Super Cali Listic

Originally performed live by dancer Alison Rootberg, and musician Drew Broadrick, “Ophelia” based on the Shakespeare character, explores the character’s psyche through song and dance. I was later asked to adapted Ophelia into a dance film to be screened at Alison’s alma mater University of Wisconsin. Being a former ballet, jazz and modern dancer I was thrilled at the chance to tell a story through movement and symbolism. The DP, Samrod Shenassa and I found a beautiful location in the hills of Malibu. We shot there, in a dance studio with a white back drop and in my bathroom. The bathroom shots were very inspired by one of my favorite music videos, Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”.

Ophelia

Erica and I decided we need a series of “coffee talk” videos for The Whordies so we came up with Cameo Chameleons – where we teach the viewers how to “Chamiel” into different hip looks. For our first episode we transformed into punk rockers.

When I came across a video on the web explaining the geddan Meme, I became obsessed and I had to add to the trend. I dressed up as a World of Warcraft fairy, trucked out into the woods, set up a tri-pod and danced around. I had no idea what I was doing was so controversial, but over 14,000 views later I now know 1) There are NO fairies in the World of Warcraft game 2) My geddan does NOT have “noticeable” hip shaking and pelvic thrusting 3) My editing is too slow 4) I did not “defy physics” 5) there is a WRONG way to geddan 6) My video is NOT the right way.

Despite the huge upset I have inflicted on the purity of the geddan meme, it’s one of my personal favorites. I’ll let you be the judge:

I met Erica Rhodes in an improv class and loved her infectious personality. We were lamenting our pathetic situation as actresses desperate for work when we came up with the concept of “The Whordies”. We decided that most internet viewers are geeky males so naturally we decided we needed two simple ingredients to conquer the internet: whores + nerdy = WHORDIES. If you don’t get it, you never will. And let the comedy revolution begin!

My friends often share ideas they have for my various YouTube channels. I always listen to them and sometimes there is a real gem. Somebody mentioned that I should spoof Rachel Zoe. I didn’t know anything about her at the time, so I started to watch her reality show and I was hooked. I spent hours watching what I could find of her on the internet and then wrote this fun vid about Andie getting jealous when Babs befriends Zoe.

After doing a guest video for the YouTube channel “5 Awesome Optimists” I was asked to become one of their regular vloggers. I said sure and asked if I could vlog as my character Andie Mills from Life With Babs. I got the thumbs up and Andie became the “Friday Girl”:

I have only done a handful of video collabs on YouTube but this particular one is definitely a fave – a stare competition between me and “X Samantha Nicole”.

Some of my favorite videos stemmed from real life experiences. When I got called into jury duty I immediately started brainstorming how I could film parts of the experience for my comedy channel LifeWithBabs. I did my time as a juror and I walked away with this little gem of a video about Andie mistaking jury duty for employment.

And of course I had to continue Andie’s job search a couple weeks later with this video about her booking a job as a “high fashion model.”

After a couple of months on YouTube I found myself supported by a community of fellow YouTube users and one of them, Sean Hollick, had a channel called “5 Awesome Optimists”. He asked if I would like to do a guest video to be featured on there channel. So I came up with a video about Andie confusing the word Optimist with Optometrist. I had tons of fun shooting this video, my favorite was featuring my real eye doctor, Mr. Gross (that is his real name and I think he would also appreciate it if I mention that he is actually a ophthalmologist playing the role of an optometrist in the following video).

I started 2009 off right with an amazing road trip up historic Route 66 with a group of talented gals. We loaded up our photography and film gear and hit the road. Thousands of miles and dozens of double shot lattes later we ended up with a ton of amazing photos and footage. We still haven’t decided what to do with the media we shot, but if you want to view my photos of the trip scroll down and you will find links to a couple of my online albums.
 
WHERE: The Open Road
 

 
FROM: California
 

 
TO: New Mexico

 
…In 3 days…
 

 
WITH: Photographer Dahna Logan
 

 
WITH: Photographer Jennifer May
 

 
WITH: Filmmaker Soo Jin Hwang
 

WITH: Yours Truly
 

 
WITH: Celebrity/Socialite/Activist/World Traveler Babs Darling
 

 
From abandoned gas stations to the ancient caves of the Anasazi, my Route 66 album highlights some of my favorite sights of the trip.
 
In addition to the above photos, visit the Andie and Babs in the Wild West album to view a handful of lifestyle shots of the always camera ready Babs Darling. 😉