Laure-Marie is drunk with happiness.

Let me just say, it's not too often I post twice in one day. In fact, it's almost never.

Today was a fabulous day. I spent most of it alone, but I finished editing Carol's novel, which was a labor of love and much time. I ventured outside the home to the gym (as usual) and to Walgreens and Old Navy, and then...

Dhoom Taana was released.

Not to brag, but we got 240 hits on Youtube in under 2 hours.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7n2lrXdOYQ

I have been plugging this thing for the last 2 hours, so get used to seeing the link in all of my posts. It's on every website I can think of. I linked everyone I know to it. Yes, I'm obsessed. It's my baby!

The day just kept getting better. My loan got approved. I logged on to Protagonize and saw a few comments on my story--all of them positive, all of them begging for another chapter!

I feel like the past few weeks of real trial--the death of my dog, the struggle with some of my close friends, the stress of the production--were all supposed to make me feel even better now as I sit here reflecting on how wonderful things feel right now.

Accomplishment makes me glow. In fact, it makes me too energetic to sleep. Now I want the next thing to come so I can start work on it.

Oh, I guess that'd be school.

DHOOM TAANA IS UP

This is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7n2lrXdOYQ

watch it.

Laure-Marie Verity has a new name.

Lauren has changed her facebook name twice in the past month.

First it was to Ren, the cute nickname that replaced Lauren in freshman year of college.

Then it was to Laure-Marie, the name she used as a username on Protagonize and started to love.

Laure-Marie means elegance. It means foreign wealth, fame, fortune, dare I say fuckloads of diamonds? (Lily Allen reference there) It means a new start, which I desperately need. It means confidence. It means Audrey Hepburn, not questionable Katy Perry. It means Catherine Deneuve, not Paris Hilton.

It means everything I think a lady should be: skilled at foreign languages, player of a musical instrament, a possessor of good taste in all things, a woman with a cool exterior but a passionate interior, confident, beautiful, intelligent/well-versed in pop culture and historical culture, very of the moment but also very classic, and lastly, happy.

I wish I could be all that! But someday I know I will be.

Ren Verity is so tired.

My film editor didn't upload Dhoom Taana tonight, so we all sat around our computers (and by all, I mean all 30 of us) for nothing. But oh well, tomorrow he says.

Good news: I won this thing called the Mod's Mention on Protagonize for one of my stories. I'm not 100% sure what it is, but I think it's like a "you're doing all right on this" sort of thing. Which I like. It was very flattering.

It's 1:40 AM and I should be asleep, but I'm sitting here ruminating on how many of Neil Gaiman's blog entries I have to read and how I need to finish the Bollywood cast poster by tomorrow. Not to mention Carol's book, which I got pretty far in today.

And also how I should have taken the bowl and cup sitting next to me into the kitchen. And how glad I am that my house has running water, because living without it for three days was a nightmare.

Ren Verity is perplexed.

Neil Gaiman has been writing too many entries in his blog. I can't keep up. One minute it's bell jars and the next it's Comicon, and on top of that I've been awake for way too long and feel like I've got ADD.

That aside, Bollywood is over.

That's right, you heard me. My project is FINISHED.

This should make me feel relaxed, happy, grateful for my free time...at least accomplished.

But no. Mostly I feel regretful that it's over and sad that I have nothing to do for the next three weeks. I'm so happy with how it turned out. We did an amazing job for an amateur cast with a zero dollar budget and no experience with filming a bollywood video.

The final cut will be available in a week, I believe. For now there are preliminary videos on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=112904497100&ref=nf

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=112901382100

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=112880327100

That was yesterday's shoot. Other videos can be found on youtube (previously linked in the blog).

At any rate, now I have other things to attend to, as much as it pains me to say so. Student loans, college scheduling, Carol's novel, The Once and Future King, Chuck season 2, and writing (which has been neglected) are all up there on the list.

3 weeks isn't so long...

Questionable.

