jump from each person until everyone in the crew has hummed it. My personal favorite song to make contagious on set is "Elmo's world." The story behind that is that a few episodes ago, they asked me to name a rap song and then they started singing some strange arrangement of who knows what so I said, "Elmo's world?"

The lady at the location we were shooting talked to her dolls as if they were real children. Plus, she had a tons of dolls in every room, the creepy kind that stare at you wherever you are in the room. To top that, there was a hibernating bear in the backyard. We could see it from the back porch window.

At the end of the day, I was washing the dishes we used in our episode and that's when it hit me. Life suddenly ran in slow motion. I could see other crew members running behind me in the reflection of the back window and just sunk it in-trying to enjoy the dwindling moments. I don't know why but I seem to always be the only person that is not ready for these types of things to end.

Wednesday I set up a LA Fitness guest pass account so that I could run these last two freezing cold weeks. I guess Dave thinks we worked out all day. I made Champ pose for pictures and he wasn't thrilled about it.

THURSDAY WAS A BIG DAY FOR US. I woke up cranky, when things come to an end I can sometimes get a little on the snarky side but the best medicine was going to take pictures in the city. Dave gave me a limit. I was only allowed to take 2 pictures....I only took 400. I got up the guts to take pictures of strangers at the Rockefeller tree because the people were usually too distracted by the view to notice me, my personal favorite is a picture I took of a girl taking a selfie (believe me, it's a funny one.)

Christmastime in the city has officially became my very favorite time of year. They encourage CHRISTMAS on every street corner and wrap entire buildings up like presents. Walking around is a magical experience, I'm so glad I have survived long enough to walk around NYC during Christmas season.

I had a friend who recommended that I try a butter beer from starbucks, I asked if it had caffeine and my friend reassured me that it was decaf. Well, they were wrong. After walking around 3 miles in the city, I was tired until I had that drink. Suddenly, my speech became fast and I wanted to go to the gym. We went and I did a zumba class, didn't feel like I was expending enough energy and then ran 5.5 miles....do you think it had caffeine?

My family celebrates a European Christmas holiday called The Nikolaus, our version is a lot less scary than the original holiday. So Dave and I tried to inconspicuously find out what everyone's favorite candy bar is. That turned into Maja yelling to everyone in each corner of the house, asking their favorite candy bar. We put everyone's boots on the front porch, filled their shoes with candy and then waited until morning....then it rained all night. So much for that idea lol.

Friday was the last day my crew was in the office...I'll be a little lost without them in the office. Atlas decided to have a lot of meetings on Friday too so it was a very busy day. I walked around in the rain all morning. Went to two very long meetings and one significant question later, I still had to finish all of the expense reports. By 8:30pm Alex told me to just go home, she even took everything left to do out of my hand. I will finish those up next week but I wanted to make sure she got everything done she needed to.

Saturday we went to the gym and got ready for Maddie's dance fundraiser. They recruited me to be a face painter....little does Katie know how much I LOVE to face paint. I can space out everything else in the world and focus on creating a beautiful masterpiece on a childs face. I only got like 10 faces painted by the end but they were glorious. The same thing happened this time that happened last spring at my niece's carnival. The other face painters get really weird around me...do you remember that Linda? It's odd because I'm not trying to compete or anything, I really just focus on butterflies, unicorn's and fairies. There usually is one really loud girl that begins yelling, "I'm an artist, I want to paint your face." I'm fine with that, paint their face. If they are in my line, let them decide haha.

The dancing is phenomenal there. It's a dance studio that is run by an Alvin Ailey alumni and you feel the emotion from every dance. There also was a tiny little redhead that looked exactly like Sadie Coleman dancing to the nutcracker.

I believe in giant Christmas Trees.

The Storm is Rolling In

What glorious red hair.

Brooklyn, Two production shoots and a Throwing a Dummy in the middle of a lake.

This week was very eventful...or I'd not update anyone because once again, sick. Leaving me no motivation to be awesome.

Monday I helped out with Investigation Discovery shoot episode 210. I fell down a mountain like four times, the leaves were super slippery. I didn't have to go back into the city to catch a bus and that was a first. It was a long day and I still finished all of my assignments by the end of the evening. I also loved that our shooting location was with a woman named Purple, how great of a name is that?

Tuesday was the only day I had off. Dave and I went running and only accomplished 4 miles when the goal was 6. It was freezing cold and I'm pretty sure my lungs froze over. I think that day scared me a bit with it being so cold, I really had no desire to leave the house.

Wednesday, we finished the receipts for 3 episodes. Yes, that is a big win.

