Listen

I've been meaning to write this post about the short film, Listen, since February, 2014. There were several reasons I didn't write about my experience of attending the 2014 LDS Film Festival—and watching myself as a movie extra on the big screen(!), from not being able to find the video online, to just not having the time to give this post the proper attention and care I thought it deserved.

Yesterday morning, I read a line in a magazine that made me laugh and decide to stop procrastinating this post, "Just spit it out!" The author was referring to a completely different situation that has nothing to do with my post, but the thought came to me that now is the time to finally share the short little movie I was in. (Previously, I wrote about the filming process in Remember that one time I was in a movie?!, but not the finished product.) Oh, this is such a happy moment for me! :)

A few weeks before the LDS Film Festival began, I received an email from the movie's director, Alisa Anglesey, about when our little movie would be premiering. (Of course it's not mine, but I was in it and I love it, so I will happily call it mine forever!)

Even though I thought the tickets were a little pricey (I'm frugal!), and I wasn't thrilled with the long drive to Provo and back, Greg and I decided it was totally worth the cost and drive time. Not only did we want our children to have a fun and memorable time together as a family, we absolutely wanted them to see their mother on the silver screen! I mean, how often do children have that opportunity?! Well, in the Peterson household, it's not often! In fact, it's a once-in-a-lifetime treat! :) So I happily bought the tickets online and never looked back!

Fast forward a few days to when I took my daughter shopping to use her Christmas gift card at Charming Charlie's. I did not plan on buying myself anything that day. Yet as we were searching for something for my daughter to purchase, I saw this red lacy dress on a rack. I thought, "Oh, that is sooo cute! I've been wanting something made out of lace! Even though it's too short and low cut in the back, I could totally layer a shirt underneath it and wear it over jeans with high heels. I could make it work!" I just had to try it on!

My daughter gushed that it looked really good on me and that I should totally buy it. I looked at the price tag and thought differently. Even though the dress was a great price, I was having a hard time justifying the purchase. But in the back of my mind, I realized I didn't have anything exciting to wear to the premiere of Listen. So I threw everything to the wind and said, "Okay, I'm buying it! I want something cute to wear to the premiere!" I found a set of three slim belts that were on the super-cheap clearance rack (Yeah YEAH!) and decided the black one would make the dress look even better, so I bought those too. :)

Hi! I totally got sucked into all the excitement of the drama! (And I was merely an extra in the movie.) I'm such a cliché! Ha ha. But seriously? I don't care. I mean, it was such a cool event to be a part of, I wanted to fully immerse myself into the whole experience—and I did, so I'm happy about that! :)

I was such an enthusiastic lady on the morning of February 8th, 2014! If I remember right, it was such a long Saturday. It felt like waiting for my birthday! Finally, around noon, I started getting ready. Here's my finished outfit:

To some, it might seem excessive that I posed so many times. But again, I really wanted to enjoy this moment because it was a special day that probably wouldn't come along again! :)

We left our house literally right after Greg snapped my photos because we wanted to have enough time to pick up my mom on our way to Provo. Our drive down was filled with excitement for the adults, and boredom for the children. Poor things. ;) Still, we had a great time chatting with each other. You can never go wrong with family time! :)

Greg found Scera Center for the Arts without incident, which was such a nice change! Usually, we have trouble with at least one of our cell phone's GPS service, and it takes longer to get where we're going. Finding it so easily was a blessing!

We arrived fairly early so we could be sure to get good seats. I'm really glad we arrived early since the guy at the ticket window was apparently intent on telling me his life story after he found out my first name. Okay, it wasn't his entire life story, but he just kept talking to me! I know he saw my wedding ring, so I can't imagine why he was so interested.

The theater where Listen was being shown wasn't open for seating yet, so we wandered around the display booths. One guy, Michael Mercer, had a booth showing a comic book series, From the Dust, that he created to tell the stories of The Book of Mormon! (The real book, not the silly Broadway musical.) It was interesting talking with him. I was impressed with his artistic abilities and excitement for his product.

