I definitely read this article this morning immediately in a Leslie Knope Voice-
and thought… Thazzza Me!
Sidenote- I think Amy Poehler totally and completely rocks. She and her character of Leslie Knope are definitely inspiring feminists to me. I seriously felt like Leslie Knope at the press conference yesterday. I was nervous to be on the other side of a press conference for the first time ever but it was a big success.
Extreme Leslie Knope momenets consulting with my marketing assistant and advisors the day before and especially debriefing once it was all over.
Talking to the crowd with my speech I rehearsed to friends and the ninja the day before and of.
I didn’t go for waffles though- smiles and kind words from friends did great.
This turned out better than I could have ever have imagined. I have amazingly talented friends who happen to believe in Ottawa Rock Lottery. I acted as the producer on this scouting locations, actors, caterers, drivers props, and even makeup artists. It is now trending across Ottawa and was on the front page of Metro Ottawa’s website today.
It’s Rock Lottery season again so that means all of my extra time and energy is going straight into making it awesome. Press releases, artist liasons, producing the web commercial, working with sponsors. I’m only one gal and luckily I’ve got a team who are helping me not go crazy, but it’s hard to not try to do everything for myself. My DIY ethic runs deep.
My Saturday afternoon- shooting the web commercial. Launches May 7!
This is what my Saturday looked like. Yes, I doing makeup on a David Bowie impersonating actor was part of it. As was ripping the fishnet tights of our hot rocker chick while she was in them- all in a day’s work! Rock Lottery is just over two weeks away and I’m prepping for the first press conference I’ve ever been on the other side of the podium. Every day there are small victories, Tuesday’s were: we have a gorgeous poster done, CBC’s Amada Putz will be hosting.
In my work-work this week was a battle between Hollywood agents and time differences and bad wifi.
Actual texts from this week’s work.
This is an actual conversation I had with one of my BFFs’ on Tuesday night. I’ll leave it up to you to determine which one got completed…
It’s important to be able to escape from your own invented “Busy-ness.” I was in a grumpy mood on Tuesday and forced myself to get out for a bike ride. I felt so much better!
Biking oasis!
Another important lesson learned: Don’t listen to Jian Ghomeshi interview Trent Reznor before trying to write your own music-related interview article. I get envious that music interviewers like him not only get so much time to pick the artists brains (which is why I first started some 10 years ago by chasing down Alexisonfire). Trent Reznor told one my absolute music journalist heroes Neil Strauss that “Making music is the most difficult things on earth.” That stuck with me.
Exclaim Canada darling Rob Moire and I 9 years after first booking his band.
So did what my old friend Rob Moir tell me last night. “Even if they don’t buy a CD they have to come away with something from you.” He’s making that extra effort to connect and I know he’ll succeed. I booked his old band Dead Letter Department a full 9 years ago and it was really cool catching up with him over dinner before his show. I’ve been talking about this with a few people lately and it’s becoming more apparent that those involved in the music scene/industry as musicians/photographers/writers/whatever are now making it a living at it, and that’s so cool. I like to remind my mother that the hardcore punk music that she hated overhearing from my bedroom now pays the bills. I met Rob when his band played a show I booked in Shawville, Quebec. He’s about to head off on a 65-date tour that will land him in Germany to Australia until October.
Ottawa Rock Lottery is one month away (less one day!) I put it all together last year in about 5 weeks so I feel like 2013 I’ve got on lockdown… and it’s going to be amazing since I have such incredible people involved and volunteering to help.
Here are some of their beautiful faces!
Rock Lotto meeting #3 this week
Amazing filmmakers and friends devising our web commercial
Meeting with documentary filmmaker – multi-year doc in the works!
My good friend Luca was robbed of all of his film equipment early February. Along with some of his other close friends we’ve organized a big night of fun a.k.a. Revenge Party tomorrow night at Mercury with performances from The Peptides, DJ J-Fun, Hard Science, a polaroid photobooth and special screenings of his award-winning films. Please RSVP here.
I found this 7″ “Ottawan” record on the street 2 years ago and just the cover is AMAZING. I’m giving it away tomorrow night as part of the Revenge Party prize pack.
Here is Shooter McNally receiving his award from festival organizer Nina Bains for “Change,” which used music from Shannon Rose and the Thorns, Little Stella and Fevers.
Last Thursday night about 80 supporters of the Ottawa International Film Festival and participants of their 72 Hour Challenge filled the Lieutenent’s Pump on Elgin Street to watch a special screening of the top 10 short films completed in said hours. There was drama to romantic comedies from 3-15 minutes in length all featuring music curated by yours truly. It was great chatting with the different filmmakers and behind-the-scenes-folks who were not anticipating me sitting down with them and talking all things film. (I am and always will be the biggest film geek.) So many wonderful and inspiring people, but moreover watching the reactions of the bands whose music was included and how they were used was amazing.
I love providing that spark to fuel the creativity of the Ottawa arts community. Making money is no matter, the beautiful and thoughtful works speak for itself. This was the winning short by Shooter McNally.
As a partner of the event (as Ottawa Rock Lottery) I also judged all of the films and made copious notes as I watched the 28 films. We had a set judging criteria that remains confidential.
That’s actually a line from a Sarah Slean song; I wrote about her for next week’s column and that woman is seriously accomplished and inspiring (published author, singer/songwriter). I know I’m blessed for the opportunity to share my interests to a wider audience.
For this news segment I definitely wrote out my talking points last night and studied them before I got into a cab at 6:45 a.m. Watch me talking about ORL’s involvement below!
I got this gig from just offering to help a friend. Just be strong and inspire yourself!
Last year I called up the wonderful people at the Ottawa International Film Festival and offered to help with their 72 Hour Film Challenge as the organizer for Ottawa Rock Lottery. That collaboration ended up with me putting together a group of 5 songs from area artists to be included as part of the participant requirements. It was so inspiring to see what the filmmakers did with the music! They had to include 3 songs for 10 seconds or more in each of their films and there was over 20 submissions! This year I’ve had over 30 submissions and have been working on narrowing it down to 10 songs that could work for film. It’s a lot of fun!
This year I’m doing music supervision again for them and will be talking about it on CTV Ottawa Morning LIVE tomorrow morning at 7:30 a.m with OIFF’s fab PR person. Don’t worry though if you don’t get up that early or don’t have cable; a Youtube link will be up by the end of the week. It’s a great opportunity to talk about the whole theme of rock lottery, which is “Why have a scene when you can have a community?” I have a strong background in film (academically speaking I studied it for 7 years) and so many local filmmakers are involved in the music scene too. I’ve recently learned of another collaboration from some people that met at last year’s event in their newly formed band that are now operating a successful creative marketing business together! ORL brings people together! It’s a charity operation so it can be difficult, but what’s come out of it inspires me so much.
These were some of my favourites from last year that showed the possibilities of how the music could be used.
RT @RockLottery_OTT: Thrilled to announce that w advance tickets, food donations door sales, & power of ROCK we raised $1,300 for @OttawaFo… 12 hours ago
My life is that of such extremes. Such highs and such lows. Attaining balance is the next goal. 12 hours ago
Sidenote- I think Amy Poehler totally and completely rocks. She and her character of Leslie Knope are definitely inspiring feminists to me. I seriously felt like Leslie Knope at the press conference yesterday. I was nervous to be on the other side of a press conference for the first time ever but it was a big success.