Thursday we went into Brooklyn to visit Bryan Hutchison and Naomi Flinders. We went in early to meet up with Bryan first but he had a super important project he was worried about so was at the studio. It's ok, Dave and I fell in love with Uniqlo and also the surrounding area. MOM IF YOU ARE READING THIS, UNIQLO SHOULD BE YOUR NEW FAVORITE STORE. Dave and I decided that Brooklyn would be where we live if we were to be near the city, it had our style of life. We met up with Naomi and Bryan at a place called Siggy's, it was delicious and very healthy (both are a big plus in the Fesler household.) It's a good thing that Naomi knows the area really well and had an opinion of what to do because I think the rest of us were fine with doing whatever. We strolled along the promenade, we went on a carousel, we shopped at an amazing middle eastern store, to the farmers market and a Trader Joe's in an old bank. Naomi is such a joy to be around, it was exactly the kind of day we were hoping for.

Friday I should've studied all day. My cold took a turn for the worse and I drank 7 lemon honey tea's to try and help it. We had two company meetings that were pretty cool, the man in charge of the accounts at Atlas Media and the head of the company at Atlas Media. Both very enlightening about the business of film, also, they had the best cupcakes I've ever tasted in my life.

Saturday I got to film with the same crew I usually work with yet for a different television series. Afrin is my best friend, yesterday would've been a million times harder without Afrin. It was also nice to see some of the actors we worked with before, they all got pretty close by the end of the shoot day. To add to all of that, we shot at the most amazing mansion by a lake I have ever been to and immediately following, probably one of the scariest drug houses I've ever seen. I got to be the dead body zipped up in the body bag, I felt like I was in the Boo box. I also got to help taylor make a fake dead body on the dock and get to throw it in the middle of the lake. Unfortunately, the fake head popped out of the water and so we wanted to shoot it again but then it was too far for our pole. So Taylor's not so brilliant plan was to go swimming in the freezing winter water to get the body out. We all vetoed that idea, found a boat, spent a good 45 minutes trying to get the dummy (covered in chains) out of the water and ended up making a different one anyway. hopefully it doesn't float to the surface in a few months and someone thinks it's an actual dead body. After we wrapped the set, I got to talk to the actors on the way home. I don't know why but I loved it so much, learning about what their long-term dreams are. They invited me to come eat with them afterwards, I made sure that it was a group thing before I agreed but I did have time to burn so it was nice to feel like I actually have friends and people who actually wanted to hang out with me when they didn't have to. My cold medicine wore off right about the time I needed to walk to the bus, so it was perfect timing. I stressed a little bit that the waiter wouldn't find the cash I had under my glass so I double checked to make sure that one of the actors would make sure he saw it and then slept.

Today, I've slept all day. I really need to study. I really need to pass this final, it's the only thing I have left to do with my entire college existence but I CAN'T STUDY. Not being able to breath doesn't help but if anyone wants to pray that I'll pass this class, I'd greatly appreciate it.

I believe in Brooklyn.

National Geographic and Broadway

Monday was Dave's birthday, yipee! I had to work all day, Boo. I went to a movie with him since that was his only request from me that day, it ended up being so much better than I thought it would be.

Tuesday, the original plan was to go to the statue of Liberty and then try to win the lottery for a broadway play. It was supposed to rain so we decided not to become a lightning target, went into the city seeking old book stores, exploring 30 Rockefeller, NBC studios until we quite easily got tickets to a broadway play titled "First Date" starring Zachary Levi (an old COW of mine.)

On Wednesday I got to work with National Geographic. It was so much fun it barely felt like work. I basically was in charge of finding an interesting climatologist or storm chaser. I found out so much stuff  on how to survive a tornado or a hurricane. I also found out: 95 people commit suicide a day (that's 1 person every fifteen minutes,) a famous storm chaser died this last May in a tornado in Oklahoma, Stu from the Weather Channel only got into weather because he was severely afraid of thunderstorms growing up and there is a real disease where people have severe phobia of natural disasters. Some of my sisters may say I have that disease.

Thursday was a relaxing day, we ran in the rain. We were in charge of making dinner (hopefully that went over well, they at least pretended to like it.) We unpacked officially. We smurfed with friends back home. I did Maddie's make-up for a fashion show....if you feel like calling me to motivate me to do my class, that would be SO good. I cannot find it in me to do the class and it has to be done in two months. That's terrifying.

Friday I went to work, learned about the Mafia and a cool iPhone security system and then rushed home because we were going to my dear sister KIMBERLY NOORLANDER's house (+ family.) It's only a three hour drive but it was a little spooky considering we had come from a city with houses stacked on each other to the dense forest of upstate NY. It was very dark, very different and had a feeling of Halloween already.

Saturday, we went to Cooperstown New York which is the famous baseball capital of the world. We also went to an apple orchard, got cozy hot chocolate, played some Disney Sorry and went to town eating Thai food. Very cozy, very Noorlander like. We love it here and that we're so close to them.