I really wanted to help Mr. Mercer with his dreams and buy his comic book. (Which is why I'm sharing his information here!) Unfortunately, I had already spent enough money buying movie tickets to the short film competition, and paying for gas to Provo and back, so it was a no-go. I could tell he was disappointed, but each of us have our blasted budgets to maintain! ;) That said, I checked out his website and found that he's allowing a PDF download of his first book for free—providing you share it on Facebook.

We wandered back over to wait outside the theater and took some photos. I won't be posting photos of my family here simply because I feel the need to keep their faces private from the big bad world wide web! ;) Well, I'll show you one photo I took: our tickets!

After waiting for the prior movie's audience to leave the theater, it was finally our turn to enter. My family and I chose our seats and were pretty excited with the great view. Yes, it pays to be early birds! We took more family photos and waited for the shows to begin.

I've tried to remember the order the short movies were shown, but it's been too long. Here's a list of all the short films in the competition—of those, here are the films we saw:

& Juan

I Miss Being a Tree

Inner Child

Listen

Mirror Portrait

Out of Body

Reins

Tesha

Yarrow's Boy

I admit, it was hard waiting to see "my" movie. I enjoyed the other films, but seeing what I'd been a part of was what I was most excited about. Obviously my favorite movie was Listen, but I also really liked & Juan, Tesha, and Reins—in that order. :)

Sadly, I can't show the video of Listen here because of the restrictions the video's owner set. So sad face!! :( Thankfully, you can still view it on vimeo!

Here's the link to Listen!

You can see me at the following points in the movie—but I recommend watching it all the way through first. :)

0:37 at the counter talking to another office girl, on the right

0:49 walking down the front hallway and a young man looks up at me

1:17 walking far back in the hallway alone, from right to left

2:31 talking in the group of office girls, on the right

4:09 walking from the back hallway in a trio of office girls, on the right

*I find it interesting to note that I'm always on the right side! I guess I'm always right! Just kidding!

I enjoyed listening to the directors after the short films competition ended. They made such great little flicks! (I almost spelled it flix! Netflix on the brain!) Here are a couple of really bad photos to prove I was there. ;)

After the directors finished talking, we all got to vote for our two favorite movies. You know what my number one pick was! Later, I was thrilled to find out that Listen won an Audience Choice Award! That's one smart audience! It's too bad Listen's director didn't get paid anything for winning.

I really wanted to take my family over to meet the director of Listen, but we somehow got separated in the crowds going out of the theater. I managed to snag my daughter and youngest son and introduced them to Ms. Anglesey before she left. I hope she didn't think I was trying to show-off my children to her like, "Hey, do you want to use my kids in your next movie?!" because that was not what I was doing at all. I sincerely wanted to thank her for allowing me to be a part of something so truly wonderful. It was the experience of a lifetime! I also wanted to show her my greatest joys. I only wish I could have introduced her to my husband, oldest son and mom too! At first, she didn't remember me because she didn't recognize me, but then I clarified who I was. She was very gracious and indulged me for a few moments. (I'm sure she gets bombarded by people all the time!)

After the excitement moved outside the theater, Greg and I decided it was okay for me to take a photo on the red carpet, in front of the LDS Film Festival backdrop. When we first entered the building and saw their setup, I felt out of place taking a photo there. Yet after I watched myself on the big screen, and saw my name in the credits(!), I felt like it was completely okay for me to take a photo in front of their backdrop.

On our way to the red carpet, I bumped into one of Listen's cast members, Paul Pickett. I had spoken with Paul for a little while when we made the movie, so I wasn't sure if he'd remember me, but he did. He was so genuinely kind and willing to share his knowledge of the film industry. He gave me his email address to ask him questions later if I wanted. I truly appreciated his openness so much!

A couple of months later, I decided to really delve in and ask Paul questions about getting my foot in the door of the film industry. He shared such great and detailed information that I was truly and completely clueless about—just call me Cher! (Bad joke, I know.) I sooo did not understand to what extent it takes to really get your name into the film industry. (I keep using film industry, but I'm unsure if I'm using it correctly! Ha ha.) While I would love to follow Paul's brilliant advice and get myself out there more, I'm just not willing to spend the time away from my family that's needed to "make it".

