Has it been one year already?

There was once a time when I had a blog (not this one) where I thought I could reach people with my writing and felt very passionate about what advice I had to give. I think that lasted for about 2 or 3 posts, and then a year passed, so I deleted it.

This website is of course for my professional use and staying up-to-date with the goings on in my career. Considering the fact that my career is just beginning to take flight, I have not posted about very much since the inaugural post of December 2016! Since then, I've graduated with an MFA in Sound Design and moved to Charleston, SC for an internship at a recording studio. What was most appealing about the internship was that they get some ADR gigs that come through for film/TV shows.

For those of you who are asking, "What is ADR, Callie? You think you're better than me for using some post-production term I know nothing about?!"

My answer to that, dear reader, is no I don't think that at all, and here is a brief definition to get you up-to-speed:

ADR stands for Automated Dialogue Replacement and is a session done with the talent to record lines that were deemed "unusable" during production. So if there's a take on set that the director LOVED but an airplane fly-over ruined the dialogue, then an ADR session is booked to save the day. Or maybe none of that happened and they simply want to add-in a line to create a more cohesive narrative. There's a few reasons why ADR may be in order.

Anyway, I was scouring the web for Southeastern studios that get ADR. This was in the spring just a couple of months before graduation. The place I found was a music studio only a couple of hours north of Savannah, GA in its sister city of Charleston, SC. It sounded great to me -- it was going to be unpaid, but hey, it's a start! So I found an AirBnb (more on that later) and away I went into uncharted waters.

I was able to work on some cool projects, but the studio had lots more music recording gigs booked than ADR sessions. Because I needed to survive, I got a part-time job working as a server at a movie theater. This eventually became me solely working at a movie theater. (Cinebarre is one of those theaters where guests have a button in front of them to call up their server during a movie to order food & drinks.) Normally, I would be really bummed that I ended up ditching my initial plan of broadening my horizons and getting real-world audio experience. However, I was made good money and even better friendships. And it also seemed natural to combine my past serving experience with my future in the film industry.

Moving to Charleston was always going to be temporary for me -- I just didn't know how temporary. This was the last season I was going to be eligible for a Disney Professional Internship, and I was bent on finding a way to become a cast member in the Spring. I couldn't find any temporary leases for the life of me, so I hopped from one AirBnb to the next for 5 months. I got lots of weird reactions when people asked me where I lived. But the plan was to get a Disney internship or sign a lease/sublease and continue working at Cinebarre until June. This back-up plan included picking up and moving LA to begin the audio post-production route. Lo and belhold, I was offered an internship at the Disneyland Resort!

Today was only my second day, and I plan on posting about my first week very soon. I'm feeling ambitious. But being close to LA is super nice because:

1) I'm not dealing with LA traffic out in Anaheim

2) Networking with audio post-production people is a MUST for the industry (which I plan on taking advantage of while I have a steady job)

3) I have a bunch of friends that moved to LA after graduation, so I'm not completely alone out here!

It's been really hectic with moving, unpacking, and starting this new job. In a new park. In the New Year. Is new always better? 2018 just started and my head is spinning. Stay tuned for whenever I get around to posting about my new life in California!