If I believed in some kind of otherwordly spiritual being (and that's not to say I do), I would expect that it's testing me right now.
I've had a good summer. Like, really good. Tons of things to do, work/fun in terms of the Bollywood project, a nice vacation right now, and I'm shortly leaving for college. But in the past few weeks (especially before I left for Disneyland and right now) things have been just collapsing. It's strange.
I'm learning to appreciate the calm times when things are just so-so, not overwhelming or boring. It's not effecting me as much as I would have thought it would, but maybe that's just because I'm older now and used to things like this happening.
But anyway, if someone is testing me, I bet they're surprised, because I'm surprising myself right now, since I'm not upset or anything. That will probably follow, but I'm keeping stable and in control. For once in my life. :)

Awkward teenage years

So tonight I got a rude awakening.
I am such a traditional girl. I expect guys to be very formal with me and not forward, and to keep their distance for a respectable amount of time. Also I expect that people will let me be and if I demonstrate uncomfortable/awkwardness that they will discontinue their behavior.
Well, apparently all these are things that have been lost in society these days. Guys should never make moves on girls immediately after meeting them. And they certainly shouldn't do it in cars.
I don't think I've ever experienced that level of anxiety in a long time. It made me terrified.
Ughhhh my life is blah.
And that's all I have to say for tonight, besides the fact that I got the Graveyard Book from a dear friend, and now I get to read it!!

Give up Misery? Never,

I write on this website called Protagonize, which allows you to post your own stories, continue other people's, comment on them, and rate them. It's really cool. I'm definitely an unknown at this point, but I love having the opportunity to write and get feedback on my stuff, especially since I'm a Creative Writing minor.

Link to my page:

http://www.protagonize.com/author/Laure

Anyway, there's this story called "Team Protagonize" which is really popular. Authors are allowed to use their favorite main characters and drop them into the plot at any point. Right now there are 72 chapters and 14 characters. I haven't decided if I want to join in (or even read all 72 chapters!).

This brought to mind, of course, which character I would choose.

After a bit of reflection and reasoning, I realized it would have to be either Lizabeth or Misery, both of whom are weird and dead.

Lizabeth is from a story about "the City" and "the Underground"--the city being the modern world and the underground being a society stuck in the past, but don't tell, I'm not there yet--and the battles between the two. She's dead and she's supposed to be working for the devil, who disappeared a hundred years from the day the story starts. A boy she found cast out from society fifteen years ago, Jack, is the guardian of the underground, and there is some backstory and hidden drama there.

Misery is a reaper who lives in Manhattan and spends his time drinking and cursing and smoking. He's not all together a savory person. His girlfriend, Malice/Melinda, and his two best friends, Terror and Regret, live with him. They switch between the "dead version" of Manhattan and the real world--in the dead world, evil spirits called shadows roam around and steal souls, and it's their job to stop them. Misery had a rotten childhood and he hates most people. He's bitter, mean, and cold. But he has a good heart underneath all the violence and distrust.

I've been writing about Misery and his groupies for probably four years. Of all the things I've written, their stories stick in my mind the best. I had read a little blurb on Protag about retiring characters after a few years of use, and as I was considering this Team Protagonize story, that popped into my head.

Is it odd that I consider Misery someone I think life would be pretty empty without? I can't imagine not having him sitting around in my head, waiting to kill some shadows or defend Melinda, always in the most gruesome and explicit way possible (that's just him). I get a little nervous thinking about that.

In other news, I got really sick this morning and couldn't eat for most of the day. Damned medication's making my stomach turn to mush.

I miss college

Today has been a really sucky day.
I sat around, stared at my computer, tried to organize my schedule so I know what classes I'm taking next spring/fall/spring and for summer school, stared at the ceiling, played with the cat, listened to my mom bitch about really unimportant things, ignored my sister's bad mood, and then sat around some more.
I HATE SUMMER.
I want something to do. I NEED something to do. If I'm not doing something than why even be awake? What a waste of time!
All my sister does all day (literally from midday until 3 AM) is watch CSI:NY or The Seeker. When I ask her to do other stuff with me she tells me to go away. So I spend all day alone in a full house. College is WAY better than this.
Not to mention that my dad works all day, comes home at night and watches golf and then goes to bed. And on the weekends, when he's not working, he sits at his computer and does boring things and won't talk to anyone because he's "busy". My mom is around, but I can't stand to talk to her for more than 20 minutes at a time, because we'll start fighting about something trivial.
I told her that I'm moving to New York this year, and she laughed and told me the future changes. My ass! I'm not coming back to this next summer. I'd much rather be working in LA or NYC in an internship and taking summer school. No way I'm coming home.
Mrgh I guess I'm just irritated but most of my friends do not lead such unfulfilled home lives. My parents don't know how to parent and my sister only knows how to be mean, grouchy, occasionally energetic and nice, or a slug. Not to mention they don't support most of my lifestyle choices which makes living at home doubly hard.
:( It's been a bad day.

