Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Musical Theatre Homework

I've begun this week by completely immersing myself into the world of musical theatre! I'm taking a musical theatre auditioning class for 12 weeks at the Studio Theatre. This means I've been pouring through sheet music and checking out CDs by the handful to find some good pieces that I'd like to use.

This class is exciting for me, as I've not taken an extended theatre course since college. The fact that it's an area of theatre I don't know as much about makes me nervous, but I'm looking forward to learn.

I've had some updates in the works on the site, but have yet to reveal them. Fall will bring about a busier schedule on my end, but I'll do my best to keep up to date with all happenings in my career. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

-Vaness.
www.vanessastrickland.net

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

TiPS to solve your "issues" with HORROR!

What a week it's been!

This past Monday I did a shoot with CAS Video Productions for an alcohol intervenion procedures (TiPS) DVD, which was great fun. I got the chance to catch up with some old friends and make some new ones.

I spent the middle portion of my week taking a break from acting and spending some time camping with my family.

On Friday I shot a short commercial for 720 Strategies in which the theme was people's "issues" with various things. I played a total weirdo; how can you go wrong when your wardrobe is "ideally... a straight jacket?"

Saturday I spent the majority of my day at Horrorfind Weekend at UMUC. While I was there I got to network with a few independent film companies and attended a great film auditioning seminar run by Joe Ripple of TimeWarp Films. I also checked out a screening of Fearmakers Studios' "Dismal," which was a pretty high-quality film! The actors had a Q&A after the screening and I had the chance to meet them earlier in the day to talk about acting in horror films.

With the free time I had in between all these events, I took the time to meet some of the celebrities, specifically Tom Savini, Patricia Quinn, Tony Todd, and Conrad Brooks. I asked each of them a bit about the film business and recieved some good nuggets of wisdom. All of them were really down-to-earth and seemed like they truly love what they do. :)
-Vaness.
www.vanessastrickland.net

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

MonkeySee.com: Joker Makeup Video

I was just notified that the "Scarred Joker" makeup video I modeled for last summer is the #2 most-viewed video on MonkeySee.com and the first video in the series has over 300,000 views on YouTube since being uploaded on July 15, 2008. It is also the current featured video on MonkeySee's YouTube channel page.



Now that the film has been released, the makeup design can of course be referred to as "Heath Ledger's Joker" or the "Dark Knight Joker," but at the time of shooting we had to be wary with what it was called because of copyrights. I'd like to try my hand at this joker look myself at some point, as I have training in 3d makeup and would be interested in an artistic interpretation of a female joker. Could be cool!

-Vaness.
www.vanessastrickland.net

Friday, August 1, 2008

Makeup page now available

For the first time ever, I am displaying my makeup work online complete with my original design sketches. This is one artistic area that I hope to spend more time working on. I have a few sketches for future ideas, but please take a gander of what I have worked on in the past.

Please note that some of the designs may not be suitable for the squeamish!

Now is the trickier part; narrowing down which pieces of art to use for my "Artwork" page!

-Vaness.
www.vanessastrickland.net