Work!

Burma Child Soldier Relief PSA

May 15, 2008: El auditioned on May 7th, along with a lot of older girls, of East Indian descent. She worked from 2:30pm to about 6pm. Not too bad. It was shot at the huge estate near the beach, that had its own little river running through the backyard, WOW. She got to hold an AK47 made out of rubber and wore authentic fatigues! Pictures will be posted up soon.

"My First Crush"

November 19, 2007: El auditions for the principal role in the film, the character "Hyori." The story is about Hyori, an 11-year old girl who has a crush on a handsome uncle. The director calls a week later and says that El didn't get that part but is really interested in working with her so he decides to change a small part at the end of the film, originally for an older girl, to the "young girl" character so El can take that part.


7am: El gets up early on this Sunday morning, she's ready for a big day!

January 20, 2008: Shoot Day, at a Gelato Shop.

The story begins where a young adolescent, Hyori, meets and falls in love with her handsome uncle. But then she sees that he has a girlfriend, who is really beautiful (everyone is very beautiful in this film!). At the end of the film, we see an older Hyori, who has grown up to be a beautiful woman. She's getting ice cream at a shop and turns around to see a young girl sitting next to a handsome man. Eleanor plays this young girl, who also has feelings for this older man next to her, same as what Hyori experienced years ago. The handsome man leaves the young girl for a minute to answer a phone call and Hyori sits down next to her and shares some ice cream with her...and that's the end! They were really efficient and finished the whole shoot in less than 2 hours (about 12pm to 1:45pm).


Outside the gelato shop, preparing for one of the scenes.


Here's El with the writer and director of this film, Rocky Jo.
He's a really cool guy and just had a lot of patience while working with El that day.
He's directed lots of professional work, check out his website: www.bbfilms.net


Here's El with the co-producer of the film, Janice.
She's REALLY cool (and shared her gelato with El too).


On the left is Megan, who plays Hyori. El actually worked with her before, in the "One LA" PSA.
On the right is El with Arden, who plays the gorgeous, grown up Hyori. She was super nice and said that El looked just like her when she was young.


And here's El with Steve, who plays the "handsome man" sitting next to her at the ice cream shop.

"One LA"

November 1, 2007: El has been chosen for a small part in an anti-racism public service announcement. She auditioned on Oct. 25, 2007. At the audition, they simply asked her to run across the room a couple of times. The shoot date is scheduled for Wednesday, November 28, 2007.

November 28, 2007: Shoot Day, at a private residence.


El and I just get to the location. We wait around for a (long) while as the crew sets up.: The set teacher is there in the background. It was a school day so a teacher was required to be available to help the children with school work, but nobody had any work to do!

She really likes wearing her Naruto Sand Village headband.....
El gets a teensy bit of makeup, just some lip baum.

El had a great time at the shoot. She just had to play tag with two other asian children the whole time, while a Hispanic family who are gardeners walk around the other side of the yard, talking about what to do to the landscape. Then a group of Caucasian boys come into the scene, holding picket signs and marching in and out among the Hispanic family. The signs have words like, "Gardener" "Illegal Immigrant" and "Iraqi Soldier" on them. The other two Asian children were older than her, and they got tired after a while, but El still had a lot more energy to burn even after the shoot was over!

KozyBear & The Feefers: Children's TV Show-Pilot

Click here to see the finished project! Then click on #4, the "Emotion Song"

November 14, 2007: El is selected for the part! She will be part of a small group of children dancing in front of a "green screen" for a children's puppet-type TV show. El auditioned for the part the day before, on the 13th--having to leave school a bit early to make it. The audition was in the director's office. They asked her to show them a happy face, a sad face, an angry face, and an excited face. Then they played the show's theme song and asked her to dance to it, however she felt like. So she dances side to side and they asked her to do some turns and hops and that was it! The shoot date is Sunday, November 18, 2007.

November 18, 2007: Shoot Day at a filming warehouse. The shoot was pretty fun for El. It went from 3 to 6:15pm.