And it's not like I haven't tried this past year. I've applied for many projects that were emailed to me by various casting agents within LDS Casting. I've received two emails sent specifically to me, with my name in them—which is rare, at least it's rare for me.

I admit, it's been disappointing after getting so excited to be a part of some interesting projects within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' film department—especially when they asked for me by my name(!), only to be emailed something like, "Sorry, you weren't chosen."

I've spent a lot of time prettifying myself and taking endless photos for headshots and profile shots! My computer is filled with edited photos I've submitted to various projects. I'm like Barry B. Benson in Bee Movie when he continues to crash into the closed window, thinking he will somehow get out, saying, "This time! This Time! This Time!" Yeah, I've taken a break from applying to The Church's casting calls for a while...

But I digress! Here are our photos (Paul gave me his permission to share these and write about him. Thanks, Paul!):

Greg was sneaky and snapped this one (above) when we were looking at Paul's camera. I totally love the fact that Greg made us look like stars! Or, at least wannabes! Okay, I'm the wannabe, Paul is a legit actor.

I included this photo because it's in better focus—darn cell phone camera! ;)

I took photos with my little family (all together) and my mom (separately) on the red carpet, but I'm upset I forgot to take a photo with just Greg and I! What was I thinking?! Actually, I know what I was thinking. I was worried about all the other people waiting to pose on the red carpet, so I hurried and neglected my leading man, my greatest gift: Greg! Thus, I had to crop this photo we took with the Picketts. I would love to see Greg on the silver screen one day!

After we concluded our fun family photos, we headed out to the car. On our way through the building, I was surprised to see Craig Clyde talking with someone in the front hallway. I wanted to see if we could chat with him, as my dad is casual friends with him (my dad owns a small advertising agency, but he's semi-retired), and my younger sister had a small role in one of his movies Little Heroes. I asked my mom, "Do you know Craig too? We should say hi to him!" My mom said, "No, let's not. He probably wouldn't remember me." So we moved along.

May I quickly say, I think no one could ever forget my mom. Anyone would be so pleased to talk with her, as she has a semi-famous performing history all of her own! She even met Bob Hope when her band was performing on a USO tour in Vietnam! But I'll blog about her fabulous self another day. :)

I loved that it was lightly raining when we walked outside to our car. There is just something about rain that makes things memorable! We decided to eat at Olive Garden for our celebratory dinner! Even though I had major worries about Olive Garden's gluten-free menu, I was so jubilant, I decided this one time of possible cross-contact wouldn't hurt!

The waitress was excited and overly impressed when she found out our reason (seeing "my" movie at the film festival) for eating at the Olive Garden. When she made a mistake on our order, she brought us a cake for free! Um, yeah, that's never happened to us before. It's sad to say, but I really do think people are treated better when they are perceived as being important because of a career in TV or movies. At least, that's what I gleaned from our post-film-festival-Olive-Garden dinner! Hey, I'm not complaining, I just think everyone should be treated as well as those who are seemingly important!

We had such a delightful time eating together, I'm so pleased we made it part of our fun day! When we headed outside it was still raining, so my sweet Greg told us to wait at the entrance while he brought our minivan to us.

Our children were markedly happier on the drive home which made Greg and I happy too! I was so relieved our day wasn't a bust—our kids had fun and liked the movies! I'm guessing the fact we ate at a restaurant helped increase their happy factor! Here's a photo I snapped of our rainy night on the way home, as (ironically) I wanted to remember its warmth.

My little family continued talking and having fun until after we arrived home late that night. I'm so grateful everything went well for us, and especially that we traveled safely. After my darling children were on their way to dreamland, I had a grand time reflecting on our day. I think it's safe to say I fell asleep that night feeling ultra content, much like Ralphie did on Christmas night—except I was holding Greg in my arms instead of Old Blue! ;)

Yes, February 8th, 2014, will live forever in our awesome life book, Peterson Family's Greatest Memories!

P.S. We don't have an actual book, it's just a great thought. ;)

Update: 02/06/2017: I found Listen on YouTube! Thus, I had to share it right here on Enthusiastic Fantastic...because that's exactly how I feel about "my" short movie! It's pretty great!