Kid Sis in Hollywood

Help my friend!

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:09:00 +0000

Rent my good friend and (Emmy Winner!) Barbara Stepansky's feature debut HURT...available everywhere and a new release last week!

And check out this amazing blog entry to get a glimpse into the mind of a film director as works on her second movie.

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Our friend is in the news!

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:04:00 +0000

Blake is one of the people behind the Atlanta Horror Fest, and a big supporter of THE COMMUNE. Yea, Blake! Congrats on the cool profile article!

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Holiday Gift Guide

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:14:00 +0000

For rich partners with communication issues. NSFW

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Hey men, want to get polled?

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:21:00 +0000

Who of you awesome married men knew on the first date or within the first month-ish that she was the woman for you? I need to hear your opinions...providing your experience will save me energy and heartbreak in the dating world and help me understand you magical XYs.

Thank you! Appreciate your sharing, you love heroes!

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How do I get someone to read/buy my script/logline/great idea?

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:54:00 +0000

I'm often contacted by people outside of LA in other fields who have read some of those pipedream screenwriting books (written by out of work screenwriters) and are now confused as to WHY they can't get anyone in Hollywood to read or buy their script, logline, great idea that only needs to be fleshed out into a screenplay.

This is, of course, the equivalent of me walking into a surgeon's office and asking to scrub in on their next surgery: frustrating, insulting, and people get angry when you take the scalpel out their hand and tell them they haven't done any of the schooling and work they need to be qualified.

I hope the following honest answer helps explain the REALITY of the film industry today so that y'all stop emailing me and my friends. Because dealing with this BS has gotten beyond old.

Dear "New Screenwriter" Working in Another Field Not Even Living in LA,

If you read the trade magazines like Variety and Hollywood Reporter you'll see that A-list screenwriters are not able to sell a script in this economy.

(And if you aren't reading those trades daily you've already failed the first daily chore you need to do to call yourself a "screenwriter".)

Studios are closing, they are all making less pictures, and the people who used to be able to make money in this town are packing up and leaving. It's turned into a game of Survivor out here the last two years since the Writer's Strike and the recession.

Nothing is better in LA than it is in the rest of the country. And it's certainly WORSE than whatever chosen career you are currently practicing, but trying to escape through writing.

I can't name one person I know who knows someone who has sold ANYTHING in over two years. We are not getting read or getting meetings either, and our agents and managers are dropping us.

These are friends, classmates and former co-workers of mine with Academy awards and Emmys, a rolodex of contacts, several film school degrees. We have all joined the union, paid off 50-100k of film school student loans, and put in our fifteen to twenty years of Hollywood shit work "paying our dues". We've all also actually committed to living in expensive and soul-sucking LA; often at the expense of having a normal life with marriage and kids.

We are all astronomically more deserving of being read than YOU.

And all of us are going bankrupt.

I would suggest putting your screenplay in a drawer and waiting out the economy several more years like ALL OF US living in LA.

Or make your movie yourself where you are. There are many websites and books out there that can steer you towards how to raise the money and produce and distribute it yourself! But be warned...you will lose your life savings and possibly your marriage. Just like the rest of us.

And for gods' sake, STOP buying screenwriting books, going to bogus expos, pitch sessions, and entering screenplay contests. When there is that much information and "opportunity" out there to join the Gold Rush, it's because THERE'S NO GOLD LEFT.

Entrepreneurs got rich selling shovels to prospectors. THE METAPHOR IS APT.

And if you don't like my advice and think I made it all up to spite your dream and your vision board...Go pay an out of work screenwriter-turned guru script consultant a lot of money to blow smoke up your ass. You'll find hundreds desperate to do it because it's how they afford their apartment rent and late-model Hundai payment. Or just check the Writer's Guild stats and see for yourself that the average screenwriter makes less money annually than a manager at McDonald's.

If you love writing more than your current job and know in your heart it's your calling and it's easy to get paid for it...Might I suggest the flourishing career of journalism? I hear they're opening fancy newspapers every day and lobbing Pulitzers at anyone. The NY publishing industry too, if you have a great novel inside you. The best place to find a Full-time Writer to ask for career advice is at the unemployment office.

Good luck,

Elisabeth

P.S.

Oh, but it's different advice in one case: if you're downloading movies and books for free off the internet. In that case, great ideas and first drafts are all Hollywood is looking for! Sell your car and cash in your retirement and pay thousands for a script consultant. Immediately. And start buying lottery tickets.

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Moby's Fight To Fund Women's Shelters

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:49:00 +0000

Moby's Fight To Fund Women's Shelters

Good Clean Love TM

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 17:07:00 +0000

In some effort to be hip and female-centric, the gift bag from the La Femme Film Festival last weekend included a lubricant sample and brochure subtitled "Making Love Sustainable." Every girl's dream!

OF COURSE the inside is filled with enough information about all the other dangerous cancer-causing lubricants on the market to make my pubic hair curl. I only wish I could toss out my cancer-causing Rabbit vibrator AGAIN!