El arrives at the set.
It's just afer Halloween, so there's a big bowl of candy there for all the children.


The hair/makeup lady put her hair down, parted on the side with a hair clip, and straightened it.
She also gave her some lip gloss.


They basically waited in a room for the first 2.5 hours or so. She played cards with 3 of the other children. There were 7 other children there for the shoot, plus 2 toddlers.


They first called each child in one by one to do some expressions and dancing on camera in front of the "green screen." El has a great "mad face," too bad I didn't catch a photo of it. These photos were sent to us by the casting director, they had a professional photographer at the set.


She made a friend there too, the one in the photo on the right.
He's really good at cheating at the War card game.....
Here, the producer is cleaning off the children's shoes as they prepare to step onto the green screen.

They do several group scenes with the main character of the show, a puppet, and an adult singer who, I guess, is on the show too. Lots of dancing, smiling, and jumping around. I didn't get a shot of the puppet.
These were blurry cuz they were taken with my phone from quite a distance behind the cameras.

"Memorials"

September 8th, 2007: El auditions for a supporting role in a grad student short film entitled, "Memorials." I get a call the following Tuesday that she got the part!


Actors sign in for auditions. El and her #1 fan wait for El's turn to go.
(Taken with my cellphone.)

September 22, 2007: El travels an hour away on location to start shooting! It turns out to be a cold and rainy day later on. Chet takes her. They were there from 1 to about 730pm. Long day....


El arrives at the location for a big day of filming! The film takes place in year 2012, after some big explosion hits and the air is contaminated. El's character, "Jenny," has lost her parents to the explosion and is wandering in the desert by herself. A couple drives by and picks her up.
They have lost their son and Jenny reminds them of him.


El gets her makeup put on. She's supposed to look reeeeeally dusty and dirty.
Chet tries not to be intrusive with his camera.....they were all really nice.


El has her mask on and her empty water bottle for the scene.


El gets a close-up shot. The cinematographer gives El a "thumbs up" sign.
She was super nice and very encouraging.

El exits the car for one of the end scenes.

It's actually gotten very cold at this time. But it's supposed to be in a hot desert,
so you can see in the picture on the left here that El is trying very hard to walk normally,
but she's freezing!


Here she is with the two other actors and the producer, who's in the black jacket.
The guy actor was also really nice and gave Daddy some tips to help El. He liked El a lot and said that she connects really well with adults.

September 29, 2007: El goes for a 2nd day of shooting. They had to re-shoot a few scenes because of the rainy weather last week, and also a few new scenes. She was there from 1pm to about 830pm this time. Phew! She is exhausted. She had to miss 2 birthday parties in a row to do this, but I think she's glad she did.


El is having fun.

Lots of waiting around....

October 6, 2007: El attends an "ADR session" at the producer's apt, where they record the sound to match the film. El did some breathing and coughing recordings. She had to watch her own footage and try to match the coughing with her scene. It was a cool learning experience for her.

October 28, 2007: El (and family) attend the screening of the film! They showed 9 student films. After they showed "Memorials," the producer invited everyone to come up and stand in front with him. So El got to be introduced to the audience. (She loved it!) He introduced her and she gave a big wave to the audience. We didn't bring a camera or a video camera because we didn't know what to expect there. Darn! Several people came up to her and said, "Good job!" afterwards. The producer and cinematographer both wrote little notes of encouragement to her too.

"The Procedure"

September 23, 2006: El's first job! She is an extra in a playground scene for a short film entitled, "The Procedure." It's about a young woman who decides to have an abortion. The film is to be submitted in film festivals and used for educational purposes. The casting director picked the children just from the headshots submitted. No audition or anything. We were there from about 11am to 4pm.


El gets her makeup done for the first time! It's just "2001" written on her neck.


(Left) El waits for the shooting to start.
(Right) They stand together for the ending scene.


El gets fed and she's really thirsty after a long day's work!