Complete Apprentice Autobiographies & Progress

COMPLETE APPRENTICE AUTOBIOGRAPHIES & PROGRESS

Betsy Johnson

And the adventure continues...

I guess you could say that I've always been a bit different, the adventurous one of the family. Not quite the "black sheep" but not real far from it either. Born in a small town in central Pennsylvania, I always wanted more than what that little town could give me. My family has always thought I was a bit crazy with my ideas of where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. To this day, I still like to surprise my Mom with the "shock factor" of calling her up and asking, "Guess where I am??" I did that once from Anchorage, AK after I had just spoken to her the day before from Santa Barbara! One of my favorites is calling her from Karachi, Pakistan (1998, pre-war) after helping to open a Mexican restaurant there (funny, huh?). To be in those places was something my Mom could not fathom, especially at a short notice. I crave adventure, travel and the unknown. To me, change is essential. What's the saying, "The only thing constant is change"??

So, why the film/TV industry? Ever since I was in high school, I dreamed of Hollywood and finding my place there. The problem was that I could not sing, dance or act (and Hollywood was really far away)! Not to say that I didn't give it a try but it didn't come that naturally to me. I had fun in Drama class and did actually pretty well in Band but it still wasn't enough to pursue a career in either (I still can't sing but I now can dance and I've at least taken an Acting course). Besides, in my class there was already a "star" pupil named Melanie who could do all these things so well that she stole the show from all of us normal kids. She was the one voted "Most likely to see your name in lights" while I was voted "Best hair". I guess I always had something to prove because no one expected great things from me, at least not to that degree.

I grew up in a small town of 5000 people and graduated high school with 78 in my class (I was the homecoming queen but keep in mind that I didn't have all that many girls to beat out)! My parents would have been perfectly happy if I had married my high school sweetheart, started a family right after graduation and lived happily ever after in a trailer. Ok, maybe not the trailer part.

I always wanted more, more than what my family was content with and more from myself. I noticed that as our class went off to college, the ones that were very popular ended up coming back to our hometown to live and work. I call it the "Big fish/Little fish" syndrome. They were used to being the big fish in the little pond but could not handle being the little fish in the big ponds out there in the much bigger world. It was much safer in the little pond. I was just the opposite. Yes, the world is big but way more exciting then living in a small area. There was no way that my dreams could handle living in that confined space. I needed oceans!!

Since I wasn't ready for Hollywood and any big cities quite yet, I decided to do something else I loved that was more realistic and "safe". I went to college for Fashion and Textiles outside Philadelphia. At the time, this really wasn't that normal either. My Dad wanted me to be a nurse. (He is a lumberman in the family business started by my grandfather and my Mom is a homemaker.) You know, more traditional. I am the first one in my family to go to college and especially to obtain a four-year degree. My parents helped as much as they could but basically it had to be up to me. They said, "If you want to go to college, you're paying". Ok, fine. That's what I did. I maxed out every student loan I could. Tuition was expensive because my colleges were private since the curriculum was specialized and no state schools at the time had decent programs. But that's ok, I graduated nearly $20K in debt but it made me work my butt off and make it happen. I may not have known it then or appreciated it, but it did build character.

I graduated top of my class for my Associate Degree and with honors for my Bachelor of Science. In fact, the classes came so easily to me that for the first two years, I had loads of fun and still graduated with top honors. It was then that I started realizing that when you develop your natural talent, it really should come that easily to you. I took on further challenges for this reason.

After graduation, I moved to New York City and worked in production for several sweater companies. Production is exciting because there is never a dull moment. You need to constantly reprioritize and must be multi-tasking to the Nth degree. I was surprised at how easily I picked this up with no real experience of this sort in college.

And so my production career continued. I eventually got sick of NYC and headed back to PA (yes, near my hometown, but don't ask. It was a guy-thing! What can I say? I was 22.) I worked for another sweater company there until foreign competition drove them out of business. I got lucky though and found another job immediately (Materials Buyer), which was still textile-related. At this time, I was about 24 years old and had for some reason started developing a huge desire to travel the world and explore new areas (oh, and by now I had ditched the guy!)

