Xochi Blymyer:
My Life as an A.D.

Over the next year, I found myself working on a variety of shows. I was introduced to the newest of medias, something for the internet, a web series. It began as an idea a friend of mine talked about to me over coffee, into an actual series he created a person could watch on the internet. The only catch is how to get the viewers to find it and on the other side where to put it online to have an audience find it! First Edition was a very minimum budget with some of the funds raised through kickstarter.com, a way for people to raise money for their various ideas — inventions, movies, causes. I was not only the first AD but the craft service person, sometimes the soundman, camera operator and more, I even did a stunt fall in one episode, look for the lady with the groceries! First Edition is a fun comedy about a girl who wants to start her own comic book.

During First Edition, I got a call to help a friend shoot his short film, Wiggles (which was renamed to Baby). This was Yancy Arias' chance to direct a story based on his own life experience. One day he hopes to turn this short film into a full length feature.

Through the next summer I worked on reshoots for features such as Unstoppable and Country Strong.

In the meantime, my mom, nephew and I were coming up with an idea of our own show — The Inn — after hearing that the inn my parents had owned in the 70's and 80's was up for auction. It was sitting empty and a perfect setting for a show. We wanted to write and produce our own television show drawing off of our experiences at that country inn in New Hampshire. The three of us put our heads together, had some writing sessions and the script was written. Not knowing the future of the inn as the auction grew near, I came up with a plan to take a small group to New Hampshire and film what has become a presentation, a representation of what our tv show would be. We had volunteers from the town of Snowville, NH, as our cast. The town opened up their doors to us and everyone was more than happy to let us show off this beautiful town. We had a massive crew of 4 people. My nephew Patrick Bates, his friend, a cameraman named Cale Finot, my friend who was director and actor, Canyon Prince and me, Xochi. I was the producer, AD, creator, organizer, etc. The four of us along with an editor, Rachel Connelly, put together a six minute DVD. I am using the DVD and the script as part of a marketing package. Not long after I listened to a band called Bryan Titus, perfect music to be used for The Inn and Bryan Titus graciously let me use his music for the most recent cut of The Inn.

Due to so many projects in development, I started a production company of my own. Gotta Grin Pictures seems to suitably fit these new shows. I have The Inn of course and another show which is a feature called A Disturbing Presence.

2010 ended and 2011 began with some commercials ranging from Cutie Oranges to BMWs. Commercials is yet another somewhat foreign area for me as I've only worked on a handful in all my years!

I had a chance to work here and there on Glee, Glory Daze and Outsourced. I was reunited with Thai the Elephant from George of the Jungle when I joined "Outsourced" on the beach in Malibu for a few days of filming. I think Thai may have been in this business longer than I have!

January 2011 marked my 20th year in the Directors Guild of America. Can you believe that, 20 years? 24 years working in the movie business!

I was asked to work on an MTV series called Death Valley. It was somewhat like working on Reno 911! but with lots of zombies, vampires and a few werewolves. It was everyday life for the Undead Task Force in the San Fernando Valley. What a lot of fun and laughs we had. Sadly, Death Valley only made it one season before it was cancelled.

The summer of 2011, I was recommended by a producer, Jimmy Simons, to an executive producer who was looking for a 1st Assistant Director for his new television show called Free Agents. Now, the best thing about this man is that as busy as he was, he took my resume and before he even set an interview, he began calling people he knew from my resume to inquire about me. Thanks to those people by the way. By the time we met, he already had an idea of who I was and I him. It was the most relaxed interview of all. I was hired on the spot! And in the end, it was a great match. Todd Holland was the director and executive producer of Free Agents. The show itself only got to film 8 episodes before it was cancelled and aired just 3 times but a new relationship was created for me with this amazing director/producer.

My mom and I began a screenwriting class online through screenwritingu.com. It's a 6 month class with lessons practically every single day. The instructor is trying to instill the idea that writing every day must be the norm, a habit. I have had to wrap my mathematical brain around this idea of creating out of my imagination but there will be a first draft of a new screenplay by the end of class. This will be another project considered to be in development for Gotta Grin Pictures.

Todd Holland is continually developing new shows and in December he began to prepare a new show, Isabel. He brought me in as part of his team to shoot this NBC comedy pilot. It stars Marcia Gay Harden and Kevin Nealon and introduces some very funny children! 2012 began with us working on one of the first pilots of the season.

Because Isabel was completed so early, another pilot was in the works for the team. A pilot for a show called Go On starring Matthew Perry (who is hilarious) was made and shortly thereafter, it was picked up for series in the new season, which will begin in the summer of 2012. Go On is another NBC show, a comedy about group therapy, very funny group! I met a lovely actor named Bill Cobbs who made me laugh a lot. I'm enjoying these ½ hour comedies!

On a very quick run after the Go On pilot, I worked on another web series, a whole season in 5 days! This one is called Meet The Banks — Bank of the West is trying a new way of advertising and teamed together with a writer/producer, Robert Solomon, who had an idea for them about a family named Banks. It will be shown online and they're working on the best way to promote the show. The director, Mort Nathan, wrote one of my favorite movies, Kingpin and it was quite a funny cast. I'm discovering web series are quite a bit more of a skeleton crew and I'm multi tasking more than ever on these little shows. It turns out the small shows become quite big productions.

Even quicker production is another friend of mine, J. Lee, who wrote and directed his first short film, Naked Eye. Short films are interesting, they must tell a story in a very short time and he did it quite well in his film. It gave me another chance to multi task more than ever but fun to be able to help a friend.

I took a screenwritingu.com class, in which I wrote "Gambia Untitled".

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