Dard-E-Disco

So we ditched the idea of doing the whole video.
Now we're doing a segment in which Navid and Zach will be waist-deep in water and half-naked, surrounded by bikini-clad backup dancers. YUSSSSSSS
Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp7iTtlOTMA
We're doing 2:50-4:00. The water part. It's going to be done in a fountain at Stanford. AMAZING
I didn't really talk to Rish about this part so I hope he's okay with it. If not it'll be filmed on my crappy camcorder.
HOORAY
And a lot of people are actually pretty into this--in the first 2 hours I got five replies back, very enthusiastic. But I need five more, unfortunately.
I was afraid there wouldn't be anyone in the group who would be comfortable being in this video, so.
Oh welllll. We'll see how it goes!

Up (La-Haut)

I was under the impression that Up was out when I was in France, but apparently it wasn't. I saw posters for "La-Haut" everywhere, however, and when I got back to America, it was out in theaters and the critics loved it.

A month and a half later, I finally got my rear end to the cinema to watch it.

Can't say I adored it--but it was certainly cute and touching and mushy, etc. I loved the little dog and the amusing bird. It's a bit sad for a Disney movie, but it's Disney/Pixar so I guess they can get away with it.

I'm much more excited about the Princess and the Frog, which comes out at the holidays. Disney's first full-length hand-animated movie since sometime in the ninties when Pixar took over! I can't wait! And it's set in some kind of weird New Orleans, which could be really cool.

Disneyland in 3 weeks! I'm actually really nervous about leaving now because our team decided to produce the entire Dhoom Taana video--which means another dance segment and 2 more minutes of footage, as well as another intense costume array. If I'm not here to make it all work out, it falls apart. Sigh.

But Disneyland is worth it.

We're on Youtube!

Navid (Shah Rukh Khan) posted our video on Youtube today! It's here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDlnl7epFkE
this is very preliminary and definitely not what the final cut is going to look like. But it turned out very cute anyway. I love the lotus flower part. Sylvia looks beautiful and Navid looks shockingly like SRK, despite the fact that he's Persian.
All our background dancers (with the exception of myself, as I didn't have a chance to look in the mirror before getting all dressed up) look well put together, and have their stuff down. It's fairly easy to tell that we shot the segments at different times of day, but that's FINE, it's done.
Of course, now after we shot the first video, we're getting tons of interest in the project. People have been joining the group like mad, and we're close to having 40 actual dancing members. My cousin's even coming down from up north to shoot with us this weekend.
I started watching Jeeves and Wooster today (Hugh Laurie's original show from the BBC) and I love it! Jeeves is awesome and Hugh has such a thick accent that it's amazing that he can speak American English so well.
And, finally, my sister, cousin, and I are planning our Europe trip for next summer (as my cousin's graduation trip) and we're as of yet unsure where we plan to go, but Ireland is for sure in the program.
A good day, overall, besides the sickness in the morning and evening and tiredness all day.

kaiseeeee....something something something.

(Dhoom Taana)
Today was our shoot for the first segment!
Am I happy?
You bet your buttons! It was a lot of fun and we got it all done in five hours!
We drove to Stanford Campus in a line of five cars (without getting lost!) and finally stopped by the museum. After walking a little bit, we saw this secluded, white marble structure. It seemed like the perfect place to shoot, so we approached. Andrew jokingly said, "Wouldn't it be great if it was a mausoleum?"
And guess what? It was Leland Stanford's tomb.
We filmed a bollywood music video on top of Leland Stanford's mausoleum.
The shoot went well. The boys were getting sunburned without shirts on and people were definitely tired by 2:45 (we started at 11:30--I got up at 6:30 today to get peoples' hair and makeup done). But the general karma was excellent and energy was high. It was a great feeling--our little group bonded and we all sunburnt together.
Rish got his shots, I got my video, and everyone else got their dancing in for today. I posted copious amounts of picture and preliminary video on facebook, so go check it out.
Now we have to worry about the pirate ship shoot, because I have to get that boat chartered, and it's looking like it's going to be closer to $900.00, not $300.00. But you know, we can afford that, because we have 40 people in our shoot now, and if we each pay $22.50, it's all good. Or if we get 50 people...
We'll have to see. I'm hoping I can get the guy who owns the boat to lower the price a bit, but I'm not sure if it's possible.
So today was fabulous fun. Yay. Next practice is on Monday. Oh i'm so tired.