Today we went to church and then came back a tad bit early to get ready to surprise Dave for his birthday with his favorite foods. On the way home Dave found a kitten that all of the kids fell in love with and forgot to run inside before Dave could go inside. So Dave walked inside and was just confused since he didn't know anyone had a birthday near his birthday but his own personal brownie dish reassured him that it was a celebration in memorandum for him. They have a great trail in the back, I don't know if I've seen anything so beautiful in my life. Basically, it was very eventful, I loved this whole week, I want to remember it but it probably seems dry since I'm writing it all down as fast as I can.

Coast to Coast

San Diego, California:

 Phoenix, Arizona:

Provo, Utah: 

 Wyoming:

 Brookings, South Dakota:

 Minneapolis, Minnesota:

 The Only Thing I remember about Illinois:

 Indiana after midnight:

 Toledo, Ohio:

 Pennsylvania:

 The new place:

Thoughts about Filmmaking

Last Day with the Noorlanders

I'd title this picture: curiosity.

She knows when she gets caught doing something she's not supposed. In this instance, it was eating a muddy rock.

This, is my mom. Doing what she does best. Loving people. 

We're moving for a while. :)

I can't wait to have Dave all to myself. He's worked 5 years at a full time job and I know, I love it, he's a hard worker, men do that sometimes but man, have I missed him during the day. Of course, we'll come back and be super responsible and pick up the slack but the next few months are just going to be golden for me.

I've got two more interviews this week, when I'm taking care of Adam and Eli. Which is great, just wish me luck and also that Eli doesn't decide to scream during those sweet ten minutes that could change the future. Fat chance, I suppose but I'm still crossing my fingers.

Diets....are hard. I see the biggest difference when I'm playing sports which actually is surprisingly helpful because when I want to sleep all day from lack of energy, I can remember how long I've wanted to be good at sports.

I only have ten full days left in Provo, if that. I'm filled with excitement and some terror. I've felt like I've stuck around here for so long but everyone knows what it's like to be "comfortable," now I am crossing a threshold and though I'm not used to it, I plan to love every second of this new adventure.



I apologize for the grammar or punctuation of this post. I let my thoughts spill, in the way that they poured out into my head and decided not to change it. Call me a purist.

Nick Miller and I get each other

Famous People

Hey!

I just posted on my website some of the people I've been working with. Check it out.

There are many more people but ask me individually if you're interested. I'd like to protect the privacy of some and promote those that are hoping for more recognition.

Such a Crack Up

I've seen this face a lot btw. Define it as: "Lizi, what do you think you're doing?"

"You're such a crack up" is a term coined and often used by my parents. So it seems fitting to quote them during our spontaneous photo session on Sunday. They thought I was insane bursting through their doors, (my mother didn't even have all of her clothes on but that's nothing new) and told them I needed them outside pronto. Then, we practiced engagement poses with them and they literally couldn't stop laughing the entire time. My mom was trying to hold her photo smile the whole time but my dad was purposefully trying to do the poses as awkwardly as possible. 

I've been taking a lot of photos lately but you can't blame me, look outside! We're in beautiful time of year my friends. These are the outtakes, feel free to see the final products on my "serious" and "mature" website at feslerfilms.wordpress.com/blog/

A Love Note

One of our senior missionaries at work went into surgery a couple of weeks ago. He later received this note with a plate of cookies.

"Dear reader

your life has almost ended so before you die enjoy the cookies

I know you will be happy up there.

from Activity Grils"

We both had a good laugh.

Part 2: Story of Bano, Cameroon

Part 2: Story of Bano, Cameroon from Fesler Films on Vimeo.

I believe in the future of Bano.

After watching Pride and Prejudice (again) I'm very certain that my name was meant to be said with an English accent.

Adrenaline

Is adrenaline supposed to be a good thing? 

I feel like it gives me mood swings.

Adrenaline and I have seen a lot of each other lately. 

The numbing feeling it gave me with the New York interviews.

The looming cloud that hung over while trying desperately to finish edits.

The energetic/happy/nervous sensation of last night in our meeting.

Usually exercising helps but it hasn't, I can see my arm-hair always sticking up and have twinges that tiny men are running through my veins.

It's exciting that the earth is thawing.

I get more "promptings" than I have in a long time and they are truly mind-bogglers. Do they count as inspiration?

Sometimes I wonder if I have a "next big thing."

My dreams have been so disturbing at night, I try not to talk to them but when will they stop? They torment my innards and flash into my mind at unnecessary times.

I believe in adrenaline.

Noorlanders

Today is our last day with the Noorlanders, all of the kids are acting as if they are dying after today. We've loved the time we got to spend with them this season. Here are some of my favorite Noorlander shots.

I believe in love.