So Good Clean Love lubricant claims that most personal lubricants are made with the same ingredients found in hydraulic brake fluid.

That's just for starters. There's four pages of this stuff that concludes with "the vast majority of both OTC and Adult intimacy and topical sexual enhancement products are made with ingredients invented for industrial uses, not for the most sensitive tissue in the body. Many women have allergic responses to these chemicals that create itching, burning and pain with intimacy."

Don't know if any of their claims are true, but thought I'd pass it on for you to check out for yourselves. My gynecologist is a mensch, a friend, one of the worlds best obgyns, and has been giving me oil changes for twenty years...I'll ask him next month when I'm due for a pit stop.

Thank GOD I get to report I've had sex this year. I couldn't take another long unhappy stare from Dr. H. I do think he's come to terms with the prospect of not delivering any babies for me, but man he hates it when I haven't had sex in a year. He's even qualified to say stuff like "your mom wouldn't like you being unhappy." Between him and that psychic who told me I was going to give myself cancer if I didn't start having sex regularly...like a single gal needs more voices in her head!

By the way, a little tip a girlfriend told me last year: if you get too wet to feel your man, use a condom the first and/or second time you have sex and it will help absorb your natural lubricant and you'll be able to enjoy sex. Then the third time don't use a condom, and you'll be coming together.

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Fug or Fab: The Anti-Bay

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:58:00 +0000

Fug or Fab: Isabel Lucas

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My Parents Were Awesome

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:15:00 +0000

I love this site! Thanks to Fishbowl LA for pointing it out:

"Pictures of parents being young and amazing, before ungrateful children sucked the life out of them. Photos of your own parents being awesome can be submitted to myparentswereawesome@gmail.com - be sure to include names!"

My Parents Were Awesome

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I'm now a Pretty/Scary movie reviewer!

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:19:00 +0000

In addition to still being 6th ranked at Netflix! Out of zillions. ;)

My PARANORMAL ACTIVITY review, detailing how PA embodies both genders' greatest fear.

My TRICK 'R TREAT review. Rent it. Fun movie. And Michael Dougherty has been tweeting me back. Cool guy.

My HAGSTONE DEMON review. Mark Borchadt is back and he's sexy! Found this movie at the Atlanta Horror Fest, where it won the Buried Alive award.

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The Commune screening THIS SATURDAY, October 17th!

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:56:00 +0000

Really hope you can make it! Our last LA screening:

La Femme Film Festival

4 pm
Renberg Theatre
LA Gay & Lesbian Center
1125 N McCadden Place
Los Angeles 90038

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I like Cabel

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:18:00 +0000

Fun guy, cool blog.

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How to make a Press Kit - Film Snobbery on The Commmune

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:44:00 +0000

Film Snobbery Tutorials - Creating a Screener Press Kit from Nicholas Baisley on Vimeo.

Schmoo!!

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:37:00 +0000

Help out a good egg

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:49:00 +0000

Go vote for writer/director/Final-Girl-founder STACIE PONDER's zombie short.

Now THAT's some lingerie, folks

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:00:00 +0000

By Kiki de Montparnasse.

Cut from LA INK...

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 03:54:00 +0000

And on the fourth anniversary of Mom's death no less. Wah-wah.

Here's the pic Corey took of me:

Atlanta Press Release

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 07:03:00 +0000

Actress Adrian Lee returns to her hometown for Atlanta Horror Fest's feature screening of THE COMMUNE, a psychological thriller ripped from the headlines about a 16-year-old trapped on her estranged dad's commune for the summer. The Huffington Post says THE COMMUNE is "highly recommended".

Filmmaker Lis Fies and actress Adrian Lee will be in person at the 11 pm screening Friday October 2nd, the anniversary of Executive Producer Barbara Fies's death. It is also Adrian Lee's birthday. Lee is thrilled to see her movie play in the Plaza Theatre, the same moviehouse she watched movies in as a child.

update!

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:08:00 +0000

I'm all crewed up for Thursday's shoot with Steve De Jarnatt (too freaking cool, I'm producing something by my hero!). But I'll have more opportunities coming up in October.

The Commune is playing Beverly Hills mid October at La Femme Film Festival, and October 2nd at 11pm at the Atlanta Horror Fest. Yea!!!!! Hope you can go see it!

Speaking of Atlanta, want to donate air miles so I can go to the Atlanta Horror Festival for THE COMMUNE screening10/2? You get a Thank You in the final credits!

Crewing up!

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:18:00 +0000

Thursday shoot in Burbank with two known Hollywood writer/directors.

Low pay, one day.

We need an asst camera (who can utility crew) 100.00 /day
Dolly grip/general crew $100.00
wardrobe/prop wrangler no pay
EDITOR $400.