Producer? Really?

That's right. I've declared a theater major with an arts administration minor, so I can work towards becoming a film producer. This means business classes, lots of drama work, and some plays. Well, as long as I don't have to act! :)
I realized how much i enjoyed this whole thing when it struck me that I haven't been sad since it started. Stressed, maybe, but i'll take stress over sadness any day. I love detail-oriented work, especially work that involves planning and careful management. And I'm an excellent multitasker and I'm very good at manipulating people (which I've heard is an important trait in the film world).

In terms of Dhoom Taana, we're moving right along to our second practice, which is today. It is mandatory, so I hope everyone comes. Costumes are our main problem right now, as well as location and a small sum for hair, unless we end up doing it ourselves (I haven't heard back from the hairstylist yet, so). Makeup hopefully will be done by the lovely Kaitlyn Fronberg.

We have some lovely sketches for costumes. It's just going to take a lot of thinking to get them to look right, is all, especially since we have limited funding.

Dhoom Taana!

Well thank god!
My group decided Dhoom again was way too much to handle, so they picked Dhoom Taana, one of my favorite music videos. What a relief.
Now the only problem is I've rather lost control of my production to other control freaks in the group and I'm stuck with all the bitch work--finding shooting places, camera men, costumes, and getting the permits from various people. Oh, and makeup and hair.
costumes have to look like this:


This guy wants to shoot it on Friday, and we started rehearsing the dance on last friday. That seems wholly unreasonable to me and I doubt we can pull costumes, a shooting location, and four cameras out of our asses by that time.

It's just a little frustrating because this production is my first and so it's my baby, and I need to learn how to be a little more pushy, a little more director-like. Ugh.

Dhoom Again

(Dhoom 2 (धूम २,), starring Hrithik Roshan)

Well yesterday was spent coordinating Bollywood stuff. Tomorrow is the first dance practice. Of course we picked an impossible video to replicate--the title song of Dhoom 2, Dhoom Again.

Not to be stupid, but I think it spells doom for our production.

I spent 4 hours trying to learn the friggin' dance yesterday night and this afternoon and I still can't do :20 seconds of it. Roshan is a great dancer, and though his backup dancers screw up a lot, you don't notice it because he is so energetic and can pop around so well. I have zero dancing ability (thank god I'm the producer) so I can't do that, but I have to teach this to 20 kids tomorrow. Ugh!

I hope they'll decide to revert back to Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, because that one is easy to shoot and perform. Dhoom is going to involve getting a permit from the city, contacting the police, and using four to five different sized cars, dry ice, and large lighting equipment. KKHH could be done in a park. No police involved.

On another note, I made soup tonight, which was really yummy. Just pureed vegetables with herbes de provence and salt. Yum!

In the countryside

(Benjy Ferree)
God summer is so boring. What have I done in the past few days? Nothing.

I am working on a Bollywood production, but it's been pretty hard to get people to do anything about it--herding 20 teenagers to one place at one time is a challenge. Even getting them to respond to emails is a bit frustrating.

Most of my friends are abroad or have jobs. Next summer I am definitely getting an internship abroad, I cannot stand to live here any longer. It is SO BORING.

I did use my free time to start going to the gym--gotta have a flat stomach and nice thighs to do this Bollywood video--and read some books.

Finished:
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Neuromancer
Yesterday's Kings
Lamb

I'm reading through all the books on my bookshelf that I haven't gotten to so far. There's like 13 more, so I better step on it. The Once and Future King is the one I'm currently struggling through.

There is a reason I haven't read them, after all.

Finished Firefly last night too. I was sad to see it end. No more new stories of Mal and River. :(

Living

There is something dying inside me. I can feel it withering like a tulip in autumn, losing its petals one by one and finally falling into a dry, shriveled stick.
What am I becoming?
I don’t know where I’m going in the dark. It’s all faded and cold and I’m groping for a light switch that doesn’t exist.
I gotta find a light, or I'll be stuck here forever.