Lyz Dukes-Melancon

Meeting of Minds

dmaymay — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 02:38:51 +0000

4/4/08Meeting of Minds

Met with Lyz. She had her 2 gorgeous little girls with her. It was the first time I had seen them and they both melted my heart. We met at a lunch place with a playground so the girls could play while we chatted. We got caught up a little bit and discussed the film. We talked about the story line and her place in the story. Her character, Pepper acts as a support for the main character, Lovely. Lovely’s mother is not supportive of her songwriting for reasons we discover through the story. So Lyz’s character, Pepper is there to offer that kind of woman mentoring. Pepper owns the store next door and has made a deal with Lovely’s mom to use the back room area to put her lunch and get coffee. That type of thing. (That’s a technical bit of manipulation because we needed a reason for Pepper being inside the salon so much.) Lyz sang for me in the parking lot of the restaurant. She was great. She has a sweet voice with a bit of a rawness that was so interesting and beautiful. It made me so happy to hear her sing. It is a really good choice to have her sing in the movie. She looked fantastic, too. She was dressed in brightly colored clothes and her hair was pulled back into pig tails. She is gorgeous and I already know photogenic. I wish I had taken a video camera to tape her. It was so cool that she sang in the parking lot. It makes a great visual. There is a Chinese market called Hong Kong Market near where we met. I stopped there to pick up some Chinese pastries to take to the meeting with Lyz. They have these rice ball things that are big hollow rice flour balls. Stuffed inside the balls is a sweetened bean paste. Either Locust bean or red bean. To Western palates it seems a bit strange as first. But they are one of my favorites. A friend of mine back in college introduced them to me. I’ve loved them ever since. Ate lots of them when I visited Hong Kong. They have ginger and sugar mixed with the bean I think. It was fun to introduce them to Lyz

Panic in Paradise

dmaymay — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 18:11:36 +0000

3/31/08Got a voice message from Lyz today. The message said she wasn’t feeling comfortable singing because she met a vocal teacher who was telling her it was unrealistic for me to expect her to be a great singer by July and since she didn’t have the song already that she was going to sing in the movie there was no way she was going to be able to be ready for the movie and she needed more time to match her voice to the song she is going to play for her guitar test for the guitar class she is taking so she can play guitar in the movie. Lyz requested that I call her, PLEASE. After taking a breath myself, the first thing I realized was I need to call her ASAP. Then the next thing I thought was who is THAT WOMAN? Of course it’s unrealistic to think someone is going to be a GREAT singer in a couple of months. My expectation is not that Lyz be a great singer. I’m simply hoping she can carry a tune.

I immediately recognized that I haven’t given her enough face time. And I suspected that Lyz may have been slammed by a moment of “will I be good enough”. Especially when someone else was egging her on like that vocal teacher. I think most creative processes bring out the “is it good enough?” part of our brains. I know it does for me and there is always a moment of panic when it happens. Of course that vocal teacher is correct that Lyz won’t be a great vocalist by July. But here is how I’m looking at it. There is always a divide between studying something and doing something. For the first half of my own life I’ve been stuck in the “I have to study this first before I can be any good or make any money at it.” But what I’ve discovered is the academia part of anything is actually behind the real life part of doing. So going out and doing and making the mistakes is another way of learning. And it's how I'm making this movie, too, because I certainly don't know how to do everything yet. So in terms of Lyz singing, I’m only hoping that she will be able to carry a tune to sing the song. Having worked with Lyz before, she was the first person I wanted to be in this movie. When I spoke with her the first time about it, we discussed how she would feel about singing and playing guitar in the film. She expressed how wonderful that would be. So right away we got her enrolled in a guitar class. That was a year ago now. She has continued to take class since then. So she has been on an independent study path. I haven’t had to worry about her because I knew she was going to class and practicing. She is also a mother and a wife so like all women juggling those things she’s being pulled in many different directions. So without having much feedback from me, as I’ve been so busy pulling the script together, I think it’s only natural that she should have a moment of “Oh my God”.

First cuts of Split Ends and Duets (oh the heartbreak)

dmaymay — Sun, 11 May 2008 00:30:33 +0000

2/3/08

Story meeting with Lynda Heys.

Met with my great friend, Lynda Heys today. Her career is about to explode so I really appreciate her taking the time to meet with me. We had pancakes with her two precious sons Sunday morning and went to a music class with them. Then we layed out my cards/outline on the coffee table and she indulged me while I played out the story for her. Right a way she could see some of the holes and missteps. She felt the Pepper story wasn’t working as a ghost. This made my heart drop as Pepper was one of the first characters I dreamt about and spent time with when starting this story. Even before my main character, Lovely. However, because I 100 % trust Lynda, I listened to what she had to say. It took me a couple of days, but I realized she was right and that my original incantation of Pepper might be for another movie. (And I really didn’t want to call Lyz and tell her about it either.) Lynda also gave some suggestions to rearrange some of the scenes to better fit the second act. Truly, Lynda has a talent for screenwriting. She was able to remember the details of the story that took me a good 30 minutes to explain. I was amazed at the concentration level Lynda can maintain. I was losing track of storylines and she was correcting them. Amazing. She is so talented. So now with rearranging the scenes, there is a HUGE BIG FAT HOLE in the middle of the story that needs to be fixed. That means more writing!

(Hey y'all. Sorry I' not around more. This movie prep thing is taking all of my time. -We shoot in July!)