Once the travel bug got me, there was no turning back. I visited Europe as well as several US western states but fell in love with the Rockies and decided to move to Denver. So after months of trying to job search from PA, I decided to give up my really great "safe" job and move to Colorado with just my bonus check and whatever would fit into the little pull-behind U-Haul. Before I left, I remember my aunt saying, "Well, I hope you find what you are looking for". It wasn't that I was really looking for anything, I just wanted adventure, the adventure of new places, faces and opportunities that I would never have in my hometown. I was ready to start over....

Best thing I ever did.... the West is amazing! Wide open spaces, scenery to die for and a fresh attitude of people. No New York attitudes here (although I don't mind the honesty of those New Yorkers!!) I went back into the restaurant business since that's what paid the bills in college. Why not again? Plus, it's a super social atmosphere and a great way to meet new people at the same time blowing off the pressures and stress of a more serious career. I had a blast once again!

It paid off and one thing led to another. I later moved to Phoenix and then got a job in management consulting. OK, so I skipped a few things in there somewhere but the bottom line was that I decided to get serious again and see what I was made of. Consulting became a natural thing for me too and I excelled with the company as it's youngest member and one of the few women employees. It was also very adventurous because the job was 100% travel. My territory was the twelve western states and western Canada. (Remember the Anchorage/Santa Barbara trip??)

This brought me to my current "safe job" which is managing and running a bikini company in south Orange County. I had come full circle, back to the textile business even when I had been warned not to. "Go with an industry that's growing", I had been told, "like computers". Yeah, and look at what happened to that industry too.

So today I find myself frustrated once again because I've spent the last four years working my tail off just to find that it hasn't been worth the stress and that nothing will ever really change unless I own the company (which will never happen). So, back to my dream I go....

I've realized over the years that I have a natural talent for managing and basically running things. If I can run a company, I can run a behind-the-scenes operation that utilizes my organizational and multi-tasking skills. I also have proven to myself that I really can do whatever I set my mind to. It really is all about determination, will, drive, PASSION!!! I just finished running my first marathon last Sunday for which I trained five months. I never in a million years would consider myself an athlete or someone with the strength to run 26.2 miles. (Remember, I was the band kid in high school??) But I did it and it felt great. This won't be my last race, that's for sure.

I'm a goal-oriented person and I need to know where I'm going before I can figure out how to get there. I've done some soul searching over the last few months and decided that the film/TV industry is a dream of mine from way back when. I have the chance to pursue this dream now that I'm financially in better condition and don't have to take the safe road any longer. (My husband is a chocolatier and we started a chocolate company last year. Yes, I did say chocolate!!)

If I don't do this now, I never will. I also now have over 15 years of experience in business and in management so I'm more confident about myself and my capabilities. This takes guts to give up a good paying job making bikinis (it's really not as fun as it sounds but that's a whole another chapter) but I started over before and I'm not afraid to do it again. I truly believe that life is a course that you never know where it might lead. I also know that when I get tears in my eyes about something (like I do now as I write this) that is a sign that I'm headed in the right direction. I'm listening to my gut (and my heart) and that's a pretty powerful thing when you know that it hasn't let me down yet.

Before I left for Colorado seven years ago, I told my friend, "I want to be on David Letterman". She said, "Oh, you want to go see one of his shows?" "No", I said, "I want to be ON his show". She said, "Ok, yeah right". Well, I never did quite give up that dream. But Dave isn't getting any younger, so I guess I'd better hurry up! A few things have changed since I first said that. For one, celebrity is not that attractive to me - the lack of privacy, rumor control, etc. I did try the acting thing, took a class, and surprisingly it was harder than I thought. I don't want to be on TV or films, I just want to run the behind-the-scenes stuff. I'm used to a lot of responsibility and to doing many things at one time. This would be the ultimate challenge and I could do something I've always dreamed of, while having fun. I know it's not going to be easy. In fact, I'm expecting the worst. But I'm OK with that.