The Forecast Calls for Implausibility

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:33:00 +0000

From Ebert's review of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. He only gave it 2 1/2 stars, but if I were the filmmakers I'd be pretty proud to have given a critic like Ebert the following experience:

"Let me search my memory. I think — no, I'm positive — this is the first movie I've seen where the hero dangles above a chasm lined with razor-sharp peanut brittle while holding onto a red licorice rope held by his girlfriend, who has a peanut allergy, so that when she gets cut by some brittle and goes into anaphylactic shock and her body swells up, she refuses to let go, and so the hero bites through the licorice to save her. You don't see that every day."

Power Rangers infamy

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:22:00 +0000

Okay, you asked for it. Here's one of my stunt jobs as a villain on second season of Power Rangers.

Guess which one I am. Hint: "Your power now belongs to Lord Zed."

At 4:39 I almost died.

They said "Run until you see the edge of the cliff, then stop." But I had Puttys flipping all around me and only a two inch eye hole to see out of, and it was down by my navel. See the edge of a cliff as I run? Not likely. Fun times.

During that spring I played Stag Beetle, Invenusable Fly Trap, and Octophantom. All bad-to-the bone villains. Even posed for Stag beetle's action figure, which I still have Mint In Box.

I would come home to find phone messages from my roommate like "John called, he needs you to destroy the Power Rangers tomorrow."

The gig ended when I said no to getting high with John one night after work. I was young and he was NOT, and I never heard from The Power Rangers again.

Oh well, at least it didn't turn into a Very Special date rape episode. Could have been worse, right Cocoa? Make looove to the camera. (Geez, whatever happened to Irene Cara? Bet a million bucks they didn't have the balls to put that scene in the FAME remake.)

As Octophantom I stole the Green Power Ranger's powers. It was at the height of the show's worldwide popularity, and it was "THE" storyline. Kind of a big coup for me. To be feared and hated by children everywhere.

(Don't fret little ones, Tommy became the White Ranger, and then you had a whole round of new Bandai toys to buy.)

By the way in case you don't know the history of the Power Rangers circa season 2, Bandai took the Japanese show that was already taped (Super Sentai Zyu2) and built American stories around it, reshooting as little as possible. I'm in the fill-in scenes, which are easily identified by the different tape stock and coloring. In between takes we'd throw the old footage up on the monitor and come up with the choreagraphy for the fill-in scenes. Let me tell you, those Puttys were the meanest bunch of badasses you would ever want to meet. Don't eff with an Australian or American stunt man; they will cut you, bitch. They were just starting to import the crazy Korean stuntmen who were my exact height and weight (5'5 104) when I left the show.

That's spectacular Olympic medalist Shellie Blanks as the Yellow Power Ranger; the closest we get to American royalty in martial artsland. Oh, how the stuntmen swooned over her. The amazing Sophia Crawford (Buffy stunt double)is in Pink. She's had a very long and terrific career. Had a hell of a time keeping up looking like Sarah Michelle Gellar as the lollipop look came into Hollywood and the actresses got below a weight that sustained muscle mass (i.e. aneorexic). Impossible for a healthy stunt woman to achieve a matching body shape.

Great gals. Shellie recognized me a decade later in a Tae Bo class she was leading and came right over in the middle of it to say hi; super kind human.

Did I mention it was 105 degrees and I was doing martial arts encased in several feet of foam? Yeah. There's a reason I weighed 104 pounds back then. That reason is NON-UNION.

Whatever. I was a stupid kid and I was getting my shot at taking over the world in neon green. In hindsight, I'd do it again.

Years later in my hometown, some guy was going around saying he'd slept with the local girl who was a "star" on Power Rangers. He meant me. He made the mistake of saying it to a friend of mine and she flat out called him a liar, and we never heard about him again. My family and friends all laughed pretty hard at that, because I'd only had two boyfriends and honey he was not one of 'em. If I remember correctly I was like "Wait, WHO?? Have I MET him??"

Only thing more pathetic than claiming stunt work on Power Rangers as the highlight of your life is lying about sleeping with the girl who did stunt work on Power Rangers as the highlight of your life.

Insomnia, 90s style

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 09:37:00 +0000

Probably haven't seen an X-Files episode in 3 years, but in 3 seconds passing SyFy I can identify episode year & title.

Firewalker season 2.

On the plus side, my brain cells previously used to store crucial ST:TNG episode data have all been overwritten with healthcare facts.

Just typing the assinine moniker "SyFy" bumped me from a 3 to a 5 on the Kinsey scale. Hold on lesbians, I'm almost there!!

The Commune (Screener - 2009) - Wildside Cinema - Cult, Horror, Exploitation

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 00:06:00 +0000

The Commune (Screener - 2009) - Wildside Cinema - Cult, Horror, Exploitation & More!

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Today would have been Mom's 70th b-day

LisFies@gmail.com (Kid Sis) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 23:26:00 +0000

Probably would have celebrated at Lawry's Steakhouse or Tokyo Delves. And Gospel Sunday Brunch tomorrow.

Please don't smoke, my friends!! I want more time with you...