During my phone interview, I was asked what my goal was. With a bit of sarcasm I said, "To be the next Jerry Bruckheimer." Kidding but not kidding, it really was the first thing that popped into my head. I like his style and the stories that are told in his shows and films. I want to make a difference. I don't exactly know how yet but I know that I'm capable of great things, at least that's what my ex-fiancé said as we split up (several years ago). Do you think he knew something I didn't?? Sky's the limit. I've got the dreams, now it's time to make them happen. Excitement is not the word to describe how I feel, it's way beyond that! And if this path is not quite right, I'll figure it out and God will give me another one to follow. All I know is I'm ready for the challenge with a goal in mind and a dream in front of me. I'm ready to ROLL........next adventure please....

June 23, 2004

Hi Phillip!

I got your message last night concerning the potential mentor you have found for me. I checked out her web site and her credentials are very impressive to say the least! This could be really great. I will wait to hear from you then on further info. I am super excited for the opportunity!

Best regards,

Betsy Johnson

July 10, 2004

Hello Philip,

Betsy has attended two classes and is currently working on studying story analysis and writing a short movie script along with learning effective camera techniques. We have decided to meet 2 hours weekly, she also benefits coming early to class and receives special attention from me. I will send a summation of activities at the end of this month. I have attached the UCLA Syllabus for my current course.

Please review the following comments from Betsy in an e-mail that she addressed to me:

From: Betsy
To: agmelkom
Subject: Thank you!
Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004

Hi A.G.!

Just a quick note to say "thanks" for our wonderful session today! Wow, what a ride this will be. I'm very excited and now better understand where these ideas must come from. Thanks for bringing that out of me!

Have a super holiday weekend and see you Tues. night. How did I get so lucky to have a great mentor like you??

Betsy :)

Sincerely,

A.G. Melkom
PhoenixCanyon Productions
Los Angeles, CA

July 11, 2004

Hi Phillip!

Sorry I am just now forwarding my interview report. I had the rough draft done for a while but it needed editing. I've now started to travel quite a bit so things have been a little crazy. Things are going well with A.G., although I won't have as much time with her this month due to my traveling schedule. I'm very anxious to get going but I know she also needs some time to organize her projects since I don't think she has been back from France all that long. I will keep you informed every few weeks on my progress.

Thanks again for this opportunity and I hope to chat with you someday
soon.

Best regards,

Betsy Johnson

Interview w/ A.G Melkom - Monday, June 28, 2004

We met at a coffee shop. I decided to give myself plenty of time and arrived a half hour ahead of schedule. It turned out that she was early too so we got started around 6:45 pm. From the start, we hit it off! A.G. was very interested to hear what it was that I wanted to do. All I could tell her was that I had a lot in my head and I just needed the right way to get it out. She wanted to know what kinds of films I liked. At first I mentioned being a sucker for romance movies (anything w/ Johnny Depp, she rolled her eyes, we laughed!), but then I said how much I love Jerry Bruckheimer and his style. She wanted to know if I wanted film or TV and I said I really didn't know yet. I mentioned loving the murder/mystery shows (being a big Nancy Drew fan since a young age) like CSI and Without a Trace. Her eyes lit up on this one, as she is working on a new concept show that is similar to these types.

A.G. is teaching a movie-making class at UCLA which starts tomorrow night and continues for 3 months, a whole semester. She immediately wanted to have me join the class, probably to sit in as her assistant for now so there would be no issues with me not joining the class thru the university. She stressed the importance of educating myself on the whole film development process, which I could get from this class and the manual that she has produced for it. The manual is quite impressive. In fact, when she put this together and presented it to the university to propose teaching the class, the school was quite impressed and stated that they had not seen such a nice package so well presented. She has now taught this class, Making your First Short Movie, four times.

We talked quite a bit about the formalized education part since this was all new to me and I am starting from scratch here. I expressed my willingness to write since I had also considered taking a screenwriting course at one point. She really cared about what my goals were even if I did not know what they were at the time. I told her that I am willing to take this one day at a time but we both agreed that it would be helpful to have some structure. So she is going to think about the best way to set up a plan that will allow me to learn what I need to learn first as the fundamental basis so that the creativity will flow easily later.

A.G. said we would meet 2 hours per week and that I would need to work on learning the material first, although she does have some projects in the works that we both hope I will be able to contribute to. It did not sound like her production company is active at this time, since she has recently returned from France. So she has some work to do first herself, to organize and set up her projects and to find the right people to do them with.

Because her bio is well documented on her website, it was much easier for me to already know what she has done and how she got there. Still, I asked her the 5 questions you requested. She thought it was funny that you were making me ask them. We laughed a lot during our time together. Needless to say, we both will be having some fun!

A.G. has been an artist since a young age but since that obviously wasn't paying the bills coming out of college, she had some friends that were in the movie industry and so that's how she got hooked up in this kind of work. She's done a lot of film-making in France but had a few projects that they really messed up. She was frustrated because they did not come out the way she had wanted at all. (She recently lived there for 5 years.) She had gotten tired of the Hollywood thing but then missed it and decided to move back again. Also, she realized that the best stuff in France were American movies that were dubbed. And they were coming out of LA, not NY, so she knew she needed to come back here. Oh, and we talked about New York too since I had lived there (upper east side, 83rd and 1st). She had once lived at 80th and Lexington, just a few blocks away. Wild! We talked about the New York way, the harshness and aggressiveness. She said Hollywood was just like that so if I could deal with New York, then I would be able to deal with this.

I asked her more about her goals. She is developing a new TV program, a cross between CSI and X Files. (Right up my alley!) More psychological that delves deeper into the human mind and what it is capable of. She has a friend named that she is interested in having play the main character. Sounds really interesting and fun.

She asked me about my schedule and I told her about my current job and how I now have a good schedule in which to work out this program. So we both agreed that the timing was right for me to take on this challenge.

Back to the questions-- What does she enjoy the most? A.G. loves to direct although she is very well-rounded and can perform many responsibilities in the film making process. She likes editing and writing also.

What does she love about the biz? A great medium to express creativity. Exciting!

What does she hate? That it is cut throat, aggressive, tough. Very competitive. You have to be careful what you say and when. She's had things stolen before from someone overhearing her conversation during lunch!

In the end, I think this will be really good for both of us. In a way, she needs me too. She really emphasized "momentum" and how important it is to keep things going. She wants to be working with young, energetic directors and be around talent. She is very smart and knows what she wants. She is a talker and it was fun to play ideas off of one another. We did learn some personal stuff about each other too which we said was good in getting to know who we are since we will be working closely. We were both so excited when we finished that it was almost overwhelming. We have to digest the excitement and try to make sense of it one step at a time. This is definitely going to be a blast! I will see her at class tomorrow night.

Class, Tuesday, 6/29 - UCLA campus

First, can I just say that the UCLA campus is beautiful! Our class is held in Rolfe Hall which is right next to the infamous Royce Hall. It was exhilarating to be on this campus, obviously my first time, and I could feel the energy there.

OK, back to class. A.G. introduced me as her assistant even though she already has an assistant for the class who performs administrative/audio technical duties for her. No one seemed to mind. The class has more students than she expected or wants for that matter. (There are only 14 film editing stations on campus and right now nearly 25 students signed up.) She started the class by going around the room to ask each person their name and why they want to make a movie. The range of experience was everything from absolutely nothing to those in the biz who wanted to learn more. We have animators, actors, directors and then those of us who are starting at ground zero just because we simply have the passion to do this. This was encouraging to me because for one, I knew I wasn't alone and for another, I wasn't totally crazy (A.G. says you need to be a little crazy to be in this business anyway!)

She showed us a short film from a previous student who had taken her class and this was the result of his work. It was absolutely fabulous (especially as this was his first short film), a bit intimidating, but still fabulous. I must say that as we went thru the class material that night, I was overwhelmed with the overall concept of all that was involved in making a film. I knew nothing and even though I was not alone that night, it was still a bit daunting. My mind was struggling with the concept of how I was going to pull this off. Then I read the first homework assignment which is to write the storyline for my film. I had no clue what I was going to make!! Ugh, I'm not ready for this yet! But I wasn't going to panic because I was meeting with A.G. again one-on-one on Friday a.m. and would discuss this with her then.

The other thing that was hard was that the class got divided into 3 groups to do their homework in together. The homework consists of camera techniques and learning range of aperture, shutter speeds, focal lengths, camera lens, etc. Since I am not formally enrolled in the class, I really should not be a part of any of their groups. I do not have a camera so I was concerned that I could not complete the homework assignments, which would be important to learning the fundamentals for camera work. A. G. said not to worry, I really did not have to do the homework because I would be observing what the others did during class and she would also teach me everything I needed to know through our one-on-one time. (Since then, I have borrowed a camera from a friend so now I can proceed with most of the assignments.)

This class is going to help me a lot and I will be able to learn from the other students as well. A. G. certainly made me feel special and she is really taking me under her wing.

As we were leaving class, I was chatting with one of the older, more experienced students named Leo. He is probably the most advanced student in the class. A.G., Leo and I were walking toward our cars when he asked where I was parked. I said in P5 (parking structure 5) which is the closest lot to our building. He said, "How did YOU get to park in P5? That's the best lot, the elite lot. I'm clear over in P4." - "Really?" I said, "I just parked there because the gate was up and it was closest to class on my map." (I had also assumed that I did not need a guest pass because the gate was up and I saw a sign about a grace period.) He was quite impressed that I had secured such a good spot, especially as this was my first time on campus. Well, as fate would have it, when I returned to me car, there was a nice $42 parking ticket. "Damn", I said. But then I laughed. How did I think it was going to be this easy, even to secure a spot in the elite parking area?? Seriously, being A.G.'s assistant or not, it was going to take a lot more work to get where I was going. This wasn't going to be easy, and I think this was a gentle reminder of that. So I guess Leo got the last laugh, but only if I decide to tell him!!

August 16, 2004

Hi Phillip,

I finally ended my shoot!

Betsy and I have been working quite well together--you were right. We have managed a total of 11.5 hours of individual sessions, which is separate from her UCLA attendance. She will be working on several student movie productions, however, Betsy is keeping her sights on T.V. production and story analysis.

Attached is a breakdown of the dates and time I've spent with her so far, and a general idea of what we covered.

I hope this format of tabulation is what you require for Betsy.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

A.G.

June 28, 2004 [1 hour]

General interview and in-take session for film production interests. Overview of film knowledge and possible career direction.

June 29

UCLA participation on acquiring camera lens and equipment skills while exploring depth of field, focal lengths, aperture setting and their effects on 3-dimensional film space. Outline development for short movie concept.

July 2, 2004 [2.5 hours]

In-depth session for individualized program development focusing on writing for television. Progress on short movie script concept and treatment area.

July 6, 2004

UCLA participation on basic shot techniques and angles. Employing moving camera shots: zooms, tilts, pans, tracking, crane and end/start marks.

July 12, 2004 [2 hours]

Overview of composition, framing, in-depth movement and placement of subjects and objects within the frame. Open and closed forms of shooting, and planes of action. Balance within the frame and the rule of thirds.

July 24, 2004 [2 hours]

Acquiring moving shot continuity, image size, character dominance, eyeline guidelines, matching shots and positions in frame. The first stage of learning script analysis and exploration of research material for building a dramatic T.V. series.

July 27, 2004

UCLA participation in directing movement and manipulating images. Training in how to cross complex line-crossings and establishing new lines with reverse cuts and buffers cuts. Writing elements for the reading script format.

August 8 [2 hours]

Betsy provides a definite potential in the development process of storyline structures. Her career interest continues to be focused in the area of television production and we have taken a course of action in that area for further advancement. She presently studies televised dramatic series and analyzes the franchises created for each program.

August 10

UCLA participation in how to control lighting exposure: light and shadow, high key and low key lighting, contrasting effects and textures. The importance of the direction of light and the planes of lighting.

August 14 [2 hours]

UCLA participation of script breakdowns, production scheduling, shooting schedules, storyboarding and floor plans.

One-on-one story analysis review. Developing the articulation of analysis. Review of partial analysis of "Prime